Trinunculus smiled. ‘That kind of thing is not important, citizen. What matters is what happens to it here. There’s a fellow called Lucianus — one of Meritus’s supplicants — brings boxes of gifts to the Imperial altar almost every month. Bells, silver, statuettes, all kinds of things. No one knows where he obtains them from.’
‘Lucianus the wretched?’ I enquired, remembering the plaque, though from this account of his wealth he didn’t sound very wretched to me.
He grinned. ‘The very same. The temple slaves say he must have tried at all the other shrines, without success, and now he’s trying the Imperial Divinities. Meritus must be delighted — the sevir’s year of office is largely judged on the value of that year’s offerings. That’s why they make such handsome gifts themselves. But all offerings are simply laid before the gods, with a ritual prayer and sacrifice, and purified with sacred fire and water. That’s all that is required. So there’s nothing wrong with what the sevir did. It’s simply odd, that’s all.’
‘Odd?’
‘Most of the seviri, when they are appointed, are very anxious to tell everyone how much their “dowry” cost, and what important artists they paid to do the work. But not Meritus. Of course, there’s no reason why he should have told us, but it is almost as if he relishes secrecy.’ Trinunculus looked at me a moment, as if considering, and then added in an undertone, ‘It’s like the story of his life — he never gives a full account of that.’
We were under Minerva’s disapproving stare again, but this blatant piece of temple gossip stopped me in my tracks. I braved the goddess’s anger long enough to say, ‘But surely. .? I heard he was slave-manager of an estate?’
‘Oh, certainly he was,’ Trinunculus replied. ‘He has his pilleus — the freeman’s cap — and his certificate to prove it. But how did he become the manager? He is no ordinary slave. He can do more than read and write his name — he knows the orators: and it is rumoured that he can ride a horse, play an instrument, even quote the Greek philosophers. How did he learn to do all that? It’s clear he wasn’t born on that estate. So was he born a slave at all? That’s what I want to know.’
I looked at him. ‘I was captured into slavery myself,’ I said, with some feeling. ‘I can understand why any man would avoid talking about it — or about the life he had to leave behind. Or he may have been the pet slave of some wealthy man. He is good-looking enough, and some of them are taught all sorts of things to be companions to their masters. If you had risen to wealth and dignity wouldn’t you avoid talking about your humble beginnings? And what other explanations are there? That he sold himself into slavery to clear a debt? Or was sentenced to it, to atone for a crime? Neither seems likely, for a man who made his master’s fortune, and rose so high in his esteem.’
I had not meant to speak so sharply. Even to me it sounded like a rebuke. ‘What made you question it?’ I asked more gently.
The young priest looked abashed. ‘It is only that he has such skills. And once when we were talking, he mentioned Aquae Sulis. Not casually, but as if he knew the town. Then when Scribonius pressed him, he tried to change the subject — said that he had been there with his master once.’ He glanced at me. ‘And most of all, I’ve noticed when he dons his robes he does not seem to have a brand. Or ever to have had one, if you see what I mean.’
I did see. I have unhappy memories, not only of the branding on my back, but of the painful surgery when it was removed. There is a deep scar on my shoulder to this day. All the same, I shook my head.
‘Not every master brands his slaves, Trinunculus. And as for Aquae Sulis, his story may be true. After all, as manager he was engaged in trade. He must have travelled to many towns.’
‘You may be quite right, citizen. And as I say, it is not in Meritus’s nature to confide. Not like Hirsus, for example, who will talk about his wretched childhood to anyone who will listen. Now, he was a pet slave, though never to a man. He was given to his owner’s grandmother — her lucky talisman, she said. She was a superstitious woman — always consulting oracles — and mean as a tax-collector, by all accounts. But she promised him his freedom when she died, and a handsome pension with it. Hirsus had hopes of settling down — there was an attractive slave he knew, apparently, whom he hoped to buy and free and set up a household with.’
‘But his mistress broke her promise?’
Trinunculus laughed. ‘Not at all. Her will set him free, with a substantial sum. But he had to wait a long time to collect it. The old woman lived to an astounding age — outlived all her sons and daughters — she must have been quite eighty-five when she died. Yet she would never part with Hirsus while she lived. And then, of course, it was too late. The slave he had fallen in love with had been sold on, and at forty-five Hirsus was getting to be an old man himself.’
‘He must have inherited a goodly sum and used it well, to have been made sevir here.’
‘His investments flourished, certainly. The gods were smiling on him, he believed.’ Trinunculus grinned. ‘Though it is my belief he was just extremely cautious. He’s like a woman in his ways sometimes. The old lady had him from a child, and instilled in him such a fear of omens that he will hardly change his sandals without consulting the auguries.’
‘I thought all you priests were much the same in that?’ I said. Foolish! I meant it lightly but I saw the young priest flush. He had seen my words as a rebuke, again. I tried to repair the damage. ‘Scribonius, for example, is a stickler for the rules. Why is that, do you think? You said that he felt he had to prove himself.’
Too late. Trinunculus had put a halter on his tongue. ‘I talk too much,’ he said. ‘It is a fault of mine. The pontifex has had occasion to rebuke me for it before now. I am sorry, citizen, I have already said too much. I was accompanying you to the gate, I think.’ He drew his robes around him, and walked purposefully on.
I did my best. I walked beside him, cajoling, flattering, urging. I even found myself pleading that, as a Capitoline priest, it was his duty to assist the governor — and I was the representative of his representative. To no avail.
‘My duty as a priest,’ Trinunculus replied, in a sing-song voice, ‘is to save my tongue for sacred purposes, and not to talk about my fellow priests.’ The little speech was obviously a formula, and I guessed that the high priest had obliged him to repeat those words many times as part of a penance. And that was all I could get out of him, all the way across the courtyard to the gate.
At least, I thought, as I stepped out into the commercial hubbub of the forum, and began to make my way home through the busy streets, this time there had been no infernal wailing to speed me on my way.
Chapter Seven
So I was going home. And Gwellia would be waiting for me. I could still hardly believe it. After years of searching for the woman who had once been my bride, I had been reunited with her less than a month ago, and that was in Londinium. This was the first time I had left her alone in my little workshop-cum-apartment in Glevum, and I had been much longer than I intended. I found that I was worrying about her a little as I hurried back. Would she be anxious because I was late?
Ridiculous of course, but my heart gave a little skip; never, since I had been granted my freedom, had anyone but my slave Junio worried about me — except my patron, when he needed me. As I had said to Marcus, Gwellia was no longer legally my wife, but I found myself hurrying home like a new bridegroom as I turned into the little alley where my workshop lies.
I found myself looking at it with new eyes.
I rent a building in part of that straggling western suburb which has sprung up outside the city walls over the last hundred years. No fine Roman pavements or towering columns here, only a collection of ramshackle buildings huddled together along haphazard lanes, the gutters often running with filth and slime and the stinking mud from the river margins. Perhaps it is not the most congenial of places. But it’s my home, and I’m attached to it. The rooms are humble but adequate, the rent’s affordable, and — despite the presence of a tannery on one side and a candlemaker’s on the other — the place has never actually caught fire or collapsed, as other buildings in the area have been known to do. And my work had prospered. Some of the wealthiest men in Glevum had come here to order pavements — or at least sent their servants here on their behalf.