Murder in the Forum

Chapter Twenty-two

I don’t know what I had expected. Remorse, perhaps, or revealing confessions. I got neither. Zetso had nothing at all to say, and continued to say it even when, at my request, the octio had him taken under guard into the mansio and held there.

‘A difficult case,’ the octio informed me uneasily, when I arrived at the mansio a little later (a man of my years cannot keep up with marching soldiery). ‘In my position it is hard to know how to proceed. I am caught between the governor’s orders and the Emperor’s. Perhaps you would like to question him yourself?’

They had him in an outbuilding, a little room with stone walls and high slit window spaces — not a cell exactly, but all the same a place which the passing military occasionally used to secure less willing members of their company. Zetso was sitting on a stone bench by the wall. He was unchained, but with his flamboyant looks and scarlet cape he looked like an exotic bird in a cage.

When he saw me he raised his head defiantly. ‘On what authority do you hold me here?’

I began sincerely to wish I had my toga with me. In these simple garments I hardly looked a person of influence. I tried to bluster it out of him. ‘I carry a warrant from my patron, Marcus,’ I told him. ‘It carries his personal seal and will be honoured by the Governor Pertinax — and he represents imperial authority anywhere in these islands.’

Zetso gave me a look of curdling contempt. ‘To Dis with Pertinax,’ he informed me, shortly. ‘I carry an imperial warrant. It was issued by the Emperor Commodus himself, and is his authority anywhere in the Empire. It will be honoured by everyone — including yourself, my pavement-making friend — or else His Imperial Excellence shall hear of it. I do not think you would enjoy the consequences.’

He reached into a large leather pocket at his belt and briefly took out a scroll. He did not offer to show it to us. He did not need to. It was sealed with a purple ribbon and a seal which must have been the size of a man’s hand, though I could not actually see that, since it was protected by the most elaborate enamelled seal-box I have ever set my eyes on. The octio, who had accompanied me to the room, ran an uneasy tongue around his lips.

‘And this,’ Zetso said, indicating the pile of dirty straw, the reeking candle and the crude water pot which was all the furnishings of his cell, ‘is how you dare to treat me? I am sure the Emperor will be very interested.’

The guard turned the same sickly shade of yellow-grey as the straw and shifted from foot to foot. He gave me an agonised glance which said, more clearly than any words, that he wished devoutly to be somewhere else.

I made one last attempt. ‘The warrant which you carry was issued, surely, not to you but to your master — Felix?’

Zetso looked at me as Felix had looked at the shattered corpse in the forum, with distaste and disdain.

‘I have my master’s authority to wield it,’ he said. ‘And it is especially framed to allow me to do so. My master had a number of affairs to see to in this province, some of them of imperial importance. He could not attend them all in person. He arranged with Commodus that I should be specially named as his proxy.’

‘And now that he is dead?’

‘Dead?’ Zetso stared at me in astonishment.

I nodded assent. ‘The evening of the feast, when you were so conveniently absent.’

That stunned him. He leaped to his feet. ‘Of what am I accused?’

I thought about that warrant in his pouch. ‘You are not accused of anything. At least, not yet. But naturally I wished to question you on this matter. In such circumstances any man may lawfully be detained for questioning.’ I did not add that men carrying a warrant were usually exempt, at least if the questioner had any respect for his own safety.

The fight had gone out of him. ‘Dear Jupiter! I had not expected this so soon. I must consider what to do.’ The news — if it was really news — appeared to have shattered his lofty disdain. He turned to me urgently. ‘By the strength of Hercules,’ he said, ‘I had no hand in this. How could I have? I was miles away. You saw me yourself.’

‘You left the feast,’ I said, more savagely than was strictly necessary. ‘Unexpectedly.’

He flushed. ‘My master gave me an urgent message to deliver. It often happens, when he does not require me to drive him. Felix was never a man to brook delay — once he has thought of a matter it must be done immediately. I arranged a horse and attended to the business at once.’

‘But you did not return? Where did you go? I had thought that rumours of the death and funeral would have been the talk of the province.’

‘It is true that I have been. . out of the public eye.’

‘Where? Do not try concealment. It will be easy to discover. I will have the couriers ask at every door if necessary — on the order of my own warrant which you despise so much. Others respect my patron’s name, if you do not.’

Zetso collapsed like a punctured boil. He sat down lamely on the bench again. ‘There is no secret about it. I have been enjoying the hospitality of an old acquaintance of my master’s, a retired centurion from the eighth Augusta. He has a handsome villa just outside Glevum, further down this road. We stayed there briefly on our journey south-’

I interrupted. ‘Ah!’ A tiny piece of mosaic which had refused to fit the pattern slipped neatly into place. ‘I wondered where Felix spent the night before he came to Glevum. I thought for a moment that he had stayed here, in that house he rented — but once I got here I saw that was impossible. It was early in the morning when I met him in Glevum. He would have needed the horses of Jupiter to have travelled from here in that time.’

Zetso shrugged. ‘There is no mystery. We had made good time from Letocetum, and my master preferred to enter Glevum in daylight. He sent me to the villa to ask for lodging. The ex-centurion agreed at once.’

