Roman Blood (23 page)

"A big man, this Mallius Glaucia?"

" T h e gods themselves don't come any bigger."

"Fair of face?"

149

"Fair-haired, maybe, but as ugly as a baby. Red-faced like a baby, too.

Anyway, he comes thundering up in his chariot. 'You're open early,' he says. I told him I wasn't open at all yet, and made to step back inside.

I was just closing the door when he blocked it with his foot. I told him again I wasn't open for business and tried to close the door, but he held his foot fast. Then he pushed a dagger through the breach. As if that weren't bad enough, the dagger wasn't clean and shiny—oh, no. The blade was covered with blood."

" R e d or black?"

" N o t too fresh, but not too old either. It was mostly dry on the blade, but in places where it was thickest it was still a little moist and red in the center. Try as I might I couldn't close the door. I thought of crying out, but my wife is a timid woman and my son is gone, my slaves would be no match against Glaucia and what help could I expect . . ." He glanced guiltily at the old man in the corner. " S o I let him in. He wanted wine, straight, without water. I brought him a cup; he downed it in a single swallow and then threw it against the floor and told me to bring him a bottle. He sat right where you're sitting now and drank down the whole thing. I tried to leave the room several times, but whenever I moved away he'd begin talking to me in a loud voice, in such a way and such a tone that I knew he meant me to stay and listen.

" H e said he'd come from Rome, starting well after dark. He said he came with terrible news. That was when he told me Sextus Roscius was dead. I didn't think much of it. 'An old man,' I said to him. 'Was it his heart?' And Glaucia laughed. 'Something like that,' he said. 'A knife in his heart, if you want to know.' And he stabbed the bloody blade into the table."

My host pointed with his short, stubby arm. I looked down and saw beside my cup a deep gouge in the rough-hewn wood.

"Well, I suppose he saw the look on my face. He laughed again—it must have been the wine. 'Don't get all frightened, taverner,' he says.

'It wasn't me that did it. Do I look like the type who'd kill a man? But this is the very blade, pulled straight from the dead man's heart.' Then he turned angry. 'Don't look at me that way!' he says. 'I told you I didn't do it. I'm just a messenger bringing bad news to the relatives back home.'

And then he staggered out the door and got into his chariot and disappeared. Can you blame me if I say I'll never make a point of rising early again?"

150

I stared at the table, into the scar left by the blade. By a trick of light and concentration it seemed to grow deeper and darker the longer I stared into it. " S o this man came to tell Sextus Roscius that his father had been murdered?"

" N o t exactly. That is, it wasn't Sextus Roscius he came to tell. The tale goes that Sextus didn't hear the news until later that day, after the gossip had already started making the rounds. A neighbor met him on the road and offered his condolences, never imagining that he hadn't yet heard. The next day a messenger sent by the old man's household arrived from Rome—he stopped in this very tavern—but by then it was stale news."

"Then whom did this Glaucia come to tell? His old master, Magnus?"

" I f Magnus was in Ameria. But that young scoundrel spends most of his time in Rome these days, mixing with the gangs, they say, and doing business for his elder cousin; I mean old Capito. That was probably the man Glaucia came to tell. Though you wouldn't expect Capito to weep for old Sextus; the two branches of the Roscius line are hardly fond of each other. The feud goes back for years."

The bloody knife, the messenger sent in the middle of the night, the old family feud; the conclusion seemed obvious. I waited for my host to spell it out, but he only sighed and shook his head, as if he had reached the end of the tale.

"But surely," I said, "given what you've told me, no one believes that Sextus Roscius killed his father."

" A h , that's the part I can't figure out. Can't figure it out at all. Because what everyone knows, hereabouts anyway, is that old Sextus Roscius was killed by Sulla's men, or at least by some gang acting in Sulla's name."

" W h a t ? "

"The old man was proscribed. Named an enemy of the state. Put on the lists."

" N o . You must be mistaken. You've confused the story with another."

