Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Eleven

I did not see my patron again all afternoon: he had himself carried off in a private litter to the public baths where he was no doubt soothed and entertained by meeting the wealthy officials of the town, and the delights of hot plunge pools and steam. I had already had my chilly dip in the mansio bath-house and — ridiculous in my ill-fitting borrowed garb — could not go anywhere, not even to the market for that clasp. My tunic had been taken to the fuller’s to be cleaned, but I knew that it would be at least another day before I could expect it to be returned to me.

There was nothing for it but to hang around the inn, and a very boring afternoon it was. Even the optio had no time to chat. I guessed that Marcus had been short with him. He had lost his air of polished eagerness, and hurried distractedly about, bellowing orders and ignoring me. A series of officials bustled in and out for hasty conferences in his private room and I guessed that this was part of an attempt to make the enquiries which Marcus had required. I would have loved to ask a question or two of these men myself, but the optio was quite abrupt when I suggested it, and without my patron to intercede for me there was nothing I could do.

In the end I went back to my room and went to sleep — a rare enough pleasure in the afternoon, but a welcome one, after the discomforts of the night before.

We dined in the optio’s private quarters later on, at his request. He was clearly very proud of his domain, and if he had offended Marcus, this evening was intended to atone.

There was a proper dining couch — though only one instead of the more usual three, because his private dining room was small. Still, there were slaves to serve us with the meal, and the young officer fussed about to arrange us suitably on his solitary couch, as if he were presiding at a major feast.

‘Your Excellence, if you would take the guest of honour’s seat, there on my right hand, I, as host, shall have the central one, and I have also invited a town official whom I was sure you would be interested to meet. He will be sitting on my other side.’

He gestured to the individual in question, a stout, self-important man with gigantic sandy eyebrows as big as tufts of reeds — the sure sign of a provincial. I saw Marcus flinch. Like any pure-blooded Roman my patron would endure hours of discomfort at his barber’s hands — tweezers, bat’s blood depilatories, anything — rather than appear in a public place looking like that.

This apparition was the local censor, it appeared, the town senator responsible for keeping the taxation records for the civitas and the surrounding area, and he was blithely unaware of his offence. On the contrary, he was inflated, like a bullfrog, with his own self-importance and portentousness. Marcus rarely dined with town officials of such lowly rank, but the man was clearly oblivious of that: in Venta he was an important personage, and he condescended to us wonderfully.

Since all three places on the dining couch were thus accounted for, I was placed at one end of the table on an uncomfortable stool. I had swapped my borrowed tunic for a borrowed synthesis — the sort of combination robe and toga generally reserved for special feasts — in which I looked, if possible, even more absurd. In this setting it was wholly out of place. Even the optio wore informal dress. He was reclining in a simple yellow robe — and looking entirely at home.

The mansio kitchen had excelled itself. The food was pleasant and the servings liberal (though I noticed that pork and fennel was among the offerings again). By the time the optio’s slave came round with watered wine even Marcus had shrugged off something of his bad mood. I almost wondered if our host would produce a lute-player or some other after-dinner entertainment, as there might have been at a civilian feast, but of course he did nothing of the kind. Instead, as soon as the final dishes were removed, he turned the conversation to the day’s enquiries, and it became clear why the censor had been invited.

The optio cleared his throat. ‘I have carried out your instructions, Excellence, and now I have the honour to report. I had the whole town searched this afternoon, especially the so-called Roman quarter of the town. I have also interviewed all members of the watch, but I fear there has been no news of the man with the scarred face whom you’re looking for.’ To my surprise he seemed secretly pleased, if anything — though since he had nothing positive to report, it was a little difficult to work out why. If I wanted to be promoted to centurion, I would not have smiled.

Marcus took another sip of wine and frowned. ‘I trust your friend the censor has had more success? I presume you have made an examination of the tax records?’

The tax official inclined his head. ‘I have. As you are well aware, Excellence, all private landed property is subject to a tax. It causes some ill-feeling locally, I’m afraid, but as I always explain, since all the land in the province is ultimately the property of the Emperor, the charge is effectively a rent.’

Marcus was nodding impatiently at this — he needed no instruction in the nature of the law. ‘Of course. And all full citizens residing in the civitas are required to pay a contribution to the upkeep of the town. That is the object of the census officer.’

His irritation was quite plain to me, but the censor was imperturbable. ‘Exactly so. As a result all local landowners and citizens should be registered. However, there is no mention of a Gaius Flaminius Plautus anywhere.’ He delivered this information in a measured monotone, raising his enormous eyebrows skywards as he spoke. ‘Nor is there any record of a Lyra in my scrolls.’

