John Maddox Roberts - [SPQR Roman Mysteries 8.6]-Mightier Than The Sword Read Free

aspiring politician curried
favor with a criminal gang, to do his dirty work in return for
protection in the courts. 
    The Republic was
very sick and, despite my fondest hopes, there was to be no cure.
    "You've been
drinking," Julia said when I got home.
    "It's been that
sort of day." I told her about the dead Senator while we had dinner in
the courtyard.
    "You have no
business investigating while you're in another office," she said.
"Varus should appoint a
Iudex."
    "It may be years
before a Court for Assassins is appointed to look into this year's
murders. They're happening by the job lot. But this one occurred on my
territory."
    "You just like to
snoop. And you're hoping to get something on Clodius."
    "What will one
more murder laid at his doorstep mean? No, for once, I doubt that
Clodius had anything to do with it." Luckily for me, my Julia was a
favourite niece of the great Caius Julius Caesar, darling of the
Popular Assemblies. Clodius was Caesar's man and dared not move against
me openly, and by this time he considered himself the veritable
uncrowned king of Rome, dispensing largesse and commanding his troops
in royal fashion. As such, sneaky, covert assassination was supposedly
beneath his dignity. Supposedly.
    At that time,
there were two sorts of men contending for power: The Big Three were
all that were left of the lot that had been trying to gain control of
the whole Empire for decades. Then there were men like Clodius and
Milo, who just wanted to rule the City itself. Since the great
conquerors had to be away from the City for years at a time, all of
them had men to look after their interests in Rome. Clodius represented
Caesar. Milo had acted for Crassus, although he was also closely tied
in with Cicero and the star of Crassus was rapidly fading, to wink out
that summer, did we but know it at the time. Plautius Hypsaeus was with
the Pompeian faction, and so it went.
    "Tell me about
it," Julia said, separating an orange into sections. She always
believed her woman's intuition could greatly improve upon the
performance of my plodding reasoning. Sometimes she was right, although
I carefully refrained from telling her so.
    "So you think a
prostitute killed him?" she said when she had heard me out.
    "I only said that
was in keeping with the weapon. I have never known a man to use such a
tool to rid himself of an enemy."
    "Oh, yes. Men
like sharp edges and lots of blood."
    "Exactly. This
little skewer bespeaks a finesse I am reluctant to credit to our
forthright cutthroats."
    "But if the man
owned property all over the City, why take his hired companion to the
cellar of an unfurnished house?"
    "Good question,"
I allowed. "Of course, in such matters, some men have truly recondite
tastes. Why, your own Uncle Caius Julius has been known to enjoy…"
    "Spare me," she
said, very clearly, considering that her teeth were clamped tightly
together.
    With my fellow
Aediles
I shared the warren of office space beneath the ancient Temple of
Ceres. A man was waiting for me when I climbed the steps.
"Aedile
Metellus?" He was a short, bald man and he wore a worried look that
furrowed his brow all the way back to the middle of his scalp. "I am
Manius Varro, the builder."
    "Ah, yes. You
recently completed a townhouse property for Aulus Cosconius?"
    "I did," he said,
still worried. "And I used only the best…"
    "You will be
happy to learn that I found no violations of the code concerning
materials or construction."
    Relief washed
over his face like a wave on a beach. "Oh. It's just about the body,
then?" He shook his head ruefully, trying to look concerned. "Poor
Aulus Cosconius. I'd done a fair amount of business for him over the
years."
    "Was there any
dispute over your payment?"
    He looked
surprised that I should ask. "No. He paid in full for that job months
ago. He'd been planning to put up a big tenement in the Subura, but he
cancelled that a few days ago."
    "Did he say why?"
    "No, just that he
didn't want to start anything big