And now I was expected to pay it, and I had no money in my purse. I thought quickly, and found a solution. ‘The testament will be read this afternoon in the forum. Present yourself among his debtors then.’
The young man nodded, and even the older man’s scowl lifted. ‘Ah yes, of course! And even if we get no payment then, no doubt Maximilian will be able to meet his own bills in future. Thank you for having the courtesy to call and tell us, citizen.’ The fuller looked at my toga thoughtfully. ‘And if you should ever require our services yourself, you will find our rates as cheap as anyone’s. We could bring that toga up nicely, with a little care.’
I went out of the shop feeling peculiarly humbled.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Well, master,’ Junio said, as soon as we were in the street again, ‘that was an interesting visit. What, if anything, do you deduce from that?’
We were dodging between the wheels of ox carts and I stood aside, under the portico of the baths, to answer his question.
‘What do you think I deduce?’ I said wryly. ‘Julia has been lying to us, obviously. Marcus will take that badly.’ In fact, I was ashamed to find how badly I was taking it myself. Julia was a beautiful and wealthy lady, and however much I admired her independent spirit — and her more obvious charms — it was not up to me to be swayed by that and decide that she was automatically innocent. Those bloodstains were certainly suspicious. ‘Pluto take her, and the whole affair!’ I said savagely. I must have sounded harsher than I meant. Junio looked dismayed, and a passing bather, going into the building with his slaves, looked at me in surprise. I regretted my outburst instantly. ‘So, what do you deduce yourself?’
Junio gave me a doubtful look, but he answered the question soberly. It was the game we sometimes played, having him predict my conclusions, but it had a purpose: it not only taught him to reason clearly, but it often helped me to see things in a new light. ‘Certainly the lady did not get those stains from putting powder on her cheeks. Could they be from Sollers’s treatment, do you think? Did he bleed her, for instance?’
I shook my head dubiously. ‘I do not think so. The treatment he described to me did not involve bleeding the patient, and I think he would have mentioned it if it had. In any case, he is practised in the art. If he did bleed her, he would not have splashed her over-tunic in that way. And it cannot be accidental bleeding. Sollers favours gentle methods. My owner’s first wife was treated for childlessness, and during her treatment her cries used to petrify the household. They gave her fearsome fumigation, till she sobbed with inner scalding from the vapours, but even then I do not recall hearing that the treatment drew blood.’
‘Of course,’ Junio said suddenly, ‘Julia may not have been wearing the stola when she went to see Sollers. We know she went to her room to beautify herself. Perhaps she changed there into the Grecian coat you tell me she was wearing later. It might have made the treatment easier.’
It was an obvious possibility once he had suggested it, and I rewarded him with a smile. ‘Well reasoned, Junio.’ I refused to admit, even to myself, how much my pleasure was due to the fact that I could now find an explanation which left Julia innocent. I also refused to contemplate what I already knew — that she had been in the kitchens the night before, and could easily have tampered with the food. Julia would never have tried to poison me, I reasoned. If anything, she seemed to be drawn to intellect, and to find me flatteringly attractive.
(Foolish, I told myself. However warm and intimate her smiles, Julia would never have time for a humble pavement-maker — she belonged to men of substance and standing. And to Mutuus, some inner voice prompted hopefully — but I quelled it at once.)
All the same, Junio had a point. If Julia had taken off her robe, and left it unattended while she went to consult Sollers, then anyone could have taken it from her room. It was unlikely, but possible all the same. Maximilian, for example, had visited her room by his own admission. Perhaps he tried to implicate her by staining the stola with blood.
I was so pleased with this hypothetical solution that I felt positively benign. ‘I must find a moment to ask Sollers what she was wearing at the consultation,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, I see the baths are opening for male customers. I think I can afford a quadrans to go in.’
Junio gave me an impudent grin. ‘Going to indulge yourself, then, master? Do you wish me to go and fetch a towel and strigil for you, so that you can bathe?’
I thought about that for a moment. Allowing Junio to leave me unattended would cost me an extra as or two. Without him I should have to pay one of the attendants to oil my back, and another to watch my garments in the changing room. There is a merry little trick which is often played upon unwary bathers in Glevum: itinerant fraudsters come to the baths in old tunics, and leave wearing someone else’s new one. I did not imagine Corinium was any different, and my wardrobe was not so great that I could afford to take the risk.
On the other hand, I wanted to discover, if I could, exactly what Maximilian had been up to the day before. He had come here, I was fairly sure of that, because he had been attended by four of his father’s slaves. But the public baths are places for meeting people as much as for performing ablutions. I was particularly interested to know if Maximilian had spoken to anyone, and if so, what he had said about the day’s events.
‘Towel, strigil and oil, if you can find some,’ I said to Junio. ‘When you return, look for me on the stone benches outside the warm pool. Tell the attendant you have come for me and then he should not charge you to enter, but here is a quadrans for you, just in case. You can take the wine and bread back to the house for Rollo when you go.’
‘And I will inform the funeral guild for slaves,’ Junio suggested. ‘The chief slave told me where to find the house.’
I nodded. ‘And. . Junio?’
‘Master?’
I took out a little money and gave him my purse. ‘Look after this for me.’ I dropped a coin in his palm. ‘And here is the money for a honey cake for yourself. I think that you have earned it this last hour.’
He gave me a huge grin and disappeared into the crowd before I could change my mind. I watched him until he was out of sight, then paid my quadrans and went inside.
I love the public baths. Like underfloor heating, they are one of the best things the Romans ever brought with them. Of course, I am rarely in a position to enjoy them — not because of the entry price; baths rarely cost more than a tenth of an as even in the most expensive towns — but because in the ordinary way I have business to attend to. People like Quintus may attend to their affairs while sitting in the hot room with their friends, but a man who lays pavements cannot do it at a distance. My ablutions normally consist of the kind of minimal rinse and oiling I had received this morning.
It was with some anticipation, then, that I took off my toga and tunic and left them on the stone shelf in one of the little alcoves in the changing room, under the eye of a disreputable-looking attendant, who looked at my as coin with disdain. A man in a toga, his demeanour seemed to say, should be more generous with his tips. I had intended to ask the fellow about Maximilian, but it was clear that any gossip from this source would have to be bought, so I left my precious clothes with him, together with a veiled promise that there would be a further tip if I returned to find them intact.
That brought a sullen smile to his face, and I left him to it and went into the warm pool where I was soon soaking myself luxuriously. The room was disappointingly empty, however, since it was just past noon and few of the male customers had yet arrived. I would have to gain my information, if any, on my way back from the hotter sections. If necessary, I would have to bribe the youth guarding the tunics, although somehow I didn’t trust him. Cloakroom attendants are often casual opportunists, like the boys who offer to hold your horses in the street, rather than sober servants of the baths, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that I had seen this one somewhere before. Remembering the problems with missing tunics at Glevum, I even got up and gazed at him through the intervening arch. However, he was sitting on a stone bench looking bored, and my clothes were still clearly visible where I had left them, so I went back to my bathe.