Queen of the Night (21 page)

He had ordered them to be closed down so that the water could be purified, the filters emptied and cleaned, every tile, as he put it, scrubbed to gleaming. Secundus put his face in his hands and wondered how long this would last. Surely Aurelian and that little busybody Claudia would find out who was behind these murders? Ah well, he wouldn't start work yet, not until Crispus arrived.

He jumped as the door was flung open. A woman, dressed in a long tunic, sandals on her feet, a veil about her head, came rushing in carrying a jar, muttering to herself. She didn't notice Secundus, but continued on across the vestibule, up the steps, pulling open the door leading into the first pool. Secundus heard the crash as the pot was dropped, followed by an exclamation. Cursing beneath his breath and forgetful of all warnings, he sprang to his feet and hurried up the steps. As he opened the door, he blundered straight on to the knife, which pierced his belly. He tried to step back, but his attacker followed, the veil a mask across her face. Only her eyes were visible. The hideous pain spread from his chest and down his legs. Blood was bubbling at the back of his throat. He stretched out his hand. He was growing so weak; he felt hot, yet cold. He slumped to his knees, staring fixedly at those familiar eyes. He now knew what it was that Petilius had seen. He felt the knife drawn out; he heard the suck as the blood spurted out of his belly wound. Secundus realised he was a dead man. The figure before him disappeared, then his head was yanked savagely back and a dagger sliced his throat.

A short while later Crispus hurried up the bath steps. He felt hot and sweaty, slightly sick. He'd drunk too much wine the night before, yet he wanted to keep in the General's good books. As he entered the vestibule, he noticed the lamps glowing before the fresco of the Four Seasons in those strange candle stands carved like stags. In the flickering light they looked rather sinister.

'Secundus,' he shouted, looking around. The door leading into the pool was half open. He hurried up the steps, into the wet darkness. The sun had not yet risen, so the windows on either side only allowed in a grey light. Crispus paused and stared in horror at the pool, where a body floated face down. It was Secundus, his blood billowing out like a red cloud around him. Something was lashed to his right hand. The body turned slightly. Crispus glimpsed staring eyes and a gaping mouth; more blood was flowing out of the wound in Secundus' throat and from between his legs.

As Crispus panicked and opened the door to flee, a figure seemed to spring from the darkness, a lithe form, face hidden, a smell of perfume. The dagger went straight into his belly, again and again. His attacker danced away, light and swift, silent as a shadow. Crispus, groaning at the pain in his stomach, staggered down the steps and collapsed to his knees. He looked around, but could see no one. As he stared down in horror at the blood spurting out, he felt a blow to the back of his head. He crashed forward, face hitting the hard marble floor, and someone was beside him, lifting his head, holding a dagger to the side of his throat…

Murranus and Alexander left the villa long before dawn. They'd taken their horses from the stables, saddled them, and, with two grooms walking before and two behind, gone down the snaking trackway through the villa gates, opened by a sleepy-eyed porter, and out on to the country road. Murranus still felt tired, and his head ached slightly, not that he'd drunk much the night before, but he had slept badly in his new quarters, whilst Alexander, although a very pleasant young man, was full of questions about this and that. Murranus had hardly finished dressing, splashing water over his face and snatching at the bread, cheese and olives the servant had brought, when Alexander, his freshly shaved face oiled, sandals on his feet, sword belt strapped proudly round him, arrived to ask a new spate of questions. Murranus realised that to keep this young man quiet he would have to keep him moving. The evening before, he'd asked General Aurelian's permission to take Alexander down to one of the gladiatorial schools in Rome, where they could practise with wooden swords and shields. Murranus hoped the journey would distract his protege, but Alexander, fired with curiosity, had a further litany of questions. At first Murranus found it difficult to reply; at last he decided to take the initiative. He grasped the reins of his horse, trying to close out the sounds of the countryside coming to life, the birds singing in the hedgerows, the wood pigeons cooing so insistently. The morning mist was thinning, the sky turning red-gold, and a cool breeze brought the smell of the farm, manured fields and wet grass. Murranus had decided to leave early so they could avoid the heat and bustle of the city and practise long before noon. Now, to divert his zealous pupil, he launched into his famous lecture about the Thracian gladiator confronting the retairius, the net-man.

