‘Citizen? Are you planning to stay where you are all day? Remember they are waiting at the curia!’ My escort’s voice came sharply from somewhere ahead of me. I realized that I had been so lost in thought that I had paused, stock-still, and he was waiting in a doorway further down the street.
I paddled after him, my sandals squelching damply in the mud, and we walked on in silence to the northern gate. The sentry on duty watched us pass, openly astonished at this incongruous pair, and I felt his amused eyes upon us as we hurried through the archway and on into the town.
The forum, when we reached it, was filling up again after the passing storm — customers and people with business with the council or the courts were emerging from their shelter under temple porticos. Here, too, it had clearly been raining heavily: there were muddy puddles on the paving-stones outside the shops, and most of the bedraggled stalls now stood in little pools, although the live fish-market (a building with an open pond which did not mind the rain) seemed to be doing a substantial trade. The stone steps of the basilica were still slippery with wet, but there were already clusters of councillors and clerks standing in earnest conclave here and there, and an excited crowd was gathering below to hear the reading of a will. We wove our way amongst their babbling, up the flight of steps, and into the basilica itself.
Though I had often been to the basilica before, I had never seen the inner council room where committees of the curia — or town council — met. Like every other citizen, I knew exactly where it was: not in the main section of the building, which was given over to the great public assembly area, with its towering pillars, fine floors and enormous vaulted aisle, but in the centre of the range of rooms across the rear. All the same, I had never been inside, so I was curious to see it when my escort led me in.
It was a chamber between the central aedes, where the imperial shrine was set, and the smaller offices of clerks and copy-scribes, and despite the musty smell of damp and candle-wax, it was much more spacious than I had supposed. It had a row of window-spaces high up on the wall, three tiers of wooden benches set on either side, and an imposing dais for the presiding magistrate. There was a large mosaic in the centre of the floor: an ambitious design of flowers and deities, though there was evidence — in places — of indifferent workmanship.
But there was no time for professional assessments of that kind. There were people in the room. Three members of the curia were sitting in a row beside the wall — all purple-stripers, naturally, indicating that they were men of rank — while Florens, whose toga bore the widest stripe of all, was standing on the dais, resting his elbows on a fine carved speaker’s stand, with the expression of a man who has been kept waiting far too long.
He looked up and saw me. He said, without a smile, ‘Ah, citizen Libertus, there you are at last. Thank you, Servilis, you may leave us now.’ There was a moment while the messenger bowed himself away, then Florens turned to me. He was a plump and portly little man, with a fringe of wispy hair and faded pink-rimmed eyes. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’ He raised a podgy hand to indicate the other councillors. I was not sure if he intended me to sit as well — and to do so uninvited would be worse than impolite — so I bowed in their direction and remained standing where I was.
‘Sit down, sit down, citizen,’ the youngest of them said. ‘This is just a friendly meeting, not a formal trial.’
Until that moment I had not imagined that it was, but suddenly I began to have real feelings of unease. This was constituted rather like a court, and it did not look friendly — despite what had been said. Florens was forbidding and his tone severe, and the other magistrates were looking just as grim. However, as I walked across to take my place — painfully aware of my heavy sandal-nails on that expensive floor — I noticed with relief that two of the others were people I had met: the tall, thin man was Gaius Flavius, while the fatter one with acne was Porteus Tertius, both occasional dinner guests at my patron’s house.
I essayed a timid smile. Porteus ignored it and Gaius looked the other way. Nothing to be hoped for in that direction, it was clear. Matters were swiftly going from bad to worse. As a known protégé of Marcus’s, I had expected a measure of respect — from them, in any case. I felt my hands going clammy with anxiety.
I edged myself on to the lowest bench. It would not do to rank myself beside the magistrates. In fact, I was so concerned with avoiding such a thing that I made my first mistake. Instead of sitting on the form in front of them, I sat down opposite, like a scholar taking a test in rhetoric — so I found myself facing a panel of judges, as it were.
‘Well,’ Florens linked his short, fat fingers on the desk in front of him, ‘I’m sure you know why we have summoned you.’
‘Something to do with my visit to Voluus, I understand from what your servant said — Servilis, as I now understand that he is called.’ Despite my nervousness — or perhaps because of it — I was privately amused to learn the servant’s name: it means ‘lowly and submissive’, despite that crimson cloak. No wonder he hadn’t chosen to introduce himself.
‘You regard that as amusing for some reason, citizen?’ Florens’s voice was icy.
Another error. I had not realized that I had smiled at all. Certainly I had not intended to. But all the councillors were scowling at me now, visibly disapproving of my apparent levity. I said quickly, ‘Not amusing, councillor. I’m surprised, that’s all. I do not understand why you have called me here. I am just a humble tradesman seeking work and I called at the apartment — as I told your slave — to see if Voluus required to have a pavement made.’
Porteus gave a disbelieving sneer and scrambled to his feet. ‘And you expect us to believe that, citizen? In an apartment of that quality? You must have known it would have splendid floors!’ He looked around as if for approbation from his peers.
I had begun to realize that I was genuinely pleading for my liberty, and I saw a chance to win a point or two. ‘Of course I hadn’t seen the inside of the flat; otherwise I would never have presumed. The floors, as you say, are already excellent.’ I paused a moment to achieve the full effect before I added, in a puzzled tone, ‘But I understood from Servilis that no one but myself had been allowed inside? Yet it seems that you have seen it, Porteus?’
Porteus turned pink beneath the acne on his cheeks, while the youngest councillor — the same one who had instructed me to sit — looked at him quizzically. ‘He is quite right, Porteus. Unless he had visited he couldn’t know about the floors. And nor could you. So how is that you speak about them with such confidence?’
I sensed a potential ally here and I looked at him with more interest than before. He was a youngish, untidy-looking man — in his thirties if I am any judge — with an energetic manner and a tow-coloured mop of tousled hair. His face was moody but intelligent and he wore his toga rather as I wore my own, as though it were a slight encumbrance. I noticed, for instance, that several times he hitched his shoulder-folds, as though they were in danger of cascading down in coils.
‘I visited when the tax-collector owned the place,’ Porteus mumbled rather sullenly. He was clearly embarrassed at admitting this to his associates (as I said before, tax-collectors are not usually accepted in good society). There was a murmur among the other councillors.
‘Just a business matter,’ he went on, reddening. ‘Nothing of importance, but he invited me to dine. .’ He tailed off.