A Coin for the Ferryman

Chapter Ten

My patron was given to extravagant feasts but that evening’s banquet was the most elaborate I have ever seen. So for Gwellia, who had only rarely attended formal meals — let alone for Junio who had never dined in Roman style before — it must have been an amazing experience from the very start. Of course, we knew that all this conspicuous expense was entirely in Lucius’s honour — Marcus was clearly determined to impress his visitor and would not have bothered with such luxuries for us — but we were the incidental beneficiaries all the same.

There were scented bowls of water in which to bathe our feet (though we had washed them just before we came) and there were slaves to kneel and do it and pat us dry again with spotless linen cloths. Then came more slaves with floral wreaths, napkins, and knives for us all — as though a man never carried his own cutlery to feasts.

Lucius, as the principal guest, reclined on Marcus’s right while Julia occupied the position on his left, where — as the second-ranking guest — I’d half expected to be placed myself. Another couch and table had been arranged for us nearby, at right angles to the first, where I was similarly flanked by my wife and my new son, so that Junio — although a male — was in the most inferior place and the two women were close enough to talk. Apart from the dining couches, an empty stool stood by — obviously for Cilla when the moment came.

I suspected that Julia had had a hand in these seating arrangements, which were unusual — since women did not usually sit at the top table in this way — but actually very cleverly designed. Making me the centre of a table of my own was a kind of compliment and compensated for the fact that I was not at Marcus’s side. Besides, it kept Junio (who was in any case a little ill at ease) as far as possible from Lucius, who had probably never before sat down to dinner with a man who at breakfast time was legally his slave. Above all, I think, our hostess wanted to have the higher seat herself, so that she could hear what was being said between her husband and his guest and if necessary steer the conversation carefully away from any possible allusion to the dead man in the yard.

Whatever her reasons for the table-placing, I was glad of it. I was able to whisper instructions to my former slave when — as happened more than once — he was not sure of proper etiquette or had some difficulty in eating lying down, with only one elbow to support himself. In his former short life as a Roman slave, he had never served at table, and we followed Celtic customs in our house.

Once the company was settled Marcus clapped his hands. A player came in with a lute and sang a poem in praise of Lucius; after that a cymbal clashed, and then the meal began. It was a full-scale three-part dinner, no expense spared. The ‘tasting course’ alone was meal enough for me — eggs, oysters, radishes, and sardines. The serving boys who came in with the platters — silver ones, no pewterware tonight! — were struggling beneath the weight of them. Square loaves of wheat and rye bread were brought in, sweet and spiced, new-baked on the premises from flour grown and milled — as Marcus loftily observed — ‘within a thousand paces of this spot’.

Lucius looked pained and commented that Rome was not given to such rustic practices and that he, personally, patronised a baker who made special loaves for him. However, I noticed that he seemed to like the bread, and even more the mulsum, or sweet wine, that followed it.

When we had eaten far more than we should, the finger-bowls were passed around and, as I showed Junio how to rinse his hands, first the acrobats and then the dwarves whom we’d seen on the cart came in and entertained us for a time, to give our digestion a little space to work. They were energetic and amusing, and working to impress, until Marcus decided that his guest was getting bored and dismissed them in favour of a singer with a lyre.

After a trio of short songs, he too was sent away, and the main portion of the evening began. There were a full seven courses (‘one for each of us, and one for luck’, as Junio said later, in astonishment): fish, goose with lovage, lamb with pears and wine, and a main central course of roasted venison (with the choicest portion going to Lucius, of course) followed by the lighter dishes: stuffed sow’s udders — a Roman favourite, this — a dish of honeyed dormice, and, last of all, the larks. It was of course unthinkable to refuse a dish outright, though Marcus was sufficiently aware of my tastes to ensure that that dreadful fish sauce the Romans like so much was offered as a condiment and not put on the food before it came to table.

I had experienced Roman feasts before, though not generally on this scale, and remembered to save myself some space, and Gwellia only ever took a taste of every dish; but despite my best instructions that he should do the same, Junio soon began to look a little green. I reminded him that it was possible to slip outside to tickle his throat and bring a little up, and so make room for what was yet to come, but he was too embarrassed to do it. Lucius, however, had no such provincial qualms and he soon strode out to vomit before returning to eat some more.

