‘And was that,’ I enquired sweetly, ‘what you were hiding under your pillows when I came in?’
Flavius assumed a look of injured innocence. ‘But there is nothing under my pillows, citizen. Have your slave search them, or see for yourself.’
For a moment I was taken aback. The tablet, I thought, must be in the room somewhere. Flavius had intended to give it to Rollo, and he had not left the triclinium. My eye lit on the napkin. Of course! I seized one corner of it and swept it away, revealing what Flavius had hidden under it.
The little writing tablet was an expensive thing: the frame was made of carved ivory, the metal clasp finely worked. Flavius sat up and buried his head in his hands. He looked a defeated man.
‘Well?’ I demanded, like the governor demanding tribute.
He shrugged. ‘See for yourself, citizen.’ I was the one being accorded the social courtesy now. ‘It is nothing. I was trying to send a letter, but I did not send it, and I have erased it, as you see.’ He opened the tablet. It was true: the scratched message, whatever it was, had been obliterated by rubbing the wax with the blunt end of the stylus, which was created for exactly that purpose. ‘I don’t suppose I shall ever deliver it now.’
I took the tablet from him and handed it to Junio, who had been waiting patiently at my side all the while. ‘Put this inside your tunic. I think we should show it to Julia. Perhaps she can throw some light on the matter.’
Junio obeyed. To my surprise, Flavius made no protest, although the frame alone must have been worth many sesterces. Indeed, he seemed almost pleased that I had taken it. His face cleared and he said, with urgency, ‘Yes, do. Give it to Julia, citizen. I meant her to have it. I would have sent it to her yesterday, but Rollo didn’t come.’ He frowned. ‘What happened to him, I wonder?’
I didn’t know. And suddenly I found that worrying.
I got to my feet. ‘I don’t know, citizen. Excuse me, I must go and look for him. It may be urgent. Come, Junio.’
And bowing ourselves out as hastily as respect allowed, we went back to the atrium.
Chapter Eleven
Julia was there, overseeing the selection of dark green herbs and foliage which a maidservant was arranging in a large bronze vase. Another slave girl stood by with a pile of other branches to choose from.
Julia looked up when she saw us, but her greeting was addressed to me alone. ‘Good morning, citizen.’ She was arrayed this morning with stunning simplicity in a long-sleeved white tunic, unadorned except for a simple girdle under her breasts and a funeral wreath upon her brow. She looked shaken and pale, but she had defied popular convention, and there had been no ritual clawing of her face or tearing at her hair. Instead she was the picture of dignified grief.
I looked at her with approval. ‘Greetings, lady.’
She turned to me and gave me one of those smiles of hers. I could see why Marcus preened in her presence: that smile would make any man feel like Hercules. She looked me confidently in the eyes. ‘Does this look well enough, do you think? I am no expert on such things, but you have an artist’s eye.’
It was blatant flattery. A Roman woman, especially a beautiful one, does not usually initiate idle conversation with a comparative stranger, even in her own house, unless she is setting out to charm. And she could not really want my opinion. I am hardly an expert on floral art.
It was hard to know how to reply. Roman funerary green is too sombre for my taste, especially when displayed in a heavy vase in a huge bronze bowl on a black shale table. And I was anxious to look for Rollo. But Julia was irresistible.
‘It has a pleasing symmetry,’ I said, and was rewarded with a look of as much admiration as if I had personally carved the finest statue in Corinium.
The slave girls began to clear away the excess leaves and rub down the table top with juniper oil to give it a sheen and prevent the shale from splitting.
‘Now, citizen,’ Julia said, looking me fully in the face again with those disturbing eyes, ‘you are my guest in these doleful hours. What can I do to serve you?’
‘Lady, forgive me for disturbing you, but there is a problem with which I should like your help. You know the page, Rollo?’
She furrowed her lovely brow. ‘Rollo? My husband’s pet page? The little fellow in the embroidered tunic? I know him, of course.’
She had made a pretence of thinking hard, but the readiness of her answer surprised me. In many a household of this size a woman would not be acquainted with all her slaves by name, especially not the handsome little page. Rollo had told me that normally he served Quintus exclusively, probably in ways of which Julia was modestly unaware. Yet Julia identified him with confidence. ‘Have you seen him this morning, lady?’
She looked surprised, and I could see her examining the question. She favoured me with another of her glowing smiles. ‘I could not say for certain. I have not noticed him.’
I was oddly disappointed in that reply, although it is hard to see how I could have expected anything different. To Julia, of course, the presence of a slave was no more remarkable than the presence of any other piece of household equipment — a footstool, say, or a cushion. In fact, I thought with an inward smile, I was guilty of something of the sort myself. I was classifying this present meeting as a ‘private conversation’, though I had Junio with me and she was attended by a pair of her maids.
I looked at the girls, waiting dispiritedly in the corner with the vase. Junio was right; they were remarkably plain. Once again, I had that feeling of disquiet. In a household of this kind, where money could buy the prettiest girls in the whole province, there was something very deliberate in this choice, like placing a fine statue against an ugly arch. Julia, I thought, had no need of such a frame — she would have looked handsome between the prettiest slaves in the Empire.
She was giving me one of those smiles again. ‘You wish to find Rollo?’ She signalled to one of the girls. ‘Fetch me the chief slave. He will know where the boy is. Unless, citizen, one of my handmaidens can serve you. .?’
Perhaps she did guess at Rollo’s functions. I shook my head, and the handmaiden vanished.
‘I am sorry, pavement-maker, that you have had such a welcome to our house. Quintus, I know, was so anxious for that mosaic floor in the hot room.’ She fluttered her lovely eyes at me. Her lids were touched with saffron and her brows and eyelashes tinted black with some dark powder. ‘I hope that you will still consent to design it for us, if Quintus leaves money for the caldarium in his will.’
‘I should be highly honoured,’ I said, keeping my voice controlled. Inwardly I was dancing votive flings. What fool would refuse such a prestigious commission, offered by such a beautiful woman? Especially when it gives him an opportunity to look for his wife. ‘Honoured,’ I said again.
‘We shall know if there is money when the will is read this afternoon,’ Julia said. ‘I imagine he will have endowed the baths. And some memorial games. Quintus was very fond of chariot racing and watching the gladiators. He would like to leave something spectacular for the town to remember him by.’
I nodded. The greatest heroes of a civitas, at least to its citizens, are those who have provided the biggest shows and the most lavish public banquets to be celebrated on their account. Better men, who bequeathed less roasted horsemeat and fewer fights, were often swiftly forgotten.
‘You do not think that Ulpius had altered his will in any way?’ I found myself asking. When Julia smiled at you like that, you felt that you could ask her anything. ‘I heard he had recently threatened to disinherit his son.’
She laughed in surprise, tipping back her lovely head. ‘Did he? He was always threatening to reduce Maximilian’s allowance, but I hadn’t heard that he meant to disinherit him altogether. He can’t have done it. It would mean changing the will, and I would have heard of it, I’m sure.’ She stopped and looked at me with sudden seriousness. ‘When did you learn of this? My husband did not say this before witnesses, surely?’