Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Twenty-seven

Nothing happened. It wasn’t likely to, since there was nothing in the goblet except wine — though no one knew that except Junio and me. There was a dreadful stillness in the room. Lyra waited, wild-eyed and tense, for the poison to stream into her veins. And still nothing happened.

It must be difficult to find that your heroic gesture of self-sacrifice has failed. Lyra thought so, certainly. She paled and shook, and for a moment I thought she would collapse. For the first time since she had come into the room, she looked wholly at a loss.

At last she raised her eyes to look at me and they were full of hatred and contempt. ‘You tricked me,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘But it won’t do you any good. My nephews will already be raising the alarm. They’ll all be gone before you get to them. And whatever happens, you can’t force information out of me. I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know where the hide-outs are myself.’

‘You’ve already told me something,’ I said evenly. ‘Your actions show you tried to kill me. Why?’

‘Surely that must be obvious! Because you knew what she was up to!’ Marcus was surprised.

‘But I didn’t know it when she came here, and she came prepared. There is only one reason for it that I can understand — because I saw her following Gaius Plautus in the street. See — she tries to hide it, but she looks uncomfortable at the very mention of his name. I knew who he was and I’m sure that is the key. And if she wants to silence me, then the chances are that he is still alive, and it is not too late for us to rescue him.’

I was proud of my deduction, and I looked at her, waiting for her reaction to my words.

It came. Defiant words. ‘I told you, citizen, I don’t know anyone called Gaius Plautus. The only Gaius Plautus I ever met was an auxiliary bowman from Jerusalem who used to visit the wolf-house years ago — and he was killed in border skirmishes.’

And then, at last, I saw. Saw with such clarity that I leaned forward on the desk and buried my face in both my hands. I think I may possibly have moaned.

‘What is it, Libertus?’ Marcus was all concern.

I raised my head and looked at him. ‘Excellence, I am an idiot,’ I said. ‘I had the answer to this puzzle long ago.’

He was still looking startled.

‘Patron,’ I said. ‘You know me very well. Better than almost anyone, in fact, apart from Gwellia and Junio. Agreed?’ He nodded. ‘In that case, remind me, what’s my name?’

He goggled at me in disbelief. ‘Longinus Flavius Libertus, I believe.’

‘Exactly so. And is that the name my mother gave to me?’

He frowned. ‘Well, I don’t imagine so. But it’s become your name. Even your wife and servants call you that.’

‘Precisely. It became my name when I became a citizen of Rome. I adopted it, to mark my change of role. Just as Gaius Plautus of Jerusalem did — though, being an auxiliary, he could not be a proper citizen till he retired. And Gaius of Glevum did the same, of course. People all over the Empire do. It is different for you and Junio. You got your Roman names when you were born.’

Marcus was looking at me with interest. ‘So?’

‘You remember when we were looking in the tax-rolls for Gaius Plautus and I pointed out that his family might not be Flaminians themselves?’ I shook my head. ‘Of course they’re not. Plautus is a Roman citizen, but he was Silurian by birth. He isn’t hiding from the rebels, he is one of them. He’s been doing the same thing that Lyra did, but in a different way. He mixed with all the most important men, and knew of all the most important deals. If anything of value came to Glevum, he would know of it — and see that his kinsmen knew as well so they knew when to plan their raids. He bought his way to Roman status and he did it on purpose to work against the Empire from within. Even the name — it wouldn’t surprise me if he chose it as a kind of joke because he killed the auxiliary from Jerusalem himself. The soldier used the wolf-house, so doubtless Lyra betrayed him as well.’

It was fortunate that Lyra was heavily restrained, otherwise she would have flown at me. ‘You can’t prove anything!’ She almost spat the words.

Marcus ignored her. ‘So where is Plautus now?’

‘Exactly where I thought he was, at Nyros’s farmstead.’

‘But I thought Nyros sympathised with Rome.’

‘So did I. It was Lyra who showed me I was wrong. She called herself a daughter of Caractacus — and you know the story there. The Romans were so impressed with his dignity and bearing in defeat that they didn’t kill him after all — they simply stripped him of everything he had. Exactly the story Nyros told us of his ancestor.’

Marcus was struggling to come to terms with this. ‘Plautus boasted of the wealthy uncle who’d adopted him, and given him a proper start in life. It was Nyros? When he came here, he was coming home?’

‘It looks that way. Nyros told us himself that his nephew was at home. The famous Thullero — the man we never saw. Nyros is impressive. He’s a clever man. He even staged that imitation raid, to help persuade us of his innocence and give Thullero the opportunity to hide. It meant we didn’t see the horses either — which was clever too, since he’d almost certainly stolen them from the Iscan cavalry. Regulus, for instance, would have known them instantly.’

‘So when Regulus saw Plautus with the pigs. .?’

