Murder in the Forum

Chapter Eighteen

My patron’s indulgence and concern, welcome as they were, could not be infinite. In having him pay off the urchin I had, naturally, depleted the supply. It seemed a very short time before he was saying abruptly, ‘Well, well, that should be sufficient. Surely, Libertus, you are feeling better by now? You will remember there are matters to discuss.’

I could do little more than acquiesce.

He waved a lofty hand and at once the sybaritic ministrations halted, and my enchanting handmaidens picked up their balms and potions and drifted away. Their mistress, at a signal from her husband, followed them, and — apart from the inevitable attendant slaves — I found myself alone with Marcus, who was now sitting almost upright on his couch and tapping his thigh impatiently with his baton. Any dream that I was the Emperor Commodus (or Jupiter himself) enthroned in some earthly paradise tended by willing votaries had instantly vanished.

‘Excellence?’ I ventured, trying to sound briskly intelligent. ‘What do you wish me to do first? Interview Delicta’s gatekeeper about the trouble in Corinium, or report first on the progress I have made here?’

He looked at me gloomily. ‘Is there more to say about that? You spoke of finding those items on the pile. Have you found other evidence of which I’m unaware?’

‘Not evidence,’ I said carefully. ‘But there are some important impressions. Suggestive incidents.’ I moved my stiffened fingers discreetly to touch the little phial hanging by its cord inside my clothes. The attack had driven it out of my mind. But my fall had not broken it. I was reassured.

I was debating whether this was the most auspicious moment to show it to Marcus when he solved the problem for me by saying impatiently, ‘I cannot act on your impressions, my old friend. Give me the facts, when you have discovered them. In the meantime, speak to this gatekeeper of my wife’s. She will give me no peace until you have. Here, my slave will show you the way.’

Junio helped me to my feet and we followed the tunic-clad servant out of the fine public chambers and into the humbler quarters at the rear of the building, where a cluster of shabby rooms led off from a smoky passage, and a still more smoky vented space with a large charcoal fire, set on an iron stand, in the centre. This clearly was the makeshift kitchen. Most Glevum apartments have no cooking facilities at all, and upstairs in communal blocks like this such things are actively discouraged, following the tragic blazes in Rome. Apartment owners these days either dine out or content themselves with meals brought in from the better class of hot-food stalls.

This uncertain device was therefore an indication of Marcus’s stature. No wonder men of means, like Gaius, preferred to buy a house where possible, so that their cooks could prepare meals — and even banquets — without the constant risk of either asphyxiation or conflagration.

The kitchen slaves, half stripped and wheezing with smoke and heat, were too busy skinning a goat and placing it on a turnspit to pay us attention as we went by. The slave-boy with the bucket, whose job it clearly was to douse the flames and cool the walls in an emergency, looked up and nodded.

Junio was led off to the slaves’ waiting room, where doubtless he would win himself a few quadrantes playing at dice with the others. My servant has an innocent face and an uncanny talent for gambling. I don’t know how he contrives it, but the fall of tile and dice seem to favour him much more than chance alone allows. I left him to make his fortune while I was taken to the gatekeeper.

I found the man in one of the cell-like rooms which were reserved as sleeping spaces for the servants. He was a large, brawny man with huge hands and even bigger feet — as befits a gatekeeper. I had seen him before at Corinium, and I smiled encouragingly, but if he felt any pleasure at seeing me he was quick to disguise it.

‘Oh, you’ve come at last, have you?’ he grumbled. ‘They said you were sent for. Why, is what I want to know. I’ve told them everything I can, a dozen times over.’

‘And what exactly could you tell them?’ I said affably, squatting beside him on the bundle of reeds which was provided as a bed. The room was small, but otherwise it was no more humble than my own.

He looked at me savagely for a moment, then fetched a great sigh. ‘Oh, very well. If I must go through it all again, I suppose I must. He came to the house early this morning. I hadn’t seen him before that I remember. He brought a parcel of silk and some bracelets, and said they were a gift for Julia Delicta, on the occasion of her marriage. Then he left. I paid no great attention to his face. That is all I know.’ He produced it all in the fashion of a recitation.

‘I see.’ I thought about this for a moment. ‘How early did he come?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t know. Do you think I am a councillor to have water-candles by me? Very early. The sun was hardly risen in the sky and I could hear the schoolmaster scolding in his pupils.’

‘And it did not surprise you that he brought a gift?’

