A Point of Law (6 page)

“Here’s a fine omen,” Juventius said, annoyed. “We may have to meet outdoors if the building has to be purified.”

“It looks like he died on the steps,” I pointed out. “It isn’t as if he died inside.”

“If this were a temple,” Father mused, “a purification would be necessary if one drop of blood struck any stone of the building. I’m not sure if that holds true for a basilica though. We may have to consult with a pontifex. Where is Scipio?”

“It’s all a great bother anyway you look at it,” Juventius said. He turned to one of his lictors. “Let’s have a look at him.”

The lictor went down the steps and carefully raised a flap of the toga with the butt end of his fasces.

“Does anyone here know this man?” Juventius demanded of the crowd in general. We all went closer to see.

“I think we all know him,” I said, feeling a bit queasy, not at the sight, which was a common one, but at its implications. “I’ve only seen him once, and that briefly, but I believe this is Marcus Fulvius.”

L
OOKS LIKE THE TRIAL’S OFF
,”
SAID
someone, sounding disappointed. Probably, I thought, one of the jury, who had been hoping one of us would offer him a bribe. We went back to the top of the steps to talk this matter over.

Word spread through the Forum with bewildering speed and within seconds the whole mob had flocked to the western end, at the foot of the Capitoline, to get a look at the body and at us.

“This could get ugly,” Juventius said.

“Why?” I asked him. “The man is—was—all but unknown. It’s not like he was Tribune of the People or a gang leader like Clodius.”

“You know how it works,” Juventius said. “He was a nobody. He dared to challenge one of the great families. He ended up dead. How do you think they’re going to interpret it?”

“The man was an impertinent scoundrel who must have had plenty of enemies,” Father said. “Anyone could have killed him.”

“Would just anyone,” Juventius replied hotly, “have killed him and left his body on the steps of
this
basilica on the morning his case was to be heard in
my
court?”

“Lower your voice,” I advised him. “You’re encouraging a bad mood here yourself.”

“Oh, I am? I do hope you had plenty of witnesses as to your whereabouts last night, young Decius Caecilius, because you now face charges a good deal more serious than skinning some pack of provincials and tax-gouging
publicani
.”

“Are you calling me a suspect in this man’s murder?” I shouted, forgetting my own advice. Among other things, I hated being called “Young Decius,” even when my father was there.

“Uh-oh,” Hermes said, touching my arm and pointing to the southeast. A pack of determined men were pushing their way through the crowd. In their forefront was a man with a swollen nose and two blackened eyes. He was the one Hermes had punched the previous day. They shoved everyone out of their way until they stood over the body of Fulvius. At the bloody sight, they cried out in dismay.

“We met this morning at the house of Marcus Fulvius,” said the black-eyed man, his voice slightly distorted by his swollen nasal passages. “We waited for him to come out so we could accompany him to court. When he did not come out by gray dawn, we made search for him. He was nowhere to be found. We came to the Forum expecting to find him here, and when we reached the Temple of the Public Lares, at the north end of the Forum, we heard that someone lay murdered in the basilica.

“Now,” he roared, playing to the mob, “we find our friend Marcus Fulvius lying here, drenched in his own blood, and his
murderer”
—he jammed a dirty finger toward my breast as if he were throwing a javelin—“standing over him!”

Hermes was about to give him a broken jaw to go with the rest, but I restrained him.

“I am innocent of this man’s blood,” I proclaimed, “and I can
produce witnesses, among them the most distinguished men in Rome, to attest to my whereabouts last night!” But not, I reminded myself, for the early hours of this morning. It was not my job to point these things out to my accusers.

“Is this justice?” howled another man, this one a red-haired lout. “Are we to allow these
nobles
, these
Caecilians
to murder good Roman men? Does their high birth give them leave to shed blood on the very steps of the basilica?” There were mutters from the crowd, along with cries of “Never!” and “Down with them!” from here and there. But it was too early, the crowd still too somnolent and surprised for riot conditions.

“Lictors,” Juventius said impatiently, “arrest those troublemakers.”

“Don’t do that,” I cautioned. “It’s what they want.”

