He stared at me as though I were an idiot — but one it was important to appease. ‘I believe I have just said so, citizen. The details of the pattern might be copied, I suppose, but even then the silversmith would need a pattern-piece — and I do not see how that could be achieved. No item worked in this design has ever been permitted to leave the family. It is a part of our ancestral heritage.’
Marcus was losing interest in all this. He shrugged. ‘Yet Libertus thinks he saw it somewhere else. Perhaps the original craftsman made secret template copies of his own? Such things are not unknown. The design is not to Roman taste, but it is clearly fine. No doubt such things would fetch a splendid price.’
‘I do not think so, Excellence.’ Lucidus was stung into contradicting him outright — not treatment Marcus was accustomed to. ‘My ancestor was a man of culture and though he was a fearsome warrior, he was also an artist in his way. He created the design himself, but it is very intricate and he had no tribesman with the skill to work the silver as he wanted it. The silversmith who did it was captured in the wars, and taken by the family as a slave. This set of pieces was his masterwork. He spent ten years making it, the legend says. .’ He paused.
‘So perhaps he made some others afterwards.’ Marcus was abrupt.
‘Afterwards?’ Lucidus shook his head. ‘Afterwards my ancestor himself cut off the man’s two hands and burned them, together with the bark designs and templates, in front of all the tribe so that the feat could never be repeated.’ It was a stark picture and there was a moment’s thoughtful silence before he added, ‘I do not believe that any man alive could replicate the work, certainly not by eye alone, still less from memory.’
I said softly, ‘Then why did I see one like it in the marketplace here, only a day or two ago?’
Chapter Twenty
I had expected some response to what I said: bluster, perhaps, or efforts to explain. In fact what happened was that Lucidus whirled round to stare at me, and said, ‘Impossible!’
‘Impossible to you, perhaps,’ I said, remembering the flattened arm-band that I had noticed on the armour stall. ‘But all the same, it’s true. I assure you I saw it in this very town, on. .’ I was about to say ‘a stall that sells Roman armour’, but that was hardly tactful in the mansio, and I amended it, ‘on a stall with chiefly Roman things — a sort of trophy by the looks of it. I noticed it particularly, at the time, since it was clearly Celtic workmanship, but I knew there were Silurians who supported Rome and fought alongside the legions during the campaign so I presumed it had belonged to one of them. As I suppose it did? Perhaps one of your forefathers lost it in the struggle, long ago?’
He shook his head. ‘That is not possible. The silversmith was captured by your legions in those very wars, and my ancestor was permitted to keep him as a slave, partly as a reward for his support and precisely because it was known that he was seeking such a man. The pattern was not worked till afterwards.’ He frowned. ‘I am loath to call your word into question, citizen. .’ he was being very careful now to be polite to me, ‘but perhaps you are mistaken, after all? There are many very similar designs.’
I took another plum as I considered this. I thought I dared. Marcus is not especially fond of them, and I was very hungry by this time. But I needed to be quick: he had already worked his way absently through all the dates, and was now biting thoughtfully into a peach. Even as he gestured for the page to bring the napkin and the scented-water bowl, so he could rinse his hands and reach for another piece of fruit, he murmured languidly, ‘If Libertus says it was the same design, then I expect it was. He’s very good at patterns.’
Lucidus was looking unconvinced, but I was absolutely sure of what I’d seen. It troubled me. Marcus was clearly not much interested and I feared that he would soon lose patience with all these questions, but I was very keen to get at the truth. There were too many ‘impossibilities’ in this town. Though one explanation did occur to me. Was Laxus selling the family treasures on the sly, to pay for his betting on the games? After all, he’d obviously taken the dagger from the chest — somehow he must have got the key.
I thought of giving a detailed description of the design, but since the pattern was in front of me, that hardly proved a thing. Instead I said, ‘I’m certain that the decoration was the same as yours. It was an arm-guard. The fineness of the work was unmistakable. I think I could take you to the stall.’
Lucidus was in the process of a dismissive shrug, but suddenly his whole expression changed. ‘An arm-piece, did you say? About how long was it?’
I gestured the dimensions with my hands. ‘Unusually long.’
‘And it was here? For sale? In Venta?’ He shook his head. ‘I wonder. .? It couldn’t be! Surely they wouldn’t dare!’
Marcus says that I am good with patterns. Perhaps I am. Suddenly something slotted into place, like a tile in a mosaic pavement. ‘Wait a moment! Laxus had an uncle, didn’t he? He mentioned him in court. An uncle who “disappeared a moon or two ago”. That would be your brother, I presume?’
Lucidus nodded.
‘So he would also have inherited an ancestral piece. An arm-band, possibly?’
‘You are right, of course.’ Lucidus was a different person now. Gone was the lofty townsman of a moment since — I was looking at a fellow Celt, with raw emotions written on his face. His fists were clenched and when he spoke, his voice quivered with baffled grief and rage. ‘His name was Claudinus, and he was dear to me. The first of our family to rise to citizen through service to the guard — though I have sons who I believe will one day do the same. I hoped that he was safe somewhere. But it seems that he was ambushed by those confounded bath-siders, after all.’ He muttered the last words with such venom, between gritted teeth, that I knew he was swearing vengeance, even then.
‘You think the arm-band proves that he is dead?’
‘Of course. They murdered him. Or their paid assassins did. Claudinus would never have surrendered that arm-guard to anyone, while he had breath left in his body. Particularly not to our sworn enemies. Ever since he disappeared the family has feared the worst — that something of the kind had happened. But I was not wholly sure.’ He glanced around, as if the mansio might even now be concealing spies. ‘You see, I knew that he was not simply going off eastward on a trading trip, as everybody thought, to find a good price for our fleeces at the ports.’
‘There was more to it than that?’
Lucidus seemed to hesitate again, staring suspiciously at the slave-boy with the bowl.
‘This boy is a servant of the commanding officer,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he has no interest in local politics.’ Of course, I had no way of knowing this. I simply breathed a prayer to all the gods that it was true.
Lucidus nodded. ‘Very well.’ He leaned forward and spoke in a low urgent voice. ‘The truth is, citizen, Claudinus was hoping to destroy our rivals, once and for all. He was convinced that he had found out something which would bring them down — something the Emperor himself would want to know.’ It was obvious what I was going to ask, and he held up his hand. ‘He wouldn’t tell me what it was — too dangerous, he said — but he was jubilant. Claimed it would change our family fortunes for all time — honours and distinctions and rewards. He set off, about two moons ago, pretending he was planning to ship our wool to Rome. He wanted to bring the news to someone senior in authority. That’s what he was really doing when he disappeared.’
‘He set off to the court of Commo- His Most Imperial Divinity, the Emperor himself?’ I remembered to add the honorific titles just in time. We were after all in an imperial mansio, and because I was sure that the page was not a spy, it didn’t follow that there were no spies at all. Commodus has informers everywhere. ‘That was surely very dangerous in itself?’