Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Three

‘Citizen?’ A voice behind me made me whirl round. There was a woman standing at my elbow — a woman with a pockmarked face and hennaed hair, dressed in a showy tunic which displayed her legs, and giving off an overpowering scent of onions, sweat and cheap perfume. One of the other things that you could buy here, evidently. She was smiling at me with discoloured teeth.

I breathed a sigh of undisguised relief. From her greeting I had feared that I’d been recognised, or at least that my Roman status had, and that — as I’d been warned — was dangerous. But women like this were likely to call everybody ‘citizen’, in the hope that flattery would earn them a slightly higher fee.

‘Looking for a companion, citizen?’ she persisted, coming very close and breathing onions and violets all over me. She spoke Latin in what I’d begun to recognise as the local style, fluent but strongly accented, with a lilt which was intended to entice. ‘Very cheap. Very clean. Black girls if you want them. Exotic dancing girls. Virgins for a fee — or, if you are really prepared to pay, I’ve got a girl who can. .’ She leaned forward and whispered something in my ear so astonishingly lewd that it made my jaw drop open and my eyes pop out. She grinned with satisfaction at my shocked surprise. ‘Two of them together, if you like.’

So she was not (as I’d supposed) a common prostitute, looking to earn a few coins on her own account, but manager of the local lupinarium with a whole bevy of licensed girls in her control, and hawking for business like the proprietor of any other establishment. I tried to drag my mind away from the astounding images her words had conjured up and was about to politely decline her services when a sudden thought occurred to me.

‘I am looking for somebody,’ I said. ‘Not, alas, one of your girls tonight. I saw a friend of mine come down this way just now, but I’ve lost sight of him. I wonder if you saw which way he went? A man of middle age, about my height, in a green tunic, with reddish hair going grey.’

She interrupted with a scornful laugh. ‘You look around you, traveller’ — now that I was no longer a potential customer the courtesy title had swiftly disappeared — ‘I don’t know where you come from, but you’ll find that many people look like that round here.’

She was right, of course. The Silures are famously stocky and red-haired, and green is one of the commonest of dyes. There must have been a dozen traders at the counters opposite who would have fitted my description perfectly.

‘This one has a jagged scar across his face,’ I said.

This time there was the faintest pause before she laughed again. ‘You think that I have time to examine everyone? Stranger, I’ve got customers to find. And so, if you’ll excuse me. .’ She would have turned away, but I prevented her. There was something in her manner which made me persist — a sort of triumph at having found an answer to my words.

I moved in front of her. ‘However, not so many people come down this alleyway. Perhaps, since you were standing there, you saw which way he went?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve got other things to do besides watch out for passers-by.’

‘On the contrary,’ I persisted. ‘That is exactly what you do. You watch out for passers-by, and when you see a possible client you accost him and tout for trade. Strictly speaking, it’s against the law,’ I added, in the hope of sparking a response, ‘but that is what you were doing all the same. Why else did you decide to speak to me?’

She was sulky now. ‘Only because you are a stranger to the town.’

‘How do you know that?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve not seen you before. Most people who come down this way, I recognise. Either they’re regulars, or they’ve got a stall, or else they live round here. And anyway-’

I cut her off. ‘Then the man in the green tunic was somebody you knew? Somebody who lives here in the town?’

Her face turned scarlet. ‘That wasn’t what I said. I don’t know him, in particular. It’s just that I vaguely recognised his face — while yours is one I haven’t seen before.’

‘So,’ I said, making the obvious deduction from all this. ‘You do know which man I was speaking of?’

She realised then that she’d betrayed herself. All vestige of pretended courtesy deserted her and her voice was thin and bitter as she said, ‘You think you’re very clever, I suppose. Well, I wouldn’t tell you now which way he went, even supposing that I knew.’ She seemed to recollect herself, and went on in a less aggressive tone, ‘Which actually I don’t. There must have been scores of people passing along here today, with green tunics on, and some of them have scars — there’s been a lot of fighting in these parts. How am I supposed to work out which one is your friend, let alone remember where he went?’

I made no answer for a moment, but I looked at her. Despite her protestations, or perhaps because of them, I was fairly sure by this time that not only did she know exactly who I’d been following, but she could easily have told me the direction he’d gone in. Why was she choosing to obstruct me in this way? I wondered if she somehow knew I was a Roman citizen. According to my friend the optio, Silurians were often deliberately unhelpful to anyone associated with their conquerors.

But, I asked myself, how could she know anything of the kind? I was to all outward appearances simply a humble Celtic traveller, with the traces of a cauterised slave-brand on my back. Was it the presence of Promptillius, perhaps? He had made himself conspicuous in the marketplace. But I had come directly from there: surely there was no time for gossip to have got here first?

