I looked around the room. It was a stately ante-room and all the rumours about marble floors were clearly true. I felt myself turn pale. ‘His Excellence, my patron Marcus Septimus Aurelius, instructed me to call. He has sent a message recommending me.’ I handed the writing-tablet to the steward as I spoke.
The man nodded gravely as he undid the seal. ‘I have heard of him. The senior local magistrate. It is kind of him to send. How did he hear the news?’
‘News?’ I was naturally mystified. ‘He thought your master might require a pavement — that is all. He merely wished to help. But I see that you. .’ The man was scowling and I was already attempting a retreat.
‘A pavement?’ The steward sounded quite incredulous. ‘We don’t need a pavement; we need help to find the thieves!’
‘Thieves?’ I could see that he regretted blurting out the word, so I urged gently, ‘You had better tell me. I can pass the message on. That way at least you have reported it.’
The steward looked furious, but at last he shrugged. ‘I’ve already reported it to the local garrison. I thought you’d come from there. But I suppose it is no secret and I might as well tell you, in case the patron that you speak of may be able to assist. The last of my master’s carts has failed to arrive. The one on which he’s placed his greatest treasures, too. It was due to come last evening but there was no sign of it. We thought it was delayed. But word has just reached us, not half an hour ago, that the vehicle has been discovered on the road outside the town, with the driver hacked to pieces and all the contents gone.’
‘Great Jupiter!’ I muttered. ‘Was there not a guard?’
‘Four of them, armed and mounted — all now lying dead. The horses have been disembowelled, too.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘So it is a matter for Great Jupiter indeed. We shall have need of Jupiter when Voluus hears of this.’ He glanced at the writing-tablet in his hand and thrust it back at me. ‘So you go and tell your patron that if he really wants to help he won’t send me stupid pavement-makers, desperate for work; he will send me someone to help us find the thieves. A contingent of the local soldiery, perhaps, or a few of the town watch. Presumably he has sufficient authority for that?’
TWO
It was clear that he expected me to go. Presumably he intended that I’d hurry off and report to my patron straight away. But I could not return to Marcus without at least a small attempt to fulfil the task he had given me. Besides, the steward had deliberately insulted both of us and I was not going to let him get away with that. I was only in a tunic and a woollen cloak, and I suppose that physically I look every inch a Celt, so the steward could not know that I was a Roman citizen. Describing me as a ‘stupid pavement-maker desperate for work’ was merely impolite. But disparaging my patron was a different thing — and might even be a trap. If this really was a house of imperial spies, as Marcus seemed to think, any failure to defend my patron’s name (as any protégé is duty-bound to do) might someday reach his ears.
So I said slowly, and with what dignity I could muster, ‘You doubt that Marcus has authority? Then you don’t know my master.’
The round face flushed beneath the swarthy skin. ‘And you clearly don’t know mine. He will make more trouble for this colonia than you can dream of, pavement-maker. He will have it howled throughout the empire that he was robbed in Glevum before he even came. And he will demand the full rigour of the law. There will be crucifixions here before this business ends — you tell your patron that.’ He pulled the door open and motioned me to leave.
But I had seen the fear behind the blustering. I did not move a thumb-span. ‘And you will be lucky if you’re not one of them?’ I said, loudly enough for anyone on the stairs outside to hear. I knew it was a risk — the steward might have given me a push or called for other servants to remove me bodily, but we both were in full view and I was gambling that he would not wish to make a public scene. Gossip in Glevum spreads quicker than a fire, and the dice players on the staircase had already stopped to stare.
I saw them nudge each other and the steward saw them, too. He flashed an angry look at me and shut the door again — with me still inside the ante-room.
‘Now, look here, pavement-maker.’ He muscled up to me. ‘What are you playing at? Deliberately talking so half the town can hear!’
I looked at him. ‘Nothing I said would mean a thing to anyone out there.’
That was likely to be true, as he must have realized, but he wasn’t mollified. He hissed into my face, ‘Just wait until Voluus arrives and hears of this. They may not have understood what you were saying, but I did. You were suggesting that I might be to blame.’
I stood my ground. ‘I did nothing of the sort. I did not say you were to blame — I said that you would be lucky to escape this with your life. You think so, too — I can see it in your face. I was once a slave myself and I know what it’s like. When the owner is away and there is trouble in the house, don’t the masters always blame the steward first?’
The florid face was ashen all at once. ‘You think so?’
I had clearly got past his defences now. The haughtiness had gone. If I could find a way to rattle him again, I might persuade him to confide in me. I said matter-of-factly, ‘But of course. Who else would know the details of the cart — what was on it and when it would arrive? Somebody must have planned to seize it on the road. That cart in particular — out of all the rest — when in fact it carried the most valuable load? You can’t believe that was coincidence? And it had to be someone in the area, who had already found a place to hide the loot — someone with sufficient natural authority to enlist a group of thieves, and sufficient money to buy their loyalty. I imagine you have saved a good deal from your pecunium. If you were Voluus, who would you suspect?’
He leaned on one of the alabaster pillars as if he needed its support and stared goggle-eyed at me. ‘But he must see that that would be preposterous! I have hardly set foot outside of this apartment since we came.’ He was pressing his hands together under his gold-edged sleeves, so hard that his knuckles showed white against his dark red tunic cloth, but all at once he lifted his bald head defiantly. ‘There are two other slaves here who are witnesses to that.’
‘And will Voluus believe them?’ I saw him flinch as if I’d flicked him with a whip. ‘Will they even tell the truth? Do they have cause to love you?’
He lifted his linked hands to the slave-chain round his neck, but he could not hide the nervous bobbing of his throat. ‘I don’t suppose they do. My master bought them just before he left again for Gaul and instructed me to lick them into shape. I suppose I might have been a bit severe with them from time to time.’ He spread his hands despairingly and looked into my face. ‘But you don’t think. .?’
I simply raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips a bit. ‘Voluus is a professional torturer — or he was. I don’t imagine that he’ll simply ask them politely what they know. Under those circumstances, who knows what they might say?’
The steward was staring at the middle distance now. ‘I saw him asking questions of a page-boy once, accused of stealing a denarius. The boy insisted he was innocent, but after half an hour. .’ He broke off, shuddering. A little bead of sweat was running down his brow and he was obliged to mop it with his sleeve. ‘You’re right. He would have confessed to anything.’
‘So you see what I mean. I imagine he admitted to the theft — although stealing from one’s master is a capital offence.’
He nodded dolefuly.
‘And did he really take the money?’
An uncomfortable pause. ‘Who can say? He was executed for it; that is all I know.’ From his manner I guessed I’d touched a nerve.