Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Twenty-four

As I spoke she shook herself awake and of course I was instantly contrite. My wife and slave had travelled day and night to come to me, and I had been so exercised about the problems here that I had not even given a thought to how weary they must be. I had a thousand questions still, but they could wait till morning, if necessary.

‘You must rest, the pair of you,’ I said. ‘Junio, go to the kitchens and bring fresh water and another bowl. Your mistress needs to wash her hands and feet. And,’ I added, as a plan occurred to me, ‘get me another goblet — as like this as you can — and another pitcher of the mansio’s wine. Never mind the quality, any wine will do. Then send a message to Marcus and the optio and tell them I am ready to begin. I will arrange another palliasse when I return.’

‘No need to tell us anything, old friend. I heard that your wife and slave were here, and thought I’d come to greet them. Gwellia, my dear. .’ Marcus, in his laundered synthesis, had deigned to come in person to my room, and had entered unannounced, with the optio and his servant in his wake. He strode towards us, stretching out both hands to my wife, so that she was obliged to rise and make obeisances.

‘I trust the journey was not too severe,’ he went on solicitously as she scrambled to her feet. ‘Libertus shall have that palliasse he was talking of, and doubtless the mansio could find some stew for you — I would not recommend the sow’s udders that we have just been served!’

So the feast had been the disappointment that I had foreseen, and the optio was clearly in disgrace. I saw him skulking at the doorway, looking glum, and I hit on a little strategy.

‘It’s kind of you to think of it, Excellence,’ I said. ‘But the optio has already offered our visitor a meal, and it has been declined. Isn’t that so, optio?’ I saw the look of puzzlement flit across his face, followed by a look of disbelief. The offer had been intended for Lyra, not my wife — that much was now evident — but he could not publicly confess the fact. He was disconcerted and I seized on that. ‘Optio, allow me to present my wife.’ I waved him forward. ‘Gwellia, this is Commander Optimus, who is in charge here at the mansio.’

He gulped, and then recovered visibly. ‘Delighted to welcome you, madam citizen. If there is anything at all you want, just let me know.’ He smiled, so anxious to pass the moment off that he hadn’t seen the trap. Marcus, however, was alert to it.

‘Optimus? But isn’t that the name. .?’

Too late! I saw the optio close his eyes as he recognised the error he had made.

‘The name of Lyra’s wealthy customer? Exactly so. A nickname gained from prowess on the practice fields, I rather think — as Regulus informed us earlier. The optio was proud to be “the best” at parrying with a shield — though doubtless Lyra would agree that he has other skills as well.’ The optio had turned a sullen red, but he said nothing, and I went on cheerfully, ‘I realised this morning that we didn’t know his name. He never volunteered it anywhere — even when Regulus and others offered theirs — but after what the censor said to us, of course he didn’t dare. And since it is courteous to address him by his rank, it did not occur to us to ask for it. But it will be in his records and can easily be checked if he chooses to deny it.’

‘All right.’ The optio was still burning with embarrassment. ‘I’m Optimus. Most of the soldiers know that anyway. And I was Lyra’s special customer — I’d rather tell you that myself than have you torture her. I entertain her here from time to time. I know it’s counter to the rules — but where’s the harm?’ He spoke with sudden passion. ‘I don’t parade it from the rooftops, I keep it to myself. I’m not fiddling the books or trading arms, or neglecting my duties to the state. And I wouldn’t be the first. An optio cannot marry till he leaves the force — that’s twenty years away — and a man has normal urges, after all. The commanding officer of a mansio can hardly patronise the wolf-house, like the common troops — it’s bad for discipline.’ He flushed. ‘Though it’s clear that wretched censor goes from time to time.’

I turned to his slave-boy who was staring at the floor. It seemed to be his habitual response. ‘Look at me!’ He raised reluctant eyes. ‘You knew all this, of course, because you attended them when Lyra came to call. Few men have many secrets from their slaves. You were too loyal — or too scared — to say anything direct, but when you found Lyra in my room tonight you tried to warn me that your master would be jealous and annoyed.’

The lad was more scarlet than his owner by this time, and too afraid to speak, but he nodded nervously and went back to gazing at his feet.

‘Lyra visited you in your room?’ The optio sounded as if the words had been forced out of him. ‘Here? This afternoon? But she told me. .’ He tailed off.

‘What?’ Marcus’s tone was savage. ‘She sent a message to the officer in charge of her arrest?’

‘She left a message for me at the gate.’ Optimus sounded cowed. ‘It was waiting for me in my room when we arrived. She said she would consent to come in for questioning provided that I. . well. .’ he made a hopeless gesture with his hands, ‘protected her. Told her what it was all about. I left a message with the guard to tell her that it was nothing dangerous — simply about who owned her property.’ He looked defiant now. ‘Well, that was true. She was afraid it was a question about. . us. It reassured her and she turned up, as you see. Though I don’t know why she should come to you,’ he added, glowering at me.

‘I think there are a good many things about her that you do not know,’ I said. ‘Do you know, for instance, where she was when we were looking for her the other day?’

‘Great Jupiter!’ Marcus exclaimed. ‘Surely she wasn’t here in the mansio with you all the time? They said at the wolf-house that she’d gone to see her special customer.’

