I was surprised how many had come. Citizens had three whole days to pay their respects. Perhaps, like my customer, these men planned to leave the city as soon as they had done their duty. Three days was in any case an interesting choice of time, I thought. I know that in Rome public figures sometimes lie in state for twice as long as that, but around Glevum old beliefs die hard. Local superstition says that the spirit comes back from the afterworld after the third day if the body remains unburied. Whoever was arranging the funeral was obviously taking no chances with Felix.
I jostled my way through the throng. At first I made little progress, but Junio wriggled ahead of me, crying, ‘Make way, in the name of Marcus Aurelius Septimus,’ and the crowd parted like magic. Junio winked at me and I stepped smartly into the gap. Marcus’s name still counted for something in the city.
People must have been rather surprised to see the humble citizen they had made way for, and even more surprised when the doorkeeper gave me a reluctant nod of recognition, and opened the door a fraction to let me in.
‘His Excellence is in the triclinium,’ he murmured. ‘He asked that I send you to him. That slave will show you the way.’ He gave me another withering glance, and turned back to the business of admitting the waiting mourners in some kind of appropriate order without scuffles breaking out in the process.
In the corridor I turned to Junio. ‘Take this,’ I said, unfastening my leather money-pouch from my belt. ‘Go down into the forum and see what you can discover. Any news of Zetso or the red-whiskered Celt, make sure you bring it to me. Meet me here again when the sun is over the top of the basilica.’
Junio nodded. Doubtless the soldiers had already been through the town asking questions, but sometimes a slave can find out more by looking and listening than a centurion learns from wielding his baton. A good many humiliores have discovered that the safest way to deal with the military is to remember nothing, even if events have taken place before your eyes.
Junio went out again, to the astonishment of the doorkeeper, while I followed the other slave into the depths of the house. It was an eerie experience. The plastered walls and tiled floors seemed to echo with unearthly wailing.
As we skirted the atrium, we could see the professional mourners gathered around the bed, some wailing on their instruments while others moaned and beat their chests in truly professional style. Their keening ululation hung in the air, heavy as the smoke and smell from the herbs and candles around the bier.
Two senior magistrates, looking embarrassed and furtive, had already made their required homage and were sneaking away. Felix, uglier than ever on his funeral couch, stared grimly into space, paying no attention to any of it. His expression was so baleful, even at this distance, that I was glad to reach the triclinium.
The dining room had been swept and cleansed. The additional tables had been spirited away, the painted screen partition doors were closed again, and only the customary three couches (from which the room gets its name) remained. The whole impression was of space and elegance. Only the burnt offerings still lying on the altar gave any reminder of the night before.
Marcus was lounging on one of the couches, talking to Gaius who was sitting despondently beside him. There was a small bowl of fruit before them — a sure sign that Marcus, too, had now done his share of ritual lamenting. Until he had fulfilled that rite it would not have been proper to eat. Both men looked up when I came in.
‘Libertus,’ Marcus said sharply, extending a ringed hand in my direction. ‘I expected you earlier.’
I bent low over the ring. ‘Your pardon, Excellence. I was visited this morning by a young man from Rome. I met him here last night. He tells me Gaius invited him.’
If I hoped to startle the old man I was disappointed. Gaius shook his head mournfully. ‘That young tradesman with the hairy hands? Yes, I invited him. He arrived here yesterday demanding to speak to Felix — part of the party from Rome, he said. I would have turned him away but he showed me a letter with the Perennis seal. I hardly knew what to do with him, so I asked him to the feast. Thought he could squat on a stool at the lowest table. He came, did he? I did not notice him. Nor hear him announced.’
When I came to think of it, neither had I. Octavius’s late arrival had coincided with the religious sacrifices, so the name had not been announced. And he had sat opposite to me, with his back towards the top table. Had that been deliberate, or a happy accident? ‘The young man left the feast early.’
Gaius got to his feet. ‘Like the driver and that Celtic fellow with the whiskers,’ he said heavily. ‘Sensible men. I wish I’d had the courage to do the same. I might have saved him.’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘Dead. So suddenly. And under my own roof. I cannot believe it. This has been a shock to me, you know. A terrible shock.’
It had. Manifestly so. Gaius was looking pale and hollow-cheeked, his face stricken, and his old eyes filled with genuine pain. This was no public ritual of mourning, this grief was sincere. I remembered what my customer had said. Perhaps, when Gaius knew him in Rome, Felix had possessed some redeeming qualities. I murmured, ‘I am sorry. I did not realise. He was. . a good friend?’
‘More than a friend,’ Gaius said. ‘More like. . a brother. A son almost.’
I tried to imagine what had endeared the swarthy Felix to the heart of this gentle old man, and failed. ‘Citizen-’ I began, but he interrupted me.
‘I hear that there is talk of commissioning a mosaic from you in the public square.’
That sounded hopeful. ‘I believe so.’ I glanced at Marcus but he was peeling fruit impassively with the heavy knife from his belt. ‘A small memorial pavement, perhaps, on the rostrum to mark the spot where the body lay?’
It was the obvious place. In big civic funerals the litter is always rested on a public platform during the last procession, so that the common people can gawp at it while an orator makes an uplifting funeral address. A small circular mosaic there would show respect without impinging on the landscape. Yet as soon as I made the suggestion I regretted it. I had forgotten how close that mosaic would be to the spot where the fractured corpse of Marcus’s herald had been.
But Gaius was thinking of other things. ‘Well,’ he said urgently, ‘when you have finished that mosaic, you can build another one for me. Here, in the triclinium, where he lay. Take up the geometric border at this end and replace it with something appropriate. Something to remind me of him. You will give me a price?’
I was astonished. I had hardly come here expecting to be offered commissions. But I knew a good offer when I heard one. ‘I should be delighted to accept your commission, citizen. But I shall need advice. You speak of designing “something appropriate”. What motif would you think suitable for a memorial to Perennis Felix?’
Gaius looked at me as though the gods had addled my wits. ‘Perennis Felix? The man was a tyrant and a bully and death is too good for him. He was a curse in Rome and he has brought a curse to my house again. He can rot forgotten in the afterworld, or be fed to Cerberus for anything I care. I do not want a memorial to Felix, I want a memorial pavement for my dog.’
And, shaking his head sadly, as though to rid himself of the wailing and drumming which reached us from the atrium, he bowed his head to Marcus and walked slowly from the room.
Chapter Ten
After the aged magistrate had gone, there was a silence. Marcus continued cutting his apple with his knife and spearing little pieces of it into his mouth. I said nothing. I recognised from the furrowed brow that my patron was thinking.