Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Four

‘Well, stranger, are you planning to buy some soup, or not?’ The owner of the thermopolium, a bearded giant of a man with shoulders like a bull and an expression of no great intelligence or pleasure on his face, had shambled from the shadows of the stall and was standing in front of me, his heavy ladle in his hand.

Nothing had been further from my mind, but one glance at this hairy colossus was enough to convince me of where wisdom lay, and I reached into my tunic for my purse. ‘A small helping, please.’ And then, since he was watching, I was obliged to force it down — a greasy broth of cabbage leaves and what looked like bits of goat: eyeballs, hoof-parts, ears and other things I didn’t even try to recognise.

Still, it was warm, and after money had changed hands the monster with the ladle seemed more amicably inclined, though he still wore an expression of distrust. ‘You a stranger in this part of town?’ he said, scooping a floating piece of turnip-end from the cooking-vat and adding it tenderly to my plate as though he were offering me a special treat. ‘We don’t get many visitors down here. Not unless they are looking for something particular.’

It was a question really, and something about his manner suggested that it would be imprudent not to offer a reply. For a moment I almost contemplated telling him the truth, that I was following a man I thought was dead, and how Paulinus had been tracking me, but — looking at those brawny shoulders and distrustful eyes — I was suddenly aware of how unlikely that would sound. I searched my mind for some more plausible account.

I found it. ‘I was given an address. The street of the oil-lamp sellers.’ I paused. He was still looking suspiciously at me and I took the final plunge. ‘A woman named Lyra keeps a house there, I believe.’

The mistrustful manner vanished, and a leering smile spread across his face. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Is that it! I wondered what you looked so furtive about. Well, don’t worry, friend. You’re in Venta now. No one will think the less of you for having human urges — quite the contrary. At least the men won’t.’ He glanced behind him, and then moved closer before adding confidentially, ‘Have you got a wife?’

I nodded. I was about to say ‘In Glevum’, but before the words were out, he was already rushing on.

‘I thought as much. My wife is just the same! Picked up with this peculiar new cult — you know, the one whose god was crucified, if you ever heard anything so ridiculous — and now she seems to think my simplest pleasures are wicked and depraved. She prays all over me if I have too much to drink, let alone visit Lyra and her girls.’ He poured out two battered beakers of cheap over-watered wine from an amphora leaning on the wall, and pushed one in my direction. ‘She won’t even make sacrifices to the Emperor on public holidays. She’ll get herself in trouble over it one day — and me too, I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve had to forbid her to go to meetings and lock her up indoors.’ He downed his drink in one gigantic gulp. ‘Women! Who needs them, eh? Except in the way you’re looking for, of course.’ He gave me a nudge which almost spilt my drink.

I wouldn’t have minded: it was horrible — rough and sharp, despite the fact that it was two-thirds water. Even as it was he reached across and wanted to fill up my cup again. I shook my head.

‘It’s getting late,’ I said. ‘I must go, or I’ll find the doors are closed.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t know where you come from, my friend, but round here the brothel doors are never closed. Always some young lady willing to oblige. Here, I tell you. .’

I shook my head. I hadn’t meant the brothel doors, of course. I was thinking of the mansio, suddenly, and an unpleasant notion had occurred to me. Once the town gates are closed, the door of the military staging post is barred and a guard is posted outside on the street, so although nocturnal stragglers can gain admission afterwards, it does involve a challenge by the person at the gate, and — dressed as I was — there would be a lot of explaining to be done. My friend the optio would be off duty by this time, and I was not anxious for my exploits to reach Marcus’s ears next day. And almost certainly, I was already late.

Besides, I remembered, with a guilty start, I had left Promptillius outside the pastry shop, and I could not return till I’d collected him. Promptillius was the sort of slave who, if I’d been captured or carried off by thieves, would never think to institute a search but would wait exactly where he’d been told to wait until he died of cold and hunger — and feel he’d done his duty perfectly.

I pushed away my half-finished wine. ‘Can you tell me how to get back to the forum?’ I began, but once again the hot-soup seller interrupted me. My apparent interest in the house of prostitutes had evidently made an ally out of him, and now he was advising me as though we were old friends.

‘Don’t go to Lyra, brother. She gets all the trade and charges double if she gets the chance. And the town watch are given special terms, so they ignore it, even when her ladies break the law. She’s had unlicensed women there — slaves, widows, runaways, all sorts of thing — and several men have had their purses slit. And will the courts do anything when you complain? Of course they won’t. They’re all the same, these old Silurian families. Look after their own and never mind the rest of us.’

This was sufficiently interesting to make me forget Promptillius and pause to ask, ‘Lyra is connected to senior people in the town?’ That seemed to be the gist of what he had said.

He shrugged. ‘Connected to half of Venta as far as I can see. Mind you, it’s not unusual round here. You know what these border families are like. Everyone who is not a cousin is married to your aunt, or was your father’s brother’s husband’s uncle’s wife. You know the kind of thing.’

