‘I hear she lives beyond the bridge outside the Verulamium Gate. She has made a home in an abandoned kiln, so I am told.’
Sollers made a doubtful face. ‘That is a large and marshy area. How do you think to find the place?’
‘I hoped that Flavius might lead me to it.’
‘Flavius? But Marcus has him guarded.’
‘Why not, since he would still be under escort? No doubt he knows where this woman can be found if he consulted her often. Or better still, Maximilian could take us, if his absence from the house will not distress Julia. He had private dealings with the soothsayer, too, and he did not make those arrangements in the public forum! He can tell us where this hovel is. I don’t suppose he will wish to, but in the circumstances I think Marcus will force him to assist us. But if we are to go, we must go quickly. It will get dark and we are already losing time. Besides, I will have to persuade my patron of all this. He is convinced that Lupus alone is his man.’
Sollers nodded. ‘I will arrange for torches to be prepared, then fetch my cape and see you at the rear gate. Do you have a weapon, citizen? I will take one. There may be animals, or thieves, in lonely places outside of the town gates.’
‘I will see that the escort is armed,’ I said, and taking my cloak from Junio, I went out to Marcus.
I found him in the atrium, chafing with impatience. He was not accustomed to spending his days in idleness, especially in someone else’s household, without entertainment, business or company. The imported wine and figs with which he had been provided, although he had clearly availed himself handsomely of both, were no substitute for the deferential attention with which he was usually surrounded. Marcus was very obviously bored.
He was also slightly drunk, a state of affairs which often made him belligerent. It was not, taken all in all, a good moment to be asking favours. The baton was tapping impatiently as soon as I appeared.
‘Greetings, Excellence,’ I beamed, with the heartiest good humour I could muster. ‘I bring good news. We are making progress in this matter at last.’
He regarded me sourly. ‘When you say “we”, in that peculiar manner, I assume you are referring to yourself? Personally, I have made excellent progress already. I regard the whole event as closed. The guard will be here shortly to take Lupus away. No doubt there will be appeals to the Imperial Court, and Pertinax will end up sending him to Rome. But I have done my part.’ That was not like Marcus. Usually he was confident of his own ability to sway the governor. He sighed. ‘I can’t think why the guard is taking so long.’ He eyed my cloak gloomily. ‘I see that you are dressed for the night air. Is this funeral about to start? I would be glad to see it over, so that I could decently return home — though even then I suppose there will be days of purification ritual to endure, since we were here when the death happened. Why did I ever bring us here?’
He gestured to his slave, who stepped forward to refill the goblet.
‘Excellence, I wanted to speak to you about the guard. Could you, most graciously, consent to grant a boon?’ When Marcus was in this churlish mood, my only hope was in grovelling supplication. ‘I am in need of an escort.’ I outlined briefly what I hoped to do.
Marcus took up his cup. ‘I do not see that it is necessary,’ he said. ‘We have our culprit. Lupus went into the room, he knew the dagger was there, he came out with blood on his sleeve and Quintus was dead. We know that he could even have poisoned Rollo. What more information do you need?’
‘And the wax tablet?’
Marcus drained his wine at a draught. ‘That came from Flavius, as we know.’
‘Indeed, and I can even tell you why.’ I told him the story of the twin tokens. ‘But who scratched “Remember Pertinax” upon the wax, and left it in the colonnade to be found? I am a pattern-maker, Excellence. I do not like a piece that does not fit.’
The mention of Pertinax swayed him, as I hoped. ‘Swayed him’ was an appropriate phrase. Marcus was unsteady on his feet and pronouncing his words carefully. ‘And supposing I agree? What has this to do with Lupus?’
‘I am not certain, Excellence.’ I was choosing my words with equal care, though for quite different reasons. ‘If I am right, then Lupus did Quintus Ulpius a dreadful wrong, even if he did not wield the knife that killed him.’
Marcus regarded me blearily. ‘What “dreadful wrong” is this?’
‘I think I could persuade him to confess it, Excellence, if you would condescend to have him sent for. But we must make haste; it is important that I find this sorceress quickly. We know she had a part in the stabbing, and she had a part in those wax tablets too. But we must be quick. Someone may have been to see her already, and we shall be too late. She will be gone, like the bath attendant.’
Marcus looked at me doubtfully, but then he said, with all the bravado of the drunken, ‘In that case, my old friend, we shall not waste time by having Lupus brought here. We shall be like Hannibal and go to him.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to summon the slaves, and led the way through all the rooms of the house, past a startled Flavius in the triclinium, towards the passageway which held the attic stairs.
I followed him, although I was not quite clear as to how we were emulating Hannibal. By climbing up, perhaps, as the Carthaginian had scaled the Alps. Marcus’s ascent of the stairs was certainly, if not like Hannibal, at least like one of his elephants. The stairs were not much better than a ladder, steep and uneven and lacking a hand-rope. They had been designed for slaves and storage, not for patrician feet, and Marcus lurched and swayed up them with difficulty.
We found ourselves in a long dark corridor, from which a series of rooms gave off to either side. Most of the rooms were open, sizeable spaces with small, high window spaces in their walls and ranks of straw mattress piles laid in serried rows. Sleeping quarters for the house slaves, clearly, with Mutuus’s partition at the end. Others were obviously storage rooms, where extra lamps and platters spoke mutely of their owner’s wealth. Nuts and apples lurked in wicker baskets.
The slaves, however, led us to the last room in the row. This had a heavy door, secured with a bolt, and there was a whipping post outside it. Evidently the household place for disobedient slaves. Marcus gave a sign and one of the attendants withdrew the bolt with difficulty and pushed open the door.
Lupus was sitting on the mattress pile. They had given him blankets, in deference to his rank: there was good bread and cheese on a wooden platter nearby and a jug of what looked like watered wine. To many people in Corinium, this would have been luxury, but Lupus evidently did not find it so.
He looked up when he saw us, his face a picture of anger and misery. ‘So, you have decided to listen to me at last. Well, I shan’t tell you anything, now. I’ve decided. You may take me to the governor, and I’ll tell my story to him. I’ll tell him how you refused to listen. I shall appeal to the Emperor. I did not murder Quintus. And don’t think you can simply lock me in the town gaol to silence me. I am a Roman citizen, and I am well known in the town. You will not have me to the torturers without a struggle — as if I had not been tortured enough, set to sleep locked in a draughty attic at my age, with no lamp, no brazier, no panes in the windows and nothing but bread and cheese to eat.’
‘Lupus,’ I said. It was not my place to speak, but if I did not intervene there might very soon be trouble. Marcus with this much alcohol in his veins was likely to lose patience, and have the man whipped on principle. ‘Lupus, listen to me. You may still save your foolish balding head, but only if you tell us everything. At once. When you went into Quintus’s reception room — and I know you went, you were seen to go — was he dead, or merely dying?’
Lupus looked at me and then his face crumpled and he burst embarrassingly into tears. I was covered in confusion — I have never seen a grown man cry, except under torture — but I was secretly rather glad of this. It distracted Marcus’s attention from my question, which might otherwise have led to protracted discussions. As it was, he merely looked disdainful — as if to register that such unmanly exhibitions of emotion are despised in Roman circles.