I looked up in alarm and recognized the soldier with the swagger stick that I’d seen the day before, when he had been commanding the party with the cart — the one I’d nicknamed ‘Scowler’. He was scowling now and hastening towards us with a determined air. The guard took a step backwards and pulled himself upright, standing to attention as if he feared rebuke.
But Scowler showed no interest in the guard at all. As he approached, he seized me by the arm. I thought that he was arresting me on some trumped-up charge and was about to make a protest, but he hustled me away to one side of the arch. I saw that he was no longer wearing his habitual frown. Indeed, he was giving me a most peculiar smile.
‘If you’ve come here enquiring about that page again — the one that you were mentioning to me yesterday,’ he said, murmuring as if he didn’t wish the other man to overhear, ‘I might have information that would be of use to you. Did I understand that there might be a reward?’
Fifteen
‘You know where he is?’ Hope was bubbling like a fountain in my veins. ‘Wait till I tell my son. If you can take us to him, I’ll reward you willingly.’ I glanced around to speak to Junio, but there was no sign of him. He and his urchin guide had already disappeared.
Scowler was tapping his swagger stick against his side. ‘Now, wait a minute, citizen. I didn’t say that I could take you to him, or even that I know exactly where he is, but I do know what happened to him yesterday. That is what I’m offering — if you feel that is something which it is worth your while to know.’ He ran a thick tongue around his lips. ‘Though it’s an official matter — privileged intelligence — and perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you at all.’
He was clearly hoping for a substantial bribe, and my store of money was depleting by the day. However, I did want information about Minimus and would gladly pay for news, though the chances were that it was anything but good. The circumstances in which the death-cart officer was likely to have seen the boy did not bear thinking of, but I decided that, even so, I would be glad to know the truth.
I swallowed. ‘I’ll give you a denarius,’ I said. ‘Half now and another half if what you say leads to my finding him.’ Or at least his body, I added grimly to myself.
Scowler gave me a wily glance and shook his head. ‘I thought that you were anxious to have news of him? This information is worth more than that. Ten denarii at the very least.’
The demand was audacious and deliberately so. It was also more money than I could possibly afford and far more than I was carrying. Perhaps that was what made me stand my ground. ‘Then I’ll try elsewhere. If you’re in possession of this news, then others in the garrison will have heard of it. I’ll call on the commander — he knows who I am, and since this is my patron’s slave, I’m sure he’ll try to help.’
In fact, I was by no means confident of that: on our previous encounters, there had always been the safety of a Roman citizen at stake, and a citizen of some authority at that. The fate of a humble slave-boy was of no account and therefore most unlikely even to have reached his ears. However, I moved away towards the gate again as if I intended to go to him at once.
Scowler’s capitulation was so abrupt that it took me by surprise. He skirted round in front of me so as to block my path. ‘Now just a minute, pavement-maker. Let’s not be hasty here. I’m sure some accommodation can be reached.’
I raised my hand in a dismissive gesture of farewell, but he was too quick for me. He leaned forward and slapped my palm with his, the age-old signal of a bargain struck. ‘A denarius, I believe you offered earlier. On consideration, I formally accept. Spondeo. There! We have a binding contract citizen, I think.’
Of course, it was really nothing of the kind. True, a stipulatio made in front of witnesses is generally taken to be binding by the market police, but only when the whole traditional formula is used, and Scowler had merely uttered the last response of it. Moreover, I now suspected that I’d promised far too much and he would have settled for a good deal less.
However, several people had seen him strike my hand (including the sentry at the gate, who was very unlikely to contradict a higher-ranking man) and I should have found it difficult to prove my case. Besides, my real concern was to gain news of Minimus, so I let it pass — as, no doubt, he had anticipated that I would. First skirmish to Scowler, I thought sourly.
I rallied by saying as loudly as I could, ‘The first half when you tell me what you know; the second if it leads to my locating him.’ As I had intended, people turned to look, so the terms of the so-called contract were at least made known.
Scowler, however, seemed alarmed by this and pulled me back into the shadow of an arch. ‘Very well, but don’t let people know that you heard this from me.’ He had dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘He’s in custody. I told you there was a warrant out for his arrest. When I got back here to the garrison last night, I heard that someone had already pulled him in, so the rest of us didn’t have to keep a lookout any more.’
‘In custody!’ It was ridiculous, but my first emotion was relief. Minimus might be chained up in a military cell — cold, terrified and hungry, and doubtless beaten too — but at least he wasn’t dead or being held to ransom by some vindictive rebel band. If he was in the clutches of the law, there were at any rate established procedures I could try.
‘So they are holding him in the garrison?’ I glanced across at the grim grey building as I spoke. This altered everything. It would not be easy to get him out of there — especially since Quintus had ordered his arrest — but the garrison commander was a friend of Marcus, and (as I’d told the sentry) I had dealt with him before and knew him to be a stern but not unkindly man. If Minimus was a prisoner under his command, then I could work, if not to obtain an actual release, then at least to improve the lad’s conditions till my patron came.
But Scowler shook his head. ‘He wasn’t brought here to the garrison. The word is he was captured by someone’s private guard. And when I say a guard, I mean a gang of them — half a dozen heavyweights, from what I understand. Must be someone wealthy to have a guard like that.’
I closed my eyes. I knew who it would be. Quintus had put the warrant out himself, though I was surprised to learn that Minimus had been caught without Hyperius mentioning it at the naming day. All the same, it was important news. I would have to go and visit Quintus now and try to persuade him that he should drop the charge. In the meantime. .
‘Do you know where they have taken him? The town jail, perhaps?’ If so, he would be having an unpleasant time. Without the money to send out for food and drink, the best he could hope for was foul water and stale bread. I could imagine it with dreadful clarity — I had once been held in such a place myself: chained up hand and foot in a subterranean dungeon, dank and airless and wholly in the dark, and forced to lap food and water like a dog, from a communal bowl. There was a good chance that, with a little judicial bribery, I could at least arrange for him to have a better cell.
‘I don’t know where they would have taken him,’ Scowler said. He seemed to be making a habit of repressing any ray of hope. ‘But it wasn’t to the jail, or I would have heard. We had a dead body to pick up from there today.’
I waved aside this incidental human tragedy. ‘But I understand that there’s a serious accusation on his head, so he’ll be brought to trial. Where else would they hold him?’
He frowned with concentration, anxious to earn that second half-denarius. ‘I suppose it’s possible they’ve locked him up themselves. If they produce him for the hearing, that is all that is required.’ He brightened. ‘That would make a lot of sense, supposing there is somewhere they can keep him safe till then. And I expect there is — a man who keeps a private guard like that won’t be short of a denarius or two.’