I nodded grimly. ‘What decurion is? It is a requirement that a man has a certain value of estate before he is available to be elected to the post.’
‘You know whose guard it was, then?’ Scowler looked surprised. ‘No one seemed to know.’
‘The decurion who put the warrant out, I’m sure.’
‘The one who arranged for us to come and get the corpse from you?’ He sounded diffident. ‘Well, I know where you can find him, if that’s so. He’ll be at the curia, or on his way to it. The ordo has a special session there this afternoon, and I think I heard the bugle just before you came.’
I nodded. ‘Then he will be on his way to the basilica by now. If I miss him there, I’ll try his town apartment later on. I know where that is too.’
Though it would not be easy to persuade him to set Minimus free, I thought. Quintus had a stubborn streak and hated to be wrong, and he’d decided yesterday that the slave-boy was guilty — if not actually of killing Lucius, then at least of stealing his purse and running off with it. No doubt his accusation would carry weight in court. The only way to change his mind would be to find the murderer. And very soon at that.
A chief decurion would have no trouble arranging for a trial, especially when it did not require a proper magistrate. In fact, it might not even require a proper court. For the likes of Minimus, a hearing was often conducted out of doors, in an open courtyard with someone unimportant presiding over it — and where an acclamation by the lookers-on would be enough to seal the poor lad’s fate. Unless, of course, the official torturers had already been to work and extorted a confession, as they sometimes did. That picture was so dreadful that I dragged my mind away.
‘You say he was arrested some time yesterday?’ I said, already making calculations in my mind. ‘When did you hear of it?’
Scowler pushed his helmet up and scratched his grizzled head. ‘When I came off duty, about mid-afternoon I suppose it must have been. I tried to tell you then — you seemed to be so anxious to find out where he was that I knew you’d make it worth my while. So I went back to your shop, but I couldn’t find you there, so then I tried to keep a lookout at the gate — I heard you generally pass this way — but there was still no sign of you, until just now, that is.’
I shook my head. ‘Last night I didn’t come this way at all.’ Which was a pity — I could have saved myself a lot of worry if I had. I turned to Scowler and fished beneath my toga folds into the draw-purse which I carried at my belt. ‘Here’s the half-denarius I promised you.’ I scarcely had a chance to hold it out to him before he’d seized it from me and put it in the arm pouch under his tunic sleeve. He clearly didn’t want the sentry — or anyone else — to see.
‘And the other half?’ he muttered. ‘When do I get that?’
‘When I have located him. And if I find that there is something more that you could have told me now, I shall withhold the money. Do you understand?’
Scowler’s frown came down upon him like a cloud, but his tone was wheedling. ‘Would I cheat you, citizen?’ he said.
I rather thought he might do, if he had the chance, but I didn’t say as much. Instead, I attempted to look businesslike. ‘Then I shall see you here this evening about the time the sun goes down. If I have found out where he is, you’ll have your coin.’
He was still staring after me as I walked through the gate and made my way towards the centre of the town. thinking of what I would say to Quintus when we met.
On reflection, I did not believe that he would let the slave be harmed — not at least while in his custody: he was too aware of who the legal owner was. That was some comfort to me. But equally I did not think that he would let him go. It seemed he genuinely believed in Minimus’s guilt — otherwise, why bring the charge at all? But perhaps he would not hasten to a trial. Why take the boy into private custody unless he intended to delay? Or did he, on the contrary, intend to rush it through: to demonstrate to Marcus that I’d been negligent, firstly by not keeping an adequate watch upon the boy and then by encouraging him to independent thought?
Indeed, I realized suddenly, I might find myself arraigned — diminishing the quality of someone else’s slave, physically or morally, was a criminal offence, tantamount to damaging his goods. That was not a comfortable possibility, and it made it still more urgent that I found the truth.
I was hurrying towards the forum all this time, down the wide thoroughfare that led into the centre of the town, still debating whether I should call at the curia at once, or if it was too late and I would have to intercept Quintus later on at home, at the apartment which he kept up in the town. (Like every other office-holder in the curia, he was obliged to maintain a property of a certain size within the walls, although, in common with Marcus and most other wealthy men, he owned a villa in the country too.) Surely he would already be at the basilica by now.
I hurried in that direction all the same, past the serried ranks of statues on their plinths and avoiding the traders who stepped out in my path and tried to interest me in what they had for sale — everything from woven carpets and expensive samian bowls to buckets of live eels — piled up on the makeshift stalls that crammed the pavement and spilled out on the street. I was side-stepping a particularly persistent shoe-seller, who would not believe that I did not want a pair of sandals made for me today, when a quartet of litter-bearers jogged past at that semi-run they often use in town. They were carrying a particularly fancy equipage with embroidered curtains that I recognized at once. This was the litter of Quintus Severus and, as I could make out through the half-drawn draperies, he was himself the only passenger, and he did not seem to be accompanied by Hyperius this time.
That sharpened my endeavours. I disengaged myself abruptly from the sandal-man, stepped over a neighbouring display of leather belts, narrowly avoided upsetting the ink of an amanuensis writing letters for a client, and pushed into the road. But I was impeded by my Roman dress (a toga is not an easy thing to hurry in), while the bearers wore short tunics to leave their long legs free. Besides they were strong and youthful men, accustomed to their trade, so by the time I had struggled to the carriageway the litter was already a long way down the street.
I don’t know if you have ever tried to break into a run wearing a toga, but if you have, you’ll know that it is near impossible. The garment instantly unfolds itself and loops around your knees. There was nothing for it. I could not remove my toga in a public place, so I did the next best thing: stripped off my cloak, wound it into a sort of tourniquet around my hips, then pulled up my errant toga loops and stuffed them into it. At least, that way, my hairy legs were free. Thus, cutting a most undignified figure, and to the accompaniment of hoots and catcalls from the onlookers, I roused myself into a lumbering trot and set off in pursuit.
Sixteen
They were entering the forum when I caught up with them, and by the time that I had stopped and caught my breath enough to speak — bending over and resting my hands upon my knees, while my chest heaved with the effort of unaccustomed exercise — the bearers had drawn the litter to a halt and Quintus himself was getting out of it.
‘Quintus, Decurion. .’ I managed between gasps, positioning myself where he’d catch sight of me. ‘A thousand pardons for pursuing you. .’
He gave me a look I shall remember all my life: such a mixture of outrage, contempt and disbelief that I stopped in confusion. The tanner would have no need of Glypto’s caustic brews if he could have borrowed such a look to treat his hides — so scathing that it could have stripped mere hairs off in a trice.