Furies (9 page)

The cubiculum was barely more than a closet with a narrow bed, a soft red woollen blanket tucked up to the edge. A large wooden chest sat in the corner. Aculeo opened it – it contained a fine, ivory chiton and a smaller wooden box filled with jewellery, cheap gilt-terracotta bric-a-brac, nothing of any value. And no cameo necklace. He put everything back, then stripped the blanket off the bed. A rough hemp cloth mattress, stuffed with straw. He lifted the mattress to reveal a simple wood frame with thick leather strapping to hold up the mattress. He glanced under the bed. Nothing …

Someone coughed behind him. The landlady stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her suspicions of Aculeo’s unsavoury intentions apparently confirmed. He laid out the portrait of the three women on the table. “Which one’s Neaera?”

The landlady shot him an accusatory look. “I thought you were her brother.”

“We grew apart. Just tell me which one’s her?” The woman reluctantly jabbed a crooked fingertip on the woman with the cameo. “Who are the other two?”

“How should I know?”

“You never saw them here before?”

“No,” she scowled.

“What about a man named Iovinus? He would have paid her rent.”

The woman sniffed and shook her head. “She paid the rent herself. Except for this month – she’s two weeks late. My oath I’ll throw her pretty little ass out on the street if she makes me wait another day!”

Your whore disappears around the time you return from the dead, Aculeo thought as he left the dismal place. What are you up to, Iovinus? And where did you go? With Neaera or in search of her…?

Pah, what does it even matter? he thought bitterly. Either way, their trail is cold and I’m just as fucked as I was before I began.

The Sarapeion, the city’s main temple to Alexandria’s patron god Sarapis, stood on the acropolis, the highest point in the city. Aculeo turned eastwards down the street leading to the temple. Ancient statues pillaged from the banks of the Upper Nile – sphinxes, long forgotten pharaohs and animal-headed gods – decorated the streetside along its length while towering stands of date palms rasped overhead in the warm morning breeze off the sea. Not the most private place to commit a murder, he thought.

His hurried breakfast of fermented fish paste, a heel of bread and a cup of flat beer sloshed about in his stomach like lumps of wet paste. He’d woken only half an hour before to snatches of Xanthias’ inane gossip picked up in the Agora that morning, including mention of a dead woman found in the temple at the feet of the god Sarapis himself. Aculeo had tried to get back to sleep until the potential meaning of the discovery had slowly bubbled into his sodden brain and he had dragged himself from bed.

Perhaps a dozen murders of citizens took place in Alexandria in a given year, typically triggered by lovers’ quarrels, retribution for various misdeeds, drunken brawls that went too far, disputes between the various collegia or citizens of warring nations that had been carried over here. Countless other murders occurred as well of course, of slaves or other members of the city’s teeming underclass of freedmen, actors, pimps and pornes, but those were usually of little concern unless a respected citizen or official happened to be involved somehow. The possibility of the dead woman being Neaera was remote at best, but Aculeo could hardly ignore it. He hoped it wasn’t, of course – as long as Iovinus’ porne was alive, so was the chance she could lead Aculeo to her elusive patron.

Despite the early hour, the streets leading to the Sarapeion were already filling up with worshippers, young and old, healthy and invalid, Greek and fellahin, all moving up the steep slope to seek Sarapis’ renowned healing powers. A low wall lined the long, empty street leading to the great temple, topped with small, elegant sculptures of panthers, bees, peacocks and goats, with an occasional sphinx to break the decorative motif.

Aculeo looked with dismay up the hundred steps that led from the street to the temple, a vast compound encompassing most of the hilltop, then joined the dozen or so worshippers in the gruelling climb, grunting and cursing with the rest of them towards the summit. He paused halfway up to catch his breath, work out the kinks and look back over the city. Thick knots of dark cloud unspooled across the sea horizon, coupled with a throaty rumble of thunder, promising a heavy spring rain.

When at last he reached the top step of the temple, his legs and lungs were burning, his heart pounding in his chest. He leaned against a cool stone pillar to catch his breath. It had been years since he’d bothered to even come up here. The temple compound was enormous, fully two stades in length by one in width. An outer colonnade circuited the area with elegant porticoes leading to the living quarters for the priests along with a large and outstanding library. The compound itself housed a vast mazework of pillared corridors and shrines for the pantheon of Roman and Egyptian gods. The narrow stalls that lined the temple’s main promenade were manned by the merchants and moneylenders to deal with the worshippers.

He walked across the ceremonial dromos, the only sound the echoes of his own sandals scuffing along the marble tiles, until he reached the temple’s outer courtyard, then into the Hall of Appearance. An inner colonnade led from the hall across a walkway to a square red granite and porphyry sanctuary at the far end. Sarapis was enthroned within the sanctuary. A trick of the architects made him seem even larger and grander than he actually was, for the floor rose gradually as the ceiling lowered between the entrance and the sanctuary. Aculeo continued along the Path between Light and Twilight, across the Hall of Offering and just beyond that into the Sanctuary itself. A thin morning drizzle started to spatter across the marble floor as a rumble of thunder rolled through the darkening sky.