‘Now is your chance,’ I said to Junio. ‘You can be assured it’s quite acceptable, now he has led the way. I will come with you if you like.’ He flashed me a queasy, thankful smile, and we went out into the little room which Marcus ordered his servants to prepare when he held feasts, where Junio made use of the large brass bowl and one of the goose feathers from the nearby pot, provided for the purpose by our thoughtful host.

When he stood up, gasping, he looked more himself. ‘If these are the privileges of citizenship,’ he said unsteadily, ‘perhaps it is safer to remain a slave. Though I enjoyed the bath!’ He gave a wobbly grin. ‘Even the mighty Lucius deigned to speak to me, once he was stripped of his fancy toga-stripes — though only about that wretched corpse, of course. He seemed to think I might know who it was.’

I waited for him to rinse his face in the jug of water, and for the slave who brought it to retire again, before I took him gently by the arm. ‘You told him what we had discovered, I suppose? The mark round the neck, and everything?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He frowned. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I thought if you’d told Marcus. .’

I waved his fears aside. ‘Lucius had no theories about the body, then?’

He made a face. ‘I don’t imagine that he would have told me if he did. I’m not much better than a slave to him — he would not have spoken to me at all, if he’d not been so keen to know what I had seen.’

I nodded. ‘It would be bad form to show his host that he was curious about anything so vulgar as a corpse.’

‘And he did not really converse with me at all. He just asked questions — at least till Marcus came, and then he talked exclusively to him — mostly about things in Rome I didn’t understand.’

‘Which is what I imagine we shall find him doing now,’ I said. ‘If you feel well enough to go back to the feast? We’ve been out here long enough.’

I was right. When we returned it was to find Lucius — lubricated perhaps by all the mulsum he had drunk — holding forth about politics and literature in Rome. He was gesturing with a choice portion of lark’s leg as he spoke, while Marcus chipped in with witty epigrams, which clearly were quotations from some famous poet — though of course I couldn’t tell you who it was. My son caught my eye as he regained his seat, and winked.

I frowned a warning at him. A banquet is always seen as an opportunity for this sort of clever talk, which is regarded as a kind of social art. However, I am not particularly interested in such debates myself, and would have much preferred to watch the entertainment now on offer — a hapless conjuror who had just appeared, and was performing to no one in particular. He was a skinny old man in a tattered silver robe, who was making little coloured balls appear and disappear, though nobody was watching except me. Julia and Gwellia, who were reclining very close, were deep in some female conversation of their own, while Junio was doing what I ought to be doing myself — pretending to follow what Lucius had to say, with an expression of rapt attention on his face.

I composed myself into a similar position, and tried to assume an interested look while Marcus’s cousin boasted of his senatorial friends and the lavish banquets that he’d attended at the court.

‘Of course the Emperor is famous for the brilliance of his feasts,’ Lucius observed. ‘You know he had a pair of hunchback dwarves smeared with mustard and served up on a plate?’

‘Not to eat them, surely?’ Marcus asked, appalled.

His cousin smiled — contriving to look pitying and disdainful both at once. ‘Of course not. Simply to display them as an amusement for his guests. At court it is often the spectacle that counts — something unusual to catch the eye.’ His scathing glance and lofty tone of voice suggested his contempt for conjurors. ‘Caesar is always hungry for variety.’

‘That is why you were so interested in those people who were here the other day?’ Julia enquired, with the sweetest of smiles but clearly stung by Lucius’s none-too-veiled disparagement. ‘The ones that you engaged? I admit the mimic was a clever turn and very funny, but I should have thought there were a thousand snake-charmers in Rome? Or perhaps you don’t have vipers of that kind over there?’ It was not usual for women to join in men’s talk at a feast, unless by invitation — especially when the subject is at all political — and Marcus looked rather disapprovingly at her. She covered the moment by adding instantly, with every show of a hostess’s concern, ‘But I see your glass is empty, cousin.’

She gestured to the little serving boy who was carrying the wine — in a silver crater half as big as he was — to go round and offer more refreshments to the guests (beginning with Lucius, of course) then turned back to her murmured conversation with my wife.

