The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits Read online

  Look, when you're over there, in some land you know sod-all about, apart from the bits and pieces of intelligence you've gleaned from dodgy spies (who are as likely to be working for the enemy as for you, spying out your strengths and weaknesses to sell to the best bidder); when you've already had one hard fight; when the lads are tired; when you don't know how many enemy hordes there are and you depend on the sea for your escape, with all the risks that entails; well, the most important thing is, to keep the locals subjugated. Keep them quiet. Make them feel that they're better off tolerating you than trying to kill you. Right?

  Right. So you go in heavy, grab the most important leaders you can, and hold them hostage against the good behaviour of the tribe. It makes sense. Nine times out of ten, they'll do what we want. Some of the hostages get to like our life so much, it's hard to get rid of them later, but the tribes don't know that. They assume that their leaders are being held in foul conditions, because that's how they'd treat us; it's impossible to get them to realise the benefits of civilization. Well, how could they? They haven't the foggiest idea. Poor devils, living in their cold, draughty huts, sleeping on a pile of rags on packed earth floors, if they were lucky . . . that's why we have a duty to invade them. It's their destiny — and ours. We have to lead them, and in the end they will learn to appreciate the benefits of Roman culture.

  But I'm getting away from the point. Point is: we're safe while we've got our hostages, but if it gets known that one of us killed one of them, especially a king's son, that doesn't leave us in a strong position. In fact, it leaves us in a shite position. So the general, he'd come down on us like a ton of lead. It could mean crucifixion for the daft bugger who killed that little sod. Or worse.

  While we waited for the translator, I glanced at the three of them. Pugio, As and Consul. Strange that none of us ever used our given names. We all lived with our nicknames. Pugio: Dagger — it wasn't hard to see where the most believable murderer was.

  Consul caught my eye. I jerked my head at him and he followed me to the corner of the stockade, leaving As and Pugio to guard the remaining men.

  "What is it?" Consul asked laconically.

  "What happened?"

  He smiled. "We were all outside the enclosure so far as I know. I certainly was. I remained out at the gate itself. I was there all night."

  "Did you fall asleep?"

  "I remained standing," he said, eyeing me pityingly. "How about you?"

  "Piss off! I was asleep, true, but at least I can't have killed anyone," I hissed. There had been certain rumours, and I stepped forwards, forcing him to retreat until his back was against the stockade's wall. "Did you see anyone?"

  "No. No one. Not after the Centurion."

  "What did that prick want?"

  "He just went in to inspect our hostages." Consul gave a chuckle. "He looks on them as his own property, I think."

  His words made my heart thrill. "Could he have killed the boy?"

  "Not a chance!" Consul said scathingly. "I was there, I kept my eyes on them, and there was nothing amiss when the Centurion left. He just walked in, stared at them, and walked out. I shut the gate and barred it after him."

  "I see. What of your 'Little Flower'?"

  "Well, you know," he said easily.

  "No, I don't. Tell me!"

  His teeth flashed. "She was busy early on, but yes, she tripped past later and waggled her arse at me. It was all I could do not to leap on her right there, but she wouldn't have been grateful, not in this climate. It's too cold."

  "So you left your post at the gate?"

  "Only for a short while," he protested. "Some of us were asleep! But yes, I did. And she'll confirm it."

  "I'm sure she bloody will," I grunted, but it was easily believable. He'd been slotting this little tart ever since they met in port waiting to sail, and I'd never known him miss a night. No army can manage without women and, to be fair, this one was pleasing, with all the right curves and a tempting grin. "Did you hear anything while you were on duty? Did you hear Pugio or As making a racket? Shouting at the hostages or anything? If the hostages provoked them, maybe . . ."

  "Nothing like that, no. There were snores from all over, especially in here, and unsettled sleepers, but I'd swear that the lot were asleep." He gave me a sympathetic shrug. "We both know what happened, don't we?"

  "Yeah," I grunted.

