Under Vesuvius(56)
“He mounts her on a horse,” I speculated. “He leads her on another. But they go only as far as the municipal laundry, where he does away with her, removes the incriminating clothes, and goes away, probably back into the town.”
“It’s a possibility,” Julia said, “but it leaves too much unexplained. Why did he kill her? Why the ritualistic disposition of the body? And just who did the girl think had a reason to protect her?”
“Almost anyone would be an improvement on Diocles,” I said. “As for the rest, maybe Cicero’s right and he’s just mad.”
“Madness is a too-convenient explanation for seeming irrationality. It is a way to explain away that which we do not understand. More likely, the murderer had a very good reason for each of these apparently inexplicable things—we just don’t know what it might be.”
“All too likely,” I said.
Circe breezed in by dinnertime, with her cluster of personal servants and attendant luggage.
“This is the most entertaining trip I’ve ever taken,” Circe cried as she rushed into the colonnade. “Murders in strange places, pitched battles on the road! We’ll be the envy of all our friends.”
“You’ll have an endless fund of stories to tell when everyone is back in Rome for the elections,” I agreed. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to provide you with this bonanza of gossip.”
A litter came right into the impluvium and was set down next to our table. In it Antonia was mopping the heroic brow of young Marcus with a damp cloth. He looked blissfully content.
“Marcus Caecilius Metellus!” I barked. “Get out of that litter and stand on your own feet! That little cut is on your arm and it hardly even bled, you malingering wretch. What am I going to do with you if we’re called off to war? In the legions, you’re expected to march forty miles a day if your legs are cut off at the knees!”
He crawled from the litter, grumbling, “Aren’t you the grumpy one today.”
“Can’t you let a wounded hero enjoy a little pampering?” Antonia scolded. “You used to be known as the laziest rake in Rome.”
“I earned my reputation the hard way,” I told her. “Marcus is too young for such things. Decadence takes age and experience. He has neither.”
Hermes came in from the town forum, where I’d sent him to collect gossip. “You’ll be pleased to learn,” he reported, “that there are calls to petition Rome for your recall, to send a band of local lawyers there to sue you for all manner of tyrannical and extraconstitutional practices, possibly to demand your execution.”
“I see they’re not a bit embarrassed that bandits attacked a Roman praetor on their city’s doorstep,” I noted. “And how were these incendiary harangues received?”
“Interestingly, the duumviri were the voices for moderation. They said that you are a meddlesome and highhanded senator, but that Roman justice must be allowed to take its course. Diocles says he’s the man most offended, but he concurred with his friends the duumviri. And all of them are clamoring for Gelon’s trial and speedy execution.”
“Are they, now?” I fumed. “I never expected to have such trouble out of a pack of veritable provincials—”
“They aren’t provincials, dear,” Julia corrected me, “even if they are aliens. They have full rights of citizenship.”
At last the discrepancy that had been lurking at the back of my mind broke out into my conscious mind. “Citizenship!”
“I agree it’s something we hand out too freely these days,” Julia said, “but why is it so significant now?”
“What I should have thought of immediately! Gaeto was a resident alien. Who was his citizen partner?”
“Whoever it was has been hiding,” Hermes said. “Legally, this partner would have been Gaeto’s patron. That means he was bound to help with the funeral preparations and attend the rites.”
“And yet no local citizen appeared at the funeral,” I said.
“It could be someone we’ve never heard of,” Marcus commented. “Just some Italian who rents out his patronage for the convenience of foreign businessmen. If he was away from town when Gaeto died, he couldn’t very well have attended the funeral.”
“Nonetheless,” I said, “I want to know who this patron is. Marcus, tomorrow I want you to go to the municipal archive and see who is registered as Gaeto’s citizen patron.”
“Why not just ask Gelon?” Julia suggested.
“Good idea,” I concurred. “Where is Gelon, by the way?” Somehow I had lost track of the boy.