“Was he here all night?” I asked.
“Well, no. About midnight he went out. He said that he had to go take the omens. He was wearing his trabea and carried his crooked staff. Why? Is this significant?”
“It may be,” I said. “Did you see him after that?”
“Yes. He came in shortly after I got up. He said he’d been up on the Quirinal, but that the night had been too cloudy for decent omen-taking. Why?”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I am just trying to account for everybody’s location that night. It all happened at his house.”
“Stick to Clodius, my boy. Don’t go trifling with Caius Julius.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. I did not tell him that I suspected more powerful men than Caius Julius were involved.
I dismissed my clients and told Hermes to follow me. We walked back through the Subura and trudged up the Quirinal to the ancient Colline Gate. Like all the gates, it was a holy place and had seen many battles. Hannibal is supposed to have heaved a spear over it as a gesture of defiance, and just twenty-one years before Sulla had smashed the Samnite supporters of the younger Marius outside the gate, a battle the Romans had watched from atop the walls as at an amphitheater. After the rigors of the previous years, I am told that it was something of a relief seeing blood shed outside the walls.
Since Rome had no military or police within the walls, the guardianship of the gates was parceled out among various guilds, brotherhoods and temples. The Colline Gate was the responsibility of the collegium of the nearby Temple of Quirinus. These were the Quirinal Salii, who danced each October before all the most important shrines of the city. The young patricians did not pull night guard themselves, of course, but their servants did.
In the temple I went to the wardroom, where the gate guards stayed. Then I requested to be shown the tablet of the night when the rites had been profaned. The slave who kept the wardroom rummaged among the tablets while I looked over the small facility. There was no one else there. The gates were only watched at night.
“Here you are, sir,” the slave said. I looked at the scratchings on the wax. Several freight wagons had entered the city during the night. All had left the same way before first light. There was no record of the Pontifex Maximus going out to take the omens. I asked the slave if he knew anything about it.
“The augurs are always supposed to check here at the temple before they go out the gate after dark, sir. The pontifex Spinther came here about ten days ago, with his striped robe and lituus. None since then.” I thanked him and left.
“Why are you asking these questions?” Hermes asked me as we descended the hill. “Is it something to do with the patrician who tried to poison you and ended up dead instead?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect that it is all connected. Why do you want to know?”
Hermes shrugged. “If you get killed, I’ll just get passed on to somebody who’s not as agreeable.”
“I am touched. Yes, there’s something very strange going on. Somebody tried to murder me, and Capito was murdered on the same night. The next night the rites of Bona Dea were profaned in Caesar’s house. Caesar told Celer that he was going out to look for omens on the Quirinal that night, but he didn’t. The boy who tried to poison me was murdered. The woman I suspect of selling him the poison was murdered. The boy was staying with Clodius, my worst enemy. The murdered woman was with Clodius when he sneaked into Caesar’s house dressed as a woman. Doesn’t it strike you that there is some common thread running through all this?”
Hermes shrugged. “Free people are mostly crazy. Noble ones are the worst.”
“Stay a slave,” I advised him. “That way your problems will always be simple.”
We crossed the city and went over the bridge to the Island, then over the other bridge to the Trans-Tiber.
“Where are we going now?” Hermes asked.
“The ludus of Statilius Taurus, to visit a friend.”
He brightened at that. “The gladiator school? You must know everybody!” He was always impressed with my familiarity with the lowest strata of Roman life.
At the school I left him in the training yard, gaping at the netmen as they went through their drills and practice fights. For some reason the netmen had caught the fancy of the slaves and lowest classes. Probably because sword and shield were the honorable weapons of citizens. Like many boys his age, he probably thought of gaining fame as a gladiator. He was too inexperienced to realize that it was just a delayed death sentence. Luckily, he was old enough to understand the whip and the cross.