'You see,' Murranus gathered the reins in one hand, holding up the other to demand silence from Alexander, 'the net-man is dangerous not because of the trident but because of the net; people often forget that! The trident is sharp, three-pronged, and the novice watches that, but it's the net which will trap him, it is the net that will kill.'

Alexander, however, was not so easily quietened and immediately interrupted with a description of his last visit to the games. Murranus grunted absent-mindedly, half listening as he looked out across the fields on either side. The soil was bare of any crops, baked hard under the sun. He wondered what it was like to be a farmer. Perhaps that was what he and Claudia should do: leave the bustle of the city and buy a small farm out in the countryside, grow crops, raise livestock, well away from the intrigues of the court and the constant mischief of the She Asses tavern.

Murranus looked around; he felt safe and secure. The two servants in front of them were walking briskly, the two behind, holding staffs, were playing some sort of game, trying to rap each other's ankles. Murranus glanced ahead, where the road narrowed between two dense clumps of trees. In the field to his right, a farmer was at his plough, the two oxen straining under the yoke. The farmer probably wanted to use the coolness of the day, finish the back-breaking work before the heat really made itself felt. Murranus smiled wryly. Perhaps he wouldn't be a farmer!

A flock of birds broke out of the trees and went crying and whirling above him. A prickle of fear cooled the sweat on his neck. The birds wheeled and turned but there seemed nothing wrong. The farmer was leaning over his plough, the oxen still straining. Murranus shouted at the servants walking ahead to be vigilant and, turning in the saddle, scowled at the two young grooms still clicking their sticks together. They entered the dark shade of the clump of trees. Murranus stared through the greenery. Now the farmer was resting on the plough, but he wasn't dressed like a farmer, no homespun tunic; wasn't that a leather kilt and a sword belt he wore?

Murranus reined in, shouting a warning to the servants ahead, but it was too late. They spun round. One of them immediately took an arrow in the back, the other in the neck; both collapsed, coughing on their own blood. The two young grooms behind, instead of retreating, almost hurried into a hail of arrows as demon-like figures, armed with swords, clubs and axes, swirled out of the trees. Murranus grasped the reins of Alexander's horse. The attackers in their grotesque masks milled about them. Murranus and Alexander drew their swords, lashing out, but it was futile. They were pressed together, the men closing in, clubs and daggers falling. Murranus, threatened by one attacker, heard a gasp and glanced round in alarm. Alexander, staring at him white-faced, eyes black pools of despair, was clutching at terrible wounds in his thigh and stomach. The young man opened his mouth to speak, then lurched to one side and fell off his horse. The red mist of battle fury descended. Murranus lashed out. His attackers pressed in, a thick pole swung at him, and in avoiding that, Murranus ignored the other from behind. A sickening blow to the side of his head sent him swaying in the saddle. The shouted clamour echoed distantly, almost drowned by the roaring in his ears as he slipped with a crash to the pebbled trackway…

Claudia was breaking her fast in the garden when the sweaty-faced messenger arrived at the She Asses with the hideous news that Alexander, General Aurelian's only son, had been stabbed and murdered in an ambush on a country road outside the villa. Four servants had also been killed, and Murranus had been injured, whilst General Aurelian and his wife Urbana were beside themselves with grief. Claudia pushed away her platter and cup, and listened in freezing horror as the servant described the attack, the death of the young heir, the murder of the four escorts and Murranus' head injuries; how the gladiator had survived, stumbling back to the villa with Alexander's corpse before he collapsed. The messenger also described the deaths of the two veterans, gruesomely murdered at the baths in the gardens of the villa. Claudia felt her own fears about to burst out, but she could neither scream nor cry. She wanted to crawl off to her own chamber and hide, but she had to sit, breathing quickly, as the messenger declared that Lady Urbana needed her. The Empress herself was also journeying to the villa. Polybius, who overheard the conversation, offered to accompany her. Claudia did not refuse, simply adding that Oceanus had better come too, heavily armed.