I nodded. The poor fellow must have been tripping over his tunic-hems in his anxiety to offer hospitality. One glimpse of that imperial warrant, and any man with a sense of self-preservation would have turned his dying mother out of bed in order to comply. ‘And when Felix moved to Glevum you went back to the villa?’

‘There was unfinished business to attend to, and I returned to the villa afterwards. Is it significant? The facts are easily verified.’

I sighed. Inwardly I was convinced that Zetso had some hand in all this mystery, but it seemed he had not only a warrant to protect him but a witness too.

I tried again. ‘Yet the news did not surprise you? You said you had not expected to hear of his death “so soon”. And do not think to deny it. I am sure this gentleman’ — I indicated the octio who was still standing, terrified, at the entrance — ‘would testify to the truth.’

The guard looked baffled but, taking my cue, gave an unwilling nod.

‘So you were expecting to hear of his death sometime?’

Zetso shot me a look which would have withered oaks, but at least he was talking now. ‘It is true that he had many enemies. I have expected for many months that one of them would find him. There have been plots against him before — it is no secret in Rome. Have they arrested the killers?’

‘What makes you talk of killers?’ I said carefully. ‘Rumour has it that he choked to death on a nut.’

The effect was astonishing, but it was not the guilty stammer I had half expected. Zetso leaped to his feet as though lightning had struck him. All deference had left him and he was his old arrogant self again.

‘In that case, you have nothing to hold me for.’ Zetso turned to the octio. ‘You! Fetch me a stool and writing materials here. You will find them in my saddlebag.’

The soldier looked at me and hesitated. It was not the kind of instruction he expected from a prisoner.

‘Now! Or by the imperial deities I shall have you strung from the nearest oak bough!’

The octio cast a frightened look in my direction.

I could hardly object. A man without a charge against him was entitled to send a letter if he could. What impressed me was that Zetso could. Most members of the army can read enough to interpret their written orders, but few do it willingly and fewer still can casually summon wax and stilus to pen a letter for themselves.

I nodded, and the soldier scuttled away.

Zetso rounded on me. ‘Now, you may arrange for my release from here. I have unfinished business to complete. I was delivering letters from my master when you dragged me in.’

‘All in good time. I have unfinished business of my own. It was from the villa that your master sent to Marcus? With the results I saw?’

‘Ah yes, the herald.’ Zetso was unabashed. ‘The ex-centurion sent one of his own messengers to the town, but Marcus’s herald returned to say he was not available.’

‘Marcus was in Corinium,’ I said. ‘The herald could hardly help that.’

Zetso sneered. ‘My master did not like the tone in which the news was delivered.’ His hand strayed again to the pouch which contained the imperial seal. ‘Does that offend you, citizen?’

The octio, who had just come back through the door with the leather saddle-pouch in his hands, caught his breath sharply.

This was absurd, I thought. Zetso was a suspect in at least two murders, yet here he was effectively defying authority — threatening us almost — because he held an imperial warrant in his pocket. Such is the power of the Emperor.

But it was real power. A single wrong move might be the death of either of us. News of this incident would certainly reach Rome, and the Emperor is not a man to reason with. I said, ‘That was not the purpose of my questions, carriage-driver. I heard that Perennis Felix had rented a house near here, the day before the feast.’

Zetso looked startled, but he said nothing. He sat down abruptly on the bench.

I sat down companionably beside him. ‘Or rather,’ I went on, ‘it seems you rented it. Using his name. That is not quite legal, I think.’

That was an understatement. For a slave to impersonate any citizen — let alone a purple-striper of Felix’s rank — is a capital offence. Not a neat death either, but often an unpleasantly gruesome one, involving floggings and stab wounds and then slavering wild dogs in the arena.

Zetso was not cowed. ‘I was acting as my master’s agent, as I am entitled to do by the warrant. I did nothing against the spirit of the law.’

I saw the octio smile faintly. It was not the spirit of the law which counted in the courts. Zetso scowled at him, and he subsided.

‘There was no impersonation. I was acting on Perennis Felix’s express instructions. He learned of the house from a friend in Letocetum, and told me to come ahead and hire it in his name. He gave me gold and that is what I did. I never claimed to be him. I simply did not deny that I was.’

I could not argue with that. ‘What did he want it for? He could have had any accommodation he wanted — here or with his ex-centurion. And for nothing too. Why did he want to rent a bawdy-house?’ The octio looked up with sudden interest, and I finished hastily, ‘He didn’t even want the girls.’

A dozen expressions chased each other across Zetso’s handsome face. At last he said, ‘It was. . for a business acquaintance.’

‘Egobarbus? The Celtic gentleman?’

Zetso seemed to have forgotten his reluctance to talk. He said simply, ‘The Celt demanded a meeting with Felix, and my master arranged it. It was very generous. He paid for the accommodation out of his own purse.’

‘A meeting about what?’ I asked. I moved a little closer on the bench. ‘The money that your master owed to him?’

He edged away from me. ‘I was not party to the business. You will have to ask him yourself.’

‘I can hardly do that. You know that Egobarbus is dead? His body was found yesterday, in the well.’

I surprised him, if I am any judge of men. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened like a startled man in a mural.

