A Pattern of Blood

Chapter Ten

Neither was he in evidence next morning, when, aroused by a general commotion in the courtyard, I finally awoke.

Junio was standing beside me with a brimming bowl (I still liked to plunge my face, Celtic-fashion, into cold water on awakening), and an appetising morning meal of fresh milk and hot oatcakes. The Romans can keep their breakfast of fruit, bread and watered wine — this was a feast for a king. I said so to Junio as I made the ritual offering of the first few drops from my cup.

He grinned. ‘I bought it for you fresh from the street sellers, master. With Julia’s blessing. I said that you would like it above all things — though Maximilian was inclined to be irritated that I had scorned his kitchens. The family, of course, will eat only bread and water today until the funeral banquet, but they cannot expect Marcus to do so, or you and Flavius either, so it was easier to send out for something. In any case, the household kitchens are full to bursting with preparations for the feast.’ He tucked into one of the delicious oatcakes which, as usual, I had set aside for him.

‘Fit for a king,’ I said again, when the last warm, fragrant crumb was gone and we were licking our fingers reluctantly.

Junio’s grin broadened. ‘Well, if His Majesty has sufficiently feasted, perhaps he would like me to help him with his toga? I imagine you would like us to go and look for Rollo?’ He said ‘us’, I noticed, as if it were inevitable that he should assist me in any enquiries, but I made no comment. I allowed him to drape me in my toga and we went outside.

It was a damp and drizzling day, made drearier by the moaning rise and fall of the distant lament, but the courtyard was full of bustle. Slaves with buckets, cloths, feather dusters, sponges and ladders scampered everywhere, while a pair of lads were already busy scattering sawdust in the colonnade and sweeping it up again with their twig brooms. Clearly the house was to be as clean as the Emperor’s armour before the expected guests arrived.

I led the way into the atrium, but there was no sign of Rollo, and we wandered through the front enclosure towards the gate. Visitors were already arriving. News of the decurion’s death had spread quickly overnight, and from the murmur outside it seemed that half Corinium was at the gates.

The gate opened to admit a slave in a fancy tunic, clutching gifts of oil and wine. Representing a member of the civic curia, no doubt, and come to offer lamentations by proxy, though his master would attend in person to grace the burial procession and enjoy the banquet.

Then came one of the clientes, genuinely weeping. No wonder, perhaps, if Quintus had been his only patron — without whose good offices he would now struggle for a livelihood. Perhaps he genuinely loved him, or perhaps he masked an inward glee with this show of public grief: if, for example, he expected to be mentioned in Quintus’s will, in recompense for favours done, or found himself unexpectedly relieved of the necessity of naming Quintus as one of his own heirs.

All the curia and clientes would attend, in turn. Add to these the funeral orator, the dancers, singers and musicians, the torch-carriers and litter-bearers, the family, the household slaves, one or two favoured tradesmen and a scattering of the simply curious, and you will see that the decurion’s funeral procession promised to be a very impressive one indeed.

But of Rollo there was still no sign. I wandered back into the triclinium (unannounced, to the consternation of the slaves at the door), and found Flavius reclining on one of the couches, eating. Someone had brought him a hot pie from a market stall, and he was stuffing it into his mouth as though greasy pastry and early-morning lumps of gristly meat were his idea of an ambrosial breakfast. A goblet of wine stood on a low table before him.

He looked up as I came in, wiped his fingers on the linen napkin he had been given and hastily rearranged his cushions. I had the distinct impression that he was up to something. He gazed at me with a triumphant air.

I had not been present the night before, when Marcus had interrogated him, and looking at that swarthy, fleshy face with its fleeting but unmistakable expression of cunning, I suddenly determined to repair the omission. Without Marcus, however, Flavius was unlikely to tell me anything. My best chance was to unsettle him.

I gave him a cheerful smile and sat down, uninvited, on a nearby stool.

It was an action of such unprecedented insolence, in the presence of a purple-striper, that he almost choked on his pie. I followed it up with another, speaking to my betters without being spoken to, and without the appropriate apologetic preamble. ‘Good morning, citizen.’ I sensed, rather than saw, Junio at my elbow, sending up silent prayers for my preservation to all the gods he knew.

I was offering a few unspoken petitions of my own. This was dangerously disrespectful, and Flavius was frowning angrily. I took a deep breath.

‘Well, Flavius,’ I said comfortably — worse and worse, no honorific titles and using his name like an equal — ‘I hear it was your sharp eyes which discovered Lupus.’

The scowl visibly lightened. I breathed out. Flavius was susceptible to flattery. I poured out a little more of it, hopefully, like a householder making a libation of oil to the pantry gods.