“That sounds odd coming from you,” he said. “These men are howling for your blood.”

“This is a well-rehearsed gang. Anyone can see that. They were primed for this long before they got to the Forum.”

“Will you answer us?” yelled the black-eyed man.

“Who are you to make demands of a praetor?” Juventius yelled back.

More people were forcing their way forward. The people made way for one of them, and he mounted the steps. He wore no insignia of office, but he was treated with unmistakable respect. He stepped up to the body and studied it for a moment. He was a very young man with good bearing and a tough-looking, pugnacious face. I didn’t recognize him, but such youth coupled with such respect from the people meant one thing: a Tribune of the People.

Others were gathering on the steps behind me. Cato had arrived and Appius Claudius. I beckoned Cato to me. “Who is this boy?” I asked him.

He studied the youth for a moment. “Publius Manilius. Not a
supporter of Caesar and no friend of Pompey either. He’s one to watch.”

At that moment the young man we were discussing was watching me. Fulvius’s crowd were speaking urgently into his ears, which I almost expected to curl up and wither under the assault of all that garlic. At last he waved them off and came up the steps toward us.

“Marcus Fulvius,” he proclaimed in a fine, resonant voice, “has been murdered on the day he was to appear in court to denounce Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger before the court of the praetor Marcus Juventius Laterensis. Murder has been committed, and no one had a greater reason to see Fulvius dead than you, Metellus.”

“I had every reason to show him for a fool and his witnesses as perjurers, no more than that. I never heard of him before yesterday. I need to know a man better than that to want to kill him.”

“I will convoke the Plebeian Assembly to discuss this matter,” Manilius said. “Until our decision has been reached, the election for praetors will not be held!” At this a huge shout went up.

“You can’t do that!” Cato said, when the crowd had quieted.

“You’ve been a tribune, Cato,” Manilius shot back. “And you know that I can. I will not allow a man under suspicion of murdering a citizen to be elected to high office, immune from prosecution for a full year and holding imperium to boot.”

“I have a question,” I said.

“What is it?” Manilius asked.

I pointed at the knot of Fulvius’s men. “Where are the witnesses against me? Fulvius said he would bring before the court these citizens I supposedly oppressed and robbed on Cyprus. Where are they?”

“You stand accused of a far more serious charge, Metellus,” the tribune said. “You would do well to concentrate on defending yourself against this charge, not the one you will not now be tried on.”

“I still want an answer! You!” I pointed at the red-haired flunky. “What has happened to these witnesses?”

“They—they were staying in the house of Fulvius. We were to bring them all here to the court, but we found his house deserted. You must have done away with all of them!” He spoke too fast, his eyes darting about. He had not rehearsed this. Nobody had prepared him for the question.

Manilius raised a hand. “I enjoin silence! I am calling a
contio
of the Plebeian Assembly to meet this afternoon, and there I will entertain motions for a trial of Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger on the charge of the murder of Marcus Fulvius. For now I bid you all disperse!”

Slowly the big knot of people began breaking up into smaller and smaller knots, until people were distributed almost evenly in all parts of the Forum, back to the usual market-day business of the election season. It was an almost magical process and one that never ceased to amaze me, how a nearly riotous mob can revert to a peaceful gathering of citizens in a moment. I was especially glad to see it happen this time.

Fulvius’s little band still stood around the body, apparently at a loss what to do with it.

“I want to examine that body,” I said. “Maybe the way he was killed can tell us something.”

“No one touch that body until the
Libitinani
get here,” Juventius ordered. “You lot leave now. I will see that Fulvius is delivered to whatever family he may have in the City. Go now.”

“Do as the praetor says,” Manilius told them. “We will discuss this at the meeting, where our decisions will have legal authority. What we say here is just idle noise.”

Reluctantly they obeyed him. Then Manilius himself left, probably to round up his fellow tribunes.

“Damned tribuneship,” Father groused. “It gives too much power to men too young and inexperienced. That boy is acting like a consul, and he hasn’t a lictor to his name.”

I shrugged. “He handled the situation well enough. We might
have had a riot. That’s what those men wanted, but they didn’t dare dispute with a Tribune of the People, whatever their hostility to the Senate.”

