‘An accident?’ That clearly shocked him, and you could see a kind of light dawn in the cold blue eyes. ‘What sort of accident?’ He frowned, contriving to convey that accidents were unacceptable, and that this one was evidence of my bad management. He looked me up and down. ‘An accident to you?’
‘Not to me, decurion. To Lucius,’ I explained.
‘Lucius?’ The intonation suggested that this was even more absurd than permitting accidents. ‘And who is Lucius?’
‘A street-vendor,’ I murmured. ‘A pie-seller, in fact. I found him in my workshop just before you came.’ I took a deep breath and made a plunge for it. ‘I am afraid he’s dead — murdered. Someone’s throttled him.’
‘A pie-seller?’ Quintus echoed again, disbelievingly. He made it sound as if he thought that this was somehow all my fault and had been deliberately arranged to inconvenience him. ‘Murdered in your workshop? What was he doing there?’ When I was expected, his tone of voice implied.
‘I don’t believe that he was killed there, citizen. More likely set on in the street and robbed, and dumped there afterwards. I fear it may be bandits. .’ I outlined my reasoning.
‘I see.’ Quintus abruptly seemed to have lost interest in this. ‘Spare me all the explanation, citizen. I know that you are skilled at solving mysteries — Marcus was always boasting of your skill — but the death of a pie-seller is hardly my concern.’
‘But you understand that I can hardly ask you in the shop and show you patterns with him lying there.’
He cut me off with a dismissive gesture of his hand. ‘Naturally not. It seems I’ve had a wasted journey here this afternoon. Unfortunate, but I concede that it is unavoidable. One cannot conduct business in the presence of a corpse. It would be inauspicious to a remarkable degree. What will you do with the body, anyway? I don’t imagine that the pie-seller belonged to any guild?’
This was a problem that I hadn’t thought about — I had been too shocked at finding Lucius dead. But, of course, he would require some sort of burial. There were special societies, even among slaves, to which people paid a small sum every month to ensure they received a proper funeral and were not condemned to walk the earth as ghosts, but, as Quintus had remarked, it was unlikely that Lucius had ever joined such a guild. Seriously poor freemen very rarely did — money was needed for more pressing purposes. I said, ‘He has a mother — no doubt she would know.’
Quintus made a disapproving face. ‘Better to inform the garrison authorities, and they will come round with a cart and put the corpse in a communal grave. It is not a council matter, since we’re outside the gates. You will want to have the workshop ritually cleansed to get rid of evil omens as soon as possible, I suppose — and you can’t do that until the body has been moved. Though it may cost you a little to have them bury it — he is not strictly a vagrant or a criminal.’
I winced. I had seen them put bodies in the common pit before — tipped in without ceremony and covered up with lime. It was not what I would have chosen for Lucius at all, but it’s where he would have ended if he’d dropped dead in the street, and a proper funeral was an expensive thing and would mean a full two days of mourning closure for the shop. Besides, Quintus was right about the cleansing rites. No customer would come to a workshop where a murdered corpse had lain, for fear that it was cursed — only a proper ritual would dispel the fears. That would involve an expensive sacrifice at least, and probably a priest with incense, scattering water on the floor. This business was already likely to cost more than I could easily afford.
Quintus was looking questioningly at me. ‘I could alert the gatehouse as I go home, perhaps. Then they can send a party later on.’
‘Someone had better go and tell his mother, just in case,’ I said aloud. ‘Though I suppose that I will have to see to that myself. It’s not a task that I look forward to.’
He looked at me, astonished. ‘Get a slave to do it — you do have a slave, I suppose. Don’t I remember that Marcus lent you some?’
I nodded glumly. ‘Two little matching boys. And that’s another thing. One of them, who was attending me today, seems to have disappeared. I fear the killers may have kidnapped him.’
Quintus stared at me. His attendant made a stifled noise. ‘What is it, Hyperius?’ the decurion said.
‘If I might be permitted, citizen. .?’ The slave had a peculiarly unctuous tone of voice. ‘If the pavement-maker’s slave has disappeared, why should we suppose that bandits are involved? Surely it is likely that it was the slave who killed the pie-seller? Stole his purse and made a run for it?’
Quintus looked absurdly pleased at this remark. ‘Of course. Well done, Hyperius. Marcus is not the only one to have a clever man to help.’ He turned to me. ‘With your reputation, citizen, I am surprised you didn’t think of that explanation for yourself.’
