'Well, standing here won't shift him-'
I hauled away the covering, exposing the body full length.
The corpse lay just as it had fallen, yet hideously different. We could sense how its innards were collapsing while maggots seethed within. I dared not look at the face.
'Jupiter, Falco; this bastard was middle-class!' Frontinus looked troubled. 'You ought to know, no middle-ranker passes on without an announcement in the Daily Gazette to warn the gods in Hades that the shade of an eminent person is expecting the best seat in Charon's ferryboat-'
He was right. If a body came to light wearing clothing with the narrow purple bands of a Roman knight, busy officials would insist on knowing whose son or father this worthy specimen had been.
'Let's hope he's not modest,' I agreed quietly. 'He'll have to be undressed…'
Julius Frontinus muttered my brother's rude word again.