Murder Imperial Read online

  MURDER IMPERIAL

  PAUL DOHERTY

  headline

  Copyright © 2003 Paul Doherty

  The right of Paul Doherty to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 5021 6

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachettelivre.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Letter to the Reader

  About the Author

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  Dedication

  Principal Characters

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  History has always fascinated me. I see my stories as a time machine. I want to intrigue you with a murderous mystery and a tangled plot, but I also want you to experience what it was like to slip along the shadow-thronged alleyways of medieval London; to enter a soaringly majestic cathedral but then walk out and glimpse the gruesome execution scaffolds rising high on the other side of the square. In my novels you will sit in the oaken stalls of a gothic abbey and hear the glorious psalms of plain chant even as you glimpse white, sinister gargoyle faces peering out at you from deep cowls and hoods. Or there again, you may ride out in a chariot as it thunders across the Redlands of Ancient Egypt or leave the sunlight and golden warmth of the Nile as you enter the marble coldness of a pyramid’s deadly maze. Smells and sounds, sights and spectacles will be conjured up to catch your imagination and so create times and places now long gone. You will march to Jerusalem with the first Crusaders or enter the Colosseum of Rome, where the sand sparkles like gold and the crowds bay for the blood of some gladiator. Of course, if you wish, you can always return to the lush dark greenness of medieval England and take your seat in some tavern along the ancient moon-washed road to Canterbury and listen to some ghostly tale which chills the heart . . . my books will take you there then safely bring you back!

  The periods that have piqued my interest and about which I have written are many and varied. I hope you enjoy the read and would love to hear your thoughts – I always appreciate any feedback from readers. Visit my publisher’s website here: www.headline.co.uk and find out more. You may also visit my website: www.paulcdoherty.com or email me on: [email protected].

  Paul Doherty

  About the Author

  Paul Doherty is one of the most prolific, and lauded, authors of historical mysteries in the world today. His expertise in all areas of history is illustrated in the many series that he writes about, from the Mathilde of Westminster series, set at the court of Edward II, to the Amerotke series, set in Ancient Egypt. Amongst his most memorable creations are Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan and Roger Shallot.

  Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough. He studied history at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate at Oxford for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now headmaster of a school in north-east London and lives with his wife and family near Epping Forest.

  Also by Paul Doherty

  Mathilde of Westminster

  THE CUP OF GHOSTS

  THE POISON MAIDEN

  THE DARKENING GLASS

  Sir Roger Shallot

  THE WHITE ROSE MURDERS

  THE POISONED CHALICE

  THE GRAIL MURDERS

  A BROOD OF VIPERS

  THE GALLOWS MURDERS

  THE RELIC MURDERS

  Templar

  THE TEMPLAR

  THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN

  Mahu (The Akhenaten trilogy)

  AN EVIL SPIRIT OUT OF THE WEST

  THE SEASON OF THE HYAENA

  THE YEAR OF THE COBRA

  Canterbury Tales by Night

  AN ANCIENT EVIL

  A TAPESTRY OF MURDERS

  A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

  GHOSTLY MURDERS

  THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

  A HAUNT OF MURDER

  Egyptian Mysteries

  THE MASK OF RA

  THE HORUS KILLINGS

  THE ANUBIS SLAYINGS

  THE SLAYERS OF SETH

  THE ASSASSINS OF ISIS

  THE POISONER OF PTAH

  THE SPIES OF SOBECK

  Constantine the Great

  DOMINA

  MURDER IMPERIAL

  THE SONG OF THE GLADIATOR

  THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

  MURDER’S IMMORTAL MASK

  Hugh Corbett

  SATAN IN ST MARY’S

  THE CROWN IN DARKNESS

  SPY IN CHANCERY

  THE ANGEL OF DEATH

  THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

  MURDER WEARS A COWL

  THE ASSASSIN IN THE GREENWOOD

  THE SONG OF A DARK ANGEL

  SATAN’S FIRE

  THE DEVIL’S HUNT

  THE DEMON ARCHER

  THE TREASON OF THE GHOSTS

  CORPSE CANDLE

  THE MAGICIAN’S DEATH

  THE WAXMAN MURDERS

  NIGHTSHADE

  THE MYSTERIUM

  Standalone Titles

  THE ROSE DEMON

  THE HAUNTING

  THE SOUL SLAYER

  THE PLAGUE LORD

  THE DEATH OF A KING

  PRINCE DRAKULYA

  THE LORD COUNT DRAKULYA

  THE FATE OF PRINCES

  DOVE AMONGST THE HAWKS

  THE MASKED MAN

  As Vanessa Alexander

  THE LOVE KNOT

  OF LOVE AND WAR

  THE LOVING CUP

  Kathryn Swinbrooke (as C L Grace)

  SHRINE OF MURDERS

  EYE OF GOD

  MERCHANT OF DEATH

  BOOK OF SHADOWS

  SAINTLY MURDERS

  MAZE OF MURDERS

  FEAST OF POISONS

  Nicholas Segalla (as Ann Dukthas)

