My wife surprised me.
‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Quickly, on the stool. Here. Tip your head right forward — let me get to it. Don’t argue, husband. . master. . there’s no time!’ She picked up a handful of ash from the fire and part of the dust she’d been sweeping together, white with marble dust and stone, and to my astonishment tipped it on my head and rubbed it roughly on my face and beard.
‘From a distance that will have to do. Your skin looks chalky and your hair is white-’ She broke off. There was a disturbance right outside the door, and cries of ‘This must be the place! Look at the stone piles outside!’
‘Quickly!’ Gwellia hissed at me. ‘There’s no time to get away. Pull your toga up to form a hood.’ She quickly did it for me as she spoke.
‘I’ll look as if I’m about to offer sacrifice,’ I protested.
‘Will you stop arguing! The really old men sometimes wear their hoods when they’re in mourning, especially the pious ones. That’s why I put those ashes on your head. Now, that will have to do. They’re coming through the outer shop this minute! Pretend you’re choosing a memorial pavement — here, look at this pattern book. Leave this to me.’ She thrust the pile of vellum sketches into my hand and swung around to face the entranceway. ‘What is the meaning of this intrusion, gentlemen?’
I glanced up under my hood. There were two of them, pushing forward into the doorway, ruffianly-looking fellows in coarse tunics, with ragged cloth tied around their feet for boots. The rest of the mob were clearly outside in the street, balked by the partition which screened the outer shop: I could hear the shufflings and murmurings.
‘Well?’ Gwellia said again. ‘What do you want? You haven’t come here to buy pavements, I suppose! And now you have alarmed this customer! And him a respected Roman citizen!’
Too late, I realised what she was up to. I’d thought of using my toga as a temporary disguise, myself, but to try to pass me off as someone else, here in my own house! It was a loving, clever, desperate thing to do. Brave, too. The crowd would not take kindly to attempted tricks. They might easily turn their anger onto Gwellia too.
But there was nothing for it now. I squinted at them through dust-reddened eyes and tried to look as Roman and inoffensive as possible. I didn’t need the ash to make me pale.
The larger of the two intruders, a big broad-chested fellow with a head like a battering ram and thick dark stubble on every inch of skin, flicked a brief glance at me and looked away. He had a stout stave in his hand, and looked as if he knew how to use it, but Gwellia’s challenge had taken him by surprise.
‘We’re looking for the pavement-maker,’ he snarled, looking her up and down in an unpleasant fashion. ‘Where is he? Don’t try to lie. We know his workshop’s here.’ All the same, he’d lost something of his aggressive swagger.
Gwellia gave a little snort. If I had not known better, I would have believed it when she said, ‘You want to see the pavement-maker? So do we! This poor citizen has been sitting here, I don’t know how long, waiting for my master to return. But does he? Not a bit of it! And guess who’ll be in trouble if we lose the commission?’ She laughed bitterly.
‘Never mind all that,’ the fellow said. ‘What’s happened to your master? And who is that?’ He gestured at me with the stave.
Gwellia glanced at me. ‘Don’t worry about him, he’s deaf. Can’t hear a word unless you shout, poor man.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Poor old fellow can’t make up his mind. I think he’s. . you know. . but who cares? He pays. I only wish my master would come home. He went out this morning to repair a pavement for a rich man somewhere in the town. Don’t ask me where, I’m only a domestic slave, I’ve never seen the place. Why? What’s he done?’
The other man, a fat, freckled ruffian with a shock of bright red hair, waved the baton he was carrying, excitedly. ‘Only affronted the Imperial gods, that’s all! And mighty Jupiter as well! There’ve been the most dreadful happenings. Visions of murdered corpses at the temple, bloodstains — all sorts of things. Sudden icy winds and moaning sounds. Last night there was a shower of shooting stars — dozens of people saw it! — some of the soothsayers had warning dreams, and water in the sacred pools turned red!’ He laughed lugubriously. ‘I tell you, I’ve bought myself an amulet to ward off evil spells. And if you work here, you’d better do the same. It’s him that’s bringing all this bad luck down on us.’
Grizzle-head nodded. ‘Brought this curse back with him from Londinium — Mars alone knows what he got up to there. Apparently it all started the moment he got back. He’s bringing divine vengeance down on Glevum. Just when the imperial legate’s due to come. If we’re not careful he’ll destroy us all.’
Gwellia had been listening to all this with an expression of dismay.
‘I can see why you want to talk to him,’ she said. ‘But just be careful how you deal with him. You could find yourself in trouble. Believe me, I know! His patron is Marcus Septimus, the governor’s personal representative in Glevum — your amulet won’t save you from him. Besides, my master is a ci-’ She hesitated. I am convinced to this day that she was going to say ‘a citizen’, and then thought better of it. . ‘a serious favourite of the governor himself!’
The redhead looked uncomfortable. ‘No one told us that.’
‘What difference does it make?’ his companion said disdainfully. ‘Doesn’t matter who his patrons are. It won’t save him if the gods are after him.’
Gwellia nodded. ‘Strange that the deities should bother with such an unimportant man,’ she observed. ‘More likely to be about that legate, you would think.’ She spoke tranquilly, but I was almost hopping on my seat. The murmurs of the crowd outside were getting louder now, and it was clear that they were becoming impatient.
‘That’s what a lot of us were saying,’ the red-haired man agreed. ‘But the man who told us this was adamant. He had it from the augurers themselves. Do you know why the legate was coming, anyway? Because of something that the pavement-maker did! So, however you look at it, it’s all your master’s fault.’
‘He’s in serious trouble in any case,’ Grizzle-head put in. ‘Optimus Honorius is after him as well, for enticing away a little kitchen slave. And it’s no good calling on his wealthy friends. I’m not afraid of them, compared with the immortal gods. He’s bringing danger on us all, that’s what. Wait till we catch up with him!’ His voice had risen to a shout, and he was waving his stave threateningly.
I had already started up. ‘What. .?’ The response was startled out of me, and I was on my feet. I almost blurted ‘kitchen slave’ but stopped myself in time. I thought I had betrayed myself, but Gwellia stepped in.
‘Now see what you have done, storming about like that! Frightened my poor customer away. Well, it hardly matters now. I don’t suppose my master’s likely to come home — not with all that crowd outside his door. In any case, if there are several lots of you, he’s probably been picked up somewhere else by now.’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘How do we know your master isn’t hiding upstairs all the time?’ the big man with the stave said, rather belatedly suspicious.
‘Go upstairs and look, by all means. Do you two want to come in here and wait? This citizen is leaving anyway. Perhaps you could send one of your friends outside to go and find him a litter? I should send the rest of them away, if I were you. Tell them to go and look for my master somewhere else. I told you, he won’t come here if he sees a mob out in the street.’
There was a whispered consultation, then, ‘All right. We’ll wait. No funny business, mind!’ And the red-haired one went out to pass on the news. The crowd were definitely restive by this time. We heard him hollering to make himself heard. There was a great deal of shuffling and shouting and imprecation, but a few minutes later the fellow reappeared.