I nodded. That was exactly what I’d done myself. I slipped the pageboy a small coin (he looked grateful, too!) and hurried off to join Minimus in the street.
My slave looked at me sideways. ‘What was that about, master? It took you quite a time. I thought we were hurrying to visit Redux now? There is some way to walk and it is already long past noon.’ It was obvious that his enthusiasm hadn’t dimmed.
I nodded. ‘Then we must set off at once. Though it is not certain that Redux will be there — after all, he was expecting to be at a wedding feast all day.’ I saw the young face fall. ‘But we might learn something. You can lead the way.’
It was indeed a long way to the dock, especially as Minimus confined us to the streets. There was — as I knew — a much quicker route than this, through the putrid alleys and byways of the town, in the marshy area where the floods had been and where ruined buildings lay abandoned in damp, dismal courts. But that was the domain of the outcast underworld, the thieves and maimed and homeless, the ‘ghosts’ who haunted the night-time streets and lived on what more fortunate people threw away. I knew this, because I had briefly lived among them once, but today I was happy to walk the broader streets, though from this direction even those were not as wide and clean as in other, more salubrious parts of town. Figures lurked in doorways, watching us, and I had to tell Minimus to take my cloak from me, wrap the silver salver in it and at least hide it from view. Carrying it openly in this area was asking to be set upon and robbed — though a bulky parcel might well have the same effect, I thought.
We hurried on past greasy hot-soup kitchens and public wine shops — all open and busy with jostling customers, even at this time of day, with more people swaying and vomiting in the street outside. Girls in scanty costumes and in various poses smiled at us from lurid pictures painted on a pair of doors nearby, advertising the delights which might be had within, and as we passed an archway an actual girl appeared, lifting her tunic up to flaunt her scrawny knees and giving us suggestive gestures with her eyes. I hurried Minimus past before she spoke to us, and almost stepped into a pile of stinking muck, washed up in the last flood and simply left to rot.
I was much relieved to reach the busy dockside on the riverbank. There was more activity than a beehive here, and with a louder buzz of noise. A large ship from somewhere was unloading goods — its sail furled and its owner supervising the gang of dockyard slaves carrying the heavy sacks down creaking, wobbling planks on to the shore, while their overseer shouted at them that they were too slow and threatened to encourage them with lashes from his whip. From the safer streets at the other corner of the dock, donkeys and handcarts were appearing to take away the goods. The air was full of oaths and curses and the sound of bartering.
It was a world where Roman law and order ruled again, and when a surly soldier asked where we were going, I told him and he pointed out the place.
‘Redux’s warehouse? It’s right over there. And that’s his foreman steward with the handcart and the slave. After a bit of this cargo, I expect. Salt, for the most part, from the salt pans further south — so it’s to be hoped his warehouse is still dry. Hey!’ He thumped his baton on a cask near by. ‘You! The fat one with the cart! You’ve got a visitor. This citizen would like to have a word with you.’ He looked at the parcel wrapped up in the cloak. ‘Are you returning goods?’
I shook my head. ‘I want to talk to Redux, that is all. Something that happened at a wedding feast.’
‘You won’t be the first that wants to talk to him. There has been a bit of trouble down here, once or twice.’ He cleared his throat, importantly. ‘So, if you have any difficulty, you get back to me. We don’t want the kind of problem we had here yesterday — people trying to knock down the door, and fighting in the street. Very nearly had someone in the dock — and it interrupted trade. One of the captains nearly missed the tide. We had complaints from several quarters at the time. That’s why they’re posting one of us down here, to see that nothing of the kind occurs again. Now here’s the foreman — but remember what I said.’ He tapped his nose, to signal secrecy, and turned away to watch the docks again.
The fat foreman had left his cart and slave beside the gangplank on the dock and was trundling up to us. ‘What is it, citizen? You want something with me? I can’t spare many moments. I got work to do. My master wants me bidding for any extra salt — the last few sacks they fill are sometimes tinged with sand, but they bring them up to see what they can get for them.’ He was a big man, more fat than muscular, but bulging in his orange tunic — and he did not look pleased to see us. I have seen battering-rams that looked more welcoming.
‘It was your master that I was looking for.’ I tried to summon a disarming grin. ‘Is he in the warehouse?’
‘I couldn’t tell you that.’ There was no answering smile. ‘Who is looking for him, citizen?’ he said.
So Redux was there, I thought privately. Aloud, I said, ‘I am a citizen — as you can see, my friend. I was a guest with him at a wedding feast today — but there was an unfortunate incident and the ceremony had to be postponed. I hoped to speak to Redux at the time, but he left before I could have a word with him. He will know me, I am sure of that.’ Of course he would, he had seen me standing on that table in the hall. I did not mention that I’d never met the man.
The fat man put both thumbs underneath the belt that tied his tunic in, hitched it upwards over his ample stomach, and sniffed impressively. ‘I don’t know if the master is here or not, citizen. Give me your name and I will go and see.’
‘I am the citizen Libertus,’ I replied. ‘The representative of His Excellence Marcus Septimus. This is his slave who is accompanying me. Perhaps you would care to tell your master that.’ That was a formula that ought to do the trick.
He had small, greedy, beady eyes with fleshy eyelids, like a pig, and he was squinting suspiciously at the pair of us. But his tone became decidedly more civil as he said, ‘Your pardon, citizen.’ He ran a hand across his jowly chin. ‘Of course I’ll tell the master — when I get a chance. I’ll go and look for him. Though of course I can’t answer for whether he’ll be there.’
‘Master?’ Minimus whispered urgently to me. ‘If we can’t see Redux, perhaps we should move on. It must be almost the ninth hour by now.’
I glanced at what I could make out of the sun. It was clearly nearing the last quarter to the west. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I told him. ‘We are not succeeding here. I’ll leave a message for Redux and come back another day. Antoninus will be expecting us.’
That name had a charm which my patron’s name had lacked. The beady eyes looked furtively at me. ‘Did you say Antoninus, citizen?’
I nodded. ‘I have business with him at his apartment later on.’
‘Then I’m sorry to keep you waiting out here, citizen. Though perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining what you’ve got in there?’ He gestured towards the parcel that Minimus still held, and from which the corner of the salver was now peeping through.
‘It is a piece of silver, fashioned as a tray,’ I said, ‘though I don’t understand what business that might be of yours.’ Then, conscious of the soldier still on guard nearby, and fearing that I should be accused of stealing it, I added hastily, ‘It was to be my patron’s wedding gift at that marriage earlier.’
‘I see.’ He nodded. ‘Well, I’ll go in and see what I can do for you. But I can’t make promises. You’ll have to wait and see.’ And with that he lumbered off towards the warehouse door, leaving the handcart in the charge of his sleepy-looking slave.