The page gave me an uncertain smile. ‘Yes, citizen.’
‘Good,’ I said heartily. ‘Now, what are we to do with this tray? I cannot stomach fish sauce at this time of night.’
‘Perhaps Flavius would like it,’ Junio suggested. ‘Or, if you could take something, the rest could be returned as scraps to the servants. No doubt some of them would appreciate it.’
That was an obvious solution, once he had suggested it, and judging by the hungry way Rollo was eyeing the pork and fennel, an appreciative recipient would not be hard to find. I took a spoon, for form’s sake, and moved the food around the plates a little, to disturb the symmetry with which it had been arranged, but without actually eating any. Then I took up the cup which contained the sleeping draught.
‘Very well, Rollo,’ I said, ‘you may deal with this tray and then attend on Flavius. Ensure that the platters do not return to the kitchens too full.’
Rollo seized the tray eagerly.
‘And don’t forget,’ I said, ‘that you are to come back when you have spoken to Flavius.’
‘I won’t, citizen. I won’t.’ Rollo gave me a conspiratorial look and fled, as though I had offered him a bribe.
Which perhaps in a sense I had. A plateful of good food is sometimes better than money to a slave. At least a man can hide food in a place where no one else can steal it. It was sobering to realise how much such a gift would once have meant to me — fish-pickle sauce or not.
Junio thought so too. ‘I think you have won a devoted friend there, master. At no cost to yourself. Now, since you have asked him to return, do you wish to drink this sleeping potion now, or would you prefer that I should sing for you?’
I had taught him some of the old, haunting Celtic melodies. He had a soft, pleasing voice, and he knew it delighted me to hear him.
‘Sing softly, then,’ I said. ‘We do not wish to disturb the lament.’
Outside, Julia was crooning her lamentations, wistful and heartbreaking. Her lamenting was replaced by Sollers, and then one by one by the voices of slaves. The night darkened, and the dawn had begun to lighten the courtyard before I drank the potion Sollers had sent and drifted finally to sleep.
And still Rollo did not come.
Chapter Ten
Neither was he in evidence next morning, when, aroused by a general commotion in the courtyard, I finally awoke.
Junio was standing beside me with a brimming bowl (I still liked to plunge my face, Celtic-fashion, into cold water on awakening), and an appetising morning meal of fresh milk and hot oatcakes. The Romans can keep their breakfast of fruit, bread and watered wine — this was a feast for a king. I said so to Junio as I made the ritual offering of the first few drops from my cup.
He grinned. ‘I bought it for you fresh from the street sellers, master. With Julia’s blessing. I said that you would like it above all things — though Maximilian was inclined to be irritated that I had scorned his kitchens. The family, of course, will eat only bread and water today until the funeral banquet, but they cannot expect Marcus to do so, or you and Flavius either, so it was easier to send out for something. In any case, the household kitchens are full to bursting with preparations for the feast.’ He tucked into one of the delicious oatcakes which, as usual, I had set aside for him.
‘Fit for a king,’ I said again, when the last warm, fragrant crumb was gone and we were licking our fingers reluctantly.
Junio’s grin broadened. ‘Well, if His Majesty has sufficiently feasted, perhaps he would like me to help him with his toga? I imagine you would like us to go and look for Rollo?’ He said ‘us’, I noticed, as if it were inevitable that he should assist me in any enquiries, but I made no comment. I allowed him to drape me in my toga and we went outside.
It was a damp and drizzling day, made drearier by the moaning rise and fall of the distant lament, but the courtyard was full of bustle. Slaves with buckets, cloths, feather dusters, sponges and ladders scampered everywhere, while a pair of lads were already busy scattering sawdust in the colonnade and sweeping it up again with their twig brooms. Clearly the house was to be as clean as the Emperor’s armour before the expected guests arrived.
I led the way into the atrium, but there was no sign of Rollo, and we wandered through the front enclosure towards the gate. Visitors were already arriving. News of the decurion’s death had spread quickly overnight, and from the murmur outside it seemed that half Corinium was at the gates.
The gate opened to admit a slave in a fancy tunic, clutching gifts of oil and wine. Representing a member of the civic curia, no doubt, and come to offer lamentations by proxy, though his master would attend in person to grace the burial procession and enjoy the banquet.
Then came one of the clientes, genuinely weeping. No wonder, perhaps, if Quintus had been his only patron — without whose good offices he would now struggle for a livelihood. Perhaps he genuinely loved him, or perhaps he masked an inward glee with this show of public grief: if, for example, he expected to be mentioned in Quintus’s will, in recompense for favours done, or found himself unexpectedly relieved of the necessity of naming Quintus as one of his own heirs.
All the curia and clientes would attend, in turn. Add to these the funeral orator, the dancers, singers and musicians, the torch-carriers and litter-bearers, the family, the household slaves, one or two favoured tradesmen and a scattering of the simply curious, and you will see that the decurion’s funeral procession promised to be a very impressive one indeed.
But of Rollo there was still no sign. I wandered back into the triclinium (unannounced, to the consternation of the slaves at the door), and found Flavius reclining on one of the couches, eating. Someone had brought him a hot pie from a market stall, and he was stuffing it into his mouth as though greasy pastry and early-morning lumps of gristly meat were his idea of an ambrosial breakfast. A goblet of wine stood on a low table before him.
He looked up as I came in, wiped his fingers on the linen napkin he had been given and hastily rearranged his cushions. I had the distinct impression that he was up to something. He gazed at me with a triumphant air.
I had not been present the night before, when Marcus had interrogated him, and looking at that swarthy, fleshy face with its fleeting but unmistakable expression of cunning, I suddenly determined to repair the omission. Without Marcus, however, Flavius was unlikely to tell me anything. My best chance was to unsettle him.
I gave him a cheerful smile and sat down, uninvited, on a nearby stool.
It was an action of such unprecedented insolence, in the presence of a purple-striper, that he almost choked on his pie. I followed it up with another, speaking to my betters without being spoken to, and without the appropriate apologetic preamble. ‘Good morning, citizen.’ I sensed, rather than saw, Junio at my elbow, sending up silent prayers for my preservation to all the gods he knew.
I was offering a few unspoken petitions of my own. This was dangerously disrespectful, and Flavius was frowning angrily. I took a deep breath.
‘Well, Flavius,’ I said comfortably — worse and worse, no honorific titles and using his name like an equal — ‘I hear it was your sharp eyes which discovered Lupus.’
The scowl visibly lightened. I breathed out. Flavius was susceptible to flattery. I poured out a little more of it, hopefully, like a householder making a libation of oil to the pantry gods.
‘You have sharper eyes than I have,’ I said. ‘I did not notice the stains.’
He smirked. ‘The old goat concealed them in his sleeve folds, by holding his arm against him as though it were stiff. I noticed he was doing it, but I thought nothing of it.’ He leaned forward confidentially, the grease of the pie still glistening moistly on his lips: ‘I have known Lupus for years, and he is forever complaining of his aches and pains. Every time one sees him he has some fresh affliction — and one dares not ask, unless one wants a whole recital of his woes. He is famous for it in the town. No one would even have thought it odd that he had developed a new malady, until his greed betrayed him. The slave came by with the wine jug, and Lupus couldn’t resist holding out his bony arm for more.’