A Whispering of Spies

TWENTY-TWO

It isn’t easy, walking through the unlit northern suburb in the dark. The lesser roads are horribly uneven here — not the paved surfaces that you find inside the walls — and even when there hasn’t been a lot of rain, the gutters run with mire. The area is full of shops like mine and little factories — many of them hot and smelly businesses, candle-makers, brewers, tanners and the like — all of whom get up at dawn and lie down with the sun, since (having no armies of servants to command, nor banquets to attend) they are careful to save money on unnecessary heat and light. These streets are unlit and treacherous at night: there was scarcely even the glimmer of a taper to be seen.

It took me a long time to pick my way along and several times I stumbled in the mud. My sandals, which had been dirty before all this began, were caked by now in things unspeakable, and my tunic was also much the worse for wear. I was freezing cold by this time, and my teeth were chattering. But I knew the streets by daylight and I persevered and finally I found myself outside the workshop door.

It was likely that Junio would be abed himself, on some makeshift mattress on the floor beside the fire, and I was ready to have to hammer for a long time at the door. But the shutter to the workroom was still a bit ajar and I was able to edge down the adjoining lane and look inside.

The room was so familiar that a lump rose to my throat. Suppose that this mad enterprise of mine had no result? Suppose that I discovered nothing, and was dragged up before the court to be found guilty, not only of the crimes involving Voluus, but of breaking bail as well? This might be the last time that I ever saw the shop.

Junio was sitting on a stool beside the embers of the fire, clutching a beaker of something in his hand and staring gloomily into the coals. The remains of a street-vendor’s pie was lying on the hearth. Of course, he did not have a servant here with him tonight and he would have had to make his own arrangements for a meal.

I tapped the shutter softly and it made him jump. He picked up a length of wood and came across with it, clearly ready to protect the premises. ‘Who is it?’

I had forgotten that I would be invisible. ‘It is I, your father. Let me in.’ I was shivering so much that speech was difficult.

The transformation in his face was wonderful to see. He dropped the plank and bounded to the door and I heard him throw the bolt and open up the latch. ‘Father!’ He threw his arms around my neck. Then he looked down and saw the state of me. ‘What has happened? What are you doing here?’ But he stood back as he spoke to let me in.

I sank down on the stool that he’d been sitting on, letting the warm embers thaw my ageing bones. Without my asking Junio was already refilling his cup and handing it to me, and I recognized that he had warmed and spiced some wine beside the fire — he had not been raised as a child-slave in a Roman house for nothing. Warmth flooded through me with the unfamiliar brew and already I was feeling much more like myself, but Junio hadn’t finished. He had taken a candle and was ferreting upstairs, and when he came back I saw that he’d been searching through the rags and had found a patched and ancient tunic of my own which I had put aside to give to some deserving pauper by and by. Tonight, however, I had need of it myself, and with that and the spare birrus — the hooded woollen cloak — which I always kept hanging up behind the door, my teeth stopped chattering and I could talk again.

Junio, who had lit a taper by this time, and poked the embers into life again, would also have urged his piece of pie on me, but I explained that I had dined extensively. ‘At Marcus’s expense,’ I told him, with a smile, and gave him an account of my adventures of the night.

‘So you climbed out of the window and ran away from there.’ Junio shook his head. ‘You realize if they catch you, there’ll be Dis to pay?’

I nodded. ‘But I can’t believe this farm is just coincidence. If Voluus sent his cart there, it must have been arranged.’

He poured me another beaker of warm, watered, spicy wine. ‘If he sent his cart there. But you’re not sure that he did. Even this Biccus isn’t sure it stopped there, after all.’

I shook my head. The beverage — far from interfering with my brain — seemed to be helping me to think. ‘Then where else did it go? He says himself that there isn’t anywhere. But there seems to be no way that the owner of the land could possibly have been expecting it. However, there may be some connection, all the same. If, for instance, the new owner was someone Voluus knew, who’d already told him he was going to buy the farm.’

‘More likely an acquaintance of someone that he knew, since Voluus hardly knew anyone round here?’ Junio thought for a moment. ‘A friend of the retiring governor of Gaul, perhaps?’

I seized on this at once. ‘That would make a kind of sense. A governor would have sufficient influence to request a favour on Voluus’s behalf. He might not even trouble to arrange it in advance, simply sent a message with the cart. “Citizen so-and-so, I commend these travellers to your care. I request that you give them hospitality” — that sort of thing. Sent under seal, of course, but certain to arrive. Much more secure than any messenger.’ I was warming to this theme. ‘Besides, if the traveller’s on the doorstep with your letter in his hand citizen so-and-so cannot very well refuse.’

Junio frowned. ‘So what do you suppose? That this host saw the treasure on the cart and the temptation was too much for him?’

‘Or someone else had followed them and killed them while they slept?’ I countered, though I didn’t really believe it as I spoke.

‘Then chopped up the bodies, dragged them out and tried to make it look like rebel handiwork? And slaughtered the horses for good measure afterwards? It does not seem a very likely tale to me.’

I shook my head. ‘All the same, I am convinced there is a link. There is only one way to find out. You and I have to get out to that farm tonight. And perhaps we could look in at the jail as well, and have another try at seeing Calvinus.’

‘Tonight!’ Junio couldn’t have looked more startled if I’d stabbed him through the hand. ‘But you must surely see that that’s impossible! They won’t let us near the jail. It’s much too far to walk out to the farm, and anyway it’s dark and you aren’t even certain where you’re going.’ He picked up the jug and drank the dregs from it, as though he needed alcohol to steady him. ‘Besides, you’re tired. You’ve had a busy day. And surely now Alcanta’s here it alters everything?’

