Bookworm Gladiator

BRUTUS

Law and order, that's all Brutus ever asked for.

But Palmyra was a conniving bitch. No, it was a snake, biting it's own tail in greed, or hate or whatever it was that dumped the half-eaten body of a man in the quarry. Brutus covered his nose with a scarf; a prayer scarf that his wife had perfumed with honey and pine, ascribing to it prayers, both written and verbal overnight. She made him promise that he'd rub it on his face and neck periodically. Turned out, it was just what he needed when examining corpses.

The body lay not too far down an old quarry that had been abandoned. The guts were chewed up, and Brutus figured some scavengers had gotten to it. Although, he hadn't seen any vultures when arriving. Brutus studied the sky, and then the surrounding site where the only structure close-by was the brick kiln and the southern burial grounds. No sign of blood and struggle. This was not where the murder had taken place.

Brutus slid down the side of the quarry, coming to a stop just beside the ruined corpse. The stench burned his eyes.

"Time of death?" Brutus asked his slave-clerk Diram. The rat-nosed man adjusted his spectacles and replied, "Not sure, sir, but I think it was when he was being eaten."

"You're useless."

"My apologies, sir. We do know that he was dumped after the night shift at the kiln. The workers would have seen it. This morning, then."

Or maybe it was the laborers themselves who had done it. Brutus wouldn't put it past them, especially their Nokchi leader, Septimus. One of Atia's goons. A hateful creature with hateful eyes. Brutus spat out a glob of phlegm as he studied the ruined carcass. The body had been mutilated, cut in half and chewed on, guts first. The face was gone.

"What's for lunch, Diram?" Brutus called back to his man. They'd gotten some sacrificial goat meat as a bribe from the Komare tribe and it would go bad if they didn't have it cooked today.

"Your wife sent some beans for you, sir," Diram replied.

"You can have those. I want the goat."

"The goat?" Diram squinted down at Brutus.

"Yes, from the Komare tribe."

"You denied that bribe, sir. You told their messenger, and I humbly quote: "I won't eat anything that's been fucked by your Chief Abed"."

"I said that?"

"Verbatim."

Since when had Brutus become a man of virtue?

"I believe you were drunk most of that day, sir," Diram continued.

"That explains it," Brutus said as his stomach turned. He really should've had some breakfast. But he wouldn't give his wife the pleasure of returning back home now. Beans it is.

Brutus turned back to the murdered man. The faceless man. It was a man, wasn't it? Brutus leaned in, poking around the trousers of the body. The feet were gone, but just around the shins he noticed stab wounds. Not violent ones, but those done with a ritualistic tool they used in the temples to bloody their feet and self-lacerate. Odd.

Brutus walked around to the head of the body, careful not to slip on the sandy dune and roll down the quarry like a clumsy mountain goat. Posting himself with one hand on a protruding rock, he lifted the dead man's head with his foot, observing the hair for any sign of tearing. Temple-worshippers often pulled their hair in ceremonial sacrifices, especially at the Temple of Baal. And just as he'd imagined, Brutus noticed bald patches and uneven hair lines in the matted, dirt-caked skull.

"Diram."

"Yes, sir."

"It's another temple-wailer."

"That would make it three this month," Diram noted in his tablet. The first body had been discovered by a drover in the northern hills, left in a rusted wheel-barrow by the side of the road. The second they'd pulled out of the riverbed a week ago. And now this.

Brutus climbed out of the quarry and dusted his hands clean, using his wife's scarf to freshen his face. He wondered where he'd find the next body. It'd become a game at this point; a serial killer was leaving him clues around the city, and perhaps there was a rhyme and reason to it after all.

Or perhaps not. It could be the slaves after all. One of the troublesome Nokchi skulking around, attacking other Temple slaves in the dark. Brutus would be fine with that, as the murder could be defined as a simple destruction of Temple property and he could let the courts sort that out. But one of these days, the body could belong to a citizen, or even a patrician. And that is something Brutus could not let happen. So for now, he would play this game, and continue to sniff around and let Cato think there was a demon loose in the streets. It all meant all the more funding for the Vigils and more responsibility. And with more responsibility, came more power. And it was on the back of power that law and order rode.

Brutus' hairy, lumpy back. He stretched his shoulder muscles, and twisted his neck. All the training for the tournament had left him feeling sore. Truth be told, the training had been much worse than the actual fight itself. He had whipped a muling farm-boy for ten minutes with ease. The crowd had loved the match but Brutus had been left feeling a little underwhelmed by the lack of challenge. He needed something more. Someone more.

"I buried Achilles around here, didn't I?" Brutus asked Diram.

"Your dog?"

"The one and only," Brutus said, eyes scanning the road for the jujube bushes that had surrounded his dog's grave. There was a dead tree that had marked the area as well but some desperate soul had taken that. He finally spotted a few dried and burnt bushes that looked familiar.

Achilles had been a good boy. There wasn't much in Brutus' life that made him chuckle without mirth - a light-hearted chuckle; not the one he let out when he crushed his prisoner's toes. The type of chuckle Brutus' would have had seeing his children play if he'd had any. But he'd only ever had a dog. And he'd been Brutus' only true friend in life.

His wife Gaia was alright too, he supposed. But she didn't play catch now did she?

"How have you been, you old hyena?" Brutus placed a hand on the sun-dried patch of grass. Many times in the first lonely nights, he'd thought of coming out here and digging up the bastard's skull. Maybe have Diram carry it around. Would be an improvement on the slave's appearance, no doubt. Brutus found himself chuckling, a low rumble that began in his belly and escaped in deep, short bursts. Truly a man's only friend, even in death.

"What do you say, Achilles?" Brutus asked the silent dirt. After some silence, Brutus grimaced. "Fine. Stay there, then."

"Sir?" Diram interrupted.

"What is it?"

"There is still the matter of the missing kiln workers."

Missing? Brutus immediately forgot Achilles and faced the slave-clerk. "What do you mean missing?"

"They walked out of the labor camp, to attend some funeral of a soap-seller or some such. The kiln master reported it immediately this morning."

Not an entirely wasted day, then. Brutus would get to catch some slaves today, and maybe even get the chance to interrogate for the murders. That was the thing with law and order that people didn't really understand - you had to play a little dirty to get it going. "Get the Vigil boys together, Diram. We're going hunting."

***