‘He was on his own domain. Plautus was the “young master” that Subulcus talked about. Admittedly, Plautus is hardly in the flush of youth, but he is Nyros’s heir, of course, and young by comparison with him. He must have gone from Venta in a cart — it’s the only way he could have got there in the time — and arrived to find the raid on Regulus’s force was taking place. It was obviously planned that they should all be killed and one of the rebels sent here in their stead, wearing the dead messenger’s livery, and with the sealed letter telling us the mounted escort was on its way. You can imagine who the escort would have been, if they had captured all those uniforms.’

I looked at Lyra but she wouldn’t look at me. Marcus said, ‘Of course! But Regulus and his comrades were too good for them. They lost their horses but they won the fight, and forced the rebels off.’

‘Worse than that, they started following the tracks which might have led them directly to the farm. Plautus — or Thullero as we should call him now — met up with his comrades and devised a plan. He got the man dressed as a messenger to get rid of Subulcus. That was a necessary start, because poor Subulcus was too stupidly honest to do anything but tell the truth and give the game away.’

‘But wasn’t that a risk?’ the optio said. ‘If it was someone from the tribe? Subulcus might have recognised him.’

I shook my head. ‘The pigman is a simple soul. They knew he wouldn’t question a Roman uniform. The helmet and cheek-pieces would largely hide the face and no doubt the man on horseback changed his voice, as well. And of course, it worked. Once Subulcus was safely gone, the others planned to drive the pigs into the woods to interrupt the hoof-tracks, and Plautus — who wasn’t wearing plaid like the other tribes-people — would waylay the Romans if he could, claiming that he’d been the victim of a raid. Unfortunately the swineherd came back again too soon, to see the men on horses driving his pigs into the wood and riding off with one — the story that he told us later on. Plautus, the “young master” had to send him off again, so that he could be there himself to deal with the tracking party. If he’d been hiding in the butcher’s cart — as I suspect — he would smell like a pigman anyway. No wonder they offered him my tunic! Of course he didn’t want it, so he passed it on to Subulcus when he returned.’

‘Why hide in the butcher’s cart? It sounds an awful way to travel.’

‘He had to get out to the farm, and quickly too. I’d seen him in the town, and the cart enabled him to leave the city after dark without being noticed at the gates. The butcher picks the wagon up at dusk, but he obviously brings it into town first to pile it up with skins and carcasses — he’s not allowed to do that during daylight hours. It’s the obvious way to get out past the guards — no one was going to search that vehicle. In fact, I rather think I might have seen the cart myself — probably as Plautus first met up with it. It was blocking my way as I tried to get back to the inn, after I’d left the thermopolium. I heard footsteps behind me, which then mysteriously disappeared — presumably when Plautus got into the cart. The butcher saw me, but he had no idea then who I was. Otherwise I might not have lived to tell the tale.’

‘The thermopolium where the man was killed? You think one of them did that?’

‘I’m convinced of it. Probably Plautus — Thullero — himself, since he was on my heels — but if not him, another of the gang. When Lyra’s little spy went back that night and told them where I was, they came out looking to get rid of me. They missed me — not by very long — but by that time Lupus was a danger too. I might have told him what I’d seen — and that was dangerous. I imagine they were on the look-out for me all night after that — but they could hardly jump on me when I was on the Roman side of town, especially when I had companions, as I did. When I got arrested, the family must have been appalled. I was safe from their clutches absolutely, then. So they did the next best thing — tried to get me executed or exiled for the crime, using the best advocate in town — the one the optio had introduced them to. Of course Lyra couldn’t turn up at the court herself, but she sent her girls along. Lupus’s widow must have been delighted with her luck — probably saw it as an answer to her prayers. Of course if you find that treasure chest somewhere, either at the butcher’s shop or at the farm, you will have proof of this.’

‘And you would make a formal accusation in the court?’ Marcus asked.

‘If necessary,’ I said. ‘And if I don’t I know somebody who would. Lucidus would only be too pleased to bring a charge against his enemies — and since Laxus was called in to testify for me, he already has an interest in the case.’

Marcus was getting to his feet. ‘Then I think we should go and round these rebels up. You’ll have night riders, won’t you, optio? Get them to Nyros’s farm and the butcher’s shop. We’ll take them by surprise. And when we’ve got them, I’m sure we’ll find some method of making them confess. In the meantime, lock this woman up and lose the key.’

‘I still cannot believe this, Lyra,’ Optimus was saying, rather desperately. ‘Is it true? Your whole family has been conspiring against us all this time?’

‘Why should I tell you anything?’ she said. The guard was holding her, but she was fighting still. ‘Go on then. Do your worst. Go out and arrest them, if you can. I told you, by the time your soldiers reach them, it will be too late. You can get rid of me, but they will live to fight another day.’

‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘For one thing, we don’t know who they are. The butcher is obviously not the only one. We know that when he’s out of town, he leaves his brother managing his shop. So that’s Lyra’s brother too, of course.’ I stopped. ‘In fact, I have just realised who it is. I knew I recognised the man when he was here. He keeps the armour stall. The one where Claudinus’s arm-guard was displayed.’

‘You’re going to tell me they killed Claudinus as well?’

‘Who did we bury at the funeral? Obviously not anyone sent to murder Plautus, as I thought earlier. It must have been Claudinus,’ I said wearily. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t realise before. I have been looking for an extra man, and it made me overlook the obvious. He went to Glevum with a secret, dangerous to the rebels, and was never seen again. Of course it was his corpse beneath the stones — he was about the same age and height as Plautus, he had Silurian red hair, and once the face was crushed, it was not difficult to change the clothes. He was a citizen. He did not have work-hardened hands or sunburned legs. A toga would sit easily on him.’

‘So Plautus somehow lured him to the villa after dark?’

I shook my head. ‘I think he was dead already and was taken in a box — it was supposed to contain imported pottery and it needed three men to carry it. I’d like to know what happened to that box, and whether any pottery was ever on the ship at all. I dare say those things could be checked.’

‘A ship?’ Marcus was perplexed.

‘You remember that Claudinus hoped to get to Gaul and bribed his way aboard an olive-oil boat? Well, that was Plautus’s, of course. He made his fortune out of olive oil — that was another link we should have seen. Nyros owned a block of buildings where the wolf-house is — in the street of the oil-lamp sellers. Plautus presumably provided all the fuel. Claudinus obviously didn’t make the connection. He knew the wolf-house was a centre for intelligence, but he thought Plautus — a Roman citizen — was an ally and he went to him for help. Probably the rebels helped to lure him there — he talked of finding one more link to prove his case. Once he was on the ship, of course, there were no other witnesses except the ship-master, who was one of Plautus’s men. It would be fairly easy there to cut his throat or slip him poisoned wine and stuff him in the box. Plautus had to take the arm-guard off, of course.’

‘Rather dangerous to bring it back here where it might be recognised,’ Marcus observed.

‘What else was he to do with it? He couldn’t leave it there. And if it ever was discovered on the Venta stall, it would be taken — as it was, in fact — as evidence that Claudinus was dead, and murdered by the rebels. They couldn’t send body-bits back to Lucidus, this time, as they might otherwise have done. The corpse was needed for the funeral.’

‘So that’s another murder we could charge them with. And of a very wealthy man. Probably enough to sentence them to death, even if we never find their hideaway and prove they were responsible for the raids, and all the deaths and robberies which they entailed. I presume it was Plautus who dressed up as a messenger and sent our men on fruitless marches in defence of us — leaving the carts unguarded and open to attack?’

‘Not Plautus himself on that occasion, I don’t think — he knew we might be there, but certainly he’d hope to do it, if they used the plot elsewhere. He spoke perfect Latin and could write it too, which might be needed for a messenger. Interesting that they only killed the Romans, by and large, and left the slaves alone — part of the vendetta, I suppose.’

‘They killed my poor Promptillius,’ Marcus said. ‘Why make an exception out of him?’

‘That was Lyra’s doing. The sentry recognised her writing block — he told the optio so. And Promptillius posed a different sort of danger to the group. If I had disappeared that night — been killed as they intended that I should — even Promptillius would have come back in the end, and raised a search for me. Lyra pre-empted that. She sent her nephew with a message, so Promptillius came back for my clothes — which meant that no one at the mansio would look for me. When he turned up at the address she gave, they murdered him and took him to the place where he was found. No doubt he travelled on the butcher’s cart as well. Is that right, Lyra?’

Lyra looked maliciously at me. ‘Prove it!’ she challenged.

‘I think I almost could. Whoever sent that message knew where Marcus was, and that he’d been invited to stay overnight. Who knew that, outside the mansio, except the man himself? It was a late invitation. Only you, Lyra, because the optio sent a messenger to tell you so — and let you know the coast was clear to come. And who knew I was out shopping near the forum with a slave? Only you again. Not even Marcus knew.’

She twisted in the soldier’s arms and tried to spit at me. ‘I’m admitting nothing, do you hear!’

Her courage was amazing. She must know what lay in wait for her. Marcus had the clearest notions where his duties lay where state security was concerned, and nothing I could say would change his mind. There was no way she could avoid the torturers after this.

I pulled myself up short. Of course there was. I should have guessed that clever Lyra would have something up her sleeve.

‘Search her, guards!’ I ordered, and though she wriggled like a demon, they did as I had said.

They were only just in time. In the split second that they hesitated, waiting for Marcus to nod and authorise the search, she had wrested one hand free, lifted her skirt, found the little bottle and raised it to her lips.