I did. There were tribes much like that when I was a boy: whole villages linked by ties of blood and marriage. ‘But Venta is a civitas,’ I said. ‘Surely the whole tribal capital can’t be linked by blood like that.’

He drained his third beakerful of wine and gloomily filled it again. ‘Don’t you believe it, friend. There are two or three main families who run everything. Hold all the important civil offices and, naturally, own half the buildings too. Everyone pays rent to one of them. Depends which part of town you’re in. They’re always feuding, too, amongst themselves — a lot of nonsense about who supported Rome, and who was responsible for which atrocities. All years and years ago, of course. Most of it is legend by this time, in any case, but they can’t forget. Or won’t, more like. I sometimes think Silurians actually like to have something to keep quarrelling about. It’s the same with these constant little uprisings and forays against the Roman fortresses. They never let it go. Asking for trouble, if you ask me. Can’t accept that we’ve lost the border war and the imperial legions are here to stay.’

I remembered those dented helmets on the stalls and the tales of marauding ambush parties who still stalked the roads. What would they make of a Roman citizen like me, I wondered, someone accompanying a high-level delegation to the nearby fort, if they found him wandering around the town without protection and without a slave? It was not a comfortable thought and I changed the subject hurriedly.

‘And you?’ I said. ‘You’re not Silurian, then?’

‘Oh, there’s plenty of us newcomers, of course, trying to ply a trade or earn an honest crust. I came here from Eboracum years ago. Figured that in a newish market town they needed soup, and since this was on the high road to the border, there would be lots of trade. Too much competition where I was. Had a scheme to take in travellers, too, at one time — there’s a room we hardly use upstairs and I thought it might bring in a sestertius or two — but I thought better of it in the end. Too many fleas and pickpockets in your house — you never know who you might be taking in. You don’t want to get caught up in one of these old feuds by accident, and anyway we’re too far from the gates. Mind you, even the hot-soup stall hasn’t worked out as well as I had hoped. It isn’t easy here. By the time you’ve paid your taxes and your rent and your dues, there’s no more than a bare living to be won.’

Taxes and rent I understood, but, ‘Dues?’ I said. ‘You mean a payment for the fire-watch?’ I paid a voluntary levy to a fire-watch where my workshop was, and it had once saved it from completely burning down, though it had to be extensively rebuilt. ‘I can see that you might need one, in a trade like yours.’

He gave a scornful laugh. ‘You can call it the fire-watch if you like,’ he said. ‘Certainly if you don’t pay it there’s a very good chance that your shop will catch alight. Or bowls and equipment will mysteriously break. And of course no clients will ever come your way.’

I stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I told you, there are two or three important families in the town. If they protect you, you will be all right. It costs, that’s all. You pay one of their boys to keep a watch for fire, and there isn’t any fire. Change your mind, and there is likely to be a conflagration soon. Of course, it’s impossible to prove anything, and people keep it quiet, anyway. For one thing they’re too afraid of what would happen if they complained to the authorities, and anyway what could the soldiers do? The garrison don’t like that sort of thing — it suggests that there is too much local power and the soldiers are not wholly in control — though it goes on all the time behind their backs. It works, too, in a way. You don’t have trouble if you pay your dues.’

‘Who to, exactly?’

‘Depends what part of town you live. We pay one lot, down this bath-end side of town — but if you’re down at the amphitheatre end, you’ll pay another group.’ He stopped, and said abruptly, ‘Now, I’ve already talked too much. If you want those girls I was telling you about, turn left at the next corner and go straight on till you reach the outer wall. You’ll find another thermopolium there. They’ve got a place upstairs. There are illustrations on the wall of what the girls can do. You can’t mistake it. Say Lupus sent you.’ With that he stiffened, looked round, whisked his beaker out of sight and went on in a different tone, ‘Now that’s four goblets of wine you owe me for.’

I was about to protest, since I had not asked for mine and he himself had drunk the other three, but the appearance of a buxom woman from the inner door convinced me that I was in the presence of his wife. She had a home-made tallow taper in her hand and had obviously come to replace the one which was guttering feebly on the wall, having burned down almost to the fixing spike. I had not heard her coming, but Lupus’s ears were evidently more attuned than mine, and he was so much bigger than I was that I did not argue. I pulled out a coin and paid him what he asked. After all, he’d given me a lot of information, free.

As I thanked him and went out to the street, I heard the woman’s voice raised in rebuke. ‘Giving him the address of sinful premises like that! Have you no care for your immortal soul? And don’t tell me that you didn’t because I heard every word you said. I wish I could persuade you that falsehood is a sin, even if you’re only lying to your wife. .’

I turned away and tiptoed off into the night, not following the directions he had given me, but the other way, where I hoped the forum and Promptillius were.