He was on his feet instantly, leaning towards me, hands outstretched to help me to my feet. Once I was standing, it became a relatively simple matter to shake the folds of the blanket loose and rearrange them the way I wanted them. When everything was absolutely proper and correct, we sat down again.
"So," I said, "what was it?"
"What was what?"
"What was it you forgot to tell me before I left to get the iron?"
He had lost interest in what he had been going to say and was looking at his text again, clearly desirous of resuming his study. "Oh, that." His voice reflected his waning interest. "It was nothing important, merely of passing interest. I received a letter from Marcellus Prello, a friend of mine in Gaul. Thank God there are still a few imperial mail ships getting through. Anyway, he wrote that he had been in Rome a few months earlier and had seen your old nemesis Claudius Seneca in the street. You don't know him, but Marcellus was one of the friends I asked for information on Seneca shortly after you first arrived here ... How long ago would that have been?" The question was rhetorical, because he was already computing his own answer. "Great heavens, Publius, do you know you have been living here for more than ten years?"
I nodded. "Yes, I know. I've been married to your sister for almost eleven. But your friend was mistaken."
Caius's brow creased slightly. "What do you mean?"
I shrugged. "Simply what I said. Your friend must have been mistaken. He could not have seen Claudius Seneca."
He laughed. "Don't be silly, of course he could. He was in Rome, Publius."
I shook my head again. "No. It wasn't him. It might have been a Seneca — you've told me they're a prolific crowd. But it certainly was not Claudius."
Even as I said the words I regretted them. Caius was astonished by my reaction to a very casual statement, and I realized that I had committed a tactical error. I should simply have accepted his remark and said nothing. I held only one secret from him in the world, about this very thing. Now he came after me, his curiosity fully alerted.
"You sound absolutely convinced of that, Publius. How can you be so certain?" He paused, but not for long enough to permit me to frame a response before he continued, an edge of suspicion in his voice. "Since when do you keep yourself so minutely informed of the whereabouts and activities of Claudius Seneca?"
"I don't," I said, stubbornly. "I simply happen to know your friend was wrong. He made an error in identification. That's all."
A small frown ticked between the Britannican brows. "But how can you know that, Publius? Do you know for certain that Claudius Seneca was not in Rome at the time in question?"
A loud voice in my head was screaming at me to be careful in what I said. I decided to brazen it out. "Yes," I said, regretting more than ever having responded to Caius's initial comment at all.
He almost leaped on my answer, practically hectoring me. "I see. Then where was he, Publius? And when was the time in question? When was Marcellus Prello in Rome?"
Flustered, and beginning to feel a stirring of panic at being caught in a lie, I looked away, into the depths of the brazier beside me, unwilling to let him see my thoughts reflected in my eyes. He kept after me.
"Publius? Did you hear me?"
"I heard you. You are determined to have an answer from me, aren't you? Why? Why is this so important, Cay?"
My question took him by surprise; his face registered astonishment and disbelief that I would have to ask such a question. When he answered, the tone of his voice was that of a teacher explaining something self-evident to a struggling student.
"It is important precisely because of what you said, and the fact that you said it. I know you, Publius Varrus. You are not a devious man. I also know how you used to feel about Claudius Seneca, and you have not mentioned his name in years. Now, I bring his name up casually, mentioning that someone has seen the fellow somewhere, and your denial of the mere possibility of such a thing happening is immediate and absolute. Something strikes me as being wrong here, and, as an old campaigner, I have learned to trust my instincts in such matters."
I sighed and capitulated. "Very well, Cay, I'll tell you my secret. Your friend could not have seen Claudius Seneca because Claudius Seneca is dead."
Now it was Caius's turn to stare wordlessly at me and then into the fire. He cupped his chin in one hand, kneading the flesh of his cheek reflectively with the tip of his forefinger. When he did speak his voice was almost without inflection.
"Dead, you say? I can only assume you are convinced of the truth of that. You are sure of it, are you not?"
I nodded. "Yes, sure as I can be."
"And how sure is that?"
"Completely, beyond the shadow of a doubt."
"How? Who told you? And how can you be so certain it is true?"
"No one told me, Cay. I know because I killed him."
Caius sucked in his breath, stood up, turned on his heel and walked away from me, so that his voice drifted back to me over his shoulder.
"When?"
"Five years ago, just at the time we made the alliance with Ullic and his Celts and the word arrived that Theodosius had defeated and executed Magnus Maximus."
He turned back towards me and stood looking at me from the other side of the room. "Five years ago? And you said nothing? Why? How did you kill him? And when? You have never been away from the Colony for any great length of time, and Seneca has never been close to the Colony. Such a killing would require either careful advance planning and an absence that would require some kind of explanation, or the exact opposite, a sudden and explosive confrontation. I will not even entertain the idea that you could murder him from concealment. I am sure you allowed him an honourable death, in spite of the fact that in your eyes he had forfeited all claim to honour ... But I have to ask myself how you could have managed his death without either Luceiia or myself noticing anything, and why you would have said nothing to either of us in all that time?"
I nodded, admitting the truth of what he said and acknowledging all of the commentary that he intended with his words. "After I had done it, I decided to tell no one," I said, clearing my throat in mid-sentence. "I decided the less said, the better, and I did not want to endanger you or Luceiia with knowledge of what I had done, even though — " I held up my hand, palm outward, to silence him before he could interrupt me, " — even though I was convinced that what I had done was correct and honourable and I had no thought of having done anything shameful. I had served as an instrument of justice, I believed, but I had no wish to boast of it."
"I see." Caius came back and sat down again in the chair opposite me. "You had better tell me everything that happened that day, Publius. Think carefully and leave nothing out. Assume that I know absolutely nothing of what you are going to tell me. Pretend I have never even heard of Seneca. This could be extremely important."
Impressed by his obvious sincerity and concern, I sat silent for a while, collecting my thoughts before beginning a none-too-brief narrative, telling him everything I could remember of the events leading up to and surrounding the death of Claudius Seneca. I had engineered Seneca's death myself, confronting him and killing him with savage satisfaction for his past deeds and the deaths of two of my closest friends.
I started with the original meeting — and the first fight — between myself and Seneca, almost fifteen years earlier, when I had been in the company of my good friend Plautus, then senior centurion of the garrison at Colchester, and ended with the final confrontation, in which I had forced Seneca to sign a parchment scroll admitting to his crimes and then given him a sword with which to kill me if he could. He failed. I stabbed him a mortal blow, left his confession where it could not fail to be found and departed the scene prior to the arrival of the military search party already summoned by one of my men.