‘Alcanta?’ I murmured. Surely I had heard that name somewhere recently. Then I remembered. ‘Great Mars! You don’t mean Voluus’s wife? She is here already? Has the lictor come as well?’

His expression was one of disbelief. ‘So you didn’t get my message? I thought that’s why you’d come.’

‘Message?’ It was my turn to frown.

‘I sent Brianus with it, to your patron’s flat. Didn’t you receive it?’

I shook my head. ‘How long ago was that?’ I was having mental visions of Marcus’s servants coming to my room and finding I was missing, long before I’d hoped. If they had already called the watch and set a search for me, this evening’s enterprise was going to be even more difficult than I had supposed.

Junio’s answer allayed that fear, at least. ‘Not long after I left you at the fort. When I got back here he was waiting at the shop, almost paralytic with anxiety. He’d gone back to his apartment and found it full of slaves — the ones that Alcanta had brought with her from Gaul.’

I was puzzled. ‘I thought he’d run away?’

‘He had, but the temple priests persuaded him that it was safer for him to go back home, saying that — since Calvinus was in prison and Voluus wasn’t here — it was unlikely that he and Pronta had even yet been missed. However angry Voluus might be when he discovers that his treasure’s gone, it couldn’t be as dreadful as the penalty for a captured fugitive.’

‘That was sensible,’ I echoed. ‘Did the boy take Pronta back with him as well?’

Junio shook his head. ‘He could not find her, so he went alone, thinking that she might have done the same. But when he got there he found these other slaves. They had no idea who he was, which was fortunate. When he said that he belonged to Voluus, they thought he was some sort of messenger, so they gave him directions to where his mistress was. He might have gone there, too, except that he enquired for Pronta, and was told that she was listed as an official runaway, the watch had already been told to hunt for her, the guards had been given her description at the gates and she would be shown no mercy if she was ever found.’

‘That must have upset Brianus,’ I observed. It meant that the lictor would have her put to death. ‘The boy was fond of her.’

‘What upset him even more was realizing that the same applied to him,’ Junio said with vigour. ‘He had half-intended to go to his mistress and confess: say that he’d been absent from his post and take the punishment — he expected a beating or no rations for a day — but once he understood what was in store for him, he changed his mind again. He was lucky there. They still thought he was a messenger from Voluus — he hadn’t told them otherwise — so they just let him go.’

‘Go to his mistress? So she wasn’t at the flat?’

Junio shook his head. ‘Apparently she arrived in Glevum late this afternoon. The ship that brought her here had favourable winds and made much better speed than anybody thought. She sent a message to the apartment, naturally, to say that she was on her way — but there was no one there, of course, and nothing was prepared. She hadn’t even heard about the treasure-cart. There’s been a dreadful fuss. Somebody at the building was keeping watch on Voluus’s behalf and sent the news of all the day’s events back to her with the messenger — including the information that Calvinus was in jail.’

‘That watcher was one of Porteus’s spies, no doubt,’ I said. I was beginning to see what this was leading to. ‘And I suppose he also managed to report that the lictor’s other two slaves were on the run?’

‘Exactly. Poor Alcanta! What a welcome to receive. You can imagine what a dreadful shock it was for her — and with an infant, too. If one of the councillors had not stepped in and offered her his hospitality for a day or two, she might have had a dreadful time of it.’

That councillor was presumably Porteus again, and he would doubtless want paying for his solicitude, but I did not linger over that. I had a pressing question. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘Brianus told me. When he discovered that he was a wanted runaway, he ran away again, more terrified than ever, as you might suppose. He came to beg for help — he had nowhere else to turn, he said, and you had been kind to him.’

That would teach me to give oatcake crumbs to slaves! ‘So where is he now?’

Junio looked stricken. ‘Father, don’t you see? That’s just what I don’t know. I sent him to tell you all this news, but you say he didn’t come.’

I thought a moment. ‘If there was a search for him, I expect the watch have picked him up and put him with the steward in the jail. In that case you’ll be lucky to escape the courts yourself. You know the penalty for helping or harbouring a runaway.’

‘As I pointed out to Brianus himself, it is no crime to assist a fugitive if you can prove to the satisfaction of a magistrate that his master was unnaturally cruel and that he has only come to you for sanctuary — Brianus’s weals and bruises might convince a court. Anyway, if not, what difference can it make? We are likely to be in exile tomorrow anyway.’

I frowned at him. ‘You? I am, certainly, but you are not. Though you could always blame me for his coming here, I suppose.’

Junio made a face. ‘Do you suppose that I would let you face the hardship of exile all alone? Of course I shall come with you.’

This was so unexpected that a lump came to my throat, but I managed to say gruffly, ‘Of course you will do nothing of the kind. What about the women? And your infant son?’

‘We would have to leave our wives and send for them later, if things go well enough. If not, they could scrape a living where they are. They have sufficient crops and animals to live, and I don’t imagine Marcus will permit them to starve if times are hard — even if he has to take them back to servitude.’

Both our wives had been slave-girls in their time, and it was not something that I would ever wish on them again, but Junio was right. A life in Marcus’s household, even as a slave, would not be half as harsh as a life in exile, or struggling alone against the winter elements to eke a meagre living from the small-holding. As the old adage has it, ‘better serve than starve’.

All the same I shook my head. ‘I could not permit it. Anyway, it might not come to that. Help me find out what I need to know, and maybe I’ll be able to prove my innocence.’

‘Help you by encouraging this mad enterprise of visiting the farmstead in the middle of the night? It would take you hours to walk all the way out there — even longer, since you’ll have to walk for miles around the outside of the town-walls before you start. The gates are shut and guarded at this time of night.’

‘Then we’ll have to get the sentries to open them,’ I said. ‘And some form of transport to get us to the farm. So listen carefully, I’ve got a sort of plan. .’