"Well, there were a few others from these parts who had regular business and houses in Rome who got put on the lists, and either lost their heads or fled the country. But I wouldn't be confusing them with Sextus Roscius. It's common knowledge hereabouts that the man was proscribed."

But he was a supporter of Sulla,
I started to say, then caught myself.

"It's like this," the taverner said. "A band of soldiers arrived from 151

Rome a few days later and made a public announcement, declaring that Sextus Roscius
pater
was an enemy of the state and as such had been killed in Rome, and his property was to be confiscated by force and put up for auction."

"But this was last September. The proscriptions were already over; they'd been over for months."

" D o you suppose that was the end of Sulla's enemies? What was to keep him from tracking down one more?"

I rolled the empty cup between my palms and stared into it. " D i d you actually hear this announcement yourself?"

" Y e s , as a matter of fact. They announced it first in Ameria, I'm told, but they did the same thing here, seeing as the towns have families in common. We were shocked, of course, but the wars have left so much bitterness, so much loss, I can't say that anyone shed a tear for the old man."

"But if what you say is true, then the younger Sextus Roscius was disinherited."

"I suppose he was. We haven't seen him around here for quite some time. The latest gossip says that he's down in Rome, staying with his old man's patroness. Well, there's obviously more to the story than meets the eye."

"Obviously. Then who bought up the old man's estates?"

"Thirteen farms, that's what they say he had. Well, old Capito must have been first in line, as he came away with three of the best, including the old family homestead. They say he tossed out young Sextus himself, kicked him right out the door. But it's his property now, fair and square; he bid on it at the state auction down in R o m e . "

" A n d the other farms?"

"All bought up by some rich fellow in Rome; I can't recall that I ever heard his name. Probably never even set foot in Ameria, just another absentee landlord buying up the countryside. Like your employer, no doubt. Is that your problem, Citizen, jealousy? Well, this is one plum that's already been picked. If you're looking for good land in Ameria you'll have to look farther."

I looked out the open door. From where she was tied, Vespa's tail cast a weirdly elongated shadow that flicked nervously across the dusty floor of the doorway. Shadows were long; the day was rapidly dying, and I had no plan for the night. I pulled some coins from my purse and laid them 152

on the table. My host gathered them up and disappeared through a narrow doorway at the back of the shop, turning sideways to squeeze himself through.

The old man turned his head, pricking up his ears at the rustling noise.

"Greedy," he muttered. "Every coin he gets, he runs to put it into his little box. Has to keep a running tally hour by hour, can't wait until he closes the tavern. Always the fat one, always the greedy pig. It comes from his mother, not from me, you can tell by looking."

I stepped quietly toward the door, but not quietly enough. The old man shot to his feet and stepped into the doorway. He seemed to stare into my face through the milky egg-white membranes that covered his eyes. " Y o u , " he said, "stranger. You're not here to buy land. You're here about this murder, aren't y o u ? "

I tried to make my face a mask, then realized there was no need. " N o , "

I said.

"Whose side are you on? Sextus Roscius, or the men who accuse him?"

"I told you, old m a n — "

" I t is a mystery, how an old man could be proscribed by the state, and then his own son should be accused of the crime. And isn't it odd that wretched old Capito should be the one to profit? And odder still that Capito should be the first man in Ameria to get wind of the murder, and the message should be borne in the middle of the night by Glaucia—who could only have been sent by one man, that wicked Magnus. How did Magnus know of the incident so swiftly, and why did he dispatch a messenger, and how did he happen to possess the bloody dagger? It's all clear to you, isn't it? Or so you think.

" M y son tells you young Sextus is innocent, but my son is a fool, and you would be a fool to listen to him. He says he hears everything that's said in this room, but he hears nothing; he's always much too busy talking. I'm the one who hears. For ten years, since I lost my eyes, I've been learning how to hear. Before that, I never heard anything—I thought I heard, but I was deaf, just as you are, just as every man with eyes is deaf. You would never believe the things I hear. I hear every word spoken in this room, and some that are not. I hear the words men whisper to themselves, not even realizing that their lips move or the breath still sighs between their lips."

