‘My dear citizen pavement-maker, you are involved already. It was only because of you that Fabius Marcellus was coming here at all. If it had not been for your discovery of that plot against the Emperor, His Divinity Commodus would never had deigned to honour Glevum with an ambassadorial visit. You can hardly back out of the consequences now.’
This was a view of such sublime injustice that it took my breath away. However, Marcus was quite right in one respect. I could not escape. Marcus Aurelius Septimus had demanded my services, and he was my patron and benefactor. Also, he was not a man to cross. And when he said he wanted me, he meant it: this time he’d been seriously alarmed.
I sighed. ‘As you command, Excellence. But it will be difficult for me to interrogate the priests. I have not your social dignity.’
Even flattery did not soften him. ‘Then I must rely on you to think of something else.’ He was brisk.
I racked my brains, and inspiration dawned. Two pigeons with a single stone again. ‘I have received a possible commission in the town. A certain Gaius Honorius Optimus — perhaps you know the man? He wants me to repair a pavement for him. It seems that he knew Fabius Marcellus in the army. And his house is very near the temple. I have been to it before. Almost opposite the high priest’s house, in fact. With your permission, I could take the job. .’
Marcus’s severe expression melted like a wax mask in the sun. He positively beamed. ‘Of course, my dear Libertus. That will be excellent. Accept his commission, and find out what you can. And see if you can discover what happened to that body.’ He stretched, suddenly indolent now that his previous panic was over. ‘Always supposing that it wasn’t just a vision, after all.’
It had become ‘just a vision’ now, I noticed. I said nothing.
Marcus darted a sidelong look at me. ‘I promised my wife I’d make special propitiatory sacrifices, just in case.’ Marcus had recently married a beautiful young widow, and she was now carrying his child. He was rumoured to spend a very un-Roman amount of time with her, and her word was becoming law in his household. I thought of Gwellia, and smiled.
Marcus took it for acquiescence. He stood up, and I scrambled to my feet too.
‘Very well, Libertus, report to me tomorrow.’ He clapped his hands, and his slave, who must have been just outside the door, came in at once. ‘Fetch this citizen his cloak and slave, and escort him to the door.’ His eye fell on the empty plate, and he frowned suddenly. ‘And when he comes again, make sure he has more figs another time. It seems the citizen has an appetite for them. They always seem a little sweet to me.’
He nodded in my direction and went out, accompanied by the slave.
As I waited for Junio, I could not resist a smile. Marcus, as usual, saw what he chose to see. But really it was no smiling matter.
There were so many unanswered questions, that was part of the problem. That dreadful wailing, for example. None of our deliberations had suggested any explanation for that. I did not like it. Who was this ‘legate’? Where had he come from? Who had sent him here and why? Who had killed him? And above all, what had happened to the body? Legate or no legate, he could not simply disappear. Somebody must know, but nobody was telling.
I sighed. This was not going to be easy. Since my patron insisted, I would have to investigate, but I ran the risk of angering some very important people — the priests, the imperial ambassador, and possibly the Emperor himself. To say nothing of the gods.
When Junio arrived, he helped me with my cloak, and we walked out into the street together. Outside the warmth of the apartment, the late afternoon had turned chill, misty and disagreeable, but I decided not to go the shortest way home. I wanted time to collect my thoughts, and also I could cast an eye over that pavement repair at the house of Optimus. If I contracted now to do the work, by setting a date to start and agreeing the fee which Gwellia had so skilfully negotiated, the contract would be binding under Roman law, and Optimus could not change his mind if Fabius did not come.
We skirted past the temple once again, and took the street which ran behind it, past the high priest’s house. There was Optimus’s dwelling opposite. Typical of the man and his constant preoccupation with walking a mile to save a quadrans, he had bought a mansion of the second rank. There it was, a spacious residence, but squashed between a barber and a pot-shop, with a door that fronted directly on the street. Unlike the pontifex’s great house opposite, with its impressive gate and entranceway and glimpses of a formal court beyond, this building was closed in upon itself. Only a few small windows on the upper floor, and the iron grille through which the doorkeeper could peer, relieved the blankness of the wall which faced the street — except where someone had scrawled ‘Vote for Linneus’ in bold black painted letters on the stone.
I threaded my way through the waiting clients at the barber’s shop — the vogue for beards had never really caught on in the province, and shops like these were always filled to bursting with townsmen who had come to have their faces scraped, their nose-hairs clipped, their baldness treated, and their ears emptied of wax and then filled with the latest rumours in the town. There is nowhere quite like a barber’s shop for catching up on the latest gossip. That might be very useful to me later.
I noticed the situation of this one, with approval, before I moved to Optimus’s door and unhooked the iron rod to strike the bell.
Chapter Nine
Once we had got past the doorkeeper we were shown into the receiving room, a small antechamber off the atrium where visitors could sit uncomfortably on a bench and wait. There was a plate of rather ancient apples and a jug of very watered wine, of which we were vaguely invited to partake, but the prospect did not appeal. Optimus — with typical regard for money — clearly did not provide any other refreshment for his callers, unless they were very important, and there was nothing else to do but sit and look around.
My mosaic in the dining room still looked good, I thought, glimpsing it through the inner arch, but otherwise the house betrayed its master’s thrift. It had been built in the old-fashioned Roman style and the centre of the atrium was partly open to the sky. The gutters dripped into a sunken pool beneath, making the room disagreeably cold and damp. (Such pools were falling out of fashion in Britannia: one could see why on such a dismal day.) Under the shelter of the partial roof a fine carved table held a good bronze vase, but the wall decorations had been cheaply done — repetitious patterns in a poor paint which was already flaking.
A few damp pot-plants fringed the atrium pool, but by craning round the doorpost it was possible to glimpse the inner court and the more extensive formal garden there. Even that wasn’t a great deal more decorative, if I remembered rightly. The master had been frugal here as well. I’d noticed on my previous visits that the box shrubs which formed the borders were thin-planted, and what should have been handsome flowerbeds were full of straggling turnips, leeks and other strictly practical additions to the kitchen. I leaned forward on my bench to see more clearly.
It was raining slightly, but someone seemed to have been tending to the garden, for as I idly glanced I sensed a movement. A figure clad in some long bluish garment darted swiftly into the shadow of the colonnade and disappeared into the rear apartments of the house. Some garden slave, most probably, caught in the rain and scuttling out of sight of visitors. Otherwise the garden was much as I remembered. I watched for several minutes but the figure did not re-emerge.
Then someone finally appeared to greet us. It was not Optimus himself, as I had half expected. It was the Phrygian steward who came hurrying out, all unctuous excuses and eagerness at the sight of a visiting toga. I stood up. The shock on his face when he recognised me would have been comic if it were not insulting. Of course, he had never seen me dressed in anything but a tunic.