The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fic - By Mike Ashley Page 0,7

never met before. The same, I more or less implied, held true of the servers, who were also from Syriscus’ agency. As for the flute-girls, including the one carried off by Naso, they could be ruled out straight away, since mere slips of girls wouldn’t have been capable of manhandling Naso’s substantial body. Therefore, I concluded, if Naso hadn’t been removed from the house by anybody else, he must’ve removed himself. That proposition established, the likeliest reconstruction of events, I suggested, was the one set forth in my report.

I concluded by praising the energy and intelligence of my colleague, Orestes of Corinth, in the investigation. I had three copies made and sent one to Hiero as soon as the ink was dry.

*

What, after all, is truth? In a court of law, it’s a narrative of certain events which a majority of the jury believe to be accurate. In science, it’s a hypothesis that fits (or at least covers) all the known facts without contravening any of the established laws of nature. In mathematics, it’s the inevitable product of the component variables. In the subscience of history, it’s the most plausible explanation of the undisputed evidence. In diplomacy, it’s a version acceptable to both parties and incapable of being disproved.

*

Hiero sent my report to Rome, along with a request that the negotiations be resumed. The Romans replied with a new team of negotiators, headed by one Publius Laurentius Scaurus, a man of whom even I had heard.

“It’s an honour,” Scaurus said to me, having backed me into a corner at the official reception, “and a tremendous privilege to meet you. What can I say? You’re my hero. The greatest living philosopher.”

His breath smelt of onions. “Thank you,” I said.

“Your experiment with the golden crown—”

“Actually,” I really didn’t want to hear him sing my praises, “I was rather taken with your latest effort. Mechanical advantage, wasn’t it? The application of balanced forces in opposing vectors?”

He blushed red as a winestain. “You’ve actually read my paper?”

“Of course,” I said. “Excellent work. And it happens to be a field in which I’ve dabbled quite a bit myself.”

“Dabbled,” he repeated. “You’ve only written the most significant monograph on the subject in human history. Your wonderful dictum—”

I raised my hand, not really wanting to hear my wonderful dictum, but he ignored me. “‘Give me a firm place to stand’, you said, ‘and I can move the Earth.’ Inspirational.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t say that.”

“Excuse me?”

“What I said was,” I told him, “something along the lines of ‘if a fellow had a really solid place to stand on and a long enough bit of good, strong wood, there’s no reason I can see why he shouldn’t be able to move something really quite big.’ Not the same thing at all,” I added, smiling. “Actually, I prefer your version. Much neater.”

“Thank you,” he said, frowning. “Of course, my little paper’s really only a series of footnotes to yours. The truly groundbreaking conceptual thinking—”

“You’re here as a negotiator?” I asked. “In place of poor Naso.”

He sighed. “A great man,” he said. “We miss him.”

“You read my report,” I said. “About his disappearance?”

He tried to look surprised. “That was your report? Well, I suppose I should’ve known. Very persuasive, of course, and the evidence presented with such clarity—”

“It was signed,” I said. “Perhaps you didn’t read the first line.”

Eventually someone rescued me, and I hobbled away into a corner and hid behind a couple of tall colonels until we were called in to dinner.

*

On the first day of the negotiations, Scaurus raised the question of his predecessor’s death.

A report had been received, he said, in which King Hiero tried to make out that Naso had been, in effect, responsible for his own death; that he’d crept furtively away from a party held in his honour, somehow evading the guards provided at his own request for his own protection, scrambling over a high wall – which Caecilius Naso could never have done, he pointed out, having been severely wounded in battle in the service of his country, as a result of which he walked with a pronounced limp, something which anybody who had ever met him couldn’t possibly have helped noticing. The report, he went on, his eyes blazing with righteous indignation, was nothing less than an insult to the memory of a loyal and valiant officer, propagated by the very people who had brought about his death, in a callous attempt to disrupt the peace process which the Roman