Junio refilled my goblet, with a grin. ‘I thought your Celtic friend with the damaged finger was your favourite contender for the title?’ My slave was doing his utmost to lift my mood.
I was ungracious. ‘Ah yes,’ I said. ‘Egobarbus. Another unsolved mystery.’
‘Do you suppose that Zetso murdered him?’
I sighed. Even my spiced mead could not console me on this one. ‘I would have sworn he did it,’ I said. ‘That would explain the poison bottle in the ditch. But Zetso himself does not believe that he did. That was obvious from his manner.’
Junio shrugged. ‘If you are right, he brought poison. You hardly murder a man in that fashion without knowing it.’
‘He did not push that body down the well — the house-owner was watching him. Nor did he return to do it later. He clearly has witnesses that he returned to the villa that night.’
‘Suppose that Felix had Egobarbus murdered because he owed him money,’ Junio said. ‘If he will kill a herald for bringing bad news he would do no less to escape a serious debt. Could it have been a plot, to substitute one Egobarbus for another?’
‘I had thought of that,’ I said. ‘But how, in that case, did he silence the slaves? They were not bribed. They had scarcely an as between them when they came to pay the coach-driver. And that was no pretence, they were almost imprisoned for it.’
‘Perhaps Felix promised to give them what he owed to Egobarbus,’ Junio suggested. ‘After all, they appealed to him from the jail.’
‘In that case, why murder Egobarbus at all? Felix would still have to pay. He could not hope to cheat the slaves, if they knew where the body was. And why invite them to the feast where everyone could see them? It makes no sense.’
‘Nothing in this mansio makes sense,’ the high-pitched, affected voice broke in from the doorway.
I glanced at Junio. Our tax-collector was back.
‘All I require is a roasted fowl and a goblet of decent wine,’ the newcomer went on, approaching the fire. I saw to my alarm that he was carrying a wooden gaming box. ‘And all they can offer me is some frightful Gallic vintage and a dish of some revolting local stew.’ He settled himself on a seat not far from me, and placed the box conspicuously in front of him. The laws on gambling do not extend to board games. Clearly, despite my dishevelled appearance, I was to be tolerated as a gaming partner. ‘I hear you are a Roman citizen, after all. Do you play?’
I don’t, if I can help it. I am not like Junio, and I am as likely to lose a gamble as to win it. But there was little I could do. It was too late to travel further that day, and clearly we were to spend the evening together. To refuse would be discourteous.
I do not care for tax-collectors, but since I am a citizen, and therefore liable to tax, I am generally careful not to offend them. If there is a shortfall in collection, as there often is, I prefer not to be an individual target for additional levies. Besides, he had not waited for an answer: asking the average Roman if he gambles is tantamount to asking if he breathes. The man was already laying out the inlaid board and counting out the coloured glass tiles into two heaps.
‘I should have stayed in Glevum,’ he grumbled conversationally. ‘At least I should have been assured of a clean bed and a respectable meal. But one might as well try to catch the clouds as attempt to collect any taxes there at present. What shall we play for, citizen?’
I had been afraid of this. After the expenses of the day I had little money with me. I placed a few brass coins on the table. ‘This, to begin?’ I knew that it was hopeless. The board itself was worth more than I possessed.
He glanced at Junio, and for a moment I thought that he was about to suggest the slave as a stake. In that case, offended or not, I would have been obliged to refuse him.
But I was safe. ‘That flagon of mead, perhaps, against another? I have acquired one, though I rarely drink it. I can sell it in Eboracum. At least there I shall be away from that confounded funeral.’ He placed his first playing piece on the board, and waited for me to place mine. Behind him, Junio had caught my eye and was signalling numbers with his fingers.
‘The funeral?’ I supplied, helpfully. Junio had signalled three, four, and I held my piece speculatively over the fourth square on the third rank. Junio shook his head. I moved it to the third square on the fourth rank and Junio smiled. I placed the piece. ‘I imagine there are lavish preparations.’
‘Wreaths and statues and Jupiter knows what,’ the tax-collector said, pausing only as we laid out our tiles one by one. ‘They are talking of having the whole garrison marching in procession. Gladiatorial games and spectacles in the arena. . all funded from the public purse. And you know what that will mean, don’t you, citizen? More taxes, more trouble, more travelling for me. Why the governor has to come at all I cannot see. They could hold the funeral perfectly well without him.’
‘The governor?’ The board was almost complete by now, and I paused with my last piece in my hand. ‘Helvius Pertinax is coming to Glevum? In person?’ Under Junio’s discreet instruction, I laid down my counter. It was, appropriately enough, the dux — the high-ranking piece, like Helvius Pertinax himself. Marcus’s patron and friend was no more than a name to me, but I could well understand what a stir his arrival in the colonia would produce.
The taxman moved one of his coloured counters to jump one of mine. ‘Of course,’ he said, importantly, whisking my tile from the board. ‘This Perennis Felix was a powerful man. An intimate of the Emperor, it is said.’ He moved again; another of my tiles disappeared. ‘Of course, messengers were dispatched to the Governor at once, riding night and day, and they returned yesterday with the information.’ A third tile was taken from the board, and I glanced at Junio. He winked reassuringly.
It was my move now, and taking my cue from my slave I moved my dux into an open space. It looked feeble after our beginning, and the tax-man grinned hugely. He moved one of his own pieces forward to attack. ‘As soon as Pertinax received the news he set out towards Glevum with all speed. He is already on his way.’
Suddenly I saw what Junio had planned. ‘They will delay the funeral till he arrives?’ I said, and suddenly it was all over. One by one his pieces fell to mine, and I was left triumphant with more than half my tiles untouched. ‘My win, I think, my friend,’ I said. ‘A lucky chance. I think you said a flagon of mead?’ Next time I took Junio to the market, I thought, I would buy him a dozen honey-cakes if he chose, and I apologised mentally for having doubted his skill.
The tax-collector was glowering. He clapped his hands impatiently and a skinny slave appeared. The tax-collector gave his orders in an undertone, and the slave, with a reproachful glance at Junio and the pot of mead which was now bubbling aromatically on the hearth, murmured something back and disappeared again. The taxman cleared his throat.
‘It will have to be coins after all,’ he mumbled. ‘Our mead has apparently been stolen while we sat here, by a bunch of unscrupulous villains with cudgels.’ He looked at our flagon suspiciously, but Junio gave him the most innocent of smiles.
I could not repress a grin myself, but I saw an opportunity to ingratiate myself. It is not always expedient to win a game of chance.
‘Have a little of our mead in any case? My slave has made it hot and spiced, in the Celtic fashion. I warrant you will find it excellent.’
He hesitated for a moment, but temptation was too strong. He accepted the brimming cup which Junio offered him and, rather unwisely, drained it at a gulp. He was not used to mead, which can be potent when warmed, so I won the second game quite easily, even without Junio’s help. And the third. It did not matter. In a very short space of time our companion had become quite remarkably confiding and garrulous.