Marcus looked thunderous at this, but the optio seemed pleased, if anything. Indeed he flashed me a triumphant look. I wondered if there was more information still to come.

Sure enough, the optio turned to me. ‘You talked about the street of the oil-lamp sellers, citizen. We have made enquiries. Most of the property in the area is owned by one individual, it seems. Censor, you have the information, I believe?’

The official produced a document from the folds of a pocket underneath his belt, with the air of a magician conjuring a snake. ‘I’ve had my record-keeper make a copy for you.’ He handed Marcus the scrap of parchment-bark on which the details had been scrawled in watery squid-and-lamp-black ink. ‘The owner is a certain Nyros, the current head of one of the old Silurian tribes. Unlike most of the families that did not welcome Rome, his clan seems to have successfully maintained its wealth — judging by the tax on his estate. Not only does he have a farm some distance from the town, but he owns several buildings in the civitas. He has recently financed several public works, so he may consider seeking office soon, though there is no record of his ever doing so before.’

I squinted at the document as I best I could. It was not easy from where I sat, but if I craned my neck a bit I could make out the writing, more or less. Marcus saw what I was doing, and, aware of his own dignity, snatched the sheet away. ‘I suppose he rents the building to this Lyra person, and takes a portion of the profits from the house. That’s not unusual.’

The censor nodded. ‘I agree. That is almost certainly the arrangement, although according to the record the rent is very small, no doubt in consideration of certain. . hmmm. . privileges with the wares.’

The optio looked horrified, but Marcus actually laughed. Before his marriage he had enjoyed a certain reputation of his own — though, given the rumours of his imperial lineage, it is doubtful he ever had to pay for services. ‘He prefers the proprietor herself, perhaps?’

The censor looked comically shocked. ‘Indeed not, Excellence. The keeper of the lupinarium is not. . hmmm. . a practitioner herself — at least not to the general populace. It is rumoured that she does have one wealthy customer — most wolf-house madams do — who keeps her for his own exclusive use.’

‘Do we know who he is and where he lives?’

He shook his head. ‘The girls refer to him as Optimus, but that is most likely a name he gave himself to cover up his true identity. These men insist on anonymity — it keeps their dalliances from their wives. According to my understanding, anyway.’

Marcus said, ‘How do you know all this?’ and the censor had the grace to look abashed.

He coughed. ‘Oh, it is general gossip in the town. And she goes to him, he doesn’t come to her, which keeps it all discreet. He must be someone rich and powerful to afford that sort of service. It’s what every customer would like — someone experienced but not diseased. Not that I have any familiarity with that sort of thing, of course.’

The optio said, ‘Really?’ in a chilly tone.

The censor seemed to realise that he’d said too much. His bullfrog cheeks turned dully red and he added hastily, ‘However, as I say, Lyra is not mentioned anywhere in the records. The building is officially rented to a Tholiramanda, or something of the sort.’ The eyebrows indicated his disdain. ‘You will see it on the copy I have given you.’

Marcus glanced briefly at the document and handed it to me. ‘And what do you think is the significance of that?’

I saw the obvious immediately. ‘It’s the same woman. Tholira-manda — Lyra for short — it trips more easily off the Latin tongue. I’m sure that is the answer, Excellence!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s simply the Latin of her full Celtic name. She rents the house and runs it for her patron.’

I was pleased with my deduction, but Marcus seemed unmoved. ‘I suppose she does. Most brothel-keepers do. There’s nothing to prevent that, under law. He might even be this Optimus.’

The censor shook his head. ‘Nyros lives out of town. She goes to see her client overnight, sometimes, so he must live in Venta. Or that’s what I’ve been told!’ He saw that he’d betrayed himself again, and hid his discomfiture in another drink.

‘We’ll find out soon enough when she arrives,’ my patron said. ‘Has she been found yet, optio?’

The optio was agitated now. ‘Not as yet, Excellence. I sent a guard to the wolf-house, but she had not yet returned. But never fear. She will not escape us very long.’

Marcus hummphed. ‘She seems to be elusive, suddenly. I wonder why? The brothel itself is legal, I presume?’

The tax-recorder was still scarlet-faced. ‘Your Excellence is quite correct. It is all entirely within the law. I’ve looked into it before. Her girls have all got proper licences. She does not receive general customers herself, but even if she did she is not a married woman or a citizen so there would be no case for impropriety. And it’s all quite clean and organised — or so I hear, though naturally I’ve never patronised the place.’