The wine was delicately watered, best Falernian. No doubt it had been carefully selected, warmed and mixed, but all Roman wine tastes much the same to me. I can only judge the quality by the speed with which it dulls my wits, and this one was doing that quite rapidly. I knew that at any moment the repartee would cease, and we should be obliged to rise while Marcus went over to the altar niche and made oblations to the household gods. He had chosen the old-fashioned Roman timing of the ritual in deference to his guest (these days people tended to make their sacrifices before the feast began), and I did not want to create a spectacle by tripping over my toga in the course of it. I was a little wary, therefore, when the serving boy approached and offered to fill my goblet to the brim again.

‘More wine, citizen?’

I nodded. I almost wished that I could drink the weaker, more watered version that the ladies were served. However, it might be considered rude if I refused. ‘A very little, then.’

I was so concerned with preventing him from pouring more than a thumb’s-width or two that I was paying little attention to the table talk, which was now about the acts which Lucius had singled out to send to Rome. I did, however, realise that Marcus was amused.

‘I hope for your sake, cousin, that they divert the Emperor, and you are properly rewarded. Though your choice would not have been mine. That snake-charmer had clearly painted the viper markings on his snakes. I suspect that really they were harmless ones, though what he did with them was quite amusing, in its way.’

A red flush suffused Lucius’s thin, patrician cheeks. ‘I think he will serve the purpose,’ he observed, in a tone of voice so prim that it made me wonder what lewdness the act contained. ‘Of course, if the fellow fails to please, he will be taken out and flogged.’ He picked the last morsels from his lark, and tossed the bones away. ‘Now, if we are ready? I have finished here, I think.’

It was a kind of signal. Everybody stood. The conjuror, who had moved on to doing something with a piece of cloth — miraculously changing it from red to blue somehow — was unceremoniously hustled off, still without having at any point enjoyed the attention of his so-called audience. An uncomfortable silence fell across the room.

Marcus pulled his toga up to form a hood and clapped his hands three times, whereupon a senior slave appeared, bearing a salver laid with salt and wheat, and a little jug of what I knew was wine. There was a hush while the offering was made. Marcus muttered the necessary words and then resumed his place, and after a little embarrassed shuffling we all lay down again.

It was time for the grand finale of the meal — the ‘second tables’ as the saying goes. With the religious business over, the mood was lighter now. The cymbal clashed, the singer with the lyre came in again, and so did Cilla, looking flushed and proud. Marcus stretched out a hand in welcome, and even Lucius gave a frosty smile, but in the circumstances it was up to me to speak. I rose to greet her.

‘Come, slave, I invite you to join us while we dine,’ I said. ‘In public and in the presence of these Roman citizens, I call upon this company to witness what I do.’

It was a version of the required formula, and everybody understood what it implied. Cilla shyly took the stool — sitting upright rather than reclining, certainly, but officially a member of the dining party now, though she was not yet fully freed. One servant brought her a napkin and a wreath, while another brought a platter on which reposed a single piece of bread and a cup containing a very little wine. He knelt before her and presented it.

Cilla took the symbolic food and drink, and took a tiny mouthful from each of them in turn. She was trembling so much that I could see her fingers shake, but once the token helpings had duly passed her lips it was Marcus’s turn to stand up and declaim. ‘We have witnessed Cilla eating and drinking at a feast at the invitation of her master. I therefore declare that, by legal custom, she is considered freed and is henceforward no longer held in servitude.’

I applauded loudly and so did most of us — although Lucius contented himself with a brief and silent tapping of three fingers on his palm — and Cilla was overcome with so much self-consciousness that she swallowed the crumb of bread too fast and almost choked herself.

That broke the tension. Everybody laughed, and presently the secundae mensae were brought in, tray after tray of delicious honeyed things. Marcus’s kitchens had excelled themselves. There were sweet cakes, spiced cakes and peppered strawberries followed by apple and blackberry stew, fresh fruit, dried fruit, stuffed dates, figs, and — my personal favourite — a sort of sweetened pie made of raisins, bread and spices sprinkled with honeyed milk and butter and baked till it formed a crusty cake.

All the gentlemen left the table more than once to make use of the goose feathers and the bowl next door, though the ladies merely nibbled at the tempting treats and showed the refinement expected of their sex — it would have been ill-mannered on their part to go out and follow suit.