I touched his shoulder, thinking to gently push him aside, but he stood his ground like an iron rod.

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"Sextus Roscius, young and old, I've known them both for years. And let me tell you, however impossible it may seem, whatever else the evidence may tell you, the son was behind the murder of his father. What a hatred they had for each other! It started when Roscius took his second wife and had a son by her, Gaius, the son he spoiled and petted until the day of the boy's death. I remember the day he brought the infant into this tavern and forced the pretty gold-haired thing on every man in the room, because what fellow isn't proud of a new son, and young Sextus meanwhile stood in the doorway, forgotten, ignored, puffed up like a toad with hatred. I still had eyes then. I can't remember what a flower looks like, but I can still see that young man's face and the look of pure murder in his eyes."

I thought I heard my host returning, and looked over my shoulder.

" L o o k toward m e ! " the old man shrieked. " D o n ' t think I can't tell when you turn away from me—I can tell from the sound of your breathing. Look at me when I talk to you! And listen to the truth: the son hated the father, and the father hated the son. I felt the hatred grow and fester in this very room, year after year. I heard the words that were never spoken—the words of anger, resentment, revenge. And who could blame either one of them, but most of all the father—to have had such a son, such a failure, such a disappointment. A greedy little pig, that's what he's turned out to be. Greedy and fat and disrespectful. Imagine the heart-break, the bitterness! Is it any wonder my grandson never visits, and won't speak to his father? They say Jupiter demands that a son should obey his father, and a father his own father, but what kind of order can there be in a world where men go blind or else grow fat as pigs? The world is a ruin, lost, with no redemption. The world is dark. . . ."

I stepped back, appalled. In the next instant the fat taverner jostled me aside, seized the old man by his shoulders and pulled him out of the doorway. I stepped through and glanced back. The old man's milky eyes were fixed on me. He babbled on. The son averted his face.

I untied Vespa, mounted her, and rode through what remained of the town of Narnia and across the bridge as quickly as I could.

154

SEVENTEEN

VESPA seemed as eager as I to leave the village of Narnia behind. She made no complaint as I rode her doggedly down the final leg of the day's journey. When we came to a fork in the road just north of the village, she seemed reluctant to stop.

A public trough stood at the junction. I made her drink slowly, reining her back after every few swallows. A crude signpost stood behind the trough, a goat's skull mounted on a stick. Across the bleached brow someone had painted an arrow pointing to the left and the word A M E R I A . I turned from the broad Flaminian Way onto the Amerian side road, a narrow path that meandered up to the saddle of a steep ridge.

We began the ascent. Vespa at last began to weary, and the jolts against my backside made me grit my teeth. I leaned forward, stroking her neck. At least the heat of the day had begun to dissipate, and the ridge cast us into cool shadow.

Near the summit I came to a band of slaves who clustered about an ox cart, helping to push it onto the ridge. The vehicle lurched and swayed and finally attained the level ground. The slaves leaned against one another, some of them smiling with relief, others too weary to show any expression. I rode up beside the driver and waved.

" D o you make this trip often?" I asked.

The boy gave a start when he heard me, then smiled. "Only when 155

there's something to take to market at Narnia. The dangerous part is going
down
that hill."

"I can imagine."

" W e lost a slave last year. He was helping to brake the cart on its way down and fell under the wheel. It isn't nearly as steep on the other side going down into Ameria."

"But downhill all the same. That should please my horse."

"She's a beautiful animal." He looked at Vespa with a farm boy's admiration.

" S o , " I said, "you come from Ameria?"

"Nearby. Just outside the town, at the foot of the hill."

"Perhaps you could tell me how to find the home of Sextus Roscius."

"Well, yes. Except that Sextus Roscius doesn't live there anymore."

" Y o u mean the old man?"

" O h , the one who was murdered? If that's who you're looking for, you'll find what's left of him in the family cemetery. He never lived in Ameria that I knew of, not since I was born."

" N o , not the old man; the son."

" H e used to live near my father's place, if you mean the one with the two daughters."