Two For The Lions (4 page)

VII

"JUST PROMISE," cajoled Anacrites, back in the lanista's office. "Tell me you won't let yourself be sidetracked by this, Falco."

"Mind your own business."

"That's exactly what I am doing. My business and yours at present is to earn sesterces by pinpointing bastards for the Censors. We don't have time to worry about mysterious killings of Circus lions."

But this was not any old Circus creature. This was Leonidas, the lion who was due to eat Thurius. "Leonidas dispatched criminals. He was the Empire's official executioner. Anacrites, that lion was as much a state employee as you and me."

"I shall not object then," said my partner, a man of sour and wizened ethics, "if you put up a plaque in his name denoting the Emperor's gratitude, and then make a frugal one-off payment to whoever runs his funeral club."

I told him he could object or not object to anything, so long as he left me alone. I was perfectly able to wind up our audit here with one hand tied behind my back in the time it took Anacrites to remember how to write the date on our report in administration Greek. While I was doing my share, I would also discover who killed Leonidas.

Anacrites never knew when to leave a het up man to settle down. "Isn't what has happened a matter for his owner now?"

It was. And I already knew what his owner was planning to do about it: nothing.

When he first saw the wound and the spear butt, Calliopus had gone a funny colour, then he looked as if he was regretting having invited me to view the corpse. I noticed him frown at Buxus, obviously warning him to keep quiet. The lanista assured me the death was nothing sinister, and said he would soon sort it out by talking to his slaves. It was perfectly clear to a seasoned informer that

Calliopus was fobbing me off. He intended some kind of cover up. Well he had reckoned without me.

I told Anacrites he looked as if he needed a rest. In fact he looked the same as usual, but I needed to patronize him to cheer myself up. Leaving him in the lanista's office trying to reconcile figures (perhaps not the best cure for a man with a bad head), I walked outside to the area of hard ground where five or six of the gladiators had been practicing for most of the morning. It was a bleak rectangle at the heart of the complex, with the menagerie on one side rather unsuitably sited next to the fighters' refectory; barracks with sleeping quarters lay at the back end behind a half-hearted colonnade, which came round to an equipment store with the office over it. The office had its own balcony from which Calliopus could watch his men practice, and an exterior staircase. A crude statue of Mercury at the far end of the yard was supposed to inspire the men as they exercised. Even he looked depressed.

The nerve-racking clatter of the exercise swords and the aggressive shouting had finally ceased. The bestiarii were now in a curious huddle near the doorway to the menagerie. In the silence as I approached them I could make out harsh grunts and roars from the animals.

These bestiarii were not huge muscle-bound fellows, though strong enough to hurt you if you stared at them longer than they wanted. They all wore loincloths, some favoured various leather binding straps on their sturdy arms, and for verisimilitude one or two were even in helmets, though plainer shapes than the finely craned casques worn by fighters in the arena. More wiry and quicker on their feet than most professionals, these men also looked younger and brighter than average. I soon discovered that did not mean they would handle questions meekly.

"Any of you notice anything suspicious last night or today?"

"No."

"The name's Falco"

"Shove off then, Falco"

As one man they turned away and pointedly resumed their exercises, doing gymnastic back-flips and battering at each other's swords. It was dangerous to get in their way, and far too noisy for questions. I didn't fancy bawling. I gave them a mock salute and took my leave. Somebody had b"3gged them. I wondered why.

Outside the main gate to the complex lay a throwing range; four more of the group were measuring its length with spears. Anacrites and I had noticed them when we arrived. Now I strolled out there, to find them still at work, presumably not having heard about Leonidas' fate. The nearest, a young, fit, dark-skinned lad with a fine bare torso, strong legs and a keen eye, completed a magnificent throw Applauding, I waved to him and when he came over politely I told him about the lion's death. His companions all joined us, apparently in a different, more helpful mood than those in the palaestra. I repeated my question about whether any of them had seen anything.

The first fellow introduced himself as Iddibal and told me they avoided close contact with the animals. "If we get to know them, it becomes hard to chase them down in the mock hunts."

