‘There’s a messenger from Tibur,’ he declared. ‘Claudia, you are to join the court at the Villa Pulchra.’
‘My, my, my,’ Murranus declared, ‘you do have powerful friends.’
Claudia pulled a face and shook her head. ‘I’m only a maid.’ She kissed Murranus full on the mouth before he could add anything else.
‘The imperial court?’ Spicerius lifted his cup. ‘When you get there, Claudia, give my love to the Captain of the Imperial Guard, Gaius Tullius. Tell him not to wear his airs and graces. I remember how, bare-arsed, we used to chase each other through the fields of Sisium. You won’t forget, will you?’
Claudia promised, and hurriedly followed her uncle back into the tavern. There she recognised the pop-eyed steward, Timothaeus, face all red, laughing at a doleful Burrus, dressed in his shabby armour, who was being teased by one of the pot boys. The huge German mercenary seemed to fill the room. He had ignored his taunter but was glaring at Simon the Stoic, who knew some German and hadn’t hesitated in using it to insult the visitor. Januaria, however, was suitably impressed. She had sidled over, plucking at the great bearskin which, despite the heat, Burrus had draped over his shoulders. Poppaoe came out of the kitchen, screaming abuse, and Januaria disappeared. Claudia greeted both the guests and clattered up the stairs to collect her cloak and hat and push a few possessions into a set of leather panniers.
When she came back downstairs, she kissed Poppaoe and Polybius goodbye, waved to the regular customers and went out to where a small crowd had gathered to gape at Burrus’s entourage. The mercenaries recognised Claudia and grunted at her. Anyone else would have regarded this as an insult, but Claudia knew that it was the warmest greeting these dour men would give. They had brought a gentle cob for her to ride. Burrus helped her mount, and they left for the city gates and the Via Latina.
The day’s business was finishing and people were streaming out of the city. The streets were packed, people shoving and pushing, the air riven with the chatter of different tongues, hordes of screaming children, and the hustle and bustle of the markets as stalls were cleared and put away for the night. Craftsmen in their workshops used the last hours of the summer day to finish their tasks. Outside the entrances to these shops and eating houses, pedlars and hustlers bawled, desperate to make a sale before sunset. The dusty air reeked of grease, tallow candle, burnt oil, incense, cooked meat, dried fish and, above all, the sweat of the hot, tired crowd. Soldiers from the garrisons mingled with customers at the wine booths and beer shops, reluctantly moving aside for the sedan chair or litter of a wealthy nobleman. Claudia loved such sights. People of various nationalities thronged around, Ethiopians and Nubians in their panther and leopard skins, Egyptian priests garbed in ostentatious white robes, shaven heads gleaming with oil, Syrians in their striped cloaks, dark bearded faces glistening with sweat. Of course, as the day faded, Rome’s underworld also came to life: the sorcerers and conjurors, the footpads and pickpockets, all brushed shoulders with dancers, whores and pimps as they came into the streets eager for mischief.
Claudia’s party skirted the main thoroughfare and crossed the square, where the Vigiles were fighting a gang of youths who’d flung a pig from the top floor of an apartment block. A mad old man now danced round the gory mess, chanting a garbled hymn. A group of gladiators were gathering on the steps of the temple to pay votive thanks to a god. Claudia wondered what Murranus would be doing that evening. Once across the square, Burrus and his escort moved to the front and forced their way on to a broad avenue lined by statues. They had to move slowly. They’d left the slums and were now on the main approach to the city gates. Here the crowds were even thicker, the wealthy carried by their slaves, the poor pushing some ancient relative wrapped in a blanket and placed in a wheel-barrow. They passed colonnaded walks and arrived at the city gates; these were guarded by Samaritan mercenaries who lounged against the walls or wooden posts wolf-whistling at any attractive woman. The noise, the dust, the heat and flies made any conversation impossible. Burrus was in a deep sulk, although Claudia could see Timothaeus was desperate to talk to her.
As they moved along the Via Latina, the buildings grew fewer, the smell of the countryside more fragrant. They passed the city cemeteries; the tombs rearing up, dark against the light blue sky, grim reminders of the brevity of life. Somewhere in the crowd a boy began to sing a lovely lilting tune, with sweet verses about a house with a welcoming table set out in the shade of an olive grove. Claudia listened intently but Timothaeus was now eager to make speed and produced his imperial pass to move more briskly through the crowds. At last they reached the crossroads, marked by soaring wooden poles with skulls placed at the base: a place of execution. Criminals would carry their cross bar here, against which they would be crucified. Someone had lit an oil lamp near the posts and placed beside it a bouquet of wild flowers. Claudia wondered about their significance as she reflected on what a topsyturvy world she lived in, where the Empire now did business with a religious sect whose God they had crucified. She recalled what Sylvester had said to her, and, studying Timothaeus’s anxious face, wondered what was awaiting at the Villa Pulchra. She quietly prayed, to any god who bothered to listen, that Murranus would take care of himself during her absence and keep out of mischief.
They paused to drink at a water fountain. Claudia revelled in the dark coolness of the laurel, cypress and olive trees, and the greenery, albeit scorched by the sun, of the bushes and grass stretching out either side of her. Birds swooped above them, whilst in the grass along the track crickets continued their busy song. Burrus grated an order and they remounted. They crossed brooks and streams, their horses’ hoofs clattering nervously. Now and again they would be greeted by servants and children running down a lane from a villa or farmstead.
After a while, Timothaeus pulled his horse back, drawing alongside Claudia’s. They had met before, at court, but Timothaeus, ignoring all protocol and etiquette, now chattered to her like some long-lost sister. Not pausing for a breath, he described in rushed sentences how the Holy Sword had been stolen, the uproar this had caused, followed by the brutal murder of Dionysius.
‘No one knows who did it!’ Timothaeus shook his head as if talking to himself. ‘No one at all, but I have a theory. I mean, if you are going to murder someone, why not just bang them on the back of the head and leave them. Not like that poor bugger. He was bound and dragged through the garden, pegged out like some criminal in the amphitheatre.’ He leaned across, eyes round with amazement. ‘He must have bled to death.’
‘And no one heard his screams?’
‘Gagged, he was, a piece of hard leather pushed into his mouth.’
‘You were talking about the murder. You have a theory?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Timothaeus gathered the reins with one hand, lowering his voice as if Burrus was an eavesdropper, but the German seemed more intent on finishing the wine skin he’d unhooked from his saddle horn. ‘I believe,’ the steward continued breathlessly, ‘that Dionysius was killed by those other philosophers. You know what a group of bitches they are, jealous about this, jealous about that! I expect they got into an argument and decided to kill him.’