  It was while we were returning to this camp with the hostages. The king's boy had slowed and gazed about him as he was brought into our makeshift fort, staring about him with obvious awe, but with some calculation too, assessing the best means of attack. It was Pugio who was nearest, and he used the butt of his lance to urge the boy on. Instantly the boy whirled, eyes blazing at being mistreated, and seeing the tatty figure of Pugio, he hawked and spat at Pugio's feet.

  Pugio glanced down at the gob of phlegm at his feet, and before he could thrust the pilum through the arrogant little sod's face, Consul and I jumped on him and calmed him.

  But Pugio came from a hot-blooded people. Insults like that spit rankled. And a man like Pugio didn't like to leave the sun to go down on his revenge. He preferred his vengeance still nicely warm.

  So Consul had left his post. He had gone with his waggle-tailed whore to while away a good portion of his watch, rather than standing at the gate. That meant anyone could have lifted the bar and entered, walked inside and stabbed the boy with a lance or knife.

  Except . . .

  Now I was new to this life of soldiering, but I'd seen enough corpses to know what a wound looked like. The boy's chest had been stabbed once, heavily, by a broad-bladed weapon. It had entered deeply, although not through to the back, and when pulled back, it had sucked or pulled the inner flesh with it. Perhaps a barbed blade, I wondered, looking at it more closely.

  When I heard the translator arrive, it was a relief. Gazing at the body was merely a means of avoiding asking Pugio whether he had murdered the lad. I didn't want to ask, because I didn't want to hear him lie — and still less did I want to hear him confess. That would mean a short walk to the cross, or perhaps to the tribe whose prince he had killed. The thought of that was repellent, but Pugio had endangered the whole legion by killing this piece of carrion.

  I motioned to the translator as soon as the gate opened. He was not one of those arrogant "Damn your mother" toadies who was here only to serve for a limited campaign before riding back home at the first opportunity, claiming to understand the fighting man and war before entering the Senate, but a nervous-looking fellow of maybe some twenty summers.

  "Oh, shit!" he muttered when he saw the body.

  "I know. What do these fellows have to say?"

  He gave me a wan look. "You want me to talk to them?" "That's what you're here for," I snarled.

  "Fuck! I was trained in Gallic, but this lot speak Belgic."

  I grabbed his shoulder and shoved him forwards. "You're getting a short lesson, then, friend! Maybe the old bastard speaks Gallic as well. Why don't you try him?"

  Smarting with anger, I left him muttering his incomprehensible nonsense and went over to As. He wasn't the sharpest lance in the box, As wasn't. Yes, I'd trust him entirely, with my life if necessary, because he had strength and courage, but still, if it was a test needing intelligence or quick thinking, I'd rather rely on a drunken Nubian.

  "As, last night, did you hear Consul bugger off?"

  "Oh yes. He came to me to tell me," As smiled.

  "Wonderful!" So he hadn't tried to conceal vacating his post to nip a wench. At least I'd been asleep because I'd had a tough day, and I'd got three others to guard. A fourth shouldn't have been necessary. But when one left his place, leaving two, that was a problem. "What did he say?"

  "That he was seeing his woman. The one with the big . . ."

  I didn't need to be reminded. "And when he was gone did you hear anything in the stockade?"

  "Oh no. I wasn't listening. There were bats flying from the trees, and I was watching them."


  I stared at him blankly, and he must have seen my weary disbelief, because he pointed westwards. "The trees in those woods. There are many bats. I heard one, over there, and then I could hear them squeaking, high-pitched noises. Do you think they talk to each other?"

  "What of the hostages?" I rasped. My temper was not improved to learn that two-thirds of my guards had not been listening to the hostages, especially since it meant Pugio would have had an even easier kill. They hadn't protected him from himself.

  "Them?" His face was blank for a moment, then brightened. "I heard them whispering. And then there was a scuffle. Yes, a scuffle."

  "A fight?"

  "I think someone started to climb the wall over near the gate."

  Where Consul should have been, I told myself. Was Consul part of a conspiracy to break out from the stockade? "But then he got down. Pugio told him to."

  There was a cold weight in my gut. "Pugio told him to. Was Pugio in the stockade with the prisoners?"