"I noticed your keeper, Buxus, treated Leonidas as more of a friend, almost a pet."

"He could afford to get fond of him; Leonidas was meant to come home from the arena every time."

"Sent back standing," another agreed, using the gladiators' term for reprieve.

"Yes, Leonidas was different!" Grins were being exchanged.

"What am I missing?" I asked.

After a few seconds looking embarrassed, Iddibal said, "Calliopus bought him by mistake. The lion was passed off to him as a brand-new import, fresh from North Africa, but then as soon as the money had changed hands someone whispered to Calliopus that Leonidas had been specially trained. It made him useless for the hunts. Calliopus was furious. He tried to pass him on to Saturninus--he's in the same business--but Saturninus found out in time and backed out of the deal."

"Specially trained? You mean, to eat men? Why was Calliopus furious? Is a trained lion less valuable?"

"Calliopus has to house and feed him but he only receives the standard state fee every time the lion is used against criminals'

"Not a very big fee?"

"You know the government."

"I do!" They paid me. They tried to keep the fees for that as small as possible too.

"For the hunts he stages," Iddibal explained, "Calliopus puts in a tender, based on the spectacles he can offer at the time. He's in competition with the other lanistae, and the outcome depends on who promises the best show. With a good full grown lion as the centrepiece, his bid for the venatio would have been very attractive." I noticed Iddibal was talking with quite an air of authority. "The crowd loves seeing us go after a decent big cat and Calliopus doesn't often have one. He uses a lousy agent."

"To catch his beasts?"

Iddibal nodded, then fell silent as if he felt he had gone too far.

"Do you have much to do with the procurement side?" I asked him.

The others were prodding him teasingly; maybe they thought he had sounded off too much like an expert. "Oh I'm just one of the boys who spears them," he smiled. "We go after whatever we're given."

I looked around the group. "I suppose nobody's been indulging in a spot of off duty target practice using Leonidas?"

"Oh no," they said, with the kind of assurance that never quite rings true.

I did not seriously suppose they would risk annoying Calliopus by damaging the lion. Even if Leonidas only brought in official fees, a working executioner was still better than a dead one, at least until the lanista had recouped his original purchase price. Anyway there must be cachet for Calliopus in owning the beast who destroyed the most notorious criminals. The forthcoming punishment of Thurius, the murderer, was attracting much public interest. And Calliopus did seem genuinely upset to lose Leonidas; that was why I felt so troubled that he was pretending the death was unexceptional.

Whatever else I might have extracted from these gladiators was forestalled. Calliopus himself arrived, presumably to tell the men to button up, just as he had obviously told their colleagues in the palaestra. Rather than have a confrontation at that point, I nodded to him and left, casually taking with me one of the training spears.

I made my way swiftly back to the cage where the lion lay. Since the door still stood open, I went straight inside. Using my knife to widen the wound in the lion's ribcage, I managed to withdraw the protruding spearhead. Then I laid it side by side with the one I was carrying: they did not match. The one that killed the lion had a longer, narrower head and was attached to its shaft with a different length of metal. I'm no expert, but it was clearly forged on a different anvil by a smith with a different style.

Buxus came in.

"Does Calliopus, use a particular armourer?"

"Can't afford it."

"So where does he obtain his spears?"

"Wherever they're on discount that week."

Why do I always take on jobs involving cheapskates?

"Buxus, tell me: did Leonidas have any enemies?"

The keeper looked at me. He was a slave, with the usual slave's unhealthy pallor, wearing a dirty brown tunic and rough, oversized sandals. Between the thongs his lumpen feet were badly scratched by the straw he spent his days in. Fleas and flies, of which there were all kinds in his working environment, had feasted on his legs and arms. Neither as underweight as he might have been nor as downtrodden either, he had a cautious face with pouchy eyes. His gaze seemed more open than I expected; that probably meant Buxus had been selected by Calliopus to convey whatever rubbish his master hoped to palm off on me.

