It did take a few moments to clean the barrow out, but, despite his protests, I insisted it was done — the mosaic would be balancing dangerously enough, without there being lumps of earth beneath the tray preventing it from lying properly. When we had finished, we went into the shop.
It was my turn to feel disconcerted by the corpse. The tapers were still burning at Lucius’s head and feet (though the most pervading smell was not of smoke and tallow grease), and despite the blindfold round the head, I was uncomfortably aware of the memory of those bulging eyes — as if the dead man was somehow staring through the cloth.
I was glad that we had moved the body earlier; it made it easier to turn our backs on it, though I had an eerie feeling that it was watching me — reproachful because I hadn’t gone to find his mother first. But the turnip-seller seemed to be free of such uncomfortable fantasies and he was already kneeling by the plaque and laying hold of the linen backing piece. So I suppressed my fancies and, with his help, I shuffled the whole plaque on to the tray, stuffed strips of cloth around it and lashed it into place. Then between us we carried it out on to the barrow. It fitted, in a fashion, though it was precarious. Then we went back and gathered up the extra tiles into another length of cloth, knotted it securely into a roll and wedged the bottom of the load with it, so it could not slip forwards if the barrow lurched. The whole thing looked incongruous, but all the same it was a great relief to have it safely out.
And just in time, it seemed. There was an unfamiliar sound of wheels and jangling chains, and the military cart came lurching into view, moving slowly in the narrow, muddy confines of the road. It was not forbidden to bring horse-drawn transport here during the hours of daylight, as it was within the walls (and anyway this was an army vehicle and would have been exempt) but the area was not designed for wagons of this size. There was barely room for it to inch along. I leaned against the wall and tried to look insouciant, as though I had been waiting there since Quintus left.
The turnip-seller, however, was not content with this. He glanced towards the barrow. ‘This looks out of place with a mosaic on — they’ll notice it for sure. I’ll take it round and put it in the alley while they’re here.’ He seized the wooden handles and made as if to trundle the whole thing out of sight.
I shook my head. ‘That would only take you past them. Go the other way. Push it a little further down the road,’ I urged. ‘That will arouse much less suspicion than you going skulking by the midden-heap. These soldiers have no idea that you have been with me — to them you are just another vendor with a barrow in the street. They won’t know what’s on it, if you take it far enough.’ I saw him hesitate, and added urgently, ‘When they’ve taken Lucius, we can decide what we do next. But move quickly if you’re going to. They are almost here.’
They were indeed: one obviously senior soldier with a swagger stick, and two reluctant younger ones behind him with the horse. The older one, whom I had nicknamed ‘Scowler’ in my mind, was already striding purposefully towards us.
The turnip-seller must have seen him coming too. He did not even glance in my direction as he said, ‘I could always take it to the site for you. I know where it is — the villa is even on my own route home. When you’ve been to see the woman, I will meet you there and take the barrow back.’ He gave a fleeting grin. ‘That’s worth another half-sestertius, don’t you think, citizen?’ And, without waiting for an answer, he set off down the street. I swear I heard a distant cry of ‘Turnips!’ as he went.
‘Are you this pavement-maker we’ve been sent to find?’ Scowler was barking the question in my ear.
I turned to face him. He was standing close beside me: deliberately close, in a posture designed to be threatening. His feet, in their hobnailed sandals, were planted wide apart and he carried a helmet tucked beneath one arm, while the other hand rested lightly on his hip, the fingers caressing the handle of the baton at his belt. His head was tilted arrogantly back.
‘Well?’ he said.
I looked him up and down. The man was swarthy, crop-haired and stocky, with a self-important air, though the chain-mail tunic and the sweat-stained leather underskirt marked him as an auxiliary officer at best — one of the many from the southern provinces, perhaps, lured by the promise of citizenship when he retired. In that case, I outranked him — in one respect at least.
‘I am the citizen Longinus Flavius Libertus, certainly, and this is my workshop,’ I said evenly, stressing my title and my full three Roman names — a signal that I was already a citizen myself.
He must have got the point, although he showed no outward sign. His voice, however, became less peremptory. ‘I was sent here on the orders of the chief decurion. Said there was a body of a pauper to collect.’ He leaned a little closer as he spoke. He smelt of sweat and horses and cheap watered wine. ‘Seems to think your slave has robbed and murdered him.’
I looked at him coldly. ‘Decurions can be wrong.’
That seemed to strike a chord. He used a sharp elbow to dig me in the ribs. ‘I don’t think he can believe it much himself — about the murdering at least. If he wanted to bring a charge against the slave, he’d want to produce the dead body, wouldn’t he — not have it disposed of quickly in the pit?’
I looked at him sharply. I had not thought of that, although perhaps I should have done. I’m not entirely familiar with the details of the law.
He gave me another nudge. ‘Though we’ve been told to hold the boy if he turns up. Says that he will haul him to the courts and have him charged with robbery and with attempting to run away. He claims the boy belongs to Marcus Septimus — not to you at all — and in the owner’s absence he will act for him and make the formal accusation that the law requires.’
I tried to keep my voice completely unconcerned. ‘The boy was lent to me, however, and I make no such charge. Quintus Severus is wrong about the theft as well. Whoever killed the pauper stole his purse and took my servant too — which I hope to prove by producing both of them. But the decurion is right about the corpse. You’ll find it in my workshop, lying on the floor.’
Scowler furrowed his low brow a little more. ‘What’s it doing there? And why, in that case, have they called on us?’
‘As to what he’s doing in my workshop, I don’t know. Someone dragged him there when he was dead — and if you are going to ask me why, I don’t know the answer to that either, I’m afraid. And I did not call you; the decurion did.’
He gave me an understanding look which said that one could not argue with officialdom. His frown relaxed a little, but he shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t touch it really, when it isn’t in the street. Criminals and vagrants, and dead travellers whose bodies cannot be identified, that’s what me and my fatigue party are supposed to gather up.’ He scratched his cropped head with his baton-end and seemed to be thinking. Then he looked triumphantly at me. ‘Suppose I told you to dispose of him yourself? He was murdered in your workshop after all.’
‘I doubt that the chief decurion would approve,’ I countered. ‘Anyway, I’ve told you: the body didn’t die here — it was dragged here afterwards. I have proof of that. You would have had to take it if it had been left out in the street.’
He looked perplexed again. The mention of Quintus had clearly worried him. ‘Well, since you put it that way. .’ He turned back to his men who were still waiting with the cart. ‘Come on, you idle scum. Do what you were sent for. Take a look in there!’
They were ruthlessly efficient; I’ll say that for them. It seemed no time at all before they brought Lucius out, suspended between them by his arms and legs. They swung him up and tossed him on the cart, on top of another body already lying there — it might have been a leper or a beggar with one leg. The soldiers didn’t even pull a blanket over them. I was glad that Lucius had the bandage on his face, and that his mother wasn’t there to see.