Queen of the Night ar-4 Read online

  Claudia nodded at her uncle and aunt, picked up an oil lamp and peered closer. She felt the skin of the face; it was like touching a wax sponge. In the stronger light she noticed the reddish-gold dust on the side of the neck, how the cheeks were sunken, the jaw slightly drooping. She took her hand away. 'What is this?' She felt the powder between her fingers.

  'It was on the side of the casket,' Apuleius explained. 'Probably from the wood.'

  Claudia nodded and returned to her examination. She leaned down and sniffed the fragrance of wild flowers. She touched the hair; it was slightly dry and brittle. She rearranged the linen folds slightly and noticed the faded dark contusions on the side of the neck and along the shoulders. She went to raise the linen robes but Apuleius tapped her hand.

  'I don't think we should,' he whispered. 'I've never seen the like before.' He pointed at the top of the casket and around the rim. Claudia made out the Christian symbols: the chi and rho as well as crudely etched crosses and fishes.

  Polybius handed over two denarii, darkened with age. 'These were found on the eyes.'

  'None on the mouth?'

  'Of course not,' Apuleius remarked. 'I'm a Christian too. We wouldn't use a coin to pay Charon, the Lord of Hell. We don't believe in such things.'

  'What exactly happened?' Claudia asked.

  'Not here.' Polybius asserted himself. He picked up the lid of the casket and Claudia glimpsed the small crosses etched along the inside. She helped her uncle position the lid back on, noticing the rusting clamps and how the side of the coffin looked shabby and dirt-streaked, slightly rotting, even though the wood was the finest elm. It had definitely been in the ground for some time. She picked up a lamp and studied the twin denarii. They were mildewed with age but she made out the likeness of the curly-haired and bearded Diocletian, whilst the names and titles of the Emperor were inscribed round the rim.

  'Diocletian!' she exclaimed. 'But he abdicated about ten years ago to grow his cabbages. He ruled for how long?' She screwed her eyes slightly. 'About twenty years?'

  'Long before my time,' Polybius declared. 'I bought this tavern about four years ago.'

  'And who owned it before that?'

  'One of Maxentius' men,' Polybius remarked. 'Before the civil war ended he fled or was killed.' His sweat-soaked face puckered in concern. 'Don't let's talk here.' He shrugged. 'Let's drink a little wine.'

  Polybius led them out of the cellar, leaving Oceanus and Mercury the Messenger to guard the door, which was locked and bolted. He also promised Simon the Stoic and Petronius the Pimp a free evening meal if they helped to protect what was now commonly being called the 'Great Miracle'. Poppaoe fled up into the kitchen to cut bread and cold sausage while her husband led Venutus, Apuleius and his wife as well as Claudia and Murranus out to a table in the shade of the small orchard. Sorry and Caligula, both sensing this was an important meeting, fled, though not before Polybius had told the boy that Poppaoe should bring out a jug of dry white wine, the best from northern Campania.

  Once the wine had been served, Claudia learned what had happened. Venutus and his diggers had arrived just before dawn, and began work on the wrong side of the garden. They had cleared a pit of about six feet when their mattocks hit wood. Polybius, busy in the tavern, hadn't noticed where they were or what they were doing until he was summoned out. He immediately told Venutus and his men to break their fast in the eating hall whilst he, Oceanus and Narcissus lifted the coffin out, opened the clasps and found what Claudia had just seen.

  'I was confused,' Polybius took a mouthful of wine, 'and so concerned I sent a messenger to the Captain of the Vigiles: that ugly bugger will be here soon. You know the law, Claudia: if murder is suspected or I am myself accused of secretly burying the corpse…' He let his words hang in the air.

  Claudia knew the penalty for such crimes: possible confiscation, even crucifixion, or at the very least, slavery in the mines of Syracuse.

  'But you're not responsible.'

  'Of course he isn't,' Apuleius interrupted. The apothecary sidled on to the bench beside his wife, who sat hunched like a frightened dormouse. 'I'm a healer and physician.' Apuleius smiled. 'Your uncle trusts me, so I immediately hurried here when he sent for me. Callista brought my satchel of instruments and potions.'

  'And you examined the corpse?'

  'Oh yes, that's why Callista came,' Polybius said. 'The girl was naked.' 'What!'

