He sounded so despondent that I was moved to say, ‘Nevertheless, Excellence, one cannot dismiss Lupus entirely. Those bloodstains require explanation.’
He brightened. ‘Yes, they do. Perhaps the two men were conspiring? They arrived at the house together, and they spent a long time alone in the front garden. They were whispering to each other in the arbour when you found them, I recall. Oh, Mercury! Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. What do you advise, old friend?’
I considered for a moment. I was not convinced that Lupus and Flavius were totally innocent, but I did think the matter was much more complex than Marcus seemed to believe. I said carefully, ‘I think, Excellence, you might leave matters as they are at present. After all, there is no direct proof against Flavius, and one cannot have the whole household locked in the attics. A pair of stout slaves are already posted at his door, and he cannot leave the house, so he is effectively under guard already. As for Lupus, I should leave him where he is. He still has those bloodstains to explain, and even if you are wrong, the old man cannot be more offended than he already is.’
Marcus eyed me doubtfully. He has the Roman dislike of inaction. He would always prefer to be doing something, even if that something was wrong.
I gave Flavius’s writing tablet back to Junio, who put it back in his pouch and returned the other to the travelling chest. ‘Excellence, I hope you will excuse me. I wish to leave you. There are some questions I would like to ask in the town. The answers may help us to decide what to do with our prisoners.’
I said ‘our prisoners’ to ally myself deliberately with Marcus’s decision. That swayed him. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said, ‘go into the town if you must. I shall do nothing until you return. But do not be too long about it. And remember, I shall expect results.’
I bowed myself out, taking Junio with me. We crossed the courtyard, passing Julia and Mutuus in furious conversation in the colonnade, and went to the kitchens, where Junio returned Marcus’s breakfast tray and collected a jug for the wine we were to buy.
Even then, I failed to see what had been right in front of my eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
We went out through the back gate to avoid the press of visitors at the front. Even so, as soon as we were outside the walls of the enclosure, we were swept up in the activity and bustle of the town. A press of urchins surrounded us at once, offering to sell me everything from knick-knacks and copper pans to love potions and amulets, or simply volunteering to lead us to the best wineshops and dancing girls in town. One disreputable-looking fellow even approached us with a leer to ask if Maximilian had sent us to him. If this was the sort of company he kept, I thought, it was no wonder Quintus disapproved of his son.
We brushed them all aside and made our way down the side streets towards the centre of the town.
Corinium, it seemed, was in a constant state of rebuilding. Everywhere the old thatched timber shops and apartments were being pulled down, and finer ones were going up in their place, mostly built of limestone and roofed with tiles. The narrow streets were made still narrower by creaking carts laden with laths and plaster, or by the presence of lashed wooden ladders, where builders scuttled up and down with baskets of roof tiles or buckets of lime and mortar, while we picked our way along in constant apprehension of their rickety wooden pulleys swinging stone blocks overhead.
Amid this confusion, other stalls were doing a brisk trade, and all the way to the central square we were constantly hailed by shopkeepers hoping to entice us to buy their wares. Bone dealers vaunted their combs and pins, drapers held out lengths of woollen cloth and a draggled woman begged us to examine her ‘best spindles, made from antler horn — cheapest in the Empire’. A shoemaker, straddling his bench, paused in his hammering of hobnails to wave a hopeful hand at shelves of ready-made boots and sandals, and when I declined to purchase, offered to measure me for a new pair on the spot.
I might indeed have been tempted by a new hammer from the blacksmith’s, but what I had said to the medicus was true. I was not carrying a lot of money. Not, truth to tell, that I had a great deal of money to carry, at least until I had been paid for one or two commissions in Glevum. So it was no use gazing at buckled belts on the leather stall, or the fine bowls and beakers of the glass and pottery vendors. I limited myself to the necessary purchases with a sigh.
We did not go into the forum proper: not being market day, it would be given over to politicians, peddlers and moneylenders, so we confined our attentions to the arcaded shops on the outside of the square. I sent Junio with a jug to buy a measure of sour wine, while I stopped at a baker’s shop and bought a cheap loaf of day-old barley bread. Poor Rollo would hardly need a fresh one, served hot on the long-handled iron bread slice straight from the great domed oven. I turned my face against the temptations of the other food stalls, although Junio, who had by then returned, was looking longingly at the honey cakes, and even the wares of the hot pie sellers smelled appetising now.
‘What now, master?’ Junio asked, tearing himself away from the sugared cakes reluctantly.
‘I want to know exactly what Maximilian did yesterday. It occurs to me that he arrived back at the house with clean garments after he had attended the baths.’
Junio shot me a look. ‘Direct from the fuller’s, you think?’
‘It seems unlikely, since he came dressed in mourning colours. More likely he sent a slave to fetch some from his apartment, or even to buy him new ones. But I would be interested, all the same, to see the toga Maximilian took off. I noticed it was stained when I saw him — though I had no reason, then, to ask what the stains might be.’
Junio whistled. ‘I see! Lupus may not be the only one with tell-tale marks on his sleeves. Then we should hurry, before the clothes are cleaned so much that it is impossible to tell.’
I nodded my approval and we hurried on, past the forum and the basilica (where the repairs which Lupus had resented so bitterly were still in progress), through the bleating, lowing, squealing chaos of the meat market and the accompanying fruit and vegetable carts, and so down to the fuller’s shop, next door to the baths.
I wanted to visit the baths, too, as part of my enquiries, but it was still too early: at this hour only women were admitted. That visit would have to wait until we had been to the laundry shop. I thrust back the entrance curtain and strode in.
The owner was out when we arrived, and the work floor was manned by three scrawny, underfed individuals in tattered tunics and bare feet, trampling garments in the cleaning tanks.
I went over to them and they stopped at my approach. Supporting one’s weight on a pair of stout handles while one treads wet clothes into fuller’s clay for hours is a backbreaking business, and they were obviously glad of a moment to rest their weary arms and legs. They looked at me curiously, their pale faces damp with sweat and their overdeveloped thighs glistening with moisture.
‘You had a customer, yesterday,’ I began. ‘From the house of Quintus Ulpius?’
They looked at each other nervously. I took out a purse and began fingering a five-as coin in an ostentatious manner.
One of the treaders gave me a grim, knowing smile. ‘Two customers,’ he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a languid youth in an elegant coloured robe. The owner’s son, clearly.