“So there’s to be no trial,” Appius said, “but no election either! If their plan is to keep you from office, they’re succeeding so far.”

“But,” I pointed out, “if he’d let the praetorship elections go on, he could have demanded that I be taken off the ballot because I’m charged with murder. This way I have a chance to clear myself and still be present for the election. In the meantime the Centuriate Assembly can amuse itself electing next year’s consuls and censors. It will just mean a longer election season. What Roman ever complains about a prolonged holiday?”

“But
can
you clear yourself?” Juventius asked.

“Easily,” I told him. “I’m innocent and the gods love me. Now if you will excuse me, I want a look at this body.”

The
Libitinarii
had arrived on the scene, dressed in their bizarre, Etruscan outfits, carrying their stretcher and accompanied by their priest. The priest went through his purification ritual, then the masked undertakers tugged the bloody toga off, then peeled away the sticky tunic, exposing the mortal remains of the late Marcus Fulvius.

There had been a tremendous effusion of blood, and it was easy to see why. He had been stabbed enough times to kill Achilles. I was no expert like my friend Asklepiodes, but even I could see that more than one weapon had been involved and that meant more than one assailant. There were stab wounds from a narrow-bladed dagger, others from a broad-bladed dagger or sword, yet others that looked like slashes, or rather wide rents, like a clumsy job of butchering. Some of the wounds gaped wide enough that I could see they were not especially deep. Loops of viscera bulged through cuts in his belly, but none of the gashes was large enough to eviscerate the man.

There was a large cut slanting from just behind his left ear to the joining of the collarbones. This wound alone would have been sufficient
to kill him. None of the others I could see would have been immediately fatal. There were no wounds visible on his limbs or head.

“Turn him over,” I told the undertakers. They rolled him over. There were no wounds on his back.

“That poor bastard died hard.” I looked up to see Sallustius, who was never far from the center of excitement in Rome.

“Any man who’s served in the legions knows how to kill a man better than that,” Cato said. “A quick stab in the right place is all it takes. He must have been set upon by common cutthroats.”

I looked at the tunic, which was almost stiff with blood. It was a dark one, made of coarse cloth. The almost equally bloody toga was little better, made of raw, undyed wool, a dingy brown color.

I stood. “He wasn’t on his way to court dressed like this,” I noted. “And look how nearly dry this blood is. He must have died hours ago. I want this body taken to the Temple of Venus Libitina before it’s turned over to his family so that Asklepiodes can examine it.”

“You have no authority to order such a thing,” Juventius reminded me. “But I’ll order it so. If your prosecutor wants an explanation, it’s because the end of the year is near and you have little time to formulate your defense, so I am allowing you extraordinary privileges to clear yourself.” He left it unsaid that I now owed him a big political favor.

I took Hermes by the shoulder. “Go get Asklepiodes. Tell him to meet with me and the unfortunate Marcus Fulvius at the temple immediately.”

“I’m off.” And so he was.

“What do you expect to learn from the Greek?” Father wanted to know.

“I have some fairly strong suspicions, and I’d like to have them confirmed by an expert. I’ll explain when I am more certain of the facts.”

They all took on the look they got when I spoke of my methods of
ferreting out the facts of a case. I had won many prosecutions my way, but it never convinced them. They thought the proper way to win a case was to get prominent people to swear to your innocence and the vileness of your opponent. Then you bribed the jury.

A litter made its way across the Forum and stopped at the basilica. Hortensius Hortalus emerged, accompanied by the aged Claudius Marcellus. Still augur-robed and leaning on his
lituus
, he trudged up the steps to where we stood.

“What’s all this?” he asked, looking down at the body. His friends filled him in on the morning’s doings while I examined the steps. I hoped to find signs of whether the body had been dragged or carried to the basilica, but the crowd had gathered too quickly. If there had been bloodstains, they were now on the bottoms of a thousand pairs of sandals. I was, however, certain that the murder had not been committed on the spot where the body was found. There would have been a small river of blood running down the steps, more than could have been obliterated by a legion tramping through.