  'True.' Polybius held Claudia's gaze. 'As naked as a newborn baby except for a thin linen drape.'

  'It's true,' Callista murmured. 'I asked Poppaoe to fetch some fresh linen; I thought it was decent. I thought-'

  'Then I had her moved,' Apuleius intervened, gesturing up at the sky. 'The sun, the heat… the coolest place is the cellar. The rest you know.'

  'But this is impossible,' Claudia exclaimed. 'That corpse must have been buried at least, what, nine, ten years ago? Yet, judging from the face at least, no decomposition, no corruption has apparently occurred.'

  'I can't explain it,' Apuleius confessed. 'I've examined that corpse, and apart from those bruises there's no other mark of violence.'

  'So what can explain it?'

  Apuleius opened his mouth to reply, then glanced quickly at his wife.

  'I'm reluctant to speak,' Callista confessed, blinking quickly. 'I'm glad Polybius summoned us. My husband is a peritus, an expert, but wc are also Christians. Apuleius recognised those symbols.' She paused and took a deep breath. 'That young woman, according to my husband, probably died a virgin.'

  'Excuse me.' Claudia held up her hand and stared round. 'Where's Narcissus the Neat?' she asked. 'He was a professional embalmer; perhaps he could help?'

  'Of course he can!' Polybius agreed. 'He too examined the corpse and agreed with Apuleius' conclusion. However, I've sent him out to discover all he can about what happened in this place during Diocletian's reign.'

  'Sorry.' Claudia turned back to the apothecary's wife. 'Do continue, you were telling us of a possibility.'

  'She may have died a violent death,' Callista declared. 'That bruising to her neck and shoulders…' She paused, then her words came out in a rush. 'During the reign of Dicoletian, Christians, as you know, were savagely persecuted. Young maidens were often interrogated and, in return for sexual favours, promised their freedom. Sometimes the questioning took place in private houses. I believe,' Callista stumbled over her words, 'this was the fate of our young woman. She was a Christian, brought into the city close to the Flavian Gate, interrogated and offered her freedom in return for sexual favours. She refused and was beaten or strangled, or maybe her heart gave out.' 'But why bury her?'

  'Perhaps she was of good family.' Apuleius spoke up. 'She had not been brought to trial, so her killer may have become very frightened. He stripped the corpse and bought that casket. Being superstitious, he hastily prepared it, etched on the Christian symbols and buried her here.' He paused. 'If Christians had buried her, they'd have returned to reclaim the corpse. Mind you,' he added sharply, 'there's another possibility — our corpse was secretly buried by Christians who themselves died before the persecution ended and so all memory of her was forgotten.'

  'It's possible,' Polybius agreed. 'During the Great Persecution and the consequent civil war, many properties out here were left empty. This garden, when I took over the tavern, was uncultivated.'

  'But all this doesn't account for the preservation of the corpse,' Claudia insisted.

  'Ah well.' Polybius gestured at Apuleius. 'You explain.'

  'That young woman,' the apothecary replied, 'was a martyr, a saint. God preserved her body as a sign of her sanctity.'

  'I've never heard-'

  'Claudia!'

  She turned round and groaned. Oceanus stood in the tavern doorway, next to him an imperial messenger, a white wand of office in his right hand, his left hand beckoning her quickly.

  'The Empress!' Claudia rose to her feet. 'The dead are not so bothersome as the living.'

  Chapter 2

 
; Si natura negat, facit indignation versum.

  If nature refuses, indignation will prompt my verse.

  Juvenal, Satires

  In the Nile Chamber of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine, the Empress Helena sat on a blue quilted stool and forced herself to smile at her visitors. In truth, at that moment in time, she wished she could drown all three of them in the river Nile whose glories decorated the chamber walls. She stared at these marvels in an attempt to calm herself: brilliant frescos glorifying the magnificence of the Great River, the water painted in vivid blue, with light green bullrushes sprouting along its banks in which black hippopotami lurked. Pink flamingos flew overhead shadowing a gloriously decorated barge full of worshippers sailing down to some temple whose gilded cornices peeped welcomingly above luxuriant palm fronds.