They hired horses from a nearby stable and made then way through the morning streets. Claudia was aware of nothing. She did not hear the passers-by shouting salutations or the noise and clatter as stalls and booths were opened. The creak and screech of winches on building sites, the myriad different colours as the crowds surged out to greet the day meant nothing to her. She wanted only to reach Aurelian's villa, ensure that Murranus was well, and try and make sense of the horrors that had occurred. She uttered not a single word on the journey, and looked neither to the left or the right, unaware that she'd even passed the city gates or of the countryside spreading around her. Polybius tried to draw her into conversation, but Claudia remained steadfastly silent.

When they reached Aurelian's villa, the signs of mourning were already displayed. Cypress branches had been placed on top of the pillars, black drapes hung over the gates; the porter was heavy-eyed, clothes rent, his tear-streaked face stained with ash. The same was true of every servant they met as they made their way along the trackway on to the great open space before the magnificently colonnaded villa, now turned into a haunt of nightmares.

Rara avis in teizis.

A rare bird in all the earth.

Juvenal, Satires

Stewards and servants hurried down to greet them. Claudia handed the reins to a groom and, followed by Polybius and Oceanus, walked up the steps into the vestibule. All the signs of mourning were displayed: black drapes, cypress branches, ashes strewn, fires banked, all candles and lamps extinguished, the shutters of every window opened so that the departed spirits could move freely. No water to wash or greetings were offered. Somewhere cymbals clashed, a fife played mournfully, the sounds of keening and lamentation echoed along the passageways. It was truly a house of mourning, a place of foreboding and gloom which darkened the spirit.

The steward led Claudia to view the dead. First Alexander, laid out in a chamber off the vestibule. The young man's corpse had been washed, oiled and perfumed, and dressed in a snow-white tunic,- he lay, head on a cushion, bare feet pointing towards the door. His servants and retainers knelt around, hair, faces and shoulders strewn with ash. A priest softly chanted prayers. Claudia couldn't discern whether he was praying to some pagan god or the Lord Christ. She gazed down at the waxen face and grieved for the youth, the sheer waste and horror of his death. If it had not been for the whiteness of his skin, Claudia would have thought he was sleeping, lips still red, eyelids closed, the lashes still fresh. She bowed towards the corpse and left.

The steward led her out of the house and across the grounds to the baths. Armed servants stood on guard; these stepped aside as the steward led Claudia up into the vestibule and the chamber beyond. While Alexander's corpse had been treated with every honour, Crispus' and Secundus' looked as if they'd been dragged from a battlefield, the mauled remains soaked in blood and gore. Flies hovered around. The stench was offensive. Claudia felt her stomach pitch. There was no need for any questions. The steward, standing behind her, whispered how both men had been brutally castrated, their throats cut and bellies slit; they had been found in the baths, floating in the water, which had now been drained off.

'Like a butcher's yard,' he murmured. 'Blood everywhere. Such hideous deaths, mistress!'

Claudia didn't reply, and the steward led her out. Once outside, she paused, closed her eyes and sighed deeply, drawing in the freshness and fragrance of the gardens.

'I need to see Murranus,' she murmured. 'I need to see him now.'

They returned to the villa. Murranus' chamber stood at the side of the house, overlooking one of the lawns; its shutters were open. Murranus lay stretched out on the cot bed, a linen sheet pulled up to his chin, his head resting on folded drapes. A physician with two attendants was dressing the wound on the side of the gladiator's head. Claudia pressed her hand against Murranus' cheek.

'How is he?' she whispered.

The physician's red-rimmed eyes held hers.

'In no physical danger,' he replied. 'There are some bruises.' He pulled back the sheet.

Claudia gasped. Murranus lay naked except for a loincloth. All along both his arms were angry welts and bruises, and the same on his belly and thighs. The physician pulled the sheet back up.

'They're nothing,' he whispered, 'they'll soon fade. We must concentrate on this.' He turned Murranus' head slightly and Claudia glimpsed the wound and contusions; the gladiator's wiry red hair was stiffened with blood. 'This again is nothing.' The physician picked up a swab and gently pressed it against the wound. 'What I am concerned about is any injury within. If his skull is thick, then he is safe. He is still unconscious; we'll know possibly in the next hour or so. There is nothing you can do here.'