A Pattern of Blood

Chapter Seventeen

To say that I was thunderstruck by this reply would be an insult to Jove’s thunderbolts. Not only was it the last response I was expecting, but I had no idea what it meant. I shot a look at Junio, who was standing behind the attendant, but he simply shrugged his shoulders at me and opened his eyes wide. He was obviously as baffled as I was.

‘Money?’ I said to the bath boy, ‘I did not come here looking for money. I am interested in Maximilian.’

This answer seemed to cause the attendant more anguish than ever. ‘Great Mercury! You are not about to arrest him? Don’t do that, citizen. It will solve nothing now. Ulpius is dead, and we shall all be the losers. Leave Maximilian to me, citizen. No one else need know our little secret, and I’ll make it worth your while.’

A glimmer of possible understanding filtered into my brain. ‘Maximilian is paying you for your silence?’

No answer. If my surmise was accurate, I thought, Maximilian was getting value for his money at this moment at least. I remembered my earlier thoughts about Maximilian, and ventured another wild guess.

‘Because you have evidence against him? Evidence about who stabbed his father? Maximilian did it?’

The youth looked at me with contempt. ‘No, of course he didn’t. At least not personally. It would have been far too dangerous to do it himself.’

My carefully constructed conclusions crumbled at his words like a wattle wall at a battering ram. However, the fellow was only talking because he thought I knew something. I said with a show of great conviction, ‘But you know who did.’ I did not make it a question.

The attendant blanched. ‘I see, citizen. You have come from them.’ He shook his head in agitation. ‘No, citizen, I swear to you. On all the gods I swear, I did not recognise the men. I did not even see them properly. All I know is that after the stabbing they went to meet Maximilian. They were standing there, in the shadows, when I came out of the baths. I recognised Maximilian, but I couldn’t see the men’s faces. I promise you that, citizen.’

I was nonplussed. How could anyone arriving at the baths with Maximilian yesterday be hidden in shadow? ‘In the shadows, you say?’

He gave me a shifty look. ‘It was dark. There was a moon, but I was carrying no torch or candle, and neither were they. The light was poor, and Maximilian was so busy with the men he didn’t notice me.’

Suddenly, I began to understand. A dark night, a clouded moon. This was the night of the chariot races. I remembered it only too clearly.

‘It was late,’ I said. ‘The baths were closed. What were you doing here at that hour?’

‘I’d come back to collect. . something I’d left behind.’ Whatever the ‘something’ was, I thought, ten denarii to an as he had stolen it from a bather. As he had also, presumably, stolen a key to the door of the building. ‘I came out and saw them together. Maximilian was furious, because the plan had gone awry. He kept saying over and over that they were simply supposed to threaten Ulpius and take his purse, not stab him in the stomach, but of course the men didn’t care a quadrans for that.’

So that was it! I could imagine the scene: the attendant skulking in the shadows, taking good care not to be noticed; Maximilian talking to the ruffians. The boy had not observed the men’s faces, I thought, but even in the feeble light he had seen one thing clearly enough — the opportunity for profit. Doubtless he hoped that Maximilian would pay a high price for silence.

‘Maximilian did not want to pay them, but of course he had to do it in the end. He had bribed the soothsayer, an old woman who hangs around the forum so that she would waylay the medicus on his way back from the chariot races, and leave the way open for the attack. And the men knew it.’

The story was making sense. If Maximilian refused to pay the men, she would presumably go to the authorities, for a price, and testify against him — though of course the attackers themselves would take care to be in another part of the country by then. If he was proved to have bribed the soothsayer, there would be a convincing case for attempted parricide. No court would believe that he merely intended robbery.

‘So,’ I said, ‘you waited until the men had gone and then confronted him? Told him that he could have your silence for a price?’

The youth gave that unattractive smile again. ‘Maximilian offered first,’ he said, primly. ‘I stepped out of the shadows and he offered me half the purse if I held my tongue. There was not much money in it. There should have been more. Quintus had won a good sum on the races. I think the men had stolen half of it, and then Maximilian had to pay them as well.’ He laughed unkindly. ‘The poor fool gave me all he had, in the end. He didn’t even have the money to hire a slave to see him home.’

‘And, of course, you’ve asked him for more money since then?’

‘Well, he deserved it. Forever coming in here drunken and gambling. And he arranged to have his father robbed at knifepoint. Why should he get away with it? He would have fared worse at the hands of the aediles if I had informed on him. Anyway, I needed the money more than he did. I saw a chance to get out of here — to move from that hovel of a top flat over the wineshop and start a little business of my own somewhere. Some town where I have not been a beggar since I could walk.’

‘A trade in second-hand clothes, no doubt?’ I enquired. He ignored the barb, and I went on. ‘But you are still here, I see?’