  "Of course not! Pugio was told to guard outside, like me!" As chuckled.

  And that was that. The fool simply couldn't believe that someone would have disobeyed orders, because As himself wouldn't. No, As could not comprehend Pugio entering the stockade to murder a boy.

  That was my trouble. I could.

  The translator was waving at me, and I felt as though my feet were nailed to the ground, it was so hard to move towards him. "Well?"

  The translator shot a look at the uncle. "This man says that one of the guards came in here last night, rushed at his nephew and slew him. There was no reason. Most of the fellows in here were already asleep. Only he woke, and saw the Roman tugging his lance free from the boy's breast. He would have called the alarm, but was scared. He thought he might be killed as well."

  I looked at the translator, then at the Briton. "Ask him whether the lad tried to escape by climbing the walls."

  There was that guttural row again, and then the translator turned to me again. "He thinks so, yes. It was that which woke him. Then the boy tried to scream for help, but the cry was cut off by the thrust."

  It was possible. Even with my limited experience, I had seen men die that way in battle. Yet there was something that seemed oddly out of place. Those whom I had seen die had opened their mouths and then fallen as the blow fell — but all about them were other men screaming defiance, bellowing orders, shrieking their battle cries and drowning out any small cry of pain or terror as a spirit fled its body. Was it possible that a man should die so silently that As should not be able to hear it in the stillness of the night? It seemed odd, certainly.

  "What of the others? Were there no others awake to witness the attack?" I asked.

  "All the others were asleep," the translator said.

  "I see."

  I had my hand on my sword still, but my eyes had travelled beyond Verc to the boy Trin, who still glowered suspiciously towards me from the far side of the stockade. He was a cousin, I remembered, but not Verc's son. His father was another brother of the chieftain, long dead. Apparently the chieftain had had him executed for treachery or disloyalty.

  Trin's look met mine for a moment, and suddenly I felt a quickening interest. In his eyes there was a killing rage, the rage that might allow him to murder even a cousin. Especially if that meant equalling the score with his uncle, the man who had executed his father.

  Now that was a possibility. Perhaps Pugio had a defence after all.

  Pugio was sullen as I approached him.

  "I didn't do it."

  "I didn't say you did," I countered.

  "You are working up to it."

  "I just want to know what happened last night."

  He was standing taut as a ballista's rope, grasping his lance with whitened knuckles. I stared at his lance. There was no sign of blood on it, and anyway, I'd seen lance wounds often enough. They didn't suck the flesh from the wound in the way this weapon had. No, it had to be another weapon. Pugio's eyes met mine briefly, but then moved on over the men we were guarding, his eyes black. "You don't trust me, do you?"

  "How often have we fought together, Pugio? Don't be fucking stupid," I hissed. "Look, I want to know that you're innocent here. If you aren't, I don't want to hear it. I just want to make sure that you're safe."

  "You believe I did it, don't you?" he demanded.

  I couldn't answer that. "It was the boy who spat at your feet."

  "Yeah. You think I killed him."

  "He could have tried to climb out of the stockade, over the walls, and you stabbed him as he rose over because he wouldn't go back when you told him," I hazarded. "That would be an easy mistake. Perhaps he didn't understand our language."

  There was justice in that. Pugio's dialect was so strong that most Romans couldn't understand him at first — how much more difficult would it be for a Briton?

  "I didn't see him climbing the wall. I didn't see anything." "Did you hear him trying to climb?"

  "Oh, there was a bit of a noise and I heard someone on the wall, but I shouted at them to quiet down, and soon they did."

  "Were you here at your post all the night?"

  "Of course I was. When have you known me desert?" "Never. That hostage, the uncle, he says someone went into the stockade and stabbed the lad. A Roman." "That's bullshit. He's a liar," Pugio spat.

  “Why?"

  "Look, if someone went in there, he'd have woken the whole lot! He went in there, he'd have to pull the bolt from the gate, wouldn't he? You know how loud the thing is. If anyone went in there, I'd have heard. And so would As," he said pointedly.

