The King's Gambit(50)

Macro shook his head. “My territory stops at the city walls. Milo should be able to tell you.” He looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What happened to your neck?”

“My neck?”

“Yes. It looks like you tried to hang yourself. Are things that bad?”

My hand went to my throat. I could feel nothing, but I knew that it bore a mark like that around Sergius Paulus’s neck. “Oh, that. I just had some lessons on the garrote. It’s getting to be quite the fashion in Rome lately.”

“So I’ve heard. It was Sergius Paulus this morning, wasn’t it? Damned Asiatics. The city’s filling up with them. Bad enough when they were just bringing in their foul gods and cults. Now they’re using their strangling cords, as if Roman steel weren’t good enough.”

“Another sign of the times,” I agreed. A few minutes later young Milo arrived and I explained what I wanted.

“Can you help him?” Macro asked.

"Certainly. We can catch a barge going back downriver empty and be there before nightfall. It’s Hasdrubal you want to talk to. He’s a Phoenician out of Tyre. He used to have a shop down by the Venus dock.”

“Let’s be off, then,” I said. We left Macro’s house and went to the river dock, a walk of only a few minutes. I had tucked the scarf Zabbai had given me inside my tunic and now I knotted it around my throat, soldier-fashion. I needed no more questions concerning the condition of my neck. As we walked, people waved to Milo and called his name. He waved back, smiling.

“You’ve become well-known in your short time in the city,” I said.

“Macro’s had me at work organizing the vote for the next elections.”

“That’s months away,” I said. “It’s early to be out ward-heeling.”

“That’s what Macro said. I told him that it’s never too early. He still thinks like an old-fashioned man. Most of them do. They think it’s like public service or the religious calendar, where there are days for business and days for sacrifice and holidays and such. I say you take care of business every day, all year. Just in the time I’ve been here, I’ve done twice the work of any ten of Macro’s men combined.”

“Be careful with Macro,” I cautioned. “Men like him can turn against young men who rise too fast.” Then I saw three men walking toward us. We were passing near my house on our way to the river when one of them saw us and they walked toward us, their three bodies blocking the narrow street. In front was Publius Claudius.

“Now this is fortunate,” Claudius said. “We were just at your house and your slave told us you had left town.”

“I am on my way to catch a boat right now,” I told him. His two companions were hulking brutes, scarred arena veterans whose tunics bulged with weapons. “Was it a social call?”

“Not precisely. I have certain advice for you, Decius, advice that our Consul Pompey is too polite to voice strongly enough. I want you to terminate all this snooping about in the doings of that Greek importer. Turn in a report stating quite truthfully that you were unable to find out who killed him and burned his warehouse.”

“I see,” I said. “And Sergius Paulus?”

He spread his hands. “The eunuch killed him. What could be simpler?”

“What, indeed? Oh, and Marcus Ager, alias Sinistrus? What of his murder?”

He shrugged. “Who cares? I warn you, Decius, turn in your report and no one will pursue the matter.”

“You warn me, eh?” I was growing very tired of him and dangerously angry. “And under what authority do you make these demands, or should I say threats?”

“As a concerned Roman citizen. Will you heed my warning, Decius?”

“No. Now, get out of my way. You’re interfering with a Roman official in the pursuit of his duties.” I began to brush past him.

“Strabo, Codes.” At Publius’s words, the two thugs reached into their tunics.

“Claudius,” I said, “even you won’t attack a public official in daylight.”

“Don’t tell me what I can do in my city!”

I realized then, for the first time, that Publius Claudius was mad. Typical Claudian. The thugs were bringing daggers from beneath their tunics and I knew that I had misjudged the situation. Even Pompey would not move against me directly, but Publius would. Belatedly, I began to reach for my own weapons.

“Excuse me, sir.” Milo stepped past me and slapped the two strong-arm men. Just that, openhanded slaps, one to the right and one to the left. The two massive men went down like sacrificial oxen beneath the priest’s ax. The sound of the two impacts was like breaking boards, and the men’s faces were bloodied as if by spiked clubs. I have mentioned the hardness of Milo’s palms. He pointed to Publius, who stood trembling with frustrated rage. “This one, too?”