  Helena shifted her gaze and stared down at her sandalled feet. She just wished Burrus, standing like the figure of Mars behind her, would stop sniffing. He should blow his nose! She had told him that so many times. Beside her Anastasius, her secretary, sat as if carved out of marble, staring across at Cassia, the former courtesan who was now one of the Magdalena. Helena could understand Anastasius' fascination. Cassia was dressed so simply, so purely in white robes, her only ostentation being the beautiful wild flower nestling behind her ear, its pink petals resting against her resplendent curly golden hair. Cassia's dark eyes smiled. Of medium height, with a voluptuous figure, she reminded Helena of an exquisite statue of Aphrodite she'd once owned when living in Corinth, perfect in every detail. She sighed. Cassia fascinated Anastasius not only with her looks, but also because, like him, she was a deaf mute, something which had happened to her during childhood. Ah well, at least Cassia was pleasant and smiling, unlike the Lady Urbana beside her. Helena glanced quickly at the powerful, beautiful wife of the even more powerful former general Aurelian. Urbana was dressed severely, no paint on her face or jewellery; a simple robe covered her Junoesque figure, whilst her raven-black hair was pulled in a tight knot behind her lovely oval face, making her look much older than she really was.

  'Your Excellency Augusta.' Urbana leaned forward. 'We have presented our petition. Senator Carinus is prostrate with grief; the Magdalena are at his villa even now comforting him.'

  'I know, I know,' Helena murmured, trying to hide her exasperation. Urbana had already said that! She was relieved when Cassia began to make strange signs with her fingers, the eunuch sitting beside her watching intently. Helena, who communicated with her own secretary in a similar way, couldn't understand the signs, and by his growing restlessness, neither could Anastasius. Cassia's interpreter also intrigued Helena. He was of medium height, olive-skinned, a Parthian who'd served Cassia when she was a leading courtesan in the city long before her conversion to Christianity and the Magdalena. He was good-looking, just past his thirtieth year, his dark eyes bright and intelligent, a snub nose above a smiling mouth, his black hair cropped close; a silver earring in his right lobe, a bracelet on his wrist, and beneath the dark green tunic, a gold chain around his left ankle. He sat watching Cassia, then turned and gently shrugged one shoulder.

  'My mistress,' his voice was cultured and soft, the intonation correct, 'wonders why the Augusta, who has so many spies and agents, has not discovered anything about the gangs perpetrating these outrages?'

  'Leartus,' Helena smiled at the eunuch, 'who said they were gangs?'

  She heard a sound and looked up. The door at the far end of the chamber opened and Chrysis, the fat imperial chamberlain, waddled in. Helena suppressed a sign of relief.

  'Ladies,' she turned to the eunuch, 'Leartus.' She spread her hands. 'I do understand your deep concerns. However, I must ask you to withdraw for a while, perhaps have a word with the actor Theodore. I do thank you all.' She played with the ring on her finger, fighting to control her anger. To be lectured here in her own palace about the security of the state, in the presence of a Parthian eunuch! Yet her son had been most insistent.

  'Aurelian Saturninus was a great general, a friend of my father.' Constantine had glared at her. 'Mother, you've known him for years and so have I. Don't upset either him or his pious prig of a wife. I want you to smile and keep your voice low.'

  Well, she had, but the effort had been great.

  Helena wiped the sweat from the palm of her hands on her gown. A servant led her guests out through one door whilst Chrysis, beaming from one protuberant ear to the other, ushered Claudia and Murranus into the chamber. The Empress took a deep breath and relaxed, snapping her fingers at Anastasius to serve light white wine and spiced biscuits. Claudia and Murranus made to genuflect, but Helena quickly gestured at the vacated stools. She grabbed a goblet of wine, sipped quickly and bit into one of the biscuits, examining her visitors out of the corner of her eye.

  Murranus, as ever, was a handsome man, lithe and tall, all muscle, no fat, his red hair shorn. His face was smooth, surprisingly unmarked and intelligent, betraying none of the stupid aggression of so many gladiators, or worse, the dandified, slightly effete ways of the great champions. Beside him Claudia looked so small, and for a moment Helena thought of them making love. She swallowed quickly. Presbyter Sylvester had warned her against such sexual curiosity and advised her to rein it in. Helena smiled at Murranus, who had now been brought into what she called the Mundus Secretorum, the World of Secrets. Claudia, his beloved, was one of her agents. He'd been told that and warned that to betray her would mean death. The gladiator had accepted the warning, just a shift in his eyes betraying his annoyance at being threatened.

