Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Twenty-two

‘Libertus, what exactly is the meaning of this?’ She was furiously angry and upset — as I suppose any wife would be who found her husband in a situation of this kind. ‘I have travelled non-stop since I got your note, longing to be here at your side, and when I get here, what do I find? You with a painted woman in your arms — and I heard you say you have been plying her with wine.’

I guiltily withdrew my arms from Lyra’s waist, where I had reached out instinctively to steady her, but she did not collapse senseless to the floor, as I had half expected that she would when I deprived her of support. Instead she took a step backwards and sank down gracefully onto the mattress. The sudden appearance of my wife seemed to have restored her more or less to health.

She hardly mattered now. I turned towards the woman I loved. All my delight at seeing her had evaporated in embarrassment. ‘Gwellia,’ I said urgently, ‘this isn’t what it seems. The lady was brought in to me for questioning — and she was taken suddenly unwell.’

‘Lady?’ Gwellia is a devoted and loving wife, who is often unwilling to express herself — the long years of servitude after she was wrested from me have cowed her painfully — but she is a woman of some spirit when aroused. She was roused now, and there was such scorn and venom in her voice that if Lyra had not been already in a faint, I thought, she would be reeling now. ‘What lady?’ Gwellia demanded. ‘I see no lady here. A lady-wolf, perhaps. They told me at the guardhouse that you were otherwise engaged, but I insisted that they let me in. I see now what they meant. Your business was clearly of a very personal kind.’

‘I assure you, Gwellia, it was nothing of the sort,’ I answered patiently. ‘This woman, Lyra, was summoned to the mansio two days ago to answer some enquiries about her property. Marcus even sent a messenger to bring her in but she was not at home, so he left instructions that she was to report here as soon as possible. Which is exactly what she did. She was waiting for me here when I returned.’

Gwellia snorted. ‘Having somehow talked her way past the guards and being permitted to wander unescorted to your room? I wonder how? I had the greatest difficulty getting in myself, and I had your letter with Marcus’s seal on it — obviously they could not argue with that for very long. However,’ she glanced at Lyra with ill-disguised contempt, much as I have seen her look at a scrawny chicken in the marketplace before refusing it, ‘doubtless your visitor has other methods of persuading them, which are not open to a mere wife.’

‘Be silent! I have told you why she’s here.’ I am by nature quite a patient man, especially where my beloved Gwellia is concerned, and I actively encourage her at home to speak her mind — but there are limits to what any self-respecting husband can tolerate in a public place. And we had an audience. The optio’s private slave had reappeared — sent in person from the kitchens, evidently, since he was bearing a stool for Lyra and a wooden tray on which was a copper beaker, a jug of what looked and smelled like mead and a large bowl of freshly steaming stew. It must have been quite heavy, but he stood there holding it. He had been listening, open-mouthed, to every word.

He saw me looking at him and composed his face. ‘My master sent me back with this for you. I’m to ask if your visitor wants refreshment too.’

I looked enquiringly at Gwellia, but she shook her head. ‘Junio and I brought our own supplies,’ she said, with cool disdain. ‘We have already eaten on the road. Anyway, how would the optio know that we are here? There was no one but the sentry at the gate. More likely he meant your other visitor.’ She went back to glowering at the prostitute, who was still sitting on my bed and appeared to have recovered totally. If anything it was my wife who now looked pale and ill.

‘Citizen, what shall I do with this?’ The pageboy was still carrying the tray, and I gestured to him to come and put it down.

‘My own slave will attend me now,’ I said, seating myself at the table while Junio took up his familiar position at my side.

The page nodded. ‘And about the. . uh. . lady, citizen?’ he said.

I saw a way to exculpate myself. ‘Are His Excellence and the optio coming here? I presume they will interrogate her later on?’ I glanced sideways at Gwellia as I spoke, hoping to prove the point to her, but she refused to meet my eyes.

‘They’ll send for her when they have finished with their meal,’ the boy replied. ‘I am to escort her to the guardroom now to wait. His Excellence suggests that, when you’ve had your food, you should go and start the preliminary questioning. You know what you need to ask, he says.’

It should have been the confirmation that I sought, but there was something in his manner which conveyed the opposite. Something was clearly troubling him and though Lyra had risen to her feet and moved obediently to his side, he didn’t move. He simply stood there, hovering, and looking so furtive that, far from helping to allay my wife’s suspicions, he was making matters worse.

‘Very well, then, go!’ I urged impatiently. ‘Take the woman now, and leave me to my meal.’

‘At once, citizen,’ but still he did not move. Instead he starting sending signals with his eyes, as though we were partners in some conspiracy.

Gwellia noticed it at once. Before I did, in fact, because I had turned away to eat my stew. ‘Husband,’ she said, with heavy irony, ‘I think the slave has something he wants to say. Something that he would prefer I didn’t hear, perhaps.’

‘Nonsense,’ I protested. ‘There is nothing he could have to say to me which I would not be happy for you to overhear. But obviously he can’t talk freely with Lyra in the room. There have been investigations into her affairs, and no doubt information about her has come to light.’ It was an explanation which had just occurred to me and — judging by the look of horror which crossed Lyra’s face — it was at least a reasonable one. Gwellia had the grace to look abashed, and the optio’s slave was so visibly relieved that I was persuaded that I’d hit upon the truth. ‘Does it concern Lyra?’ I enquired.

He nodded passionately.

