A Point of Law by John Maddox Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

the steps to talk this matter over.
    Word spread through the Forum with bewildering speed and within seconds the whole mob had flocked to the western end, at the foot of the Capitoline, to get a look at the body and at us.
    “This could get ugly,” Juventius said.
    “Why?” I asked him. “The man is—was—all but unknown. It’s not like he was Tribune of the People or a gang leader like Clodius.”
    “You know how it works,” Juventius said. “He was a nobody. He dared to challenge one of the great families. He ended up dead. How do you think they’re going to interpret it?”
    “The man was an impertinent scoundrel who must have had plenty of enemies,” Father said. “Anyone could have killed him.”
    “Would just anyone,” Juventius replied hotly, “have killed him and left his body on the steps of
this
basilica on the morning his case was to be heard in
my
court?”
    “Lower your voice,” I advised him. “You’re encouraging a bad mood here yourself.”
    “Oh, I am? I do hope you had plenty of witnesses as to your whereabouts last night, young Decius Caecilius, because you now face charges a good deal more serious than skinning some pack of provincials and tax-gouging
publicani
.”
    “Are you calling me a suspect in this man’s murder?” I shouted, forgetting my own advice. Among other things, I hated being called “Young Decius,” even when my father was there.
    “Uh-oh,” Hermes said, touching my arm and pointing to the southeast. A pack of determined men were pushing their way through the crowd. In their forefront was a man with a swollen nose and two blackened eyes. He was the one Hermes had punched the previous day. They shoved everyone out of their way until they stood over the body of Fulvius. At the bloody sight, they cried out in dismay.
    “We met this morning at the house of Marcus Fulvius,” said the black-eyed man, his voice slightly distorted by his swollen nasal passages. “We waited for him to come out so we could accompany him to court. When he did not come out by gray dawn, we made search for him. He was nowhere to be found. We came to the Forum expecting to find him here, and when we reached the Temple of the Public Lares, at the north end of the Forum, we heard that someone lay murdered in the basilica.
    “Now,” he roared, playing to the mob, “we find our friend Marcus Fulvius lying here, drenched in his own blood, and his
murderer”
—he jammed a dirty finger toward my breast as if he were throwing a javelin—“standing over him!”
    Hermes was about to give him a broken jaw to go with the rest, but I restrained him.
    “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” I proclaimed, “and I canproduce witnesses, among them the most distinguished men in Rome, to attest to my whereabouts last night!” But not, I reminded myself, for the early hours of this morning. It was not my job to point these things out to my accusers.
    “Is this justice?” howled another man, this one a red-haired lout. “Are we to allow these
nobles
, these
Caecilians
to murder good Roman men? Does their high birth give them leave to shed blood on the very steps of the basilica?” There were mutters from the crowd, along with cries of “Never!” and “Down with them!” from here and there. But it was too early, the crowd still too somnolent and surprised for riot conditions.
    “Lictors,” Juventius said impatiently, “arrest those troublemakers.”
    “Don’t do that,” I cautioned. “It’s what they want.”
    “That sounds odd coming from you,” he said. “These men are howling for your blood.”
    “This is a well-rehearsed gang. Anyone can see that. They were primed for this long before they got to the Forum.”
    “Will you answer us?” yelled the black-eyed man.
    “Who are you to make demands of a praetor?” Juventius yelled back.
    More people were forcing their way forward. The people made way for one of them, and he mounted the steps. He wore no insignia of office, but