I allowed, rather grudgingly, ‘That makes a kind of sense.’ I glanced towards the tannery, fearing that Glypto was being soundly whipped. But there were no sounds of anguish from the compound opposite. Indeed, there was no sign or sound of anyone, although the gate was open and, despite the rain, a rack of skins remained forlornly on display.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that it makes sense to you, citizen.’ The skinny shoulders shrugged expressively. ‘Nothing he said made any sense to me and I had to shout at him to tell him anything. I was tempted to ignore him and go straight on into town to find that stallholder, but the slave was so insistent that I decided to come back — in case it was as urgent as he said it was.’ He looked at me slyly. ‘He even suggested that you’d be prepared to pay.’
‘Then you’d better tell me what the message was,’ I parried. ‘Another half a quadrans for you when you do.’
‘Well. .’ He ran a nervous tongue around his grubby lips and burst out in a rush, ‘. . he told me to tell you the green man was here again.’ He paused and looked defiantly at me. ‘There! I told you it was nonsense-’
I interrupted him, trying to work out the implications of the news. ‘When was this, did he tell you? Did he see the man? Or did he only hear him in my workshop overnight?’
The urchin shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know any more. That is all he told me.’ Drips of rain were running down his face by now, making little paler channels in the dirt — he had given up attempting to wipe the water off. ‘I didn’t believe a word of it, in fact — just thought that he was moon-crazed and tried to humour him. Green man, indeed! But I see it does mean something — I can read it in your face.’
I was cursing my carelessness in betraying that — I did not want the urchin telling tales around the town. ‘It’s just his name for someone,’ I said, as airily as if I knew exactly who was meant. ‘But thank you for the message, and I am prepared to pay — when you come back with the stallholder. But be very quick, and this time make sure you’re not waylaid!’
‘I will be faster than the wind,’ he promised, and — judging from the pace at which he set off down the street, his worn-out sandals flapping and squishing through the mire — he meant to try to make that promise good.
Twenty-One
I had promised to help my son and slave with the task of affording some dignity to Radixrapum’s corpse, so I went back to do it. (I do not altogether believe in tales of vengeful ghosts haunting the place where their mortal bodies had not been shown respect, but I certainly didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.) The two of them had been busy in my absence: the floor was swept and cleaned, and they had turned the corpse over and laid it on its back. Junio had spread my birrus over it and, with Maximus’s help, he was now setting tapers at the head and feet.
Junio looked up at me as I came in. ‘What did the tanner say? You didn’t ask him for some embers to light the altar fire again? That would be useful. We could light the candles too. I know we brought some tinder, but that wouldn’t be as quick, and if you’re talking to the tanner. .’
I shook my head. ‘The message wasn’t from the tanner after all. It came from Glypto, that ancient slave of his.’
Junio got to his feet, dusting his toga down, though the floor had been sprinkled with water from the jug and his hems were not as dirty as my own had been. ‘Anything of interest? I know that he heard noises in the workshop here last night at dusk. Does he know who it was?’
‘He says he saw the green man here again.’ I frowned.
‘So that is almost certainly our strangler,’ Junio said. ‘The green man was nearby when both the victims died.’
‘Monsters?’ Maximus looked up. He was in the act of setting the taper on a spike and he almost impaled his finger in his evident alarm.
Junio laughed. ‘It’s all right, Maximus. Father doesn’t mean some creature from the underworld. It’s the just old slave’s word for somebody he saw, very close to this workshop, when Lucius was killed. The trouble is we don’t know why Glypto calls him that — it doesn’t seem that he was wearing green. We wondered if it might have been because he limed his hair.’
The little slave-boy was looking much relieved. I had forgotten that he hadn’t heard all this before — Gwellia had whisked him off to bed while I was telling Junio the tale last night.
‘So the message was really that the murderer was here? But we already knew that, because we found the corpse. I wonder why it was so urgent to tell you, in that case.’
‘But Glypto couldn’t have known that,’ I reminded him. ‘He hadn’t seen the body of the turnip-man.’
‘The tanner did, though,’ Junio put in. ‘Do you think, in spite of everything, he might have told his slave?’
‘I doubt it very much, but we can soon find out. We’ll act on your suggestion. Get the empty brazier, Maximus, and go next door and ask the tanner for some coals.’
‘But don’t you want to talk to Glypto?’ Junio enquired.
‘Certainly I do, but since it’s obvious I have a slave with me, it would look remarkable for me to go myself. If Glypto is not able to meet me at the pile — as, from his message, I presume he won’t — it will give the tanner an excuse to send him over here, without his wife suspecting anything. In the meantime, I will go outside and see if by any chance I’m wrong and Glypto has somehow contrived to get away.’
‘Let’s hope he has done,’ Junio said to me as Maximus scuttled to obey. ‘You will learn a lot more from him on his own, though the coals will be useful in any case, of course. In the meantime, I am to stay here and guard the corpse?’
‘If the stallholder should come while I’m away, try not to let him in. You know what to tell him. I want to trace where Radixrapum lives, so I can send and tell his family what’s befallen him.’ I looked at the unhappy bundle on the floor. ‘I shall be lucky if they don’t suppose I murdered him myself. I’m fortunate that the tanner is so inquisitive — otherwise I would have no witness that the man was dead when I got here today, and that there was no corpse here last evening when I left.’ I left him to it, hoping to find Glypto waiting at the pile.
Despite the drenching drizzle, it was a relief to be outside, away from the increasingly sick-sweet smell of death and the silent reproach of Radixrapum’s corpse. I paused for a moment to retrieve my cloak, happy to be breathing the fresh air again. I glanced towards the tanner’s house, expecting to see the small form of Maximus, but the gate was still ajar and there was no sign of anyone. Indeed, the whole street was deserted now — all the normal passers-by had taken shelter from the rain — so I wrapped my cloak around myself and set off squelching down the little alleyway in the direction of the midden-pile.
But the alleyway was empty; you could see that at a glance. Only the raindrops splashing on the pile and washing little eddies of filth towards my feet, and a pair of drenched and starving dogs, fighting over something on the far side of the heap. There was no Glypto anywhere in sight.
The dogs had stopped at my approach to snarl ferociously at me, baring their yellowing teeth in a distinctly threatening way, and I had no wish to tangle with their jaws. I left them to their unspeakable supper and beat a swift retreat back into the more salubrious surroundings of the street. As I emerged, I saw Maximus come out on to the road — accompanied by the tanner — through the open gate next door. The page was carrying the brazier of embers, I was glad to see.
The tanner saw me and came hurrying across. He too was wrapped in a heavy cloak from head to foot against the rain, and he peered closely at me from underneath the hood, each of his boss-eyes glinting with concern. ‘Citizen Libertus, I thought that it was you. What have you done with Glypto? My wife is very cross.’