He scowled. ‘One cannot pick olives from a dead tree. Maximilian has no money to give — he has been trying to fob me off with gifts of jewels and plate. What use are they to me? I can hardly sell them, at least not in Corinium. I should get myself crucified as a highway thief if I tried. But it will be different, now that he has inherited his father’s estate. Do not arrest him, citizen. As I say, I will make it worth your while.’

‘It seems to me,’ I said, ‘that Maximilian is not the only one who should fear arrest. I came here to build a pavement for the baths, so you can see I have the ear of the town council. I think they will be interested to hear of this. Not only do you conceal your knowledge of a crime, but you come to the baths at night to collect items you have hidden here — stolen, no doubt, from the customers. You also have, by your own admission, jewels and plate in your possession belonging to Ulpius Quintus, since that is of course where Maximilian got them from — I believe he was hunting in his rooms yesterday trying to find something else to pay you with. No doubt the aediles would find them in that hovel over the wineshop that you spoke of.’

He looked at me, horrified. ‘But you can’t. .’ You could almost see him weighing up the bribe. At last he burst out with it. ‘How much is it you want?’

‘Provided, of course,’ I went on, ignoring him, ‘that you survive long enough to be arrested. Maximilian, after all, knows people who are handy with a dagger. If they will attack a decurion like Ulpius, I do not imagine that a bath boy will cause them much concern. I am surprised that Maximilian has not thought of it before.’

It was too much for the youth. He cast a terrified look in my direction and, stopping to pick up a small urn from one of the niches, bolted for the door and disappeared. Junio was ready to run after him, but I called him back.

‘Let him go. We have other matters to attend to, and the baths will be a better place without him.’

Junio nodded reluctantly. ‘If you say so, master. After all, he wasn’t a slave.’

That was no idle distinction. Permitting a slave to escape is a serious offence — although it is even more serious for the deserter. Runaway slaves are hunted by everyone, from the authorities downwards, and are likely to be severely whipped or fed to the beasts when recaptured. Or both. Those that fail to escape must often wish that they had perished less painfully in the attempt.

However, we need not fear the justices. Our man was one of the freeborn poor. That was why I had let him go. I should have handed him over to the authorities — he was a blackmailer and a thief — but I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy for him, abandoned at an early age into a poky hovel and scratching a living where he could. After all, I told myself, he had done no great harm. He had stolen a few trinkets and forced Maximilian to pay a high price for his foolishness, but there could be no court case against him for that, because Maximilian had not complained about it at once as the law demanded. No doubt most of the things could be recovered — the little weasel was too terrified to return to his flat.

There would be no ‘little business’ for him now, either. Instead, I guessed, he would join the bands of ragged beggars and tricksters who frequent the highways, supported by whatever he had hidden in that urn. All in all, I did not feel that Corinium would suffer his loss.

In the meantime, the baths were short of an attendant and the place was filling up quickly.

‘Marcus will be waiting,’ I said to Junio, ‘and in any case, I think it is time we left. Prospective bathers are already shouting for somebody to watch their clothes. Besides, I want to go to the forum and hear the reading of the will. It will be starting soon.’

The boy shot me a delighted grin and we went out, back into the hubbub of the town. It was well past noon now, and a crowd was beginning to gather and make its way, jostling, under the carved portico and into the forum. We joined them and soon reached the steps of the basilica, where the ceremony would take place.

The basilica was a fine building, despite the works that were being carried out to it — a huge marble-faced edifice with an apse at one end and a flight of imposing stone steps leading up to the entrance. It was fronted by a number of fine statues, and in particular by Jupiter’s column, which had a decided cant. I remembered what Lupus had said about the collection of taxes for its repair.

I had plenty of time to admire it, because there was an appreciable wait. I was beginning to consider giving up and going back to find Marcus before we exhausted his patience, when there was a little stir at the entrance and people stood back to let two litters pass, accompanied by a small retinue on foot. Julia and Sollers had arrived, with Mutuus and a pair of slaves in attendance. I was surprised. It is not usual for a woman to attend, but Julia had defied convention, and although she wore a loose veil over her head, she had not covered her face as most widows do. She walked to the steps of the basilica with a firm tread and her head held high. What a woman she was. I looked for Maximilian, but there was no sign of him. A pity. I had things to say to him.

A group of toga-ed officials appeared from within the building, some with their staffs of office carried before them by lictors, while a chair was fetched and the presiding magistrate seated himself importantly upon it. As a decurion, Quintus could expect to have proper ceremony attending the opening of his will. The precious scroll was produced — an impressive legal document on fine parchment, sealed with heavy wax — the seals were broken (ceremonially, with the crowd crying ‘ahh!’ at each seal) and the reading commenced.