  A TIME FOR THE DEATH OF A KING

  THE PRINCE LOST TO TIME

  THE TIME OF MURDER AT MAYERLING

  IN THE TIME OF THE POISONED QUEEN

  Mysteries of Alexander the Great (as Anna Apostolou)

  A MURDER IN MACEDON

  A MURDER IN THEBES

  Alexander the Great

  THE HOUSE OF DEATH

  THE GODLESS MAN

  THE GATES OF HELL

  Matthew Jankyn (as P C Doherty)

  THE WHYTE HARTE

  THE SERPENT AMONGST THE LILIES

  Non-fiction

  THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF TUTANKHAMUN

  ISABELLA AND THE STRANGE DEATH OF EDWARD II

  ALEXANDER THE GREAT: THE DEATH OF A GOD


  THE GREAT CROWN JEWELS ROBBERY OF 1303

  THE SECRET LIFE OF ELIZABETH I

  THE DEATH OF THE RED KING

  Praise for Paul Doherty

  ‘Teems with colour, energy and spills’ Time Out

  ‘Paul Doherty has a lively sense of history . . . evocative and lyrical descriptions’ New Statesman

  ‘Extensive and penetrating research coupled with a strong plot and bold characterisation. Loads of adventure and a dazzling evocation of the past’ Herald Sun, Melbourne

  ‘An opulent banquet to satisfy the most murderous appetite’ Northern Echo

  ‘As well as penning an exciting plot with vivid characters, Doherty excels at bringing the medieval period to life, with his detailed descriptions giving the reader a strong sense of place and time’ South Wales Argus

  In memory of Michael Akos of the United States

  Air Force, tragically killed in August 2002

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  Introduction

  During the trial of Christ, Pilate, according to the gospels, wanted to free the prisoner. He was stopped by a cry that, if he did so, he would be no friend of Caesar’s. According to commentators, Pilate recognised the threat. Every Roman governor and official was closely scrutinised by secret agents of the Emperor, ‘the Agentes in Rebus’, literally ‘the Doers of Things’! The Roman Empire had a police force, both military and civil, though these differed from region to region, but it would be inaccurate to claim the Empire had anything akin to detectives or our own CID. Instead, the Emperor and his leading politicians paid vast sums to informers and spies. These were often difficult to control; as Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s master spy, once wryly remarked, ‘He wasn’t too sure who his own men were working for, himself or the opposition.’

  The Agentes in Rebus were a class apart amongst this horde of gossip-collectors, tale-bearers and, sometimes, very dangerous informers. The Emperors used them, and their testimony could mean the end of a promising career. This certainly applied to the bloody and byzantine period at the beginning of the fourth century AD.

  The Emperor Diocletian had divided the Empire into East and West. Each division had its own Emperor, and a lieutenant, who took the title of Caesar. The Empire was facing economic problems, barbarian incursions. Its state religion was threatened by the thriving Christian Church, which was making its presence felt in all provinces at every level of society.

  In AD 312 a young general, Constantine, supported by his mother Helena, a British-born woman who was already flirting with the Christian Church, decided to make his bid for the Empire of the West. He marched down Italy and met his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. According to Eusebius, Constantine’s biographer, the would-be Emperor saw a vision of the cross, underneath the words ‘In hoc signo vinces’ (‘In this sign you will conquer’). Constantine, the story goes, told his troops to adopt the Christian symbol and won an outstanding victory. He defeated and killed Maxentius and marched into Rome. Constantine was now Emperor of the West, his only rival Licinius, who ruled the Eastern Empire. Constantine, heavily influenced by his mother, grasped the reins of government and began to negotiate with the Christian Church to end centuries of persecution. Nevertheless, intrigue and murder were still masters of the day. There was unfinished business in Rome and the Agentes in Rebus had their hands full . . .

  Prologue

  ‘From one crime we learn the nature of them all.’

  Virgil, Aeneid, II.65

  Rome: Autumn, AD 311

  The Tiber slithered sluggishly like a serpent along its banks, twisting and turning past the temples, the high-rise slums, the thronging quaysides and the gardens of the patricians. Night was falling yet the Tiber flowed and ebbed as it always had, peaceful now, no longer choked with the corpses which had floated and bobbed for days after the crushing of the last conspiracy. The Tiber was accustomed to such horrors: the blood-letting, the usual sequence following a mass proscription, gruesome murders and bone-chilling death. Along its banks Christians had been lashed to crosses, covered in oil, then used as human torches for wayfarers on the river. Now that was all in the past. Nero’s statue on the Palatine Hill had disappeared. His great golden house, his palace with the revolving roof which displayed the constellations of the sky, all gone. Tyrant after tyrant had followed Nero, only to be swept away in the sea of blood they themselves had caused.

  The criers now proclaimed a new Rome. In the catacombs beneath the city, the Christians no longer skulked, paying reverence to the bones of those who died before them in the amphitheatre of the Colosseum. All Rome was rejoicing. Constantine was preparing to march south and the usurper Maxentius was arming to meet him. What did it really matter? The Tiber flowed on. Thousands used it as a source of life: fishermen, merchants, traders and travellers. When the river ebbed, exposing the rich mud and silt, the poor of Rome, or the curious, would come out to search its banks for half-concealed treasures. The young woman and her witless brother were two of these. They came from a respectable home, or at least they used to. Now they stayed with their uncle, Polybius, self-styled entrepreneur, owner and manager of the She-Asses tavern. The young woman, Claudia, pulled the cloak her ‘dear uncle’ had filched off a guest from Ostia closer about her. She walked quietly, her sandalled feet squelching in the mud.

