Conspiracies of Rome Read online

I turned to Martin. ‘Have you any idea why the dispensator sent his private secretary with that summons?’ I’d told Martin when I had met him later down at the Lateran about the summons. But perhaps he had something of his own to offer.

  He laid his pen down. ‘None, sir. Ambrose never discussed his private work for the dispensator. I only know it was highly confidential. The first I knew of the summons was when you told me about it. The dispensator certainly said nothing to me.’

  The old watchman broke in. ‘He was found yesterday morning, just down the road. I was on an errand for the mistress just after dawn today. I spoke with the slave who found him dying.’

  Lucius sat up. ‘We must speak as soon as we possibly can with that slave. Did he tell you anything significant when you met him?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t think to ask. I can take you to the slave, though. His master is our local wine dealer. He’s a good man.’

  Lucius turned to Martin: ‘We need a meeting as soon as possible. You can make the arrangements after this meeting.’

  I continued. ‘After I went down to the Lateran, did the Saint receive any other visitors?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he did.’ The old watchman spoke again. ‘Some while after you’d gone, another monk arrived at the door. He said he had a private message for the Saint.’

  Again, Gretel had shown him up. She hadn’t heard what passed between him and Maximin. However, she did suspect he wasn’t a monk. ‘As I showed him down, he . . . he tried to take liberties with me.’ She cast her eyes down in a very good impression of shocked innocence.

  ‘How so?’ asked Lucius.

  ‘He tried to touch me on . . . in my secret places. I’ll swear he was no monk.’

  Well, lechery and monastic vows have often been well acquainted, and at first I was inclined to dismiss Gretel’s insistence that the man hadn’t been a monk. The way she bounced around, she could have excited a stone idol. Then again, she was no stranger to the world. She’d doubtless been touched up by bishops, let alone monks. Still, she insisted this hadn’t been a monk. Either she was holding back on something she didn’t want to discuss, or she’d picked something up from his general manner that she wasn’t able to describe in words. I suspected the latter.

  The old watchman disagreed. ‘He was a monk, I’ll swear. Man and boy, I’ve been watching over this house forty years. No wrong ’uns ever got in before. Isn’t that so, my lady?’

  ‘It most certainly is,’ said Marcella. ‘My watchman is the best in Rome, I’ll have you all know.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ said Lucius smoothly. ‘But we know the Evil One can take many forms. Were not even the holy saints of the desert often deceived by devils in human form?’

  There was a burst of conversation at this – the thought that Satan himself had been in the house was more exciting than any martyrdom – though, by the look on her face, Marcella didn’t think it half so good for business. She opened her mouth, perhaps to defend the old watchman again. Then the diplomat spoke up.

  He’d wanted to speak before, but probably was reluctant to follow mere slaves. Now Lucius had spoken, he felt no reserve. He’d seen the monk leaving as he was returning on horseback from a ride outside the city, he said. He’d dismounted and bowed low for a blessing. The monk had walked straight past. ‘Now I realise I had been in the presence of the Evil One,’ he shuddered in his slow Latin.

  I asked for a description. There was none worth having. The man had been hooded. Lucius intervened with more detailed questions about height, possible age and so on – also about the direction from which he’d come and to which he’d gone. Martin wrote down the answers so far as he could, but all was vague and contradictory.

  After the pseudo-monk had gone, Maximin spent time in the garden. He’d sat there a long time, drinking and looking at some flowers. The diplomat had some information here. He’d gone into the garden after communing in the stables with his groom.

  ‘I went up to the Saint,’ he said. ‘I asked for the blessing the monk had refused me.’ He looked round proudly. ‘I was the last man on earth to receive the Saint’s blessing before he was martyred.’

  He seemed about to launch into a theological digression. But Lucius checked him. ‘Did you discuss anything worldly with the Most Holy Martyr?’