‘In that case, you can tell me when I come to question her. Then it will be fresh in my mind, and there is no chance of her overhearing what you have to say, and changing her testimony to fit.’ She was clearly uncomfortable by now, and I thought it would do her good to wait.

It was obviously not the response that the page had hoped to get. He gave me another anguished look. ‘But citizen. .’ he began and then, whatever he was going say, abandoned it. ‘You know best, citizen. It shall be as you command. Come!’ he said to Lyra, and she followed him from the room. She was still looking shaken but she had collected herself a little more by now, and even contrived to sway her hips at me, and give me a would-be-seductive smile as she went.

Gwellia watched all this in stony silence. But after they had gone she sat down on the bed, deliberately avoiding the place where the previous occupant had been, and burst out furiously, ‘And you expect me to believe that she’s a prisoner in this place, when he lets her walk about without restraint. No chains, no ropes, no guards at all — not even a baton to keep her under check!’ She sounded angry, but she was close to tears, and she folded her arms across her chest, tightly, as though to keep her feelings locked inside.

‘Gwellia. .’ I said gently.

‘Don’t try to Gwellia me. Eat your stew before it all goes cold.’

I sighed. It was clear that explanation was no use. However, she was right. I was hungry and my food was getting cold. I offered again to share my meal, but she simply shook her head in an impatient way.

I decided it was best to give her time, and turned my attention to the waiting stew. It was thick and stodgy, full of oatmeal and beans, as tasteless army rations very often are, but it was warm and filling and I ate it gratefully, while Junio stood beside me with the jug of mead. If it was not for my affronted, glowering wife, I could have persuaded myself that I was safe at home and everything was well.

I pushed back my empty plate and smiled up at Junio. He leaned forward, and refilled my cup with mead, murmuring as he did so, ‘With your permission, master, I will find a cloth. I see that there is wine spilt on the floor.’

I stared at him and started to my feet. ‘Great gods,’ I cried. The appearance of my wife had driven all memory of the spillage from my mind, and all rational thought as well, it seemed. But I now remembered what I’d thought before. ‘That wine was meant for me.’

Junio looked at me, aghast. ‘You think that there was something wrong with it?’

‘I don’t know. Lyra was already feeling ill — that’s why I gave it her — but once she’d taken just a sip, she half collapsed on me.’ I turned to Gwellia. ‘That’s how you came to find us as you did.’

Gwellia got slowly to her feet. Even as I watched her, I could see the change in her, and the look of real concern that crossed her face. ‘You think somebody meant to poison you?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible, but I can’t see who it could have been — unless it was the optio himself. He was the one who sent the food for me.’ I glanced nervously at my empty plate and at the jug of mead which I had half consumed. ‘Yet I’ve just eaten this, and I am perfectly all right. Perhaps he realised I had witnesses, and changed his mind.’

Gwellia frowned. ‘But I still can’t work out how he knew that we were here.’

I shrugged. ‘He must have done. A message from the sentry, I suppose. After all, he offered you a meal.’

She shook her head. ‘We saw no one but the guard on duty at the gate, and there was no way of sending in a messenger. He actually said as much himself. He was grumbling that the mansio was overstretched — there was only a handful of men stationed here, he said, and half of them had been out on escort duty all day, so he was on his own. He didn’t even have a message-boy. That’s what he said to Junio. I heard.’

Junio nodded. ‘He wanted us to wait there in the guardroom at the gate till he could find someone to send to the officer in charge, and get the go-ahead to let us in. He was perfectly polite and apologetic, but he told us he couldn’t allow a woman through the gate without personal permission from the optio in command. More than his very skin was worth, he said. It was only the letter with the official seal that changed his mind.’

I glanced at Gwellia. ‘So you were right, my dear,’ I said. ‘Of course you were. I should have paid attention to your words before. You said it was extraordinary that Lyra should come in here and wander round without a proper guard — but it is even more peculiar than I thought. But I think I might know why. Go into the kitchen, Junio — you’ll find it on your right as you go out of here — and ask them for a cloth to clean the floor. Try to get chatting to the kitchen-boys. Tell them that Lyra was here with me. See what their reaction is to that. Find out if she’s ever been before.’

Junio’s face lit up in a delighted grin. He has always loved assisting me in my enquiries and it was clear that he was relishing this opportunity. He asked no further questions, but disappeared at once.

I rose and went over to my wife. She looked up at me, and I saw with distress that there were tears brimming in her eyes. I took her elbows, raised her to her feet, and held her in my arms. ‘Gwellia,’ I murmured, pressing her against me and fondling her hair, ‘did you doubt me so?’

She drew back her head and looked at me. ‘What was I to think? I have been concerned about you ever since you sent asking Junio to go to Plautus’s house and try to find out exactly what happened when he died. I know you, Libertus. You have got some theory that you want to prove. Plautus was a wealthy citizen, and owed his rise to Rome. No doubt he made enemies on the way — any man who makes a personal fortune always does. If you suspected that someone murdered him, I didn’t know what danger you were in, or what kind of people you were dealing with.’

‘So you came to rescue me?’

‘I came to keep an eye on you. We two have been parted long enough.’ Her voice broke, and she murmured with a sob, ‘Libertus, husband, I have missed you so much since you have been gone, and when I saw that woman in your arms I thought. . I feared. . perhaps you’d missed me too. That’s how these people make their living, after all. Can you forgive me for suspecting you?’

‘And can you forgive me for unintentionally causing you such grief?’

She might have answered, but her lips were otherwise engaged.