John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.6]-Mightier Than The Sword by John Maddox Roberts Page B

attendants and the man sighed. The days of cushy duty in the
basilica were over. I said, "Go and inform the family of the late
Senator Auius Cosconius that they have just been bereaved and that they
can claim the body here. Junius should be able to tell you where they
live. Then go to the contractor who built this place. His name is…" I
opened one of my own wax tablets. "… Manius Varro. He has a lumber yard
by the Circus Flaminius, next to the temple of Bellona. Tell him to
call on me first thing tomorrow morning, at my office in the Temple of
Ceres."
    The man handed
his torch to a companion and conferred with Junius, then he shouldered
his
fasces
and marched importantly away.
    Asklepiodes
arrived just as Junius and Varus were leaving, trailed by two of his
Egyptian slaves, who carried his implements and other impedimenta.
Hermes was with him, carrying a wineskin. I had trained him well.
    "Ah, Decius," the
Greek said. "I can always count upon you to find something interesting
for me." He wore a look of bright anticipation. Sometimes I wondered
about Asklepiodes.
    "Actually, this
looks rather squalid, but the man was of some importance and somebody
left him in a building I was inspecting. I don't like that sort of
thing." Hermes handed me a full cup and I drained it and handed it back.
    Asklepiodes took
the lantern and ran the pool of light swiftly over the body, then
paused to examine the wound. "He died within the last day, I cannot be
more precise than that, from the thrust of a very thin-bladed weapon,
its blade triangular in cross-section."
    "A woman's
dagger?" I asked. Prostitutes frequently concealed such weapons in
their hair, to protect themselves from violent customers and sometimes
to settle disputes with other prostitutes.
    "Quite possibly.
What's this?" He said something incomprehensible to one of his slaves.
The man reached into his voluminous pouch and emerged with a long,
bronze probe decorated with little golden acanthus leaves and a
stoppered bottle, rather plain. Asklepiodes took the instrument and
pried at the wound. It came away with an ugly little glob of something
no bigger than a dried pea. This the Greek poked into the little bottle
and restoppered it. He handed the probe and the bottle to the slave,
who replaced it in his pouch.
    "It looks like
dried blood to me," I said.
    "Only on the
surface. I'll take it to my surgery and study it in the morning, when
there is light."
    "Do you think he
was killed somewhere else and dragged down here? That's not much blood
for a skewered heart."
    "No, with a wound
like this most of the bleeding is internal, I believe he died on this
spot. His clothing is very little disarranged."
    He poked at the
feet. "See, the heels of his sandals are not scuffed, as usually
happens when a body is dragged."
    I was willing to
take his word for it. As physician to the gladiators he had seen every
possible wound to the human body, hundreds of times over. He left
promising to send me a report the next day.
    Minutes later the
family arrived, along with the
Libitinarii
to
perform the lustrations to purify the body. The dead man's son went
through the pantomime of catching his last breath and shouted his name
loudly, three times. Then the undertaker's men lifted the body and
carried it away. The women set up an extravagant caterwauling. It
wasn't a patch on the howling the professional mourners would raise at
the funeral, but in the closed confines of the cellar it was
sufficiently loud.
    I approached the
young man who had performed the final rites. "I am Decius Caecilius
Metellius the Younger, plebeian
Aedile.
I found
your father's body and I have been appointed investigator by the
Praetor
Varus. Would you come outside with me?"
    "Quintus
Cosconius," he said, identifying himself, "only son of Aulus." He was a
dark, self-possessed young man. He didn't look terribly put out by the
old man's passing: not an uncommon attitude in a man who has just found
out that he has come into his