  ‘Yes.’ The Ethiopian smiled broadly, showing the gap between his very large and very white front teeth. ‘He was drinking deeply, and I joined him for a while in conversation. He was troubled in spirit – but who would not be after grappling with the Evil One? To refresh his spirit, he drank wine, and he spoke of his journey to Rome. He said, and I quote from memory: “Oh, that I might be once more on the road through France. I have never known such happiness as with my young friend. He is like the son I never had. We were so happy when we had none but each other. This city is a place of evil. I wish I were away from it. I wish I had never come. I fear for young Alaric. If only he could know he is among serpents.”

  ‘Such were the words of the Saint to me.’

  I turned and walked over to the glass table. I steadied my hand on its cool surface. In a moment, I’d fight back the tears that were beginning to sting my eyes. I’d burn them out with pure hatred. For that moment, I knew everyone was looking at me.

  ‘But –’ Lucius turned the attention back to himself – ‘he gave you no indication of what had passed between him and the hooded visitor?’

  No, the conversation had been on other matters. The Ethiopian had nothing to add of any value. I regained control of myself and returned to the front of the gathering. ‘Were there any other visitors that day?’ I asked.

  The old watchman spoke again. ‘Yes, sir, there was one more for the Saint. He came just before dark. He stood in the deep shadow under the gate, and I couldn’t see his face. He handed me a note. “See that this reaches the hands of Father Maximin,” he said to me.’

  ‘Did you see what was in the note?’ I asked.

  The old watchman was offended. ‘No, sir, most certainly not. I never look at the correspondence of my lady’s guests. Anyway, sir, I can’t read.’

  Well, that was a conclusive answer. But a letter. It was probably lost, along with the others. Or it had been taken by the dispensator’s men. Even so, I asked: ‘Did anyone else see this letter?’

  There was a stir at the back of the meeting. Marcella’s face took on a look somewhere between anger and embarrassment. An old woman stood up. She was one of the lower slaves in the household. I’d seen her boiling linen in a big pot, and mixing piss with something else to make bleach from it. Looking down at her feet, she was mumbling something.

  ‘Speak up, Griselda,’ said Marcella, speaking sharply. It was to no effect. The old woman was simply too nervous to speak in front of so many people. I walked over to her. She pointed to Martin. He reached into his files and took out a slip of parchment. I brightened. Here was the letter. We might have an answer to some of our questions.

  ‘It was in the Saint’s clothes,’ she explained. Marcella had given her these to wash after the embalmers had called to collect the body. ‘I got off most of the blood. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but I couldn’t get it all off. I give it to your secretary. Please don’t blame me, sir. I tried.’

  I took the slip from Martin. She had tried. The parchment was about three inches by two. Except for a dark patch that covered most of the skin side, it was about as clean as when it had first been dried and scraped.

  There was no point in blaming the silly old woman. I took the slip over to the old watchman. ‘Do you think this might have been what was given to you?’ I asked.

  ‘Most certainly, sir. I never forget the size of parchment. That’s what I was given.’

  It was almost maddening to hold that slip in my hand, yet not be able to read it. Lucius and I went over to the doorway into the garden. We examined the skin side in the sunlight.

  ‘That word there is “letters”,’ said Lucius. I looked, and perhaps it was. ‘Look – “E-
P-I-S-T-O-L-A-S.” ’ He slowly spelt the letters, pointing at each one. He pointed again. ‘Could that be “with you” – “T-E-C-U-M”?’

  ‘ “Letters with you”?’ I broke in. ‘Was this a message telling Maximin to go to a certain place and take the letters with him?’

  ‘With respect, sir, those marks could say anything.’ Martin had come over to join us. ‘I’ve been looking at the marks for some time, trying to see if anything could be recovered.’

  He was probably right. I forced myself to obey the command not to jump to conclusions. I agreed with Lucius about the first word. The second was possible. All else was lost beyond recovery. You can often see the old writing on parchment that is reused. But this had been fresh ink, and the parchment had been scrubbed as clean as it could be.

  The last matter was Maximin’s departure from the house. I asked who had heard him say where he was going. It was Marcella. She’d stopped him as he was going out. ‘You shouldn’t be going out alone,’ she’d told him. ‘Surely let me send one of the slaves with you as a guard.’