  Claudia sat beside Murranus, nibbling at a biscuit and sipping ever so carefully from her goblet. Helena let her shoulders sag. Claudia the little mouse, she reflected, a mere slip of a girl looking much younger than her years with her mop of black hair and ivory-pale skin. Those eyes, large and expressive, were ever watchful, and behind them was a mind that could twist and turn with the best of them.

  'Augusta, Excellency.' Claudia swallowed, hiding her mouth. 'It is good to look upon your face, as it is on yours, Anastasius.'

  The secretary stared coolly back, only the brief smile in his eyes betraying his own welcome for this mysterious young woman.

  'And of course…' Claudia's voice changed, becoming vibrant and voluptuous. She heaved a dramatic sigh and stared in mock adoration at Burrus, captain of the Empress' bodyguard. 'Oh Burrus, I dream of you so often.'

  Burrus grinned and bowed.

  'And I dream of you too,' he replied, winking quickly at Murranus to show he meant no offence. In truth Burrus was very much in awe of this warrior and certainly smitten by what he called his 'delightful shield maiden'.

  'So we are all pleased to see each other.' Helena clapped her hands. 'Chrysis,' she barked at the chamberlain, standing just within the doorway, 'you can go now, and I mean go! Don't stand on the other side and eavesdrop, and there's no need to go looking: you'll find no slit or eyehole in this room.'

  Chrysis, still grinning, bowed and withdrew. Helena waited until the door closed, then lifted her head as if listening to the music of the songbirds from the garden. She glanced swiftly at Murranus, now scowling into his cup, then back at Claudia, whose gaze never wavered as she still nibbled that biscuit.

  'Now, little mouse,' Helena began, 'listen and listen well.' All propriety forgotten, the Empress got to her feet and moved her stool so close her knees almost touched Claudia's. 'Four weeks ago, the daughter of a wealthy senator was kidnapped as she travelled down the Via Salvana to visit friends in the country. A ransom of twenty-five thousand gold coins was demanded.' Helena held her hand up at Murranus' low whistle of surprise. 'The girl's parents were sent a note which could have been written by any common city scribe, whilst it was delivered by a boy who could provide little description of who had given it to him. The note mentioned where and when the girl would be released, at the great cemetery which borders the Appian Way, close to the mausoleum of some long-dead merchant. Now you know that cemetery, a forest of grass, decayed tombs and undergr
owth. A myriad of paths and hiding places wind their way through it.'

  'Whilst beneath lie the catacombs,' Claudia added.

  'Precisely,' Helena agreed. 'The girl's parents were warned that any attempt to trap their daughter's abductors would mean she'd suffer a slow, lingering death and they would never see her again. On the appointed day, at the appointed hour, the steward of that girl's family left two panniers full of gold coins at the place stipulated. The parents had been advised that once these had been scrutinised, they could return to the cemetery around the ninth hour and find their daughter. They did so with a comitatus of freedmen. The girl was found. She had been released long before the ninth hour. Her hands were still bound; she'd been simply gagged, blindfolded and left to wander!' Helena took a deep breath. 'The parents found her just in time. Some of the Inferni, the rabble who prowl such places…' She paused as Claudia flinched. 'You know about these?'

  Claudia would not tell the Augusta how, in the catacombs beneath that cemetery, she'd often met Presbyter Sylvester the powerful lieutenant of the Bishop of Rome, as the Christians called their leader. She had always been on her guard when she went there, — the Inferni were truly creatures of the dark. For an innocent girl to be found by them…

  'What happened?' she asked.

  'The Inferni had released her gag and were about to rape her,' Helena replied. 'Only the girl's screams alerted her parents. The Inferni fled, and she was found safe and sound. In subsequent weeks three more abductions took place, the same pattern being followed. None of the victims could tell the Vigiles anything.' Helena spat the words out, showing her usual contempt for the corrupt city police. 'They could say little more than that they'd been abducted, blindfolded, chained, kept in a cold place, fed, allowed to use a latrine, and threatened now and again by a voice.

  They could tell us nothing about that voice, be it Roman or from the provinces, male or female.' Helena paused. 'Then last night, Antonia, the beloved only daughter of Senator Carinus, was kidnapped. The ransom note demanding the same sum arrived this morning. She is to be released in two days' time.'