Murder on the Appian Way Read Online Free PDF Page A

taught him good manners. The young man and the wounded man looked up and peered suspiciously at Eco and me.
    The wounded man frowned. "Who in Hades —?"
    The young man stared at us dully. "It must be that fellow my Aunt Clodia sent for."
    The door opened. A pair of feminine eyes peered out. Our escort cleared, his throat. "The one called Gordianus, and his son, Eco."
    The slave girl nodded and opened the door. Eco and I stepped inside. Our escort stayed behind as the girl shut the door.
    The room had the feeling of a sanctuary. Thick rugs covered the floor and tapestries covered the walls, mufflingthe quiet crackling of the single brazier that warmed the room and cast long shadows into the corners. Against one wall there was a long table, like an altar, with a few women clustered before it, their backs turned to us. The women were robed in black, their hair let loose to fall over their shoulders. They seemed not to notice our arrival. The slave girl went to one of them and touched her gently on the elbow. Clodia turned and looked at us from across the room.
    I had not seen her for almost four years, since the trial of Marcus Caelius. Clodia had retained my services to assist the prosecution; things had not gone as she planned, and her miscalculations had ended badly for her. Since then she had led a much quieter, more private existence, or so one heard, on the rare occasions when her name was mentioned. But I had not forgotten her. One never forgets a woman like Clodia.
    She walked slowly towards us, the hem of her black gown trailing behind her. Her perfume reached us a moment before she did, scenting the air with the essence of crocus and spikenard. I had always seen her with her hair pulled back and held in place by pins. Now she wore it down for grieving, giving a lustrous black frame to the striking angles of her cheekbones and the proud line of her nose. She was past forty now, but her skin was still like white rose petals. Her smooth cheeks and forehead seemed to glow by the flickering light of the brazier. Her eyes - those famous, glittering green eyes - were red from weeping, but her voice was steady.
    "Gordianus! I thought I glimpsed you in the crowd. This is your son?"
    "My elder son, Eco."
    She nodded, blinking back tears. "Come, sit with me." She led us to a corner and gestured for us to sit on one couch while she sat on another. She pressed one hand against her forehead and shut her eyes. She seemed on the verge of sobbing, but after a moment she breathed deeply and sat upright, folding her hands in her lap.
    The light from the brazier was interrupted by a shadow. One of the others had crossed the room to join us. She sat beside Clodia and reached for her hands.
    "My daughter, Metella," said Clodia, though I hardly needed to be told. The young woman was unmistakably her mother's child. Perhaps she would even become as beautiful as her mother, given time. A beauty like Clodia's was not something a woman could be born with. It consisted of more than what the eyes could see, of a mystery behind the flesh which accrues only with the passage of time.
    "I seem to remember that you have a daughter the same age," said Clodia quietly.
    "Diana," I said. "Seventeen."
    Clodia nodded. Metella suddenly began to weep. Her mother embraced her for a moment, then released her and sent her to rejoin the others. "She loved her uncle very much," Clodia said.
    "What happened?"
    Her voice was strained and colourless, as if any display of emotion would make it impossible for her to speak. "We don't know for certain. He was down south, at his villa past Bovillae. Something happened on the road. They say it was Milo, or Milo's men. A skirmish. Others were killed, not just Publius." There was a catch in her voice. She paused to compose herself "Someone passing by just happened to find his body in the road - there wasn't even anyone standing guard over him! Strangers brought him back to the city. His body arrived here just after sundown.