‘You saw the red-haired Celt arrive here yesterday?’ I prompted.
‘Fellow with red hair and long whiskers? Of course I did. You could hardly miss him. There was such a fuss about the carriage. It almost came to blows. The driver said he hadn’t been paid, although he had been promised I don’t know how much to drive halfway from Letocetum, collect them from an inn and bring them here.’
‘Letocetum?’ I was surprised. I had never been to Letocetum, but I had heard of it. An important staging post for the imperial army, a day’s ride north-west on the road to Eboracum. Interesting, I thought. Eboracum was the town which Felix had been visiting on business.
‘That’s where the driver came from. I heard him tell them so, when they were arguing about the price.’ She twined her greasy hair with a greasier hand.
‘Them?’ I said, seizing on a word. ‘How many of them were there?’
The girl smiled again, showing her blackened gums. Unmarriageable, I guessed, and eking out a meagre living providing hot food for unsuspecting travellers and probably other services for any soldiers who had gambled too much of their pay and were no longer very particular.
‘Only the man and his two servants,’ she said. ‘Funny that you should mention that. The carriage-driver kept insisting that he should have been paid for four. He threatened to fetch the aediles, but the Celt gave him a few denarii and he calmed down in the end.’
‘He did?’ I was surprised.
‘Oh yes. The Celt changed his tune very quickly when he was threatened with the law. He couldn’t hand over the money fast enough. And he promised to bring him the rest this evening. Apparently he was owed a lot of money by that Roman notable who died at the feast.’ She grinned gummily and settled her tattered garment across her skinny hips. ‘I don’t suppose either of them will see their money now. A man must live while he can, don’t you think, citizen?’
The conversation was taking an uncomfortable turn. I did not like the way she was nodding towards the squalid curtained recess at the rear of the shop. I abandoned all thoughts of learning any more, and put down my bowl hastily. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘that was helpful.’ And I hurried away.
‘But, citizen,’ she called out after me, ‘you have not tasted your soup.’
‘Another time,’ I lied, and hastened back through the gate into the town.
The guard on duty winked wickedly at me. ‘No time for your soup, citizen? I’m surprised at you. Forget how late it was, did you?’
I knew what he was thinking and felt myself flush in embarrassment. The man must think me desperate to resort to such extremes. Nevertheless, it had given me an opportunity. Roman guards are usually grim-faced and silent. This one was grinning widely, and, thinking he had me at a disadvantage, seemed willing to talk.
I glanced over my shoulder. The girl had gone back to her stall and was pouring the remains of the soup back into the cooking pot. I improvised wildly. ‘I came here looking for my slave,’ I said, sending up a mental plea to Junio for forgiveness. ‘But she doesn’t seem to have seen him.’
The guard shrugged. ‘He won’t have come here. She doesn’t deal with slaves — unless they simply want a bowl of soup. Even if they had the money, which they mostly don’t. Too much trouble if they are caught. No, she sticks to soldiers — auxiliaries mostly, they never have any money — and occasionally visitors to the city if they are short of cash and are not too fussy.’
I saw an opening, and took it. ‘Like that red-headed fellow with the whiskers who turned up here yesterday? The one who had an argument with his coachman?’
The soldier grinned. ‘You heard about that? I did not see it myself, I was not on duty at the time, but it was the talk of the barracks. Turned up in a hired coach, apparently, with not enough money to pay the driver, and then claimed he had business with Perennis Felix. We took him in for questioning, and locked him up for an hour, but it seems he was telling the truth. He insisted that we send a message to Felix, and the next thing we heard he was being invited to a civic banquet.’
I found myself grinning. ‘So your commander let him go?’
‘Quicker than Jove can hurl lightning. Did you see that Perennis Felix? And this man was an associate of his. We were expecting at any moment to be punished for our presumption. But who could possibly have supposed that the story was true? The man was half barbarian. He hardly spoke Latin, and could barely use an abacus. I saw him at the barracks when they brought him in. One cannot imagine why a wealthy Roman would have dealings with him.’
‘I understand there is tin and copper involved,’ I said carefully.
The soldier shrugged. ‘That is what he said. Though he refused to answer any of our questions, even when we threatened him. He simply said that Felix would vouch for him. Which in the end he did.’ He grinned. ‘Our chief of guard nearly prostrated himself with apology.’
‘So you would have noticed if the man had passed the gate again?’
‘Noticed? Great Mars! I think our commander would have come down and escorted him through it personally.’ He grinned again. ‘I suppose we should have guessed he was important. A man who can afford to indulge his private vanities like that is clearly a person to be reckoned with.’
‘He certainly looked singular,’ I said. ‘In that plaid and that moustache.’
‘Well, one sees that sort of thing often enough,’ the guard remarked. ‘In Isca, on the border, if not here. A lot of those peculiar Celts still wear their outlandish tribal fashions. No, what attracted my attention was the slaves. Apparently he has always done it. One of our centurions was posted in the south-west and he had heard of it before.’
‘Always done what?’
‘Surrounded himself with red-headed servants.’
The answer startled me. I tried to think back to the household of Egobarbus as I once knew it. There were red-headed servants, certainly, among them — as there always are when a vigorous leader keeps female slaves. But there were others with hair of every hue, and there was certainly no policy of any kind. Although, when I came to think of it, it was exactly the sort of petty tyranny the real Egobarbus would have delighted in.
I came back to the present, to find the guard staring at me. The friendly manner had gone and his voice was crisp as he lowered his spear and pointed it lazily in the direction of my vitals.
‘And you, citizen? What is your interest in this Celt? You are asking a lot of questions. You seem to know what he looked like. And yet you did not know about the servants? How do you explain that?’
It was a moment to exercise what little rank I had. ‘I saw him at the banquet last night,’ I said. ‘I was a guest myself.’ I saw the guard’s jaw drop with incredulity. It would have been comic if it were not so serious. I pressed my advantage. ‘And I have some property which belongs to him. His plaid cloak. He left it behind in a cupboard. And,’ I added quickly as he made a lunge towards me, ‘before you suggest locking me up in my turn, I recommend that you apply to Marcus Aurelius Septimus. He is my patron, and I am acting on his orders.’
The spear-point hesitated for a moment, and then moved aside. ‘Your pardon, citizen,’ the guard said. ‘I did not realise. You do not look like a. . Your toga. .’ He tailed off.
I stepped past the spear into the comparative safety of the city. ‘No,’ I murmured, ‘that is the trouble with the peculiar Celts. Sometimes we wear the most outlandish tribal costumes.’
But, having a lively respect for Roman guards with spears, I didn’t say it loudly enough for anyone to hear.
Chapter Thirteen