The special customer looked wretched. ‘She wasn’t here,’ he said. ‘I’d been expecting her the night before, but she didn’t come. I was getting worried. I thought that she’d decided not to take the risk — she knew I had important visitors, although I sent word when the invitation came that Your Excellence was going out to a feast, his companion was going shopping and it was safe to come.’

I stared at him. ‘And how did you do that? You can hardly send a message to the wolf-house openly?’

‘I sent down a member of the guard. It is the safest way. It’s a licensed brothel, and the ordinary soldiers call there all the time. That’s not against the rules. They have a right to spend their pay and their free time in any way they want. And there is a certain legionnaire who. . knows.’

‘The same one who always let her in?’ I asked. ‘The one you sent off into town, but put on duty later on, so he didn’t know me when I came back to the inn?’

He flushed. ‘Well, we weren’t expecting you. Your slave brought us the written message. .’ He sighed. ‘The sentry insisted on reading it, of course — he thought it was from Lyra, since she hadn’t come. It was even written on a tablet-block like hers. But we didn’t hear from her at all that night.’ He shook his head, as if in disbelief. ‘And next day you turned up in jail, there was talk of murder, and your slave had disappeared — and when there was still no sign of her, I began to be seriously disturbed.’

I remembered how agitated he had been that day — I’d put it down to officiousness at the time. He was agitated now, again.

‘It isn’t what you think,’ he blurted. ‘She doesn’t come for money — or not just for that. We have something real. Oh, it began like that, of course. These things always do. But now it’s different. She’s half promised that when I get promotion and get posted on. .’ he glanced at Marcus, and amended that, ‘if I get promotion and get posted on, she will give up the business and come after me — live in a vicus somewhere — a town outside the camp — and wait for me till I get my discharge.’

‘And then she’ll marry you?’

‘I’m hoping so.’ He spoke with dignity. ‘So you can imagine how I felt when there was no news of her. I thought. .’ He seemed to consider for a moment, before he burst out again, ‘There are people in this town, you know, who bear a grudge against anyone who has anything to do with us. I know her butcher-patron has a stall down at the bath-house end, and that is traditionally a rebel trouble spot. I wondered if somehow he had heard about. . well. . our liaison here. He could have whisked her off and beaten her — or killed her even. Some of these extremists can be vicious in that way. It’s one reason why she made me swear to secrecy, and insisted that we meet here at the mansio, where nobody could possibly be his spy.’

‘That was her idea?’

‘It suited me, of course. And she was terrified of him — of what would happen if he ever found out. So when I heard that he was missing too, that day — naturally I began to think the worst. Especially when I heard that she’d been in that part of town — I heard you say so to His Excellence.’

Marcus frowned. ‘But the butcher had gone out with his cart that night.’

‘So it was rumoured. And it gave me hope. But he doesn’t go till dusk. I was imagining all sorts of things. He’s a strong man and an expert with a knife. If he’d done anything to her, who would think anything of bloodstains on his clothes, or notice a piece of human bone among that putrid pile of carcasses and skins? And of course I had no proof that he had gone at all. I was relieved when I saw him on the road.’

‘You saw him on the road?’

‘We saw him twice. You must have noticed him. A fat man with a donkey cart. We forced him into a ditch.’

Of course I’d noticed him. ‘That was the butcher? You recognised him, then?’

‘I’d seen him once or twice before when he appeared in court on her behalf. I didn’t tell him who I was, of course, but obviously I went to hear the proceedings. I introduced her to an advocate in case she needed him — I would have paid the fees — but she didn’t in the end. I hear she has since retained him once or twice to represent her girls, but generally it’s not a great success. There are always arguments about the cost and I end up squaring the accounts. Not that I blame Lyra. He’s a splendid advocate, the best we have, and his fees are consequently high. The poor girl doesn’t have that sort of cash.’

‘A tall, lean fellow with a learned voice and a skinny slave with acne on his face?’

Optimus looked startled. ‘How did you know that?’

‘She may have employed him a day or two ago. To represent the soup seller’s wife and bring the case against me in the courts.’ I exchanged looks with my patron as I spoke. ‘I’m very lucky he did not succeed.’

‘But why would she do a thing like that?’ The optio was appalled. ‘Unless the woman came to her for help. Lyra is soft-hearted when it comes to things like that.’

‘Well, here is Junio with the tray,’ I said. ‘Let’s ask her. She can answer that herself.’

‘But surely, now that I’ve explained, you won’t need to question her again?’ He was almost pathetic in his anxiety for her.

‘There is still the question of the property.’

His face cleared. ‘Oh, of course. But we have found out now who Nyros is. Is it necessary to ask her any more?’

Marcus placed a hand upon his arm. ‘Libertus clearly thinks so. And I for one would like to know where she’d disappeared to when we wanted her.’

‘And what she knows of Gaius Plautus,’ Gwellia said. She had been standing by discreetly, as becomes a wife, but she had been listening and now she intervened.

‘Gaius Plautus?’ Optimus sounded as astonished as he looked. ‘The man from Glevum you thought you saw in town the other day? How could she know anything of him?’

‘That is exactly what I’m hoping to find out,’ I said.