The River God's Vengeance(25)

My jaw dropped. “Was this in Rome?“

“In a house Folius rented on the Quirinal. It was too rich even for Hybrida, but typical of those climbers who come here to weasel themselves in with the better people. Folius’s wife thought it would impress the great Romans that she would kill an expensive slave just because he’d spoiled dinner. Hybrida let them know that here in Rome we punish our slaves decently, in private. I think he sent them the laundryman’s bill the next day.”

It was a shocking story, to be sure. Behavior such as he had described was the sort we ascribed to Orientals and other barbarians. The punishment of slaves was, of course, left to their masters, and legally this included the right to infiict death; but for a master to do this capriciously or over a trifiing fault was depraved behavior. To do it publicly, in front of guests, was the very final word in poor taste.

I took my leave of Antonius and dried off. I passed on the massage tables. I still had much to do while the sun shone. My wrestling bout with Antonius had, for some reason, set me pondering upon the way Lucius Folius and his unpleasant wife had died.





5


WHERE TO?” HERMES ASKED, slinging his satchel of bath equipment over one shoulder.

“Across the river. We’re going to visit the ludus.”

“Have some new boys arrived to fight in your Games?” he asked brightly, the bloodthirsty little wretch.

“No, I need to consult with Asklepiodes.”

We went back across the Forum Boarium and crossed the Sublician Bridge into the Trans-Tiber district. I was beginning to wonder if my sandals would last the day. On a typical day during my aedileship, I could cover more ground than a legionary on a forced march. I tried to tot up how many miles I’d walked since leaving my house that morning, then shrugged it off. Anything was better than Gaul.

When we arrived, the Statilian School resounded with the clash of practice weapons. The school itself, which consisted of exercise yard, barracks, and business offices, with attached mess hall, hospital, baths, and practice arena, was far more spacious and better designed than the old school, which had stood on the Campus Martius and had been displaced by the erection of Pompey’s Theater. The owner and operator, Statilius Taurus, was the son of a freedman once belonging to the great family of that name.

I found my old friend Asklepiodes in the infirmary, setting the broken finger of a hulking brute who had the bull neck and massive shoulders of a Samnite gladiator—the sort who fought with no armor except for the usual helmet, bronze belt, and arm wrapping, with the addition of a small greave strapped to his left shin. By way of compensation, his shield covered him from chin to knee and curved halfway around his body.

“Good day, Aedile,” Asklepiodes said with a smile. “I’m afraid the new men from Capua haven’t arrived yet.”

“That’s not what I’m here about,” I said, admiring the Samnite’s calm during what had to be an excruciating procedure. These men were schooled to accept immense pain without fiinching. “I need to talk with you concerning some recent deaths.”

“Murders?” he asked, his smile even brighter. He loved this sort of thing.

“I didn’t think so, but now I’m not so sure.”

He gave the finger a final wrap and tied off the bandage. “Off with you now, and henceforth oblige me by wearing the padded glove during practice.”

“Can’t get the feel of the hilt with one of those on,” the man said, in a thick Bruttian accent.

“It is when you are fighting with the real sword on the sand that proper feel of the hilt really counts,” Asklepiodes reminded him. “You won’t be wearing a padded glove then. Wounds absorbed in training earn you nothing, neither honor nor money.”

The fellow went away grumbling, apparently more distressed at the unmanliness of wearing protective gear than by the prospect of any number of wounds, which were an expected part of his profession.

“Now,” Asklepiodes said, “who has died?”

I told him about the fallen insula and its inhabitants. “It didn’t occur to me at the time that I might require your expert advice,” I told him, “but something has been preying on my mind since yesterday morning. The two of them had their necks broken. I’ve just been wrestling with young Antonius, and several times he tried to remove my head, which I resisted. It struck me that it is not an easy job to break a neck, yet these two died that way, side by side. Some of the dead were horribly mangled, but most looked as if they’d died of suffocation.”

“Were there head injuries?” he asked. “If the two were dumped into the cellar and landed on their heads, the weight of their falling bodies could easily have snapped their necks. Recall, you had your neck muscles braced when you were wrestling. A neck breaks much more easily if the victim is unprepared or, better yet, unconscious.”