That wasn’t how Lupus had described the place to me. I saw what he meant about Lyra’s having influence with the authorities. I glanced towards the optio, but he was at pains to make it clear that he was not interested in the censor’s private vice. He signalled to the slave to bring another jug of wine, saying at the same time, with a puzzled frown. ‘But it is odd. If the citizen Libertus is right about the name — and of course that remains to be investigated — one would expect this Nyros to be her guardian in matters of the law too. But that is not the case. There is a butcher, from the bath-house end of town, who claims to be a sort of relative and acts as her representative in court.’

‘Court?’ Marcus demanded sharply.

I had an answer to that one myself. ‘I’ve heard that she’s been summoned to the law-courts once or twice, when customers have complained of being robbed while on her premises.’

‘So she has family?’ Marcus swallowed almost all his wine, clearly startled by the picture this had conjured up — the kinswoman of a respectable tradesman running a wolf-house on the side. ‘Doesn’t this fellow put a rein on her?’

‘Not that I’m aware,’ the optio answered. ‘On two occasions he appeared in court on her behalf, and both of the complainants dropped the charge.’

‘So his connection with Lyra is well known in the town?’

The optio inclined his head. ‘Indeed, but it is obvious that he tolerates her trade. More than that, he positively helps. He’s a big man, and she calls on his physical protection too from time to time — no drunken client of her establishment would ever argue with him more than once.’

Another possible candidate for Optimus, I thought — but again the details didn’t seem to fit. A butcher was not a wealthy citizen, and a relative would hardly be a client. It did occur to me to wonder fleetingly if Plautus might be the man, but I dismissed the thought. Until his theatrically staged demise, Plautus had lived in Glevum, more than a day’s journey to the east. Lyra could scarcely have visited him ‘overnight’.

The censor gave a pompous cough and cut across my thoughts, trying to overcome embarrassment by showing how efficient he could be. ‘However, there’s something else which might be relevant. I traced this Tholiramanda through the tax records and found her mentioned elsewhere — as a landowner. It appears that she is the legal holder of a whole block of property down in the bath-house end of town. She inherited it when her husband died: a licensed fuller’s shop and several stalls — including a butcher’s shop, as I recall. If this is the same butcher, then she would own his shop — that might explain his acquiescence in her activities.’ He was preening now.

The optio was looking horrified at this. It is one thing for a woman to run a brothel from necessity, quite another for an otherwise respectable widow, well provided for by her husband’s will, to do so out of choice. ‘Great Mercury! Why did you not mention this before?’

Marcus, too, was trying to cover his shocked astonishment by gesturing to the wine-slave to refill his cup. ‘Surely it’s unusual, to say the least, that a woman of that kind — a widow with property of her own — should rent a building in another part of town and use it for such. .’ he hesitated before he found the word, ‘. . commercial purposes?’

The censor said stiffly, ‘We never had occasion to connect the two before: there has never been any difficulty in collecting tax, so there was no need to question who the tenants were. They’re only townspeople. It’s not as though they were Roman citizens.’ He clearly felt that he’d absolved himself and he consoled his wounded dignity with another sip of wine.

‘But why should a woman with income of her own be running a lupinarium at all?’ Marcus drained his goblet and looked expectantly at me.‘Well, Libertus? What do you make of it? You look as if something has occurred to you.’

In fact, I was remembering what the now dead keeper of the thermopolium had said — that rival families, both pro-and anti-Roman, owned large portions of the civitas, and secretly controlled the businesses within their area. Presumably Lyra enjoyed ‘protection’ from one faction, then. But if so, which?

According to Lupus she had good relations with the town authorities. That made a kind of sense because the wolf-house was in the pro-Roman area of town: her landlord, Nyros, funded civic works and seemed to be hoping for a council post, and her special client was a man of influence. Besides, I was convinced that she had some connection with my mysteriously resurrected friend — that most Roman of Roman citizens. It was obvious that she had pro-Roman links.

Yet, according to what we had learned tonight, she also had connections with the ‘bath-side’ faction, which — according to Big-ears and his friends — was the unofficial territory of the opposing side. That was where I’d met her first, it was the home of her kinsman and his two red-headed spies, and it now seemed that she even had property in that area herself.

I was still running these ideas around my head and trying to make sense of them when the meal was abruptly interrupted by a loud disturbance just outside the door. There was the sound of furious, muffled argument, and then a flushed and flustered menial appeared. ‘There is a messenger to see you, optio.’

He had hardly managed to blurt out the words before the messenger appeared behind him at the door — a cavalry officer by his armour and his cloak, though he was dusty and dishevelled and limping on one foot as though it pained him.

The optio was already struggling to his feet. As commander of a military inn — especially in a border area like this — imperial duty obliged him to attend at once to any messenger, but he seemed almost relieved at the excuse. ‘My apologies, citizens,’ he murmured. ‘I shall not be long.’