"Enemies? I don't expect the men he was due to eat liked him, Falco."

"But they're in chains. Thurius can hardly have taken a night off from the condemned cell and nipped here to get in first." I wondered whether Buxus himself might be involved in the killing; this death, like most murders, could well have a domestic cause. But his affection for the great creature and his anger when he discovered his lion's murder both seemed genuine. "Were you the last person to see Leonidas alive?"

"I topped up his water last night. He was a bit peckish but all right then."

"Still moving about?"

"Yes, he had a bit of a prowl. Like most big cats he hates--hated--being caged. It makes them pace around restlessly. I don't like seeing them get that way. They go mad, just the same as you or I would do if we were locked up."

"Did you go inside the cage last night?"

"No, I couldn't be bothered to fetch the key to open up so I just sloshed his drink through the bars with a pannikin and whispered a sweet goodnight."

"Did he answer?"

"Bloody big roar. I told you he was hungry."

"Why didn't you feed him then?"

"We keep him short."

"Why? He's not due for the arena yet. What's the reason for starving him?"

"Lions don't have to have meat every day. They enjoy it more with an appetite."

"You sound like my girlfriend! All right; you sloshed in a jug or two, then what? Do you sleep nearby?"

"Loft next door."

"What's the nightly routine? How is the menagerie kept secure?"

"All the cages are locked all the time. We often have members of the public coming to look at the animals."

"They get up to all sorts?"

"We don't take chances."

"Were any strangers around last night?"

"Not that I saw. People don't usually trek out here after dark."

I returned to security arrangements. "I gather the keys are kept in the office? What happens when you need to muck out and at feeding time? Are you allowed to use the keys yourself?"

"Oh yes." I had rightly deduced that the keeper enjoyed a position of some trust here.

"And at night?"

"The whole menagerie is locked up. The boss sees to it himself. The keys go into the office and the office is locked when Calliopus goes home. He has a house in town of course--"

"Yes, I know." Plus several others; that was why Calliopus had been favoured by a visit from Anacrites and me. "I expect you close up fairly early in the evening. Calliopus will want to go to the baths before dinner. A man of his standing is bound to be dining formally most nights, I suppose?"

"I dare say." The slave had little idea of social life among free citizens apparently.

"His wife's demanding?"

"Artemisia has to take him as he is."

"Girlfriends?"

"I've no idea," declared Buxus, obviously lying. "He doesn't often stay late here anyway. He gets whacked out drilling the men all day; he wants his rest."

"Well that leaves you to your own devices." Buxus said nothing as I changed tack, assuming that I was now being critical of himself "But what would happen, Buxus, if one of the beasts were ill in the night, or if you had a fire? Presumably you don't have to run all the way into Rome to ask your master for the keys? If you have no access to the menagerie he could lose everything in an emergency." Buxus paused, then admitted, "We have an arrangement."

"And what's that?"

"Never you mind."

I let it pass. Probably there was a duplicate key hanging on a nail somewhere really obvious. I could find out the details when I knew for sure it was relevant. If my guess was right, any competent burglar who cased the joint could have found that nail.

"So did everything go smoothly last night, Buxus?"

"Yes."

"No sick beasts needing the farrier's attention? No alarms?"

"No, Falco. All quiet."

"Did you have a girl in? A gambling mate?"

He jumped. "What are you accusing me of?"

"Just a man's right to company. So did you?"

"No."

He was probably lying again, this time on his own behalf He realized I was on to him. But he was a slave; Calliopus was unlikely to tolerate open socializing of any kind, so Buxus would understandably want to keep his habits to himself I could extract details if I needed to. It was too soon in the game to start heavy-handed questioning.

I sighed. With a cold corpse at your feet, it's all the same. That this one was a lion did not change how I felt. The same old dreary depression at life being wasted for some barely credible motive and probably by some lowlife who just thought he could get away with it. The same anger and indignation. Then the same questions to ask:
Who saw him last? How did he spend his last evening? Who were his associates? What did he eat last? Whom did he eat, in fact?