It had not been literally up her sleeve, of course. It was hanging on an inner belt round her waist, suspended by a little loop of cord — a small round-necked phial, made of coloured glass, exactly like the pieces I had seen. She had already pulled the cork out with her teeth and if the soldiers had not forced her hands away she would have drunk the poison at a draught. She wriggled like a demon, fought and bit, but they prised her fingers from the glass and took the phial away.

Almost at once, her whole demeanour changed. She was a prisoner of the Romans now, with no means of merciful escape. The fight went out of her and she stopped struggling at once, though she still glowered resentfully at me.

‘How did you know I had another phial?’

‘I guessed you must have something of the kind. You came in here to poison me, and it was always possible that you’d be caught. Even the optio’s servant knew you were in my room. You might have bluffed your way out of it — I can think of several things you might have tried — but if you failed it was important you should have a quick way out, so that you could not be made to talk.’

I could see the sweat-beads forming in her hair. She was terrified, and with good reason too. ‘Are you going to torture me?’ she said, and her voice was not as steady as it had been before. ‘It won’t do you any good. I’ve told you, I know nothing. And if I don’t reappear they’ll melt into the hills — and then you’ll never find them. That’s what will happen if you don’t let me go.’

‘We’ll pick up those nephews of yours outside the gates. They’re young; it won’t be difficult to make them talk.’

‘If you can catch them,’ she replied. ‘They know drains and culverts that you don’t know exist. And somebody would see you if you did. We have networks of watchers at a time like this. Our people would be in the caves in hours.’

‘We can go down to the bath-house end of town,’ Marcus said grimly, ‘turn out every building and set fire to it, if that’s what we have to do. We’ll flush your friends out somehow.’

‘But as the pavement-maker says, you don’t know who they are. You don’t even know how many. So how can you round them up?’ She was white and shaken but she still had Celtic pluck. ‘And it’s no good attempting to force it out of me — I’ll only tell you lies to make you stop. I don’t know who the others are, so I can’t tell you. They deliberately manage things that way.’

‘We can pick up the butcher, anyway. And the armourer. And Nyros too, if we act tonight.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘They’re poised for flight. The first sight of soldiers and they’ll disappear. They have sympathisers through the area — women; children too. We can’t put the whole population to the sword — we’d have riots on our hands, and hundreds more would join the rebels in support. Besides, we might pick up a messenger or two but the real raiders would still be out in the caves. Better if we catch them unawares. I have a better plan. Lyra will write a letter to her brothers, telling them there’s been a change of plan. Her liaison with the optio is about to revealed, and rather than face demotion and disgrace, he is offering to elope with her. He would be a valuable captive: he has a lot of useful information and could be ransomed too, so instead of leaving him she will deliver him into rebel hands tomorrow with as many goods and horses as she can contrive. He plans to go to Isca where they can cross the frontier and escape, but she will ensure that on the way they call in at the roundhouse, where Nyros and his men can deal with him.’

‘And what is the use of-’ the optio began, but Lyra was too quick for him.

‘I refuse to write anything of the kind!’

‘My dear lady, it doesn’t matter if you write the note or not. On a rough wax tablet it is impossible to say who scratched the words. The thing is, it will appear to come from you. Your two nephews will be satisfied, and — when you go out to the forest at first light — I think we can be sure your party will not be set upon by ambushes. Though I’m sure that they’ll be watching for you on the road — so we had better make sure that you are there.’ I turned to Marcus. ‘You’ll have to set off with your escort, too, as though everything was just as usual, though you won’t go further than the marching-camp. Meantime, Regulus, with all the fast men and horses, he can get, will gallop round the back route to the farm, come in across the fields and break in upon the party from the rear. That way, with any luck, we’ll catch them in the act. He’ll still have to broach the defensive palisades and take the place by force, but with sufficient numbers they should manage that, and most of the rebels’ attention will be occupied elsewhere. If this succeeds we can arrest them all — and have the evidence against them too. We’ll have to send a warning to the marching-camp tonight — after Lyra’s little messengers have gone.’

‘They won’t go anywhere. They know better than to trust a Roman trick. They won’t believe that such a letter is from me. Not even if it’s handed to them by the sentry they know. They would have to see me with their own eyes, and have my signal that it was all right. And I refuse to do it.’

‘You won’t say that when you have a dagger in your ribs.’ Marcus had said little up to now, but I realised now that he was going to implement my plan.

‘Oh, you could force me out at sword-point, but what’s the use of that? Or having one of your great guardsmen pretending to be me? That will hardly convince the boys that the note is genuine. And I won’t go to Nyros either, and betray my friends.’

‘As to travelling tomorrow, madam, you may have no choice,’ I said. ‘But if you will not go out to the gate and persuade your nephews to accept the note, there is another lady in the mansio who will.’