The will was concise, as far as Roman wills ever are. Quintus had eschewed the common practice of using his will as an opportunity to malign his enemies, and apart from a slighting reference to Lupus, ‘that vain and grotesque parcel of lascivious bones’, there was little in the preamble to delight the crowd. The endowments, too, were simple enough. His debts were first to be paid (cheers from the bystanders, including the fuller and his son whom I had spotted among the audience). Then, a great feast was to be held in the market square (louder cheers), followed by a gladiatorial contest and chariot racing in the arena. (Prolonged cheering, after which many of the audience began to drift away.) A series of substitute legatees was named, in case the prime and secondary heirs refused to inherit, as they sometimes did, and a number of small bequests were made to clientes ‘in remembrance of duty owed’. Manumission for the chief slave and a formal ending of Mutuus’s bond were also granted, although the remaining crowd was visibly less interested in these provisions.

Then came the real business of the day. There was a generous sum for Sollers, together with a small but adequate pension for life. To Julia, Quintus left his country house (I was not aware that he had one), and one third of the fortune. The town house and the rest of the estate went to Maximilian, who was named as principal heir. And then came the real surprise.

‘I appoint my esteemed friend, Marcus Aurelius Septimus, if he will accept the office, to act as legal sponsor to my wife, in all matters of contract and in the courts, on the understanding that he will act only according to her wishes; and she may marry or use her endowment as she will.’

That would please Marcus, I thought. I wondered if he had known of it.

Maximilian had still not put in an appearance. As the crowd began to drift away. I made my way through the remaining bystanders until I reached the basilica steps. Julia saw me and gave me one of her heart-stopping smiles. As I came towards the little party, she reached out a welcoming hand. There were, I noticed, tears glistening in the saffron-lidded eyes.

‘It is a mournful business, is it not? But Quintus has dealt generously with us all. Naming Marcus as my protector was a clever move. It will save me from Flavius. I was afraid he would try to claim jurisdiction over me. And there are a good many public endowments.’

I smiled grimly. ‘But not, I fear, anything about pavements.’

‘Quintus obviously expected to donate that while he lived.’ She turned impulsively to Sollers. ‘We might, don’t you think, commission one all the same? In memory of my husband?’

He looked at her indulgently. ‘Julia, my dear. The fortune is yours. Marcus is notionally your sponsor, but you heard the terms of the will. You are no longer in tutelage, either as a daughter or a wife. You must spend your money as you please. However, since you suggest it, such a gesture would be a gracious one.’

She smiled at me again. ‘Then, Libertus, the commission is yours.’ She seemed to stop and consider. ‘A bold design is best, I think. It will in any case be difficult to see the mosaic through the steam. When the funeral is over, I will speak to your patron about keeping you here a while.’ Julia, it seemed, had little difficulty making decisions, once the chance was offered.

I thanked her gravely, although, of course, without a nominated price such a promise does not constitute a contract — as I have learned before, to my cost. I wondered if Julia knew that. She raised her hand in dismissal, then turned and made her way towards the waiting litter.

Sollers might have followed her, but I detained him. I was delighted by the kindness of her offer, but I had concerns about it. ‘Will there,’ I asked him seriously, ‘be sufficient funds for such an endowment? I should not like the lady to overreach herself for my benefit.’

He laughed. ‘There is no fear of that. Quintus was worth a considerable fortune. Julia was always wealthy, my friend. Now she is very rich indeed.’

‘And Maximilian?’

His face clouded. ‘Maximilian even more so. He will have, of course, to take his father’s place as decurion in due course, but mercifully he cannot seek election until he is twenty-five. Perhaps by then he will have learned some greater discretion.’

‘And you, what will you do now?’

He shook his head. ‘I do not know as yet. Nothing, perhaps, for a little while. Quintus has been most generous to me. Much more than I expected or deserved. Perhaps I will seek a civic appointment. Or perhaps Julia will have a use for me.’

He sounded so forlorn that I was moved to say, suddenly, ‘Have you no idea at all? What was it that the soothsayer foretold?’

He looked at me in surprise.

‘That evening,’ I said, ‘when you were returning from the chariot races. Did she give you no advice?’

He gave me a wry smile. ‘Oh, yes, I had forgotten you were there. It was much as you’d expect. The usual mixture of wild promises and dreadful warnings. I paid no attention to her. I fear the gods, and have a proper respect for omens and the established augurs, but I do not pay much credence to the ramblings of warty old beggar-women who claim to see meaning in a flock of birds. And now, excuse me: I must return to the house. There is much still to do. Do you wish to accompany us?’

The thought of trailing along on foot beside the litters with the slaves while he rode in style with Julia was not appealing. However, I had my excuse to hand. ‘I have not quite finished my enquiries, medicus. I have learned something interesting in the town. Something of great significance. Please give that message to my patron and tell him I will not be long.’

He looked at me sharply, but I offered no more and finally he said, ‘As you wish, citizen. Till later, then.’

He nodded in farewell, and strode to where the litters were waiting. Julia was getting into one of them, assisted by Mutuus, who was helping her into it with assiduous attention, while Julia smiled her thanks.

At that moment, despite his legacy, Sollers did not look a happy man.