But the horseman had by now advanced into the room. He ignored the optio and flung himself abjectly in front of Marcus. ‘Your indulgence, Excellence. I regret this interruption to your meal, but this is too serious to wait. I bring distressing news.’

Marcus looked startled, but he stretched out his hand and signalled to the messenger to rise. ‘Who are you and what is your business here? I hope it is as urgent as you say, to merit this intrusion.’ If not, you can expect the consequences — he did not speak the words but they were understood.

The soldier nodded. ‘My name is Regulus, Excellence. I am a member of the Isca garrison — an auxiliary spearman with the cavalry. There were four of us. We were detailed to come and find you here and accompany you, as outriders, to the garrison. There have been renewed attacks on army patrols and personnel of late, and the roads between here and the border are not wholly safe.’

‘You are very late about it,’ Marcus snapped. ‘If it were not for an unhappy incident which delayed us here, we should already have been in Isca by this time. In view of all the troubles I’ve been hearing of, I was proposing to organise an additional armed escort from this end. Though I must confess I had expected that your commander would have provided one — I’ve just sent a message to him, saying so.’

The soldier’s face turned scarlet at the implied rebuke, but his discipline did not fail. ‘We should have been with you by noon, Excellence, but I regret to tell you that we were delayed — set upon by a marauding band. It was a lightning ambush and we were unprepared. We suffered only lightly — a few cuts and bruises, none of us seriously hurt — but our horses were captured and our equipment seized and we have been obliged to walk. I regret if you have suffered inconvenience. A messenger was sent here to the mansio ahead of us, to advise you that an escort was prepared-’

The optio interrupted him. ‘We’ve received no messenger.’

‘Indeed, sir. I am now aware of that. It appears that the man concerned was ambushed too. I fear he was killed. Only of course there was only one of him, while there were four of us — and even we had difficulty fighting ourselves free.’

Marcus frowned. ‘And you lost your army mounts, you say? How did a detachment of the Roman cavalry come to be so easily overwhelmed?’

The soldier’s colour mounted and he kept his eyes fixed resolutely on the wall. ‘I crave your indulgence, Excellence. We walked into a trap. There is one portion of the road which is extremely steep and wooded. We were riding through it this morning, single file, when one of our number spotted something hanging from a tree a little way down a forest path. It appeared to be a naked human form, but there was a Roman cloak and helmet dangling nearby. Naturally we dismounted and went to look at it. .’ He tailed off in dismay.

‘And that was when a group of armed assailants jumped out of the trees at you?’ I finished for him.

He nodded gratefully. It was a guess on my part, but a likely one. If I had been a rebel, I would have set up exactly such a scheme.

‘There must have been half a dozen men in all,’ the soldier said, returning to his tale. ‘Two of them seized the horses and made off with them, but one of our men spotted what they were up to and called on them to halt. They ignored us, naturally, just went on leading them away. We drew our swords and started to pursue them down the path, but all at once another, bigger group leapt out on us and attacked us from behind. We formed a square and managed to protect ourselves — held our ground and even succeeded in wounding one of them. Then, when their companions had made good their escape, our assailants simply turned and faded off in all directions through the undergrowth. We tried to crash through after them, but we were wearing armour and they were lightly dressed. They were too quick for us.’

‘Meanwhile, you’d left your equipment with the horses, I presume?’ The optio sounded scornful. ‘You left them standing there without a guard? If so, I shall report it to your commandant. That amounts to simple negligence. You will be put on punishment fatigues and the cost will be deducted from your pay. You understand?’ There is always a rivalry between legionary officers like the optio, who are citizens by birth, and auxiliaries like Regulus who only earn the status after forty years of service, usually on a fraction of the pay.

‘Understood, sir.’ The soldier was getting more crimson by the minute. ‘But, if I may make so bold, we felt it was our duty to investigate. The cloak and helmet looked like Roman ones, and there was a lot of blood spilt on the ground.’

‘Never leave horses and equipment unattended, even on the edges of a battlefield, without one of your number standing guard,’ the optio said. ‘What kind of training do they give you lads nowadays?’ He sniffed. ‘Well, it’s too late now. Your steeds have fallen into rebel hands, and they’ll no doubt be used to harass Roman soldiers later on. You can think of that when you are cleaning out latrines. So, what did you do with the body of the messenger? Did you cut it down and bury it?’

This time the soldier did meet the optio’s eyes. ‘That is the extraordinary thing,’ he said. ‘The cloak and helmet were the messenger’s, I don’t think there is any doubt of that. But the body wasn’t his. This was no soldier. A pasty sort of fellow, when he lived, with soft hands and flaccid muscles and a slave-brand on his back. He seemed to be some kind of personal serving-boy.’