‘You have sharper eyes than I have,’ I said. ‘I did not notice the stains.’

He smirked. ‘The old goat concealed them in his sleeve folds, by holding his arm against him as though it were stiff. I noticed he was doing it, but I thought nothing of it.’ He leaned forward confidentially, the grease of the pie still glistening moistly on his lips: ‘I have known Lupus for years, and he is forever complaining of his aches and pains. Every time one sees him he has some fresh affliction — and one dares not ask, unless one wants a whole recital of his woes. He is famous for it in the town. No one would even have thought it odd that he had developed a new malady, until his greed betrayed him. The slave came by with the wine jug, and Lupus couldn’t resist holding out his bony arm for more.’

His right arm, I thought. I did a swift calculation. The dagger blow that killed Quintus had been delivered slightly upwards and to the right. Surely that would be most easily inflicted by a left-handed man? It was hard to be sure. Quintus had presumably been reclining on his couch when the blow was struck, so he could have been attacked from any angle. Besides, few Roman citizens would be left-handed — any such tendency was schooled out of them early. The Roman army did not tolerate ‘sinister’ infantrymen — they spoiled a formation, and left vulnerable gaps in a phalanx — and a similar prejudice ran through polite society. Soldiers and schoolboys learned very quickly, if not to be right-handed, at least to be ambidextrous.

I looked at Flavius. He was supporting himself on his left arm and unconsciously holding his pie in his right hand, but, as in the case of Lupus and the wine, that told me nothing. It is considered polite in most Roman circles for a man to eat and drink with his right hand, and to reserve his left for more intimate duties.

Flavius was looking at me expectantly. I said quickly, ‘You have known Councillor Lupus a long time?’

‘He is ex-Councillor Lupus, now,’ Flavius reminded me, with a certain relish. ‘That is why he hated Quintus Ulpius so much. That and some argument over that secretary of his. He was telling me about it in the garden — though I confess I was scarcely paying attention. You wouldn’t have done so either, in my place. Listening to Lupus rehearsing his miseries is a famously tedious business. And that is why it is difficult to answer your question, citizen. I have known him, from a distance, for many years, but I have, shall we say, avoided his acquaintance.’

‘You did not need his support in the curia?’ I suggested. Most men with large estates would court a magistrate, however tedious, if it would assist them to gain contracts and avoid taxes.

He was unabashed by this. ‘Naturally, I sent him tribute if it was expedient,’ he said, ‘but I had other friends on the council. Quintus Ulpius was one of them, until this business with Julia. You heard about that?’

I was on dangerous ground here. ‘I heard that she had been your wife,’ I said carefully.

Not carefully enough. ‘Had been my wife!’ he snorted angrily. ‘She should still be my wife! By Jupiter, Greatest and Best, she was promised me by her father, Gaius Honorius, when I lent him money to buy a forest. As soon as she was old enough, he said, and sure enough, the day she was twelve he brought her to my house, and gave her a handsome dowry into the bargain. And now, of course, I’ve lost that too.’

‘A manus marriage?’ I said. I was surprised. That form of legal wedding was almost obsolete, but if that was the case, Flavius certainly had a claim. Of course his bride was very young — we Celts do not usually marry off our daughters while they are still such children — but twelve is the legal age under Roman law, and it is always fashionable, among the socially aspiring, to do in Britain as they do in Rome. In any case, her youth made no difference. In a manus marriage, the wife legally passed into her husband’s power, and so did her property. She might even have been fictitiously ‘bought’ by her husband, in front of the magistrates, in which case she was undoubtedly his. ‘Can you prove that?’

He shook his head. ‘There was no legal ceremony. And I cannot prove “usage”, either — Julia was too clever for that. She has made a point of sleeping away from home for three successive nights every year — so she has avoided legally passing into my family. She claims ours was a free marriage, and therefore she can leave it when she chooses. Her father would have supported me, but he died of a fever years ago, and her brother became her official protector. He has never liked me. He made no secret of it — he was always encouraging her to run home, and I’d have to send after her and woo her back.’ He looked at me mournfully. ‘Great Jupiter the Mighty, I’d have sought a divorce myself twenty times over if Julia were not so beautiful.’

Or so rich, I thought uncharitably.

Flavius, though, had not finished his complaint. ‘The things I had to promise! I tell you, citizen, I spoiled that woman. I allowed her to go to the baths every day, during the women’s hours, though it costs twice as much for a female: I let her have pets, and visits to friends, and yearly outings to the theatre: I even permitted her to learn an instrument and play at banquets which I gave. What more could a man do? And still she was not satisfied.’