The man shrugged. ‘I suppose a little, since he was a stranger to me. But there have been gifts arriving ever since Delicta arrived home from the forum yesterday.’

Of course, once the marriage was solemnised it was no secret. ‘No doubt the witnesses had spread the news,’ I said.

For the first time the gateman almost smiled. ‘More than that,’ he said. ‘The old auspex was delighted by being asked to perform the ceremony — he must have told half the town. And since it was Marcus that she married, everyone was anxious to come and make a gift — and be seen to do it.’ He paused. ‘I suppose that is why I remembered the man. There was nothing with the gift to say who the giver was.’

‘Did you ask him?’

The man grimaced. ‘I did. He said it was from an old friend of Marcus’s. I could hardly argue. I know who calls on my mistress, but His Excellence has a dozen friends in Corinium that I have never seen.’

It was hard to argue with that. I changed the subject. ‘So what made you suspicious of the man?’

He shrugged. ‘I would not have suspected him at all, if there had not been this stabbing of slaves from our household in the town. Of course, when I heard of that, I began to wonder about the stranger who had called. But truly, citizen, I can remember nothing else. He was wearing a dark cape and hood, but I thought nothing of that. It had been raining and the man was very wet. He came to the gate and asked to be presented to Delicta. I had to tell him that she was in the town.’

‘Surely the shops were barely open?’

That brought a reluctant smile to his face. ‘Delicta is a wealthy woman, citizen. The shops would open for her.’

I nodded. Delicta was unusual in doing her own shopping. Wealthy Roman women are not like Celts, they prefer to send their husbands or their slaves, even for cloth and jewels. But Julia Delicta was accustomed to having her own way. No doubt the shopkeepers of Corinium would hurry bleary-eyed down the stairs at midnight to open their shuttered stalls if they had found her on their doorsteps. I said, ‘So the caller left the parcel. Did you get a look at him?’

‘Youngish, and dark, and he had a strange, clipped sort of accent — or at least he seemed to have. I have wondered since if he adopted it on purpose. He had a fine horse, I remember.’

I nodded. That at least was new information.

He said, after a short pause, ‘My mistress thinks there was a company of thieves in the town. It has happened once before. Men calling with messages when the house-owners were out and — when they were admitted to wait — sending the slaves away on fruitless errands while they looked around for something to steal. Nothing large, of course, only a golden statue or two, which they would hide under their clothes, and walk out later as calmly as you please. The thefts were not noticed until afterwards.’

‘That hardly seems the case in this matter.’

‘Fortunately for me, since it would have been on my head if I had let him in. But there are always other thieves, attacking helpless people in the street and stripping them of their purses — as I hear they stripped you, citizen.’

I could hardly deny this, but he said it with a grin which was almost insolent. I did not care for the turn the conversation was taking, and having learned — as I supposed — all there was to learn, I took my leave of him and returned to Marcus.

My patron had a string of clientes waiting for his attention by this time, but he had lingered to speak to me.

‘So, my brave pavement-maker, did you learn anything new?’

‘No real facts, Excellence, since that is what you required.’

‘Well, I have facts for you. You heard that my poor herald’s body has been found?’

I nodded. ‘Junio told me so.’

Marcus sighed. ‘I have had him collected. It is vexatious. Worse than I thought. Deliberately insulting. Not only did Felix have him tied to a stake for the birds to pick at, as if he were a common criminal, he also had a notice nailed up above him: “Here is a nameless, insolent slave who insulted the great Perennis Felix.” Who did Felix think he was? A Roman governor?’

I made a sympathetic noise. I knew what he was referring to. Some senior magistrates and provincial governors routinely labelled criminals in this way before their executions, and sometimes made them parade the streets wearing their placards of indictment, as a humiliation to them and a warning to the rest of the populace. I have known Marcus himself have a notice nailed over a crucified criminal, but Marcus was a senior magistrate. Felix had had no such authority.

‘Insulted the great Perennis Felix, indeed!’ Marcus fumed. ‘It is I who am insulted, if anyone.’

It passed through my mind that perhaps the herald himself had a certain claim to having been insulted, but naturally that was not a thought that I could voice. I said, ‘But you have had the body moved, Excellence?’

‘Of course. We cannot have his spirit unquiet and haunting the town. I intend to have him disposed of decently. But therein lies the problem, old friend. I should have had them bring him here, to be properly bathed and anointed, since this is where he lived and worked, but I am in official mourning for Felix. It would be disrespectful to host another funeral, especially of someone whom Felix himself put to death.’