  But he’d insisted he knew where he was going and would be safe. ‘No one will be interested in a shabby old priest,’ he’d told her. ‘I have business with the Sisters of the Blessed Theodora,’ he’d said, adding that he’d be back before late or send a message.

  That was it. He’d swallowed two of his opium pills to steady himself from all the wine. He’d gone out. We knew he’d got to the foot of the hill, then been set on. There was much still to be settled, but we now had the outlines of Maximin’s last day on earth.

  After this, there was no more evidence. There had been other callers that day. But these were all known or had been visiting other guests. I thanked everyone for sparing the time to attend. Lucius made a circuit of the hall, thanking everyone in person – even the slaves. Then he asked one last question: ‘Did Holy Saint Maximin burn anything on his last day? Were any ashes cleaned from his room?’

  There had been no ashes.

  We were to visit the convent in the afternoon. Marcella promised to send over to arrange a meeting there with the abbess. Before that, however, there was the matter of the dying secretary. There might be some scrap of information to be had there. The old watchman made sure his deputy was in place, and set off with Martin to find the wine dealer’s slave.

  So far, a productive morning, Lucius and I agreed. We hadn’t found any answers yet. But we were now mapping the contours of our ignorance. ‘Ask enough questions,’ said Lucius as we refreshed ourselves on raisins and wine, ‘and some of them will answer the others.’

  27

  The wine dealer had his shop at the foot of the Caelian Hill, just by the road leading to the Lateran. The old watchman and another slave were sitting together in the doorway when we arrived with Martin. From the size and state of the jug at their feet, they’d drunk nearly a gallon of pale wine.

  ‘So, back at last, O little Celt,’ the old watchman called. ‘Will you have a drink with us now?’

  Then he remembered himself and got up to bow to Lucius and me. He pointed at the other slave. ‘This is the one you want, sirs,’ he said. ‘Davus found the dying man.’

  Davus was so drunk he could barely stand. I took him by the arm and led him in out of the sun. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light within the shop, I saw that we were in a large, cool hall, stacked high and deep with ceramic jars. Each one was labelled with a papyrus slip, showing the vintage and the price per gallon. There were steps leading down to a basement, where perhaps the finer vintages were stored. We sat down at a central table that I guessed was used for letting customers sample the wares.

  At first, I thought Davus was too drunk to give us anything. But he drank deep from a jug of red, and seemed to pull himself together. His master was away on business, he explained, and he had been left in charge of the shop. The slave evidently thought himself lucky to be on his own.

  Poor master, I thought.

  As you might expect, he gave his story in a slow, digressive manner. The previous morning, he’d got up early to open the shop. As he was pulling down the little awning over the entrance, he’d been taken short and had gone over to the entrance to an ancient sewer across the street. Pissing into it, he’d heard a faint groan beneath.

  With help from a couple of passing slaves, he’d managed to reach down and get the man out of the sewer. It seemed he’d been stabbed some while before and dumped as if already dead in the sewer. Perhaps his attackers had thought he was dead. He was pale and weak from loss of blood. Davus had sat him up and poured some wine into him. But the manhandling had caused the last of his blood to gush out. With a gasp, he’d died. Shortly after, men from the Lateran had come over and removed the corpse.

  ‘Did he say anything before he died?’ I asked. ‘Anything at all?’

  Davus thought hard. ‘He said many things. But he was weak and I had trouble hearing him. One thing he did say clearly. “It was the Column of Phocas,” he said. “Destroy the Column of Phocas.” ’

  I looked at Lucius. He looked back at me.

  ‘Whatever could that have meant?’ I asked.

  ‘Search me,’ said Lucius.

  ‘Perhaps he really said something else, sir,’ Martin added.

  ‘No!’ cried Davus. ‘I know what I heard. He said to destroy the Column of Phocas. I would never make up such disrespect for our lord the emperor. I saw the column going up – and a very fine thing it is, too. Don’t you go putting treason in my mouth, you worthless piece of barbarian shit.’ He waved a heavy fist at Martin.