She must have interpreted my bewildered pause to mean that I’d accepted what she said, because the persuasive smile appeared again and her distinctive odour wafted over me as she leaned close and murmured, in what she doubtless hoped was a seductive tone, ‘You are the only stranger hereabouts. We don’t get many handsome visitors in this part of town. Obviously I’m interested in you, and whether you want to come and see my girls.’

Flattery now! With my grizzled grey hair and weathered cheeks I’m no youthful Hercules! Whatever did she hope to gain by it? Perhaps she wanted money to tell me what she knew. As soon as I had thought of that, I wondered why it had not occurred to me before. ‘How much do you want?’ I said.

She misinterpreted again. ‘Depends on what you have. Three sesterces for a basic girl — virgins are extra. .’ The smile was broader now and she began to count off the price-list on her fingertips.

I interrupted her. ‘To tell me where Plautus went, and how I get to him.’

‘Plautus?’ She sounded mystified. ‘Who’s Plautus?’ And then, ‘He’s not-’ She stopped abruptly. ‘You mean your friend. The man in the green tunic you were speaking of?’

This was getting more baffling by the moment. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Gaius Flaminius Plautus. At least, he was called Plautus when I saw him last. Do you know him by some other name?’

She had turned pink again. ‘Of course not, traveller. I don’t know him by any name at all. In fact, I told you, I’ve no idea what man you’re speaking of.’ She paused. ‘So you’re not even tempted by what we’re offering? Most passing traders are. If it isn’t armour that they’re looking for, it’s girls. Well, that’s your affair. If you don’t want my girls, I’ll go and find somebody who does. But you don’t know what you’re missing. I’ve got the best girls in Venta. You ask anyone.’ She turned and began to walk away.

Suddenly I was loath to let her go. A man whom I had thought dead and buried was walking round this town alive, and I was sure that this woman knew more about him than she was telling me. ‘Wait!’ I called after her.

She turned.

‘What is your name?’ I asked. ‘And where can I find you?’ Then, realising that she was unlikely to answer that, I added feebly, ‘In case I change my mind. About your services.’

She looked unconvinced. For a moment she seemed to hesitate, as if she was weighing caution against commerce. Commerce won. ‘My name is Lyra,’ she confessed at last. ‘You’ll find me in the street of the oil-lamp sellers, at the further end. Ask anyone, or just walk down until you see the sign.’

I nodded. I knew what the sign would be. A crudely carved phallus etched into the paving of the road — many towns had something similar.

‘Ask for me by name, and I’ll see that you get a special rate,’ she said. And having offered that final inducement, she walked off down the street. She must have been twenty-five at least, well past her prime, but she still moved with that special and provocative wiggle of the hips which ladies of her profession always seem to learn. That, perhaps, is why I watched her until she was out of sight.

Or almost out of sight. Just before she turned the corner opposite and vanished from my view, I saw her stoop and mutter a few words to a ragged child who was squatting on the street outside a butcher’s shop. She paused so briefly before straightening up and walking on again that if I had not been following her so closely with my eyes, I might not have noticed that she’d stopped at all.

The child waited for a moment till she’d gone. Then he glanced in my direction, scrambled to his feet and disappeared round the counter into the interior of the butcher’s stall. A moment later, he was back, sitting exactly where he’d been before and looking anywhere except at me, with an expression of bored disinterest on his face. Shortly afterwards two older boys came out into the street.

They were good. I had to give them that. So good that, if I had not been already on my guard, I should never have suspected them at all. Certainly I had no qualms at first. They behaved like any other boys, tumbling and chattering and arguing about a cup-ball on a string. The larger of the two, a tallish youth with gangling limbs and a mop of auburn curls, gave the smaller one a playful push and ran away, still dangling the cup-ball in his hand, and making derisive gestures as he went.

His companion — smaller and leaner but otherwise very similar — shrugged with pretended unconcern and turned away, to go and lean against a wall not very far from me — the very embodiment of sulking youth. It was only when I turned and met his eyes that I realised, from the startled speed with which he glanced away, that he had positioned himself there on purpose, and was watching me.

It was disquieting.

I tested my theory by the simple method of walking a little further down the street, and stopping to admire the armour on the stall. Sure enough, when I glanced round, the boy was there again, apparently engrossed in shying small stones at a lame dog that was limping down the street.

I declined the offer of a dagger with a dented blade, ‘dragged from a dying Roman soldier in the field, not very far away’, for twice the price that a new one would have cost in Glevum any day and sauntered a little further. I was tempted to cross the roadway and follow Lyra round the corner to my left, but a moment’s consideration suggested something else. If this lad — who was still hovering at my heels — was really following me, it was possible that his gangly companion, who’d gone running off like that, had also been no idle bystander. The most likely explanation was that he’d been sent to take Lyra’s news as fast as possible to someone else, and I could think of only one person in this town to whom such a message could possibly be sent. Plautus, the dead man who was no longer dead.

