open side of the bed.
The bed was a noble size, not some scrimped single cot, but plenty of room for two people to sleep, or do whatever else they chose. They cannot have envisaged violently dying in it together.
I propped myself against the opposite wall, moving to one side to avoid squashing Perseus making a manly approach to a monster. It might be a painting, but the gritty Greek hero had a very big spear and he wasn’t going to get ideas about my resting posterior.
Although no sign remained of the crime that took place here, I tried to imagine it, to hear the sudden onslaught of noise and confusion, to feel panic giving way to outright terror, to envisage the dead couple as they had been discovered afterwards, lying on that bed.
Were they cowering together? Out-flung? Curled up foetally? I wondered if they had been awake, or if they woke when their room was invaded, or were they killed before they understood what was happening? With two to be despatched, it was likely that one did realise what happened first to the other. Was it dark? Were there lamps? Did the criminals bring lights of their own? From what I knew so far, neither Aviola nor his wife had time to make any escape attempt. Neither managed to scramble off the bed. Their killer or killers would have dealt with the nearest victim, then leaned across the warm corpse to kill the other. I guessed that Mucia Lucilia, the weaker victim, was second. She may have shrunk against the backboard in terror while she heard Valerius Aviola being choked. Then came her turn. She, poor woman, would have known what was coming.
When I married years ago, I deliberately chose a marriage bed that was not designed with one solid side like the back of a couch. Otherwise, one of you is always having to climb out over the other person. It is so much more convenient to give both partners free exit on their own side of the bed, much more convenient during marital tiffs. Besides, it saves a feisty woman having to spell out for her beloved that she is not allowing him the access side. Which will come as a big shock to him, and inevitably leads to one of those tiffs I mentioned.
Then, too, when someone thinks they have heard a noise at night, the wife who stays in bed does not want to be crushed by enormous feet while her ridiculous husband insists on going to investigate. Or again when he comes crashing back, after he has found nothing.
But what about when the suspicious noise turns out to be a real emergency?
What if you don’t hear intruders until they burst in, rush at you and tighten a rope around your throat?
Did the robbers bring rope? That would show premeditation. Spur of the moment strangulations tend to be carried out with belts or other items of clothing, anything to hand that can be snatched up in fury.
Another question for tomorrow.
While I was musing at the murder scene, it had grown really dark. No lights had been set out anywhere. I found my way back to my room, stepped over Dromo who was snoring on his mat, and fetched one of my lamps. Thank the gods I am a woman who can strike a spark with a flint for herself.
The entire apartment seemed deserted. Although the slave Myla was supposed to be here, I had not seen her and never once heard a baby crying. Perhaps that was common in a home like this. Slaves would be instructed to keep their infants out of sight and silent. Indeed in some houses, the slaves themselves would be expected to remain invisible.
I was working my way into back corridors in the service suite where I might come across the new mother. But it struck me that as I moved around with my single lamp, anyone up to no good in the unlit spaces would be able to track my progress. There was no indication I was being watched, but I felt uncomfortable. I gave up and went to bed.
Needless to say, the guest bed had high ends and a boarded side. Since I was sleeping alone, I could live with that. If anyone tried to break in, I would hear them