The god sat on his throne in the centre of the room, his seated height taller than that of two men standing atop one another, his broad, handsome gold-leaf face framed with a flowing mane of ivory hair and thickly curled beard, a look of warm paternal concern on his face and on his head a sacred measuring basket symbolic of the fruits of harvest. A temple attendant poured morning libations into the golden bowl near the god’s great feet, while another whispered into his ivory ear to awaken him. Sarapis’ jewelled eyes sparkled in the morning light.

The story was three centuries ago Sarapis had visited the old emperor Ptolemy Soter in a dream and informed him that he would be the patron god of the new Egyptian Empire. Also that his cult statue, a creation of ivory, fragrant wood and precious metals, could be discovered in Sinope, a city on the distant shores of the Black Sea. So it was, and after a suitable compensation had been paid to the people of Sinope, the god had been freed from his temple there and resurrected in his new place of worship in Alexandria. Bought and delivered – the perfect object of worship for a city of merchants.

A handful of curious onlookers stood about near the entrance to the stoa, trying to get a peek within. Their view was blocked by several men dressed in the scarlet-edged tunics of city officials. The Office of Public Order dealt with the city’s most serious public issues, those being virtually anything that might somehow slow the wheels of trade. Typically that meant merely ensuring merchants in the Agora had paid their requisite bribes, that the street cleaners were clearing dung properly from the rutted city streets and so on. While the Sarapeion had no role in the city’s trade, contamination of Alexandria’s main temples with the blood of a dead woman would hardly be well received by the priests or city officials.

Aculeo spotted what looked like a pile of rags heaped behind Sarapis’ glittering throne. The murdered woman, he thought. Another onlooker trying to take too close a look was angrily shoved away by one of the officers. The unfortunate fellow tripped, knocking over a merchant’s barrow, spilling a load of charms and small replicas of Sarapis on the floor. There were cries of outrage as the merchant beat the poor fellow about the head and several of the man’s friends rushed to his aid. The remaining officers swarmed in, trying to break up the tussle.

Aculeo slipped past the scrum and into the stoa, stepping behind the throne. The body was partially covered with a red cloak, faded red, threadbare, patched and filthy. He took an edge of the cloak and lifted it. The woman was likely no more than twenty years old, with a plain, thin face, chestnut-brown skin, wide cheekbones and thick dark lips. One arm was bent awkwardly over her head, the other folded neatly across her chest. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes were still open, unblinking, no spark of life behind them. Her dull black hair was cropped short and uneven, patches of skin on the scalp, neck and arms were mottled with pink bumps. Clearly not Neaera, he thought with relief. A fellahin perhaps.

Her tunic was torn and stained with blood under her right arm. A deep-looking cut ran from her wrist halfway down her forearm. Aculeo noticed a glint of something clutched in her fist and gently pried her stiff fingers open. It was an earring. A pretty thing, like a cluster of tiny gold grapes with leaves of what looked like jasper. It was fine work, and expensive. He glanced at her ears. No sign of its mate.

“Hey, what are you doing?” A pair of very large Public Order officers loomed over him, scowling.

“Apologies,” Aculeo said. “I meant no harm.”

One of the officers snorted and circled a thumb and forefinger against his lips, jabbing his tongue through the opening. The other man roared in laughter.

Aculeo scowled and left the stoa. He spotted a familiar looking man in the purple-bordered toga of a nobleman in conversation with one of the priests just outside the sanctuary. Marcus Aquillius Capito the younger, Aculeo mused. The youngest son of the senior and very wealthy Marcus Aquillius Capito the elder, he’d been shipped to Alexandria two years back to gain experience in public office. That had been at the apex of Sejanus’ tyranny, of course, when a man never knew which end of the sword he might end up on. Aculeo recalled Capito as being a fairly typical young noble, bright, eloquent, arrogant, not to mention painfully ambitious. Still, they’d gotten along well enough in the few social meetings they’d had. What’s he doing here?

“Capito,” Aculeo called, hand raised in greeting.

Capito looked over and gave a puzzled smile. “An odd place to run into you, Aculeo,” he said, coming over to greet him.
A retinue of four Roman soldiers followed, keeping only a few steps away.

“Are they with you?” Aculeo asked.

The other man offered a sphinx-like smile. “
My personal guard. I’m Junior Magistrate now.”

“Oh? Very impressive.”

“Well father’s pleased at least. What about you? Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for a woman who’s gone missing. I heard a dead woman had been discovered here this morning and came in case it was her.”

“And?”

“She’s not the one I’m looking for,” Aculeo said.

Capito considered the dead woman thoughtfully.
 “A street porne perhaps, or a runaway slave.”

“The she-wolves often try to bring their men here at night,” a priest said as he looked down at the corpse with a look of revulsion. “Fornicating in the shadows, defiling the sanctuary.”

“So what does a City Magistrate care about a dead porne?” Aculeo asked, ignoring the priest.

Capito gazed over Aculeo’s shoulder. “That’s why.” An obese priest clad in a pure white tunic and silk scarlet himation was waddling towards them, face flushed with anger, half a dozen priests in his wake.

“Why is the whore still here?”
the High Priest seethed. “The desecration continues every moment her blood pollutes our sanctuary!”

“My deepest sympathies for this terrible outrage to the temple, Eminence,” Capito said.

“Your sympathy,” the other man spat. “What do you intend to do about it, Magistrate?”

“I’ll be leading the investigation of course.”

“Well get on with it. You can start by getting the body out of here!”