“There’s been a murder,” he said without preamble.
“I believe there is a court to handle just such cases.”
“It’s a dead foreigner.”
“That narrows it. Let the praetor peregrinus handle it.”
“A dead foreign astronomer,” he told me.
I knew things were going too well. “Which one?”
“Demades.”
I sighed mournfully. “Well, he’s too old for it to be an aggrieved husband. I don’t suppose he just wandered into the wrong alley and got his throat cut for whatever was in his purse?”
“I think we’d better go look,” he said.
“It’s the first day of the year,” I told him. “I should go sacrifice at the Temple of Janus.”
“You never bothered to before,” he pointed out.
“That’s irrelevant. Today I’d rather sacrifice than go see some old dead Greek.”
“You want to wait until Caesar orders you to?”
He was right. Caesar held those astronomers in high esteem and would take the murder of one as a personal affront. “Oh, well. I suppose I must. Who brought the news?”
He called in a slave from the Temple of Aesculapius, identifiable by the little serpent-wound staff he carried as a sign that he had permission to leave the temple enclosure. I questioned him but the man knew only that Demades was dead and he had been sent to summon me. He insisted that there was no slave gossip about the matter. I sent him back with word that I would be there soon and turned to Hermes.
“How is it possible there’s no slave gossip? Slaves gossip about everything.”
“Either he’s keeping quiet about it, or the body was somehow discovered before the slaves found out about it and the high priest has kept anyone from seeing anything.”
“That’s not good,” I said. “I’m hoping for a simple, casual murder. I may be disappointed. Well, I’m often disappointed, I should be used to it. Come on, let’s go have a look.”
So we left the house and made our way through the City and across the Forum. This being the first of January, the new magistrates would be taking office. In ordinary years, this was a rather festive occasion, but since the new officeholders were for all practical purposes Caesar’s appointees, there wasn’t much excitement.
We went down the Vicus Tuscus toward the river and passed the Temple of Janus, god of beginnings and endings, busy with the usual sacrifices and ceremonies of the new year. I learned that the ceremonies were rather confused since the previous year had ended so abruptly and the priests had not even had time to conclude the year-end ceremonies. I decided that it would be a bad idea to present myself at the Temple of Janus that day after all.
Then we passed the City end of the Aemilian Bridge and through a vegetable market, all but empty at that time of year, and out the Flumentana Gate in the ancient wall and up the Vicus Aesculeti along the river bank to the Fabrician Bridge and across it to the Tiber Island. The high priest of the temple came to meet us, with Sosigenes right behind him.
“Senator,” the priest began, “the sacred precincts of Aesculapius have been polluted by blood! I cannot express my outrage!”
“What’s so outrageous?” I asked him. “Aesculapius is the god of healing. People bleed here all the time.”
“But they are not attacked and killed here!” he cried, still in high dudgeon.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? Anyway, it wasn’t one of your priests or your staff who died, so I hear. It was a foreigner.”
“There is some solace in that,” he agreed.
“Senator,” said Sosigenes, “my friend, Demades, whom you know, is the victim.”
“So I understand. Please accept my condolences. Now, if you would be so good, please lead me to the murder site. I wish to view the body.”
So we walked down toward the “stern” of the island, where I had first met the astronomers in conclave. There we found a little group of men clustered around a recumbent body, which had been decently covered with a white sheet. Most of the men were astronomers, but I recognized some who were not, including a senator whose presence surprised me: Cassius Longinus.
“I didn’t expect to find you here, Cassius,” I said.
“Hello, Decius Caecilius,” he said. “I take it Caesar has appointed you to investigate this matter?”
“I came before he had the chance.” I had known Cassius for some time. We were on friendly terms, though we had never been close. He detested the dictatorship of Caesar and made no attempt to hide it. “What brings you here to the Island?” I asked him. “No illness in the family, I hope?”