“Where?” I demanded.
Again, Cassia shot me a look of perplexity, but she would not question me while we were outside on the street.
“At the Pons Aemilius,” Duilia said.
Without answer, I turned my steps down the hill I’d gladly ascended moments ago.
I knew the spot she meant. The Tiber bent sharply to the south just downstream of the Insula Tiberina. There an embankment wall secured the stone arches of the Pons Aemilius and attempted to keep the often-flooding river at bay. Just below this bridge, the great Cloaca Maximus drained water into the Tiber.
A body could have slammed against the embankment’s walls, bobbing there before the current could carry it further. My mentor had often praised the strength of that wall, made of opus caementicium.
I moved through the noise, smell, and crush of the streets toward the Tiber, my mind racing.
Laurentius could not be dead. Not if he’d obeyed what I’d commanded when he’d left us the day before yesterday. He’d nodded at me, grinned, and claimed he’d do as I wished.
I strode so swiftly that I left the two women behind. I heard snatches of their conversation—Cassia tried to pry more information from Duilia, but the young woman had little to add.
A knot of vigiles and urban cohorts lingered on the square blocks of the wall above the river. The Pons Aemilius, one of the first stone bridges constructed in Rome, stretched its substantial length beside us. Men and women scurried across it, oblivious of the drama on the bank.
As I approached, I saw Scaevola, the captain of the vigile house in my neighborhood, but it wasn’t unusual for vigiles of other jurisdictions to be summoned to help with an unusual crime. Duilius and his wife, Camille, hovered nearby, the pair huddled under cloaks against the fog.
The mists were heaviest by the river, with nothing visible beyond the substantial bridge and the flashes of people on it. Someone walking on this wall, or the bridge, could easily misstep in the dark and fog, ending up in the water below.
Laurentius was not supposed to have been anywhere near this area.
I pushed through the vigiles until I stood among those clustered around the corpse. The dead man, who lay face down, had the wiriness of Laurentius as well as his thick dark hair. The scraps of tunic on the lifeless body, bruised and nicked by rocks in the river, could have belonged to him.
Scaevola flopped the man onto his back. Water bubbled up through gray lips, flowing remorselessly over his throat and what was left of the tunic.
I wasn’t certain how anyone would recognize the young man. His features were bloated and gray, cut and blackened like the rest of him.
“No.” Duilia had come to stand beside me. She gazed down at the corpse, her body rigid. Cassia, on the other hand, peered down at Laurentius with almost professional curiosity. I could imagine her memorizing the details to discuss with Marcianus.
“Get these women away from here,” Scaevola barked at a younger vigile.
Cassia gently tugged at Duilia’s hand, but Duilia would not budge. The vigile, moving to obey Scaevola, stepped next to Duilia.
“No,” Duilia repeated stubbornly.
“I know it’s hard, love, but go back to your parents.” Scaevola’s command was impatient but not unkind.
“I meant, no—that is not Laurentius.”
Both Scaevola and I snapped our attention back to the corpse. I had not known Laurentius long, but the dead man looked much him. Enough so that a killer might have made a mistake in the dark.
“Are you certain?” Scaevola asked in surprise. “Hard to tell, when he’s been banged about in the water.”
Duilia shook her head resolutely. “He is not my brother.” She pointed at his exposed right arm, which bore a jagged scar on its inner flesh, not a new one. The grayness of his skin made the scar stark and white. “He never had such an injury.”
I couldn’t remember whether I’d seen the scar on Laurentius or not, but Duilia would know.
Scaevola straightened up from the body with a sigh. “I’ll have to ask around, find out who he is.” He sounded highly annoyed, then flushed when he caught Duilia’s steady gaze. “I am happy your family is spared the tragedy.”
He spoke without much inflection, as though having learned in his long career what platitudes to spew when he needed them.
His irritation remained, though. Scaevola had thought he could send the body off to Duilius and Camille to take care of. Now the vigiles would have to make an investigation to find out who the dead man was before consigning him to a common grave with whatever other unknowns were found today.
Scaevola was experienced enough not to simply dump the body on others and walk away. This young man might belong to a prominent or wealthy family who could make life hard for the vigile or cohort who’d discarded him. Likewise, they might reward a man who brought their beloved son’s body home.