‘I did, decurion, but I dismissed it instantly — and so would you, if you had known my slave.’ It sounded impertinent and I hurried on, ‘Anyway, there is evidence that there was a much stronger hand at work.’ I explained about the tracks. ‘You — or your slave — can come and see it for yourself-’
He cut me off with one impatient hand. ‘Of course, we shall do nothing so absurd. To come into your workshop is to invite a curse. We have already lingered here too long. I shall get in touch with the garrison and have them move the corpse, but I shall also tell them to look out for your page and hold him on suspicion of involvement in all this. Hyperius is right. It wouldn’t be the first time that a slave has stolen a purse and made a run for it.’
I shuddered. To be apprehended as a fugitive slave is a serious affair, unless the slave can prove that his master was unnaturally cruel and he had gone to seek protection from a kinder one. And it did not require the master himself to bring the charge. Quintus would doubtless do exactly what he said, and that would make three capital offences of which Minimus was accused — running from his master, theft and homicide.
‘I’m sure that Minimus has done nothing of the kind,’ I protested, ready to give my reasons, but Quintus was already bridling and he cut me off.
‘That is only your opinion, which you can state in court if we do happen to apprehend the boy.’ He gave an unpleasant little smile. ‘Of course, the magistrates may wish to talk to you as well. We have only your word for it that you did not kill the man yourself.’
I confess that stunned me. I realized that it would be difficult to prove that I had not — there was no one else to witness where I’d been and when.
But Quintus did not pursue that train of thought. ‘Hyperius! The litter!’ he said imperiously. He turned to me again. ‘I fear that we shall have to forget that pavement after all.’
Even in my state of shock I could not let that pass. ‘But we have a contract. A binding one, I think. You told me what you wanted, and we shook hands on it, in front of witnesses. Two senior members of the ordo in fact.’
I was worried now. This commission had promised to be an especially lucrative one, and I had turned down other work on that account. That was not as imprudent as it seemed: I had a proper contract, and all decurions financed elaborate public works — it was expected of them (not surprisingly perhaps, since one of their chief duties was overseeing tax), and support for them among the populace was often commensurate with how much they spent. The new pavement for the basilica was a flamboyant one, and I had relied on earning quite a lot for it.
The litter-slaves had brought the litter up, and Quintus paused in the act of getting into it. ‘I will speak to the aediles. Under the circumstances I think they will agree that the omens are too dreadful to proceed with this.’
‘And if I have the workshop ritually cleansed? And prove that no one working here had any part in this?’
He shrugged. ‘By that time I fear that there would be insufficient time to get the pavement done. It would be difficult to do it now, in any case. A message arrived at the curia today, nominating a candidate for the vacant ordo seat — you will remember there was a councillor who died, and we are due to vote in a replacement in a day or so — and saying that Marcus hopes to be here very soon himself.’
‘Really?’ I attempted to look unconcerned, but secretly I was a little stung by this. I had told my patron of the vacant seat myself, in the monthly bulletin about the town which I had sent to him (at his express request but at my own expense), though I’d never had an answer or acknowledgement. He was naturally concerned about the ordo seat, and any candidate he gave his blessing to was sure to be elected, so I could understand that he had written to the curia, but, I thought, he could have let me know as well.
Quintus was anxious to show how well informed he was. ‘I understand he has found a ship in Gaul and is already on his way, so there is hardly time to have a pavement laid. I shall have to content myself with giving a grand banquet at my home to welcome him, as that fool Pedronius has already announced that he will do.’ He saw my face and gave his sneering laugh. ‘You hadn’t heard that news? I had supposed you such a favourite that he’d have written to you first!’
I shook my head. ‘If there was a message at my home today — as there might well have been — it had not arrived before my son and I set off for town,’ I said. There was some truth in this. My roundhouse was not far from my patron’s country house — indeed, he had given me the land to build it on — but in his absence the villa was closed up and only a few staff remained to keep it clean and aired.
I was thinking fast by now. Perhaps it was as well that the contract would be void. If Marcus was already on a ship from Gaul, then he would be here in less than half a moon. That made it near impossible to lay the floor in time — this was no stock sample pattern that I held prepared — and failure would have cost me a considerable fine. Besides, Pedronius would want his plaque completed by then too, and there was well-known rivalry between the two officials. Perhaps Quintus was doing me a favour after all.
But he had already climbed aboard the carrying-chair and pulled the litter curtains round him as a screen. So there was little that I could do except watch it move away, the bearers loping at a rapid pace while Quintus shouted ‘Faster!’ from the interior. My only consolation was to see Hyperius, already hot and breathless, trotting after them.