There were no bloodstains on the tunic. I found no stabbing wounds nor general signs of beating, though he did have identical bad bruises on both his upper arms as if he had been fiercely grabbed. The side of one shin had a small cut, new and about a digit long, from which ran a dried trickle of blood, thin and straight as a dead worm. No serious wounds accounted for his desperate condition until I drew back another cloth. It had been placed at the top of his head, where it formed a wad pressed against his skull.

I peeled it off gently. This explained everything. Someone with unpleasant manners had used Anacrites as a pestle in a very rough mortar, half scalping him. Through the mess of blood and hair I could see to the bone. The spy's cranium had been crushed in a way that had probably damaged his brain.

Calisthenus, the droopy architect, had reappeared in the doorway. He was holding Anacrites' belt; I recognized it from last night. "He was not robbed. There is a purse here." I heard it clink. Laeta grabbed the belt and searched the purse, finding just small change in normal quantities. I didn't bother. If he hoped to discover clues there, Laeta had never dealt with spies. I knew Anacrites would carry no documents, not even a picture of his girlfriend if he had one. If he ever carried a note-tablet he would have been too close even to scratch out a shopping list.

"How did you know he belonged in the Palace, Calisthenus?"

Calisthenus handed me a bone tablet, the kind many officials wear to impress innkeepers when they want a free drink. It gave Anacrites a false name which I had heard him use, and claimed he was a palace secretary; I knew that disguise too, and presumably so did whoever at the Palace received the architect's message.

"Was anything else with him?"

"No."

I lifted the Chief Spy's lifeless left wrist, splaying the cold fingers on mine. "What about his seal ring?" I knew he wore one; he used it to stamp passes and other documents. It was a large chalcedony oval engraved with two elephants entwining trunks. Calisthenus again shook his head. "Sure?" He was growing indignant as only an architect can (all that practice bluffing out overspent estimates and expressing disbelief that clients expect a house that looks like what they asked for...). "No disrespect, Calisthenus, but you might have thought the ring would cover any costs you incurred in tending the victim?"

"I can assure you—"

"All right. Settle down. You have rescued an important state servant; if it does impose any financial burden, send your invoice to the Palace. If the ring turns up it should be returned straightaway. Now if your boy can run out for a litter, my colleague here will take this poor fellow away."

Laeta looked put out that I assigned him to babyminding, but as we watched Anacrites being loaded into a hired chair for what could be his last journey anywhere, I explained that if I was being asked to work on the problem I had best nip off and start. "So what is required, Laeta? You want me to arrest whoever bopped him?"

"Well, that would be interesting, Falco." In fact Laeta sounded as if apprehending the villain was his least concern. I began to wonder if it was wise to let him escort the wounded spy back to the Palatine. "But what investigation do you think Anacrites was working on?"

"Ask the Emperor," I instructed.

"Vespasian is unaware of any major exercise that could be relevant." Did that mean the Emperor was being kept in ignorance— or simply that the intelligence network had no work? No wonder Anacrites always gave the impression he feared compulsory retirement was lurking just around the corner.

"Have you tried Titus?" The Emperor's elder son shared the business of government. He happily involved himself in secrets.

"Titus Caesar had nothing to add. However, it was he who suggested bringing in your good self."

"Titus knows I won't want to tangle with this!" I growled. "I told you: interview Anacrites' staff. If he was on to something, he will have had agents out in the field."

Laeta was frowning. "I have been trying, Falco. I cannot identify any agent he was using. He was very secretive. His recordkeeping was eccentric to say the least. All the named employees on his bureau's roll seem very low-grade runners and messengers."

I laughed. "No operative who worked for Anacrites would be high class!"

"You mean he couldn't choose good people?" Laeta seemed pleased to hear it.

Suddenly I felt angry on the damned spy's behalf. "No, I mean that he was never given any money to pay for quality!" It did raise the question of how his own villa at Baiae had been acquired, but Laeta failed to spot the discrepancy. I calmed down. "Look, he was bound to be secretive; it comes with the job. Olympus! We're talking about him as if he were dead, but that's not so, not yet—"

"Well no indeed!" Laeta muttered. The litter-bearers were maintaining their normal impassive stare straight ahead. We both knew they were listening in. "Titus Caesar suggests we ensure no news of this attack leaks out." Good old Titus. Famous for flair—especially, in my experience, when organizing cover-ups. I had helped him fix a few of those.

I looked Laeta firmly in the eye. "This could have something to do with the dinner last night."

Reluctantly he admitted, "I was wondering about that."

"Why was it you invited me? I had the feeling there was something you wanted to discuss?" He pursed his lips. "Why were you keen to have me meet that senator?"

"Only my own general impression that Quinctius Attractus is getting above himself."

"Might Anacrites have been investigating Attractus?"

"What reason could he have?" Laeta would not even admit that Anacrites might have noticed the man's behavior just as he did.

"Spies don't have to have legitimate reasons; that's why they are dangerous."

"Well somebody has made this one quite a lot less dangerous, Falco."

"Perhaps," I suggested nastily, "I should be asking whether you got on with him badly." Since I knew better than to expect a sensible answer, I turned my attention back to the spy himself.

I wondered whether it would have been better to leave Anacrites discreetly at the house of Calisthenus, paying the architect to have the sick man nursed and to keep quiet about it. But if someone really dangerous was about, the Palace would be safer. Well, it ought to be. Anacrites could be the victim of a straightforward palace plot. I was sending him home to be looked after— that nasty ambiguous phrase. Maybe I was sending him home to be finished off.

Suddenly I felt a surge of defiance. I could see when I was being set up as the booby. Laeta loathed the spy and his motives towards me were ambiguous. I didn't trust Laeta any more than Anacrites, but whatever was going on, Anacrites was in deep trouble. I had never liked him, or what he represented, but I understood how he worked: knee deep in the same middenheap as me.

"Laeta, Titus is right. This needs to be kept quiet until we know what it's about. And you know how rumors fly at the Palace. The best solution is to put Anacrites somewhere else where he can die in peace when he decides to go; then we can choose whether or not to announce it in the Daily Gazette. Leave everything to me. I'll carry him to the Temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island, swear them to secrecy, but give them your name to inform you of developments."

Laeta thought hard, but submitted himself to my plan. Telling him that I had a few ideas of my own to pursue, I waved him off.

 

I then examined the doorway where Anacrites had been found. It was easy to see where and how he had been hurt; I discovered an ugly clump of blood and hair on the house wall. It was below chest height; the spy must have been bent over for some reason, though he carried no marks of any blow that would have doubled him up. I looked around, covering some distance, but found nothing significant.