I stayed for a little in the warm steam of the tepidarium, and then, as there was still no sign of Junio, paid the attendant for a phial of oil and went — perfumed but still dripping — into the dry heat of the laconicum.
It is not, in general, my preferred routine, insofar as I can be said to have a routine at all in a public bathhouse. When I go, I usually prefer the hot steam room, but if Quintus was to bequeath a new caldarium to the populace, it followed that the present one was less than satisfactory, so I chose the drier alternative. I sat for a few moments, feeling the heat opening my pores and making the oil run in little rivulets on my skin, but I am no Roman, and I cannot sustain those temperatures for long. I was about to return to conditions where I was less likely to sizzle, when the inner door opened and the man who had passed us on the entrance steps came in. He splashed a little oil on himself, as I have seen cooks baste a chicken, and sat down with care on the marble seat.
He was, from the snow-white toga he had worn when he arrived, a candidate for public office, and would not normally have given me a second glance, but in a bathhouse every man is equal, except perhaps the Jews. (Of course there are those, more Roman than the Romans, who affect special little tunics to bathe in, but even they would probably desist if they heard the comments which follow when they leave. Common opinion is that such men have something — or nothing much — to hide.)
He gave me an affable nod.
I decided to endure cooking for a little longer. ‘Very quiet in here today.’
He smiled. I noticed that his armpits were red and angry where he had just had them plucked in the inner room. He must have been a braver man than I am — I could never willingly have endured that torment, and I had not heard him so much as scream. ‘You should have been here yesterday.’
I gave him my full attention. ‘You were here then? Did you see Ulpius Maximilian here? The son of the decurion?’
The look of boiled affability faded. ‘You are a friend of his?’
‘Not really. I had business connections with his family,’ I said. It was stretching a point, since I had not yet officially acquired the contract for the pavement, but it raised my status in my companion’s eyes.
‘I see,’ he murmured sympathetically. ‘And now you will be seeking payment from the heir? The death of Quintus Ulpius is a bad business, in more respects than one. That young son of his is a wastrel. He owes money in all the wineshops of Corinium. He was in here yesterday, looking like a bedraggled traveller instead of a future councillor, whispering with that unpleasant creature who guards the clothes and slipping him money.’
It was the news I had been waiting for, and I got gratefully to my feet. ‘Then I must go and have a few words with the attendant myself,’ I said. ‘Good afternoon. Enjoy your bathe.’ I smiled at him and left hurriedly.
It felt cool in the tepidarium after the heat of the dry room. A few more minutes in there, I thought, and I could have saved the cooks the necessity of roasting the pig for the funeral feast. They could have stuffed baked plums and herbs into my mouth and served me up instead. To my delight, too, Junio was waiting for me, so I perched on a bench and let him strigil off the sweat, dirt and oil as I told him what I had discovered, and he then stood by with a towel while I plunged gratefully into the tepid pool.
I ignored the attractions of the entertainments — watching the wrestlers or losing my shirt on the fall of a dice — and finished my ablutions with a brief but bracing swim in the large cold pool outside, and went back shivering to claim my clothes. They were untouched, to my relief. I allowed Junio to dress me, and then, taking the attendant into a corner, took back my purse and drew out a few more quadrans for a tip. The attendant scowled at the size of the offering, but reached for it all the same.
I dropped the money into his palm. ‘By the way,’ I said conversationally, ‘what was it that Ulpius Maximilian was talking to you about yesterday?’
I had been prepared, secretly, to pay for the information; in fact, the poorness of the tip was caused, in part, by the need to keep some coins for the purpose. I need not have bothered, as it happened. The attendant looked at me in horror, as though I had offered to feed him to the wolves.
‘Well?’ I insisted. ‘And do not deny it — I have spies who saw you in conversation.’ I wondered, inwardly, what my companion of the hot room would think of being elevated to the role of spy, but this was not a time for niceties.
The attendant looked about him wildly as if seeking inspiration. ‘It was nothing. An argument about his clothes. He thought I had failed to guard them properly when he came to dress again. Nothing else, citizen, nothing at all.’
It was a more intelligent lie than I had expected. Nine times out of ten he would have been believed, and even a doubter would find it difficult to disprove the story. Now, however, he was unlucky. This was the proverbial tenth time out of ten.
‘No,’ I said, in the same conversational tone, ‘I dare say that you have a dozen such confrontations every day, but it was not what you were discussing with Maximilian. He sent his clothes from here directly to the fuller’s, and had his slaves bring fresh ones when he left, because he needed to leave here wearing mourning. He did not have garments in your changing room. Besides, he was seen to give you money. He would hardly do that if he was dissatisfied. No, he was paying you for something. And I don’t imagine he was trading in second-hand tunics.’
A look of panic crossed the attendant’s face. ‘Hush, citizen, I beg you, not so loud. It was a private matter. A favour that I did for him. He was paying me for my services.’
This fellow had a strange definition of ‘favours’, I thought, but the explanation was plausible enough. It was well known that attendants at the baths in any town — if they were not slaves, and sometimes if they were — turned a dishonest as or two by acting as pimps for local dancing girls. Sometimes, if they could afford it, they lent money at exorbitant interest to bathers who had lost all their cash at the poolside gambling games. It fitted the picture I had of Quintus’s son.
The attendant smiled at me hopefully. It was an unctuous, unwholesome, lopsided smile, and it was unmistakable. As soon as I saw it I realised where I had seen the youth before. This was the same fellow who had accosted us at the gates this morning, asking for Maximilian.
I taxed him with it at once. ‘So that was why you came to the house this morning? To ask for more payment? It must have been a significant favour.’ It was, I thought, a singularly inopportune moment to choose, when Quintus had just died. ‘Were you aware of what had happened to his father? You knew about the stabbing?’
The effect was extraordinary. The attendant turned first white, then pink, as if he had been plunged into his own cold pool, and sweat began to stand out on his forehead. His voice almost failed him as he croaked, ‘If you knew about it too, citizen, why didn’t you say so to begin with?’ He looked suspiciously to right and left as if the statues in their niches might be listening. ‘What is it you want, part of the money? There’s no need to come to me, citizen. Now that his father is dead, there should be enough for us both.’