We had entered not a tiny cell with a straw pallet, which was all most fighters ever acquired, but a tall room about ten feet square. Its walls, once plain, had been painted in a rich dark red then completely covered with graffiti of arena scenes. Stickmen with swords chased each other, stabbed each other, fell down and stared up in mute appeal at each other. Lively fights were depicted all over the middle ground and upper frieze. Thracians hung their heads and died above the dado; myrmillons were being dragged out lifeless below it while Rhadamanthus, King of the Underworld, supervised in his beaked mask, accompanied by Hermes with his snaky staff.

Rumex had owned a lot of stuff. Armor and weapons would be kept by his master, but he had been laden with gifts. A vibrant Egyptian carpet, which most people would have preserved as a treasured wall-hanging, lay rucked by casual usage on the floor. Apart from the bed, the furniture comprised huge chests, one or two standing open to reveal mounds of tunics, cloaks, and furnishings, all presumably donated by admirers. On a tripod a smaller coffer revealed a jumble of gold chains, armlets, and collars. Goblets of exquisite workmanship stood on burnished trays alongside others that were in execrable taste, though stuck with costly gems. Since Saturninus would have extracted the greater percentage of what was dotingly presented to his hero, the original tally must have been enormous. (An appealing prospect for us two as auditors, since it had not been represented in the lanista's accounts.)

The two gladiator guards and the keyman were peering in after us, starting to grow nervous. Anacrites fetched out a note tablet; despite his bored manner, his stylus moved at speed. He was listing the stuff. I nodded and went to the bed, like a curious tourist.

Rumex lay on his back as if he were asleep. He was wearing only a single white tunic, probably an undergarment. One arm, that nearest to me, was slightly bent, as if he might have been leaning up on his elbow but had fallen back as he died. His great head faced towards me as I stood at his bedside. Beneath him was the kind of coverlet under which imperial princesses snuggle up to their lovers. Its rich nap must be tickling the back of his thick neck.

It was the neck that transfixed my attention. Around it lay a heavy gold chain; but not the one with his name on that I had seen him wearing before. The new one was pulled tight across the throat, but at the back of the head it looked looped up, where it would have caught in the hair had the gladiator not been so closely shaven. The chain lying oddly was intriguing enough. Either somebody had tried to remove it-or Rumex had been pulling it on over his head.

That was not what made me draw so sharp a breath. A short trail of congealed blood disfigured the luxurious bed-cover beneath the dead man's cheek. It ran from a small wound where Rumex had been stabbed through the throat.

Thirty-three

ICROOKED AN EYEBROW TO Anacrites. He came across and I heard him groan under his breath. With one forefinger he tried gently to pull loose the gold chain, but it held fast under the weight of Rumex's head.

Each of us must have been thinking this through: he was relaxed in bed when he was stabbed; it was quite unexpected. Something was going on with this chain, but the killer chose not to steal the thing. Perhaps horror overcame him. Perhaps he was disturbed at the scene. Perhaps the cost of the chain had seemed a good investment and it was readily abandoned once the gladiator was dead.

The knife was missing. From the size of the wound, it must have a small, slim blade. A hand-knife, easily concealed. In a city where it was forbidden to go armed, a bauble you could excuse to the vigiles as your domestic fruit-knife. A little thing that might even belong to a woman-though whoever struck that blow had used masculine speed, surprise, and force. Also perhaps experience.

Anacrites stepped back; so did I. We had made a space that let the two gladiators see the corpse. From their grim exclamations it was the first time.

They knew death. They must have seen their colleagues killed in the ring. Even so, this deceptive scene, with Rumex so obviously at his ease at the moment of his killing, had deeply affected them. At heart they were men. Horrified, pitying, undemonstrative yet stricken. Just like us.

My own mouth felt dry and sour. 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?

When had I said that? Over Leonidas.

I played it as carefully as possible. "Poor fellow. Do you know who first discovered him?"

One of the gladiators was still speechless. The other forced himself to croak, "His minders this morning." The man had no neck, with a broad, ruddy, wide-chinned face that in other situations would have been naturally cheerful. He looked overweight, his chest in a fold and his arms chubbier than was ideal. I put him down as a retired survivor, running to seed.

"What's happened to the minders?"

"The boss took them away somewhere."

"Saturninus himself extracted them?"

"Yes."

Well that had a neat symmetry. First Calliopus had lost his lion and tried to disguise the circumstances. Now Saturninus had lost his best fighter and it looked as if a cover-up had been applied swiftly here too.

"Was he angry that they let someone get to Rumex?" The two new guards exchanged a glance and I had a feeling the old minders had been given a heavy thrashing. It would serve a double purpose: punishment-and making sure they kept their mouths shut.

"I heard about it in the Forum," Anacrites murmured, staring at the corpse. He managed to sound like anyone stunned by shocking news. A good spy, lacking character himself, he could blend into the background like fine mist blurring the contours of a Celtic glen. "Everyone was talking about it, though nobody understood what had happened. All sorts of stories were starting to circulate-if anyone asks us, what is supposed to be put out?"

"Died in his sleep," said the first guard. I smiled wryly. Typical of Saturninus. Effectively true-yet it gave away nothing.

"You must have been friends with Rumex. Who do you think did it?" I asked. With a creak of leather, the guard shrugged his big shoulders helplessly. "Do we know if he had visitors last night?"

"Rumex was always having visitors. Nobody kept count."

"Women, presumably. Don't his minders know who was here?"

The two gladiators exchanged mirthless laughs. I could not tell whether they were commenting on the number of female admirers their dead friend entertained in his room, the uselessness of the clique of slaves surrounding him, or some much more mysterious point. It was clear they did not intend to enlighten me.

"Didn't Saturninus try to find out if any women called on Rumex last night?"

Again that sense of hidden mirth. "The boss knows better than to ask about Rumex and his women," I was told in an oblique tone.

Anacrites pulled a fresh cover from one of the overflowing chests and spread it over the corpse with a show of respect. Just before he covered the face, he asked, "Was this a new chain?"

"Never seen it before."

Anacrites asked why the body was still lying here, and we heard that the undertaker was expected later that night. There certainly would be a more than decent funeral, paid for by the gladiators' own burial club, to which Rumex had in his lifetime contributed generously. Nobody knew why Saturninus had locked up the body instead of simply sending for the funeral arrangers earlier.