  ‘Come on, Felix!’ she called, then smiled.

  Felix was wandering, hands dangling by his sides. He was not looking for treasure, but shells, the relics of life from the river. She ran back and shook him. His head came up, slack lips and empty eyes. He recognised his sister’s face and, in the dim light, made out the signs her fingers made.

  ‘You must keep up,’ the message went. ‘You should stay close to me. I’ve brought you here because you wanted to come.’

  She stopped and half-listened to the noise from the city. Tomorrow she was to entertain her uncle’s guests with a public recitation of Aesop’s fables. Claudia turned away, Felix trotting behind her like a dog. They were so engrossed in their task that the man who stepped out of the shadows of the deserted quayside made them both start. Claudia couldn’t make out his face, though his toga and sandals were costly. She glimpsed the chalice tattooed on his left wrist.

  ‘Well, well, well!’ he slurred. ‘What have we here?’

  He grasped her by the shoulders. Claudia fought back. She was used to such drunken attention, but now she panicked. The man was stronger than she thought. Felix came running up. He grasped the man’s hand. The stranger threw him away. Claudia screamed. Her cry went unanswered. This part of the Tiber was near the Maxima Cloaca, where the sewers of the city debouched their waste from the latrines and cesspits. Felix closed again, his mouth open in a dumb scream. Claudia tried to prevent him. Her assailant moved like a viper. The knife he drew glittered in the moonlight, and with one quick slash he cut the young man’s throat. Felix dropped like a stone. Claudia knelt down beside him, screaming, the tears flowing down her face. She heard a movement in the squelching mud. Felix’s death had proved no obstacle: her assailant was above her, the knife coming down.

  Rome: Spring, AD 313

  She was beautiful enough. Her golden hair was decorated with a diadem. Pearls for earrings, a jewelled collar round her slim throat, its pendant hanging between swelling breasts. The circlet round her ankle was shimmering silver whilst the silk gown was cunningly dyed with purple. Her corpse lay sprawled beneath the black poplars in the Gardens of Sallust. Her pretty eyes were closed, the voluptuous mouth smudged with blood. The marks round her throat were still fresh. The angry red weals showed how her life had been throttled out. The assailant knelt down and checked the pulse in the young woman’s throat and then, beneath the silk, the beat of her heart. All silent. The flesh was turning cold. The courtesan’s head was turned, the golden hair pushed gently back. The dark-garbed attacker, balancing the knife carefully, etched the bloody cross, first on the forehead and then on each cheek.

  Chapter 1

  ‘A snake lurks in
the grass.’

  Virgil, Eclogues, III. 64

  Rome: Spring, AD 313

  In the slaughterhouse of the Domus Julia on the Palatine Hill, the spy Claudia sat on an uncomfortable stool and looked impassively at the man in a red-trimmed white tunic perched on another stool carefully studying her. Claudia hid all emotion; fear or pity would achieve nothing. The slaughterhouse was cold; an icy stillness reigned. She looked down to avoid the man’s gaze. The floor was still covered in blood-soaked sawdust. She wondered whether this was from the beef hanging from the iron rail or the corpse of the young woman whose throat had been cut and a piece of rope tied round her neck before being hoisted on to one of the hooks.

  Claudia rubbed her arms. Outside she heard the murmur of the palace, the distant cries of the guards on the late-night breeze. She had considered running, but where could she flee to? It was only a matter of time before Caesar’s dogs hunted her down. Anyway, she wanted to stay. She was both intrigued and frightened. She had been busy in the kitchen, washing the fleshing boards in barrels of hot water, when the Augusta’s secretary, Anastasius, had come to collect her. He’d smiled but gripped her by the elbow. Once they were outside, he’d made those signs with his fingers that she should accompany him. She had been brought here and made to sit. Anastasius had lit oil lamps and placed them carefully on the floor around her as if she was some statue or Lares, a household god to be honoured and reverenced rather than frightened.

  Claudia glanced at the corpse hanging from the hook. When she had first seen it she had started but kept a still tongue in her head. She recognised Fortunata; in the circumstances, rather an unhappy name. Fortunata had been a wine-girl, adeptly skilled at filling cups and goblets at this banquet or that. She always wore a low-cut tunic to give the drinkers a good view of her swelling breasts. Much good it would do her now. Her corpse was no more than a slab of meat, the breasts sagging like empty sacks. The lovely legs hung haphazardly, and her face, blue-white, with staring eyes and blood-red mouth . . . Claudia glanced away: Anastasius was still smiling at her but, of course, the deaf mute always smiled. His thin, olive face under tousled, oiled hair seemed to know no other expression; always a smile, with the lips and the eyes, as if Anastasius believed this would disarm the rest of the world. Usually it did.