He sounded more startled still. ‘Here? But I saw him in Glevum at the feast.’

‘That was not the real Egobarbus,’ I said. I explained about the little finger.

‘Then. .’ Zetso began. He seemed to be thinking frantically. ‘After all he must have. .’ He tailed off.

‘Must have. .?’

‘Must have been murdered by one of his servants. Someone must have poisoned him, thrown his body down the well and taken his place in Glevum,’ Zetso said. His confidence was increasing as he spoke. ‘Not an easy task with that moustache.’

I had come to much the same conclusion myself. ‘You had seen him before?’

Zetso shook his head. ‘Never. He tried to barge in once, when my master had a meeting in Letocetum, but the servants chased him away. We never saw him, except at a distance, but he was a startling figure, with that red hair and plaid. I would have recognised him by those things alone.’

‘A fact which his impersonator depended on,’ I said reflectively. I was sure of it now. I wondered how the moustache had been managed. Hot wax would have held it, at least for a few hours. And, now I came to recall it, the Egobarbus at the feast had been constantly dabbing at his mouth with his napkin. I had remarked on it at the time.

‘You did not see him when you called at the hired house again? It was you, I presume? The hooded rider who called that evening at the house?’ I got to my feet. ‘The owner heard the horse’s hooves and saw you.’

He looked up at me. ‘Then he will tell you that I never entered the premises. I merely brought the message that Felix could not come. And no, I did not see the Celt himself, although I heard his voice — I assume that it was his voice — bellowing at a servant. One of his slaves opened the door. I simply delivered my package and was gone. Ask the slaves, if they are still alive.’

‘I shall do that,’ I said, ‘as soon as we have found them. For the moment they have eluded us. So, my friend, I have only your word for this.’

‘I swear by all my childhood gods,’ Zetso said. ‘The Celt was alive when I left here. And as for Felix, he was miles away. The ex-centurion will vouch for that.’

I was sure he would. I would, however, ensure that he was given the opportunity.

‘Egobarbus was singularly ill-fated in his appointments with your master,’ I observed. ‘Felix must have passed this very door on his way to Glevum, and yet he did not even pause to contact the man for whom he had rented the house. It seems a little calculated to me.’

Zetso flushed. ‘The Celt was importunate. He had almost caused a scene in Letocetum, trying to burst in when my master was in conclave with important officers from the northern legions. I think my master thought to punish him.’

It would be like Felix, I thought, to exact such a vengeance: keeping the man here, miles from anywhere, and failing to pay him the money that he owed. ‘And you have not returned here since? You did not come here after the feast?’

He shrugged. ‘I returned to the ex-centurion’s house, as instructed. My master had left some further letters there he wished me to deliver — as I was doing, when they brought me here.’ He opened the leather saddle-pouch to reveal two small sealed vellum scrolls and a fine hinged wax writing tablet and stilus.

I thought of demanding to see the scrolls, but the memory of the warrant deterred me. I contented myself with asking, ‘Who are these for?’

‘The men he was talking to in Letocetum. I do not know their names. I am to deliver these to the house, that is all. Now, with your permission, I have a letter to write myself.’ He took the writing tablet from the bag, together with a wax stick and a flamboyant seal-press.

He turned himself away so that the tablet was hidden from me and scratched a few lines hastily upon it. Then he folded and latched it, and with a contemptuous glance in my direction made a great performance of sealing it, tying the cords of the tablet so that the knot lay in the recess provided and then warming the wax stick in the candle-flame and dripping it over the knot to hold it. Then, for ultimate security, he took the seal-press and impressed it onto the hot wax, saying with satisfaction, ‘This seal is still effective, citizen, whoever may be dead. And I am still empowered to wield it.’

Only then did he hold the tablet out to me. I hesitated.

‘A letter to the ex-centurion, to let him know what has happened. He lives apart and does not hear the rumours. It will be a shock to him. Perhaps you will see it is delivered. No doubt you will wish to interview him, in any case.’ He gave me a brief description of where to find the villa.

I wondered what welcome awaited me if I arrived there bearing this letter. I did not trust Zetso a thumb’s-breadth but I took the tablet without a murmur.

‘Now if I am to deliver my own messages before nightfall, citizen, I suggest it would be wise to let me go. Very wise. I still carry a warrant, and these letters are of imperial importance.’

I looked at the octio and he at me. I was defeated. Faced with the Emperor’s orders, I could only let him go. I nodded, and the door was thrown open. We all blinked fiercely in the sudden light of day.

‘My horse!’

The octio scuttled to fetch the animal. It was a handsome brute. I have not possessed a horse since I was taken into slavery, but I had once loved to ride and I knew good horseflesh when I saw it. I was seeing it now.

Zetso slung his saddlebag over the neck, took the reins and swung up effortlessly onto the animal’s back. He looked down at me. ‘Your servant, citizen.’ It was a sneer. Then, with a clattering of hooves, he was gone.

I stood there for a moment, clutching the writing tablet. I knew in my bones I should not have let him leave. But I could not hold him longer with impunity: I dared not even open his sealed letter. And he knew it.

I turned away and went back into the mansio.