  The man was clearly an habitual drunk. Yet he was quite sure of what he had heard. We had to accept his description, and try to work out its meaning for ourselves.

  Outside, we examined the broken sewer. It was a gash in the road about six feet long. It had been dug up many years earlier for a repair that hadn’t been completed. Now, it was choked with so much dirt and rubbish that it would never be used again for carrying away waste. There were holes like this all over Rome. I’d seen a particularly nasty one the other evening. I’d nearly fallen down several before getting used to their random presence.

  I thought of sending Martin down to look for any evidence we couldn’t see from above. But he was wearing the rather nice clothes he’d put on for the dispensator, and I didn’t want to push the rights of borrowed ownership that far. Besides, I doubted if there was anything to be found there.

  Lucius wouldn’t have thought twice about saving Martin’s appearance. But he too didn’t seem to think there was anything down there to justify a closer inspection.

  Now to the convent. In bright sunshine, even the dumpier parts of Rome can look reasonably cheerful. Certainly, the streets we walked along were better by day than on that dreadful evening. Some of them, as ever, were empty. In others were crowded the dirty rabble of the city. Others were filled with sturdy, brightly clad pilgrims, who were still coming in for the consecration. We moved at a restrained pace. The abbess knew we were to visit. But I didn’t think it would be appropriate to arrive too soon after Marcella had arranged for us to be there.

  What had seemed a fortress the other night was now visible as a large town house of the old nobility. Though blackened in the usual way by dirt and smoke, the exterior remained imposing – a grand building with the remains of a portico and colonnade about the entrance. This was of marble, and had been mostly broken up and taken off for burning into cement.

  The main building was a series of filled-in brick arches, supporting a number of brick domes, most of them still sheathed in lead. It had survived the troubles of the previous seventy years in pretty good shape.

  Close by was the shrine of Saint Tribonian. This looked for all the world like a ruined privy. Perhaps it was. I believe Bishop Arius, who caused so much trouble with his heresy, died in a privy in Constantinople. His stomach exploded. It was a miracle, Maximin had explained in Canterbury. A Frankish monk who was inclined to Arianism had later whispered to me it was poison. Of co
urse, that privy was soon demolished and the whole area redeveloped to pre-empt any claims of further miracles. Saint Tribonian, doubtless, had been an orthodox martyr.

  Martin knocked on the door. It opened, and an old man – the one from the other night? – bowed and motioned us to enter. He took our weapons and placed them beside his small office. He led us down the carriageway straight into a large courtyard garden. This was neatly maintained, and planted, so far as I could tell, with various medicinal herbs. On the other side, we entered into a hallway, from which doors and passages led off to the interior rooms.

  This hall had once been richly decorated with mosaics. These were now crudely painted over with a whitewash that still showed the occasional street scene in its thinner places. The marbles were cracked and broken. It was as if efforts had been made to remove all traces of former wealth from the room.

  The rooms through which we passed were empty, but showed signs of recent use. I saw balls of thread and stitching frames in one room; in another a freshly broken loaf of dark bread. From far away inside came a collective whisper of prayers. The ladies of the house did not receive male visitors, and evidently preferred not to be seen by any who did come.

  These rooms had also been made plain. In a few cases, a larger room had been divided up using wooden screens that reached to the whitewashed ceiling. A couple of rooms had even been partitioned with rough, unplastered brickwork.

  The abbess sat alone on a chair placed in the middle of a library room. Around her I could see shelves of books and racks of papyrus rolls. Her face set sternly, she was dressed from head to toe in black. It was impossible from her face alone to tell what age she was. Early middle age was the best guess I could make.

  She motioned to the old slave. He brought another two chairs so that Lucius and I could be seated. Martin stood back against the wall. We’d agreed to make a record of the conversation afterwards from our joint memories.

  ‘You are the men who disturbed our peace two nights ago,’ the abbess began in a stiff, clear voice. It was less a question than a statement of fact. I nodded.