I smiled. That was unlikely to happen now — though it might have done, without this temple corpse. Whenever a dignitary visited the town, there was always competition to entertain him. Sometimes by moving out altogether and lending him a house (though that was a signal honour), but everyone who aspired to be anyone vied to provide banquets, dancers, poets, even lunch — anything, where the host could be seen in the great man’s company. And of course every banquet-giver (and his wife) wanted new murals and decorations, and, if not new mosaics, at least mosaics in excellent repair. A pavement-maker may find himself suddenly in great demand.
But not on this occasion. My patron was at this instant in his apartments, writing a message to the imperial ambassador urging him not to come. I wondered whether I could confirm this contract with Optimus before he discovered the change of plan, especially since Marcus’s commemorative niche would now presumably not be wanted either.
The thought of Marcus recalled me to my duties. ‘Speaking of clothes,’ I said briskly, ‘I must change my own. I am to call on Marcus this afternoon. I shall need my toga. I am to be there about the eighth hour.’
‘How are you supposed to judge what time that is?’ Gwellia asked, practical as ever.
It was a reasonable question. She and I were not brought up to ‘hours’. The Romans operate like that, dividing the period of daylight into twelve equal parts, but I had no fancy waterclocks or time-candles, so I could only gauge the time by the position of the sun. When it was cloudy, like today, it could be very difficult to guess the ‘hour’ — especially in wintertime, as now, since obviously the hours get shorter with the days.
‘I shall simply have to get there as quickly as I can,’ I said. I could wait for Marcus: he must not wait for me. I made towards the staircase. ‘Junio, you can help me into my toga. And bring a bowl. I’ll have some of that clean water to rinse my face. Gwellia, my dear, you can do the same. I know that, until we get to market, you have no other garments of your own, but you will find an old tunic of mine underneath the bedding. It’s rather torn and patched, but at least it’s clean. Well?’ I added, as I saw her stricken face. ‘What is it? What’s the matter, Gwellia?’
‘It’s that tunic, master!’
‘What about the tunic?’ Surely she was not embarrassed by the thought? It was a bit too big for her, perhaps, but otherwise there was little to show that it was a male garment.
‘I. . I’m afraid I’ve torn it up to replace your bedding with. I’ve put down new reeds, and thrown away the old. .’ She gestured to the pile she had been carrying when I came in. ‘I found the tunic. It seemed old and discarded, so I cut the seams and used it to make the bedding comfortable.’
She was biting her lip. And she’d called me ‘master’ again, I noticed. She was calling me ‘Libertus’ only a few moments earlier.
I debated a moment how to answer her. ‘I sometimes wore that tunic into bed,’ I said at last, ‘while Junio washed the other one. I don’t know what I’m going to do instead.’ I raised my eyebrows at her, and she looked at me, blushed, and laughed.
‘What did you do with the old bedding rags?’ I demanded.
There was the suspicion of a pert twinkle in those beautiful brown eyes. ‘What do you think I used to wash the floor?’
There was no possible reply to that, so I made none. I simply went upstairs to change — into an attic where that feminine touch had been at work again.
A little while later, full of a late lunch of bread and cheese and draped uncomfortably in my toga, I was on my way to Marcus’s apartments, with Junio at my heels. Meanwhile Gwellia (dressed rather fetchingly, I thought, in a spare tunic of Junio’s) was making a hasty visit to the cloth-seller’s stall before the market closed. Indulgent of me, Marcus would doubtless say, since I had given her some money for a length of cloth, but I had also asked her to keep her ears open for any more gossip about Fabius Marcellus. If anyone could acquire that kind of information, I told myself, it was my clever wife.
Chapter Eight
Marcus did not keep me waiting long. In fact, no sooner had I been shown in to wait, and offered the customary plate of sugared figs and a beaker of watered wine, than Marcus burst into the receiving room. He was agitated. I could see that from the way he strode in behind his slave without even giving the lad time to announce him.
This unexpected entrance took me by surprise. I put down my drink and struggled to my feet. He waved aside any attempt to make the usual obeisances.
‘Ah, there you are, Libertus,’ he said, as if he had been searching for me from attic to ground. ‘I have despatched the letter to Fabius Marcellus. So tell me, what did you discover at the temple after I left? Sit down at once and give me your report.’ He stretched himself on a comfortable couch and gestured to the carved stool which I’d just vacated.
His manner was so urgent that I found it difficult to confess that I’d discovered nothing. ‘I regret, Excellence, I have nothing to report. No sign of a hiding-place for a body, still less-’
I was going to say ‘a murderer’, but he made a gesture of impatience. Whatever was troubling him, it was not that.
‘So you found no body. I was afraid of that.’ He helped himself absently to a fig. ‘Or perhaps I was secretly hoping that you wouldn’t.’ He bit into the fruit. ‘I need hardly tell you that nothing was discovered in the temple grounds — only an old beggar in a ditch behind the grove, right in the corner of the precinct wall. Found himself a perfect place to hide, it seems, and went there once too often. Must have been there a month or more — it’s hard to say. They tell me the rats have eaten him. I’ve given orders to dispose of it.’
Into a paupers’ grave, he meant. Piled onto a cart and tipped into an unmarked public pit, poor fellow — but at least it would be a proper resting place. Vagabonds who fall prey to thieves or wolves are often denied even that privilege.
Marcus brought me sharply back to the present. ‘So, the question still remains. Was it a real body lying at the shrine or was it a visionary one? I don’t know which is worse, old friend: to find the corpse of this legate in the temple, or to fail to find it when it should be there. If this was an omen from the gods, then Jove alone knows what trouble lies in store for us. If it was a real body, we are in trouble already.’ He had been gesturing at me absently with the remains of his fig, but now he swallowed it and took another. ‘My wife’s convinced it is this Icenian curse come true. What do you make of it all, Libertus?’
I hesitated. The temple is not something I truly understand. I attend the public rituals at the Capitoline shrine, like any citizen (absence from these things is likely to be noticed), but these are not really my gods, and Marcus knew it. This doesn’t make me altogether a hypocrite, or so I told myself. I worship the power of the universe: it probably does not matter to the sun spirit, for instance, whether you call him ‘Apollo’ or ‘Cunomaglus’ — and many local Celtic gods have now got Roman names. So I have always treated the Olympian deities, if not with reverence, at least with a certain respect.
But this disappearing body had not manifested itself at the shrine of Jupiter. It had happened in front of the Imperial altar, and whereas I was prepared to concede the potential power of Jove, I was extremely sceptical about Commodus’s ability to offer miracles. However, he was my emperor, and it was very important not to say anything dismissive.
‘You think it was a vision, Excellence? That ring was real enough,’ I said at last.
Marcus nodded. ‘Exactly, and that’s what worries me. Page!’ He turned to his servant. ‘You may wait outside.’ He waited until the boy had gone, then smiled at me triumphantly. ‘You see that I have heeded your advice, Libertus. I know that you are always warning me that slaves have ears.’