I was trying to imagine what Gwellia would have said if I had confined her to such dubious pleasures, but I managed to smile encouragingly.

‘You know, she used to complain of my breath, and I spent a fortune on sweeteners to please her. Liquorice root, ginger, dried fennel — I tried everything. I even used ground dogs’ teeth and honey to polish my teeth, but still she grumbled that I smelled of fish pickle and old wine. And then of course she met Quintus. After that she never came home again. I believe he went to a sorcerer and had her charmed away. Well, he needn’t think he can get away with it. There are laws against things like that.’

There were. The picture of the soothsayer flitted across my mind. ‘And that is what you came here to see him about?’

‘Of course it is. Or perhaps I should say “was”.’

‘I see.’ I looked at him for a moment. ‘Then what was it you wanted Rollo to do for you?’

I have never seen a man’s expression change so quickly. The smile faded, and he turned whiter than my toga. ‘Rollo?’ he stammered. His distress was so dramatic that I wondered for a moment if it had been caused by the pie. ‘How did you know about that?’

I smiled, in what I hoped was an inscrutable fashion. ‘A courtyard has ears,’ I said. I sounded like a rune-reader evading an answer, but I did not wish to implicate the page. Flavius obviously didn’t know that Rollo had spoken to me. ‘So,’ I went on, ‘what have you done with the boy? Where have you sent him?’

I was not expecting an immediate reply. I was prepared for hedging and evasion, but I was not prepared for Flavius’s startled look.

‘But citizen,’ he said, in surprise. ‘If you have informants, surely you must know. I asked Rollo to call on me last evening, but he did not come. I wanted him to take a message, it is true, but he never arrived. I supposed that Julia had learned about it, and forbidden him to come.’

‘You wanted him to take a message?’ I repeated.

‘A message, a letter. To Julia. Isn’t that what this inquisition is about?’

‘You wrote to Julia?’ I said. I was surprised. It is not usual for a man to send letters to another man’s wife, especially not when he is a guest in the same house. But then, I remembered, Julia had refused to speak to Flavius. I was interested to know what this famous message had said. ‘Where is the letter now?’

‘It was nothing. It is not important now. I have destroyed it.’ He picked up the goblet of watered wine from the table and swallowed the contents at a gulp.

‘Destroyed it?’ That was unlikely. Writing materials are too precious to destroy.

‘Erased it, then,’ Flavius conceded sulkily.

So it had been written on a wax tablet, I thought. That was interesting. Probably a small writing block, folded in two halves and fitted with a lock and hinge so that the message was private. Just the sort of tablet on which someone had scratched the words ‘Remember Pertinax’. I was suddenly very anxious to see it.

‘And was that,’ I enquired sweetly, ‘what you were hiding under your pillows when I came in?’

Flavius assumed a look of injured innocence. ‘But there is nothing under my pillows, citizen. Have your slave search them, or see for yourself.’

For a moment I was taken aback. The tablet, I thought, must be in the room somewhere. Flavius had intended to give it to Rollo, and he had not left the triclinium. My eye lit on the napkin. Of course! I seized one corner of it and swept it away, revealing what Flavius had hidden under it.

The little writing tablet was an expensive thing: the frame was made of carved ivory, the metal clasp finely worked. Flavius sat up and buried his head in his hands. He looked a defeated man.

‘Well?’ I demanded, like the governor demanding tribute.

He shrugged. ‘See for yourself, citizen.’ I was the one being accorded the social courtesy now. ‘It is nothing. I was trying to send a letter, but I did not send it, and I have erased it, as you see.’ He opened the tablet. It was true: the scratched message, whatever it was, had been obliterated by rubbing the wax with the blunt end of the stylus, which was created for exactly that purpose. ‘I don’t suppose I shall ever deliver it now.’

I took the tablet from him and handed it to Junio, who had been waiting patiently at my side all the while. ‘Put this inside your tunic. I think we should show it to Julia. Perhaps she can throw some light on the matter.’

Junio obeyed. To my surprise, Flavius made no protest, although the frame alone must have been worth many sesterces. Indeed, he seemed almost pleased that I had taken it. His face cleared and he said, with urgency, ‘Yes, do. Give it to Julia, citizen. I meant her to have it. I would have sent it to her yesterday, but Rollo didn’t come.’ He frowned. ‘What happened to him, I wonder?’

I didn’t know. And suddenly I found that worrying.

I got to my feet. ‘I don’t know, citizen. Excuse me, I must go and look for him. It may be urgent. Come, Junio.’

And bowing ourselves out as hastily as respect allowed, we went back to the atrium.