‘But surely, Excellence,’ I ventured, ‘the slaves’ guild would bury him? I know you normally make provision for your slaves, like a thoughtful master, but in the circumstances surely you could have them cremate him? It would be all over before Felix’s funeral. They could do it at once. He was only a herald. There is no need for a mourning period.’

‘There will be no problem with that,’ Marcus said. ‘The herald is a guild member — I have always paid his dues. I have done it for all my servants. I never can be certain that I will not be recalled to Rome and be unable to provide a proper funeral when they die. No.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘The difficulty is where to take the body now.’ He looked at me speculatively.

I knew Marcus. He was working up to something. I said cautiously, ‘Of course, Excellence, if there is anything whatever I can do. .’

Marcus smiled. ‘Libertus, you are a true friend. I will not forget this when it comes to assigning public commissions. Very well, then, I accept your offer. The funeral guild can take him from your rooms. That way you can attend the ceremony in my place. I will not have Felix contrive to have my herald sent to the other world with only slaves to mourn him.’

I opened my mouth to protest. Playing host to a funeral, especially as chief mourner, is a burdensome business. It would necessitate not only giving up a room to the corpse — and goodness knows there was little enough space as it was — but also all manner of cleansing rituals afterward, including a sacrificial offering, a period of fasting, and another series of personal purifications at the end of nine days. To say nothing of a cold nocturnal procession outside the city walls — no funeral is permitted within them. But one cannot argue with Marcus.

He was smiling at me. ‘I was certain of your good offices, old friend. I have already had them take the herald to your workshop. The guild has agreed that they can bury him from there. And you need not fear ghosts — they will not use your sleeping room. They will do the thing tonight. I have spoken to the foreman already.’

He meant he had offered the man a bribe. I said feebly, ‘But, Excellence, I had planned to go to the North Gate tonight, and meet the driver of the conveyance that brought the Celts.’ It was not exactly a firm plan of mine, in fact I had just thought of it, but it seemed a reasonable undertaking, and preferable to a funeral. I added, winningly, ‘He was promised payment this evening, and I hoped-’

Marcus interrupted. ‘Do not concern yourself with that. I will have the man questioned myself.’ He clapped me companionably on the shoulder. ‘The guild is expecting you. And do not look so downcast. There will be little fuss.’

I was not so sure. No doubt, if the corpse had been delivered, the gossip would already have started — and for the next half-moon my neighbours would avoid me with the wary politeness which always follows the presence of a dead body in the house. And there would be no hiding the funeral.

I have attended slave-guild funerals before. The bier is only of gilded wood, and it is rescued before the cremation, the urns are of cheap pottery instead of gold and bronze and the mourners are paid slaves, but there is no lack of ceremony. To a man who has nothing in this world, the entry into the next is an important occasion, and slaves will often set aside every quadrans they own to ensure that they pay their dues and so avoid the communal pit which is otherwise their lot. Even so, more than one slave is often cremated at a time — it halves the cost, and increases the show. I could envisage a very large cortège arriving at my door.

Marcus saw my look. ‘I assure you, Libertus, tonight will be a quiet affair. There was a great slave funeral last night, apparently. One of the dead actually worked for the guild at one time, so they made a huge ceremony of it: a senior priest, proper orations, pipers, dancers and scores of mourners following the corpse.’

I nodded. ‘We saw the procession ourselves, Excellence, on the way to the banquet.’

Marcus waved the remark aside. ‘Indeed. Well, there will be nothing like that tonight. I have requested that it be discreet, although I am assured that the guild always does these things very well.’

I must still have looked doubtful.

There was a hint of impatience in his voice as he continued, ‘And there will be no expense. They are providing the sacrifice, and the funeral meal afterwards. I have made the arrangements.’

Which is more, I reflected, than anyone would do for me. Except perhaps Junio. But I must not annoy Marcus. I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, ‘My pleasure, Excellence.’

In fact, of course, it was no pleasure at all. But there was no help for it. Already it was getting dark, and I would have to go home and prepare myself. Coarse cloth, ashes on the forehead and then a cold vigil in the night air when I was already stiff and bruised from an attack. And it was raining.

As I summoned Junio and made my way back to the street I wished, not for the first time, that Felix Perennis had never come to Glevum. I was so concerned with my resentful thoughts that it did not occur to me that I had been given the solution to at least a part of the problem I was trying to solve.