I ignored him, and addressed myself to the optio, who was enquiring briskly when I wished to have my meal. Having expected to entertain the most important man in all of this part of Britannia, it had clearly injured his pride to find himself playing host to me instead — a mere pavement-maker, albeit one who had become a Roman citizen. Marcus had made no secret of my humble origins, or the fact that I had been captured as a slave and bequeathed my status on my master’s death, even while boasting of his cleverness in finding me and using me to help him solve some intractable crimes. He did not add that I’d saved him more than once from political embarrassment, or that I’d been asked to Isca now because the commander there had expressed an interest in meeting me, after I’d solved the murder of his predecessor.
As far as the optio was concerned I was obviously just an upstart tradesman, with a wealthy patron but no influence, whom it was his unpleasant duty to feed and entertain. If I wanted his co-operation in my plans, a little flattery was clearly needed here.
I gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘I will eat a little later on, I think,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘It will give your cook a little longer to prepare, and I had a trivial shopping trip in mind. Not something I could bother Marcus with, but I was wondering if you could give me some advice?’ It was a gamble, making such an overt appeal to his self-importance, but I saw him preen. I hurried on. ‘I was hoping to buy a silver dress-clasp for my wife. Perhaps you would care to join me in a glass of something, and tell me where I can find the best quality and at the lowest price?’ I indicated the stool opposite, the one on which Marcus had been sitting earlier. ‘A man like you, I’m sure you know the town.’
I saw him hesitate and then make up his mind. He thrust out his chest like a pigeon, took the stool, and shouted for the guard outside the door, who was soon dispatched to fetch two goblets and a jug of not-so-watered wine. Every mansio has a stock of such delights, available at a reasonable charge for the benefit of passing officers, and the optio’s collaboration more than merited this small expenditure.
‘Forum’s the best place if you want a bargain,’ he said confidentially, emptying his goblet at a gulp. ‘I could give you a guard to go with you if you like, but it might be better if you find your way alone.’
‘Better not to wear my toga, either, I suppose?’ As a citizen — particularly a citizen in Marcus’s retinue — I should have worn my formal garment in public at all times, according to the strict letter of the law, but for one thing it was travel-stained by now, and for another I hate wearing the cumbersome thing. ‘Gives the wrong impression, do you think?’
He laughed. ‘Any trader who sees you wearing that will immediately assume that you are rich, and raise his asking price accordingly,’ he said. ‘Same thing if they see you with a slave — especially one in a fancy uniform like that.’
I could see exactly what he meant. Traditionally only Celtic noblemen had slaves — usually from rival tribes taken as prisoners of war — and then only to do the hard work on the land, not to dance attendance on their personal whims. Marcus’s servants, on the other hand, were always handsomely attired, in scarlet tunics embroidered with gold, in case anyone should miss the fact that the owner had considerable wealth. ‘The Silurians don’t care for private pages, then?’
The optio grunted. ‘Here in Venta, in particular, where Romans are never very welcome anyway. Still think they’re heirs to old Caractacus, some of them.’
I nodded. Caractacus was the legendary chief who held this area and led a spirited resistance to Roman rule for years. He had been defeated a century ago, but it is well known throughout Britannia that there are still Silurians who have never wholly accepted the occupying force. There were rumours of occasional frontier skirmishes even now. ‘Still trouble?’
‘More than we admit.’ My new friend was getting expansive now. ‘And not just beyond the border, as people seem to think. Sometimes you see captured Roman helmets openly on sale here in the marketplace, and there are places in the town where it’s not wholly safe for us to go, especially after dark. One of my soldiers disobeyed my orders once, went to a tavern on the wrong side of town and was attacked. Stripped of everything he had, even his weapon, and was lucky to get out of it alive. We had to hush it up. Even the town watch patrols in groups. Though it’s not only us — the most violent incidents occur between the rival tribes themselves, though we try to ignore them when we can. No point in making a tense situation worse.’ He sighed. ‘But that’s not your concern. You go in your cloak and under-tunic, and you should be all right. You may not have red hair like the locals but you are fairly obviously a Celt, even if you’re from another tribe. Say you are a freeman-trader come from Glevum, which is true. Just don’t tell them you’re a Roman citizen. They’ll make a point of cheating you, if they think you’re one of us.’
I nodded slowly, as if considering this, though I had come to much the same conclusion for myself. ‘As long as Marcus never hears of it. I am a member of his party and his official guest. He might think my wandering around the marketplace, incorrectly dressed, was insulting to his personal dignity.’
The optio dropped one eye in a wink. ‘No one but you and I need know that you have gone — and the man on duty at the gate, of course. I’ll tell him to let you in again. It shouldn’t take you long. Take your attendant to keep an eye on you, but keep him at a distance if you can. You don’t want to advertise your wealth. Go straight to the forum: you’ll find good silver there and in the first street just past it on your right. Though you should hurry. It will be dusk soon and the silver stalls will close up for the night.’
I thanked him fulsomely, and — seeing that the wine jug was quite empty now — took his advice and hurried off, through the front gate, past the guard and out into the street, with Promptillius lurking at my heels. Venta is a local tribal capital, and — despite what the optio had said about unrest — was clearly built on the Roman model, though on a modest scale. It was not hard to see which paved road led into the centre of the town, and I passed along a grid of criss-crossed streets and into the little forum with its large basilica. The colonnaded market square was busy, even in the late hours of the afternoon, and I had to fight my way through thronging townsfolk, carrying their dinners and shouting their wares, and pedlars spreading their offerings on the pavement fronts. Already, as a stranger, I was drawing curious looks.
There was a silver stall, as the optio had said, but I could not find exactly what I wanted there, and the stall-holder’s eyes kept drifting to my slave. My own attendant, Junio, in circumstances like these would have melded with the crowd, but Promptillius succeeded in looking so conspicuous that in the end I lost patience with him. ‘You see that corner by the pastry shop? Stand there and wait till I come back, otherwise my clasp will cost me twice the price. Don’t move until I tell you, do you hear?’
He nodded, glumly, and took up his post — looking like a sentry at a gate — while I went off to find the street of silversmiths, dressed in a modest under-tunic and cloak and without the encumbrance of an attendant slave. The best way to find a bargain, I was sure.
So there I was, in Venta, in the growing dusk, examining the silver dress-clasps on a stall and haggling happily with the vendor over the price, when I looked up and saw a dead man walking down the street.
Chapter Two
Not merely a dead man, but the very one I was commissioned to create a memorial pavement for.
In any other circumstances, I might have thought I was mistaken and made no more of it. Gaius Flaminius Plautus was a common enough type: short, stocky and muscular with greying reddish hair and a round and equally reddish face. Scores of men look very much like that, especially in this tribal area, and this individual was dressed in a cloak and tunic of a dingy browny-green — the commonest and cheapest of all dyes. But Plautus had one identifying mark, a jagged, livid scar across his face, the result of some childhood accident. The face I saw now was disfigured by the selfsame scar.