  "Very well. So you won't accept that someone else went inside and you deny that you did yourself," I said.

  "Of course I do."

  "Yes." Well, of course he did. Anything else would mean that he was guilty. He had to deny it if he wanted to save his skin.

  "You know what that means, don't you?" he grated, his lance still held at the ready, his eyes fixed on the other hostages.

  "What?"

  "Someone in there killed the boy."

  Yes. I knew that was the only reasonable answer, the only way to protect us. It would be good to come to that conclusion — but it was not going to be easy to tell my centurion or the general that the hostage had been murdered by his own cousin. Even in Rome feuds among political rivals didn't often lead to murder. I had the beginning of a motive, I suppose, but this affair could threaten the legion or whole army. Unless I could have someone inside confess, the general might just get the. feeling that he'd be better to apologize for a rogue legionary, and hand over someone anyway. Perhaps Pugio; or even me. I was asleep, after all.

  There was one other minor problem: if it was a relative, where had the weapon come from? All the men in the stockade were checked clear of all weapons. Where had the weapon come from — and where had it gone?

  If I could find it, we still needed proof that someone inside had killed the boy. The question was, how in Hades we could get that proof.

  "Open the gate."

  "Who is . . ." I could hear the guard outside the stockade doing a mental double-take, and could almost hear the mental, "Oh, fuck!" as he sprang to obey.

  There was a restrained tension inside the stockade, and we all stood slightly more stiffly, as soldiers should, even As trying to make his rusting armour look less 'shameful by passing a grubby hand over the worst of it. Personally, I found myself glancing over the faces of the other hostages.

  I had no doubt, uncle Verc had an expression of rage, like a man who was determined not to be bullied by anyone, no matter how fierce the torture; behind him, the lad against the wall roved up and down like a caged lion, and in his eyes I was sure I could see fear, real, bowel-twisting fear.

  Perhaps he was terrified that he was about to be exposed, I thought as I faced the gate.

  "Oh God. I should have guessed it'd be you," grunted the Centurion as he entered.

  Now I wouldn't want anyone to think that the man who came in now, his nose wrinkling g
ently at the odour of excrement, his long cloak gathered up and looped over his arm to prevent its sweeping over any ordure, his patrician face pulled into an expression of revulsion as he cast a look over the hostages, was a bastard just because I disliked him. I did dislike him, it's true, but it went further than simple dislike. It was more mutual detestation.

  "I should have guessed it'd be you at the bottom of it all," he said with a grimace.

  He was very tall, was Lucius Minucius Baculus. At least a half head taller than me, and that's saying something, but it wasn't the height that first grabbed your attention, it was his biceps and thighs. Even under his shirt and kilt, his immense muscles were as apparent as a bear's. His face was scarred in three places. One slash had nearly taken off his nose, another had exposed his cheekbone in a battle, and a third was like a big wrinkle across his brow. Each was badly healed, and each laid its own character on his features. If it wasn't for them, his face would have been quite regular and attractive, with his clear grey eyes which opened so wide he looked perpetually surprised, and the square jaw with the thin but wide mouth. His eyes were set far apart, and you really did get the feeling that the bastard could see through a wall when he fixed them on you.

  "I will not remain in this midden. You! Gaius Antistius Fabius! Have the hostages brought out and . . ." his cold eyes moved about us all. "Perhaps this time you could prevent your men killing them?"

  It was his arrogant rudeness which made me square my back and march out, throwing out orders as I went.

  Lucius Minucius Baculus, the proud master of seventy-odd men, including me and my lads. Not a friend. Where some leaders would sit with their men and chew the fat, Lucius Minucius Baculus felt himself above such things. He was too superior for that; his destiny would take him higher and higher, if he had anything to do with it. A warrior to his fingers, his scars proved his courage and unshakeable belief in himself. Me, I thought he was mad.

  It wasn't just our hatred of each other, it was the way he had stormed up the beach when we landed. Glory and laurels, that was what he wanted. Mad bastard was determined to work his way up the ranks, and he didn't give a shit about the men he ground down on his way.