Of course the ‘messenger’, if that was what he was, had long since disappeared, but I had seen him go and that gave me at least a direction I could take towards some explanation of this mystery. Accordingly, I set off the way I knew he’d gone, though I dawdled at many of the stalls and took good care not to glance behind. If I was correct in my suspicions, I did not want my little follower to realise that I knew that he was there. We must have presented a merry spectacle, both pretending to be absorbed in something else and each affecting to be unconcerned about the other’s presence. I took a side-street, then another one, still feigning to examine all the wares displayed. But when I hovered beside a busy copper stall, and picked up a cooking-pot as if to buy, I could see the boy, not very far behind, reflected in the burnished surface of the pan.

We had reached the limit of the shops by now, and the street had dwindled to a murky lane of taverns, wine stores and thermopolia — the hot-food stalls which serve cheap drink and questionable soup. It was beginning to get dark, besides, and some of the stall-holders were folding up. Taverns were lighting lamps or setting flaming torches in the holders at their doors. I hovered at the counter of one thermopolium, as if contemplating the purchase of some soup, then hurried round the corner into another of Venta’s very narrow alleyways.

It was darker there, as I’d expected, and I stood back hard against the wall, hoping to be lost among the shadows. A moment afterwards, the boy appeared and, with an air of innocence, stood at the corner and glanced down the lane. I hoped that he would venture after me, but he did not — simply stood at the entrance peering down into the dark, evidently bemused at losing sight of me — so, after waiting for what seemed an age, I stepped forward briskly, seized his arm and dragged him into the alley after me.

‘Now,’ I said, shaking him none too gently. ‘What’s all this about? Why are you following me?’

He began to protest that he was doing nothing of the kind, but that was so evidently absurd that the words died on his lips and he lapsed into silence once again.

‘Well?’ I prompted, with another shake.

He shook his head. ‘You can’t frighten me. I won’t tell you anything. Even if you torture me it won’t do any good.’ He raised his head and added with a certain pride, ‘I took an oath.’

The answer was so absurdly innocent that I almost smiled. I have seen the Roman torturers and the torments they inflict, and I knew what their instruments could do to tender flesh. It was obvious the boy had no idea. I wondered how long he would endure before he broke down in abject tears and told everything he knew, begging for the agony to cease.

I asked, ‘How old are you?’

It was clearly not the question he had been expecting, and he blurted, ‘Eight summers,’ in a startled voice, before he thought better of it and added, ‘Though that won’t help you. I haven’t given anything away.’

I had the measure of my captive now. The boy was terrified, though trying to be brave, and it was easy to startle information out of him. I was eager to exploit this fact as much as possible. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘I know who you and your brother are working for. I saw him in the alleyway today, before your friend Lyra delayed me in my tracks. I know she sent that child to fetch you from the shop.’

The boy had gone so rigid in my grasp that I knew I was right, even before he muttered, in a strangled voice, ‘Who told you that? It wasn’t me.’

‘I know a great deal more than you suppose,’ I said. ‘You are Rufinus, aren’t you?’ I picked the name at random, but not without some thought. It means ‘red-headed one’ and is a common appellation amongst the Silures. Since this lad and his brother both had auburn curls, ‘Rufinus’ seemed a fairly likely guess.

I was lucky ‘Well, you’re wrong,’ the lad said hotly. ‘Rufinus is my brother. I’m Paulinus.’

I nodded judiciousy. ‘Then it seems that I was slightly misinformed. I wonder what other errors have been made? You are the sons of the man who owns that fresh-meat and offal stall I saw you coming from. .’ I paused expectantly.

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Paulinus said, thereby confirming what I’d merely guessed.

‘And you and Lyra share the same concerns,’ I went on. The boy said nothing, so I tried again. ‘I think you work for Plautus’ — no reaction there — ‘or at any rate run messages for him.’

‘Plautus?’ There it was again, that note of genuine bewilderment with which Lyra had repeated the name. ‘I’ve never heard of any Plautus. Who is he?’

He was so clearly puzzled that I paused to think, and in doing so must have somehow dropped my guard, and momentarily loosened my grip upon his arm. I was still considering what tactic to use next when Paulinus twisted round, tore himself free and made a dash for it. By the time I had recovered enough to lumber to the corner after him, he had nipped past the thermopolium and was halfway down the street where deepening shadows swallowed him at once

A moment later the only trace of him was the sound of running sandals on the paving stones, ringing like mocking laughter in the dark.