Marcus nodded thoughtfully. ‘It seems a likely explanation.’
Delicta, although still smiling, was unwilling to abandon her theory. ‘So you think the incident in Corinium was unconnected?’
I was about to answer that I did, but upon reflection I modified that. ‘I do not think,’ I said carefully, ‘that the two attacks were carried out by the same people. But as for being connected in some way, that is another question. Two attacks, so close to Marcus, may be more than coincidence.’
Whether I was right or wrong, it was a diplomatic answer. Marcus looked suitably grave and thoughtful, and murmured that the culprits must be caught, while his wife glowed at me more warmly than ever.
‘You are so shrewd, Libertus,’ she said. ‘And you are hurt. If you have finished your meal, I will have my maidens tend your head.’
I indicated that I had, and the girls stepped forward.
The next moments were delightful. I might have been a young man again, submitting to Gwellia’s ministrations. Whether an ointment of agrimony and hog’s grease is really a useful specific against cuts and bruises, I do not know, but the effect of having my forehead and then my knees softly bathed and salved by smooth willing fingers would have cured me of worse injuries. I was beginning to wish I had more grazes to tend.
Marcus brought me out of my reverie. ‘Now then, old friend, is there anything more that you require?’
It seemed churlish to ask for money, but the urchin was still on the stairs. Diffidently, I suggested, ‘With respect, Excellence, could you lend me a little money? No great sum, merely some coins for the child who acted as messenger? I regret to have to ask you, but my own purse was stolen.’
‘My dear old friend, feel free to ask for more than that. I would do as much for a beggar.’
He spoke with such warmth and alacrity that I was moved to add, ‘Of course, on reflection I will have to take the child home with me, in any case. He thinks he has some information about my attackers. I promised him a basket of food if it was useful.’ I hoped, of course, that Marcus would volunteer the reward, but I knew him too well to ask him for it outright.
I was lucky. Marcus was still feeling benevolent. He smiled. ‘Leave it to me,’ and he sent one of his slaves scurrying. Mentally, I blessed the gods. That little exchange would save me a week’s provisions.
The urchin was brought before us, his eyes wider than disci, so overwhelmed in the presence of Marcus and his broad purple edgings that I believe he would have parted with his information for nothing.
We didn’t ask him to. Marcus fingered some coins from his purse and said, ‘You are the boy who brought the message here?’
The urchin nodded, too terrified to speak.
‘You say you have some information? About the men who attacked my poor old friend here?’
The urchin glanced at me. Being called a friend of Marcus, however poor and old, had raised my status considerably in his estimation. He stammered, ‘It. . it is nothing, Excellence.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Marcus said, ‘we shall hear it.’
The boy gulped. ‘It is merely. . I thought I had seen them before, selling trinkets near the market, outside the temple of Mars. They’d spread a cloth under one of the outer pillars, and had laid out their wares. They were blocking the alleyway. I saw the aediles move them on.’ No talk now of needing to see the basket first: he was gabbling in his eagerness.
‘Trinkets?’ I said, at the same time as Marcus demanded, ‘You are sure it was the same men?’
The boy babbled, ‘I saw them dash out of the alley. Two of them. I thought they were the same. They are not easy to miss. Big men in brown tunics, with red hair and Celtic boots.’
I nodded. That made sense, if my theory was correct. ‘What were they selling?’ I asked again.
The boy shrugged. I did not cow him as Marcus did. ‘Bracelets, armlets, mirrors — that sort of thing. Bronze, they looked like. I am no judge of these things. People were buying them.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘I swear it, Excellence, that is all I know.’
Marcus looked at me. We were not much further forward, but I was sure now that my attackers were the servants of Egobarbus. I nodded.
A servant was sent out to fetch the basket, and I saw the boy’s eyes widen as he looked inside. There might not be honey-cakes, but the child looked pleased with his bargain. Marcus drew out the coins, and I saw the tip he proffered. I was not displeased to know that the urchin, for all his scheming, had earned much more than his twenty asses.
Well, I would think about it later. For the moment, I had other concerns. I closed my eyes again, and, proffering my hands, let the handmaidens rub ointment into my wrists where the leather thong had chafed them. There were some advantages, I thought languorously, to having had my patron become a married man.
Chapter Eighteen
My patron’s indulgence and concern, welcome as they were, could not be infinite. In having him pay off the urchin I had, naturally, depleted the supply. It seemed a very short time before he was saying abruptly, ‘Well, well, that should be sufficient. Surely, Libertus, you are feeling better by now? You will remember there are matters to discuss.’
I could do little more than acquiesce.
He waved a lofty hand and at once the sybaritic ministrations halted, and my enchanting handmaidens picked up their balms and potions and drifted away. Their mistress, at a signal from her husband, followed them, and — apart from the inevitable attendant slaves — I found myself alone with Marcus, who was now sitting almost upright on his couch and tapping his thigh impatiently with his baton. Any dream that I was the Emperor Commodus (or Jupiter himself) enthroned in some earthly paradise tended by willing votaries had instantly vanished.
‘Excellence?’ I ventured, trying to sound briskly intelligent. ‘What do you wish me to do first? Interview Delicta’s gatekeeper about the trouble in Corinium, or report first on the progress I have made here?’
He looked at me gloomily. ‘Is there more to say about that? You spoke of finding those items on the pile. Have you found other evidence of which I’m unaware?’
‘Not evidence,’ I said carefully. ‘But there are some important impressions. Suggestive incidents.’ I moved my stiffened fingers discreetly to touch the little phial hanging by its cord inside my clothes. The attack had driven it out of my mind. But my fall had not broken it. I was reassured.
I was debating whether this was the most auspicious moment to show it to Marcus when he solved the problem for me by saying impatiently, ‘I cannot act on your impressions, my old friend. Give me the facts, when you have discovered them. In the meantime, speak to this gatekeeper of my wife’s. She will give me no peace until you have. Here, my slave will show you the way.’
Junio helped me to my feet and we followed the tunic-clad servant out of the fine public chambers and into the humbler quarters at the rear of the building, where a cluster of shabby rooms led off from a smoky passage, and a still more smoky vented space with a large charcoal fire, set on an iron stand, in the centre. This clearly was the makeshift kitchen. Most Glevum apartments have no cooking facilities at all, and upstairs in communal blocks like this such things are actively discouraged, following the tragic blazes in Rome. Apartment owners these days either dine out or content themselves with meals brought in from the better class of hot-food stalls.
This uncertain device was therefore an indication of Marcus’s stature. No wonder men of means, like Gaius, preferred to buy a house where possible, so that their cooks could prepare meals — and even banquets — without the constant risk of either asphyxiation or conflagration.
The kitchen slaves, half stripped and wheezing with smoke and heat, were too busy skinning a goat and placing it on a turnspit to pay us attention as we went by. The slave-boy with the bucket, whose job it clearly was to douse the flames and cool the walls in an emergency, looked up and nodded.