There was more wine and more music, although — since Lucius was ‘King of the Feast’ if anybody was, and there were females in the company — there was none of the elaborate ‘drinking on command’ that sometimes accompanies such events elsewhere. After a little time, the females withdrew — it is not considered proper for wives to drink too much — and then at last the dancing girls came on.

The performance might have lasted perhaps half an hour, although it seemed at the time to be over in a flash. Looking back I find it hard to imagine how girls can bend like that. They must have bones like anybody else, but the way they swayed and rippled and wiggled different portions of themselves was enough to make a blind man sit and stare. The costumes, too, were seen to full effect, the bright, floating fabrics parting now and then to reveal a tantalising glimpse of thigh or breast. They were accompanied by the middle-aged dragon-lady on a flute and the skinny fellow in the silver coat, who had appeared again, thumping out a rhythm on a hollow, empty cask.

There was no question of the apathy that had faced his conjuring: every eye was fixed on this performance from the start, though not all of the eyes were equally approving. I found that I was a little scandalised myself — especially when one of the more lissom of the girls began performing very close to me, affording a close view of her considerable assets and clicking a pair of wooden clappers in time to every bounce. I tore my glance away from the gyrating flesh and saw that every male in the room had a personal dancer doing much the same for him.

I wondered how Lucius was enjoying this. Presumably he was accustomed to such things at court, but only a faint pinkness round his patrician nose gave any indication that he was other than quite dispassionately bored — and even that hint of colour might have been caused by the quantity of watered wine that he’d imbibed.

I could not look with any decency at what was wiggling suggestively right before my face. I glanced round the room. Junio was revelling in this first experience (it was likely to be the last for a long time, too, I thought — I could not afford this kind of luxury, even if I had wanted to). He was watching every movement with eager eyes, leaning forward on his seat to get a better view, with a smile of youthful disbelief at what he saw.

Marcus, however, seemed preoccupied. I wondered if the dead body in the stable block was on his mind, or whether he was simply dismayed by Lucius. He watched the performance with less interest than he usually displayed — even when the dancers were not half as good as these — and I actually saw him glance towards the water-candle twice, as if he were impatient for the night to end.

I went back to watching my gyrating nymph, who had now retreated by a foot or two, and found I was quite sorry when the music stopped and the performance came to a memorable end with a tableau that was stunning in its suggestiveness. Marcus was the first to lead the clapping and my son and I joined in — though Junio was too breathless even to shout ‘Macte!’

Lucius, too, was sufficiently condescending to applaud and he watched the dancers all the way as they shimmered and shimmied through the door. Perhaps he had enjoyed it more than he allowed. Marcus seemed to think so.

‘There, cousin,’ he said, with a triumphant smile. ‘Hispanic dancing girls, Britannia style. Not naked, as you will observe, but sometimes what’s half hidden is more exciting than a nude. And these are the best available, is that not so, madam?’

The flautist manager, who was collecting up the scarves her troupe had strewn about, gave him a mirthless smile. ‘I hope so, Excellence. We set our standards high. Turn down twenty girls for every one we take. They aren’t all genuinely from Iberia, of course, but the best ones are, because they teach them young. You can’t learn to dance like that when all your bones are set.’ She waited, politely, to see if Marcus spoke, and when he didn’t she went on, ‘And now, if you’ve finished with me, Excellence, I must round up the girls.’

She disappeared, like an outsize female sheepdog, and we heard her yapping in the courtyard as she herded up her flock.

It was late now, and time for us male diners to retire as well. Our wives would be sleepily awaiting us, huddling over braziers in a room nearby, and my little party had a longish walk before we found our beds. We got to our feet — some of us a little more unsteadily than others — and slaves emerged smoothly from the shadows by the wall to remove our lopsided banquet wreaths and escort us from the room.

Marcus and Lucius led the way, of course. I was the last to leave, and already slaves were brushing the floor and scraping the portions of uneaten food all together on to one big dish, to set on the altar of the household gods. I grinned. They must be hoping that the divinities had no appetite tonight, so that in the morning they could have a feast themselves.

I turned and followed Junio out to look for Cilla and my waiting wife.