Murder in the Forum

Chapter Four

It was getting dark by the time we got back to Glevum and the gates were closing but Zetso scarcely seemed to slacken pace. He was justified: at the first glimpse of the imperial carriage the huge studded gates were opened again with such alacrity that I am sure the poor guard responsible must have reported afterwards to the military medicus with a rupture.

Once back within the city, however, our progress was much slower. The edict which restricts wheeled vehicles within the walls during the hours of daylight may keep the roads clear for military and imperial transport by day, but it has a contrary effect after the gates are closed. At twilight the colonia becomes a heaving, torchlit jostling mass of horses, donkeys, oxen, carts and waggons as every tradesman and freed-man tries to move his goods around the city before total darkness overtakes him.

Zetso was doubtless chafing, and I was no less impatient. As soon as I had delivered Marcus, I hoped to hurry back to the comparative safety of my workshop, where any threat of vivicombustion was likely to be of an accidental kind. Besides, I wanted to tell Junio about the fair-headed slave: unless I was much mistaken this was the same maidservant with whom he had — quite improperly — struck up a certain friendship the last time we had visited the house, although at that time she had just been shorn and had no hair at all. Naturally he did not suppose that I knew anything about it. I was rather looking forward to teasing him on the subject.

Marcus, however, had other plans for me.

‘We will alight here,’ he said, tapping the side of the carriage to alert Zetso, as we stopped for the twentieth time to let a laden handcart extricate itself from the wheel-ruts in the paving. ‘We are only a javelin throw from my apartment. I can at least rinse my head and feet and change into fresh robes. There is no opportunity to visit the bath house before attending this banquet, but I prefer not to put myself at a disadvantage by arriving to meet Felix looking completely crumpled and travel-stained.’

‘But, Excellence!’ I protested, feebly. The thought of encountering Felix again was already an unpleasant one; the idea of finding him impatient and furious was even less appealing.

Marcus silenced me with a glance.

‘It will not take us long. My slaves will be waiting, and if the carriage makes this kind of progress it will hardly have moved more than a block or two before we return. No doubt we will not be the last arrivals. The commencement of a feast is always a haphazard affair.’

He was right, of course. The Romans are known for their obsession with punctuality and order, dividing the day carefully into hours and always consulting their water-clocks and hour-candles. But since the length of an hour varies at different seasons according to the quantity of daylight, in fact clocks and candles are only an approximation and it is almost impossible for any private citizen to calculate the time with any accuracy. Even the public sundial in the forum, consecrated to Jove and imported into Glevum at great expense, was constructed for Roman sunshine and seems strangely to be effectively useless for ours, even supposing our sun happens to be shining. Most men, summoned to a private dinner, will simply aim to arrive there before sunset, while at an evening banquet, like this one, there are certain to be stragglers. Felix had not even specified a time.

All the same, I was anxious. ‘Perhaps, Excellence, I should stay with the carriage?’ I ventured, as Zetso, reluctantly, abandoned the reins and came round to open the door.

Marcus paused in the act of alighting. ‘And leave me to walk the street unaccompanied? Besides, surely you wish to make your own ablutions? My slaves can bring you water and oils, at least.’

‘I thank you, Excellence, but that is hardly necessary. When I get home. .’

Marcus frowned. ‘But, Libertus, old friend, you are not returning home. At least, not yet. I wish you to accompany me to this banquet. The driver can go on ahead and tell them we are coming — you and I will send out for litters.’ He allowed Zetso to help him from the carriage and strode purposefully away.

Zetso looked at me, and smirked. I got down unaided and he drove off with a flourish. I seized a link from a passing torch-bearer, who glanced at my patron and yielded it without a murmur. Marcus still counted for something in this town.

I padded after him. ‘But, Excellence,’ I pleaded, holding the light aloft and trotting along by his side, ‘I was not invited. Besides, you are concerned about your toga. Look at mine.’ I gestured helplessly. I had hardly looked crisp and pristine in Corinium, and I was far more crumpled and dishevelled now.

Marcus waved my excuses aside. ‘This is a civic banquet, Libertus, given by the dignitaries of the city. I believe I would qualify among their number?’ That was an understatement. Marcus was one of the most influential men in the whole province. ‘I shall therefore feel free to invite anyone I choose. In any case, you have business there. I have decided to ask you to design a small commemorative pavement, in honour of this visit.’

I sighed inwardly. Marcus was likely to feel that the honour of such a commission was of more value than mere denarii, so the task was likely to bring me a great deal of prestige, but not a great deal in the way of bread and candles.

He misinterpreted my dismay. ‘As for your appearance, Felix will have to endure it. He was the person who summoned us in such haste, and in any case I think it hardly matters. You are not, after all, an important person.’ He smiled. ‘Except, of course, to me.’

There was no intended insult in this. Marcus was simply stating a fact. I was unimportant, sufficiently so to be paraded before Felix as a kind of living protest at the peremptory nature of his summons. It was not a role that I looked forward to.

Nevertheless, it was useless to protest further so I accompanied Marcus the rest of the way in silence. I was in any case slightly breathless from keeping pace with him; Marcus is much younger than I am and he was striding along very purposefully. Had he been a lesser man, I might almost have thought he was hurrying.

His town apartment was a fine one, the whole of the first floor over a wine shop near the forum, and we soon arrived at it. Marcus was right about the time it took to change. With a dozen servants to strip him, wash him, robe him and groom him he was cleansed, perfumed, bejewelled and immaculate in a sparkling new toga almost before I had finished rinsing the dust of the journey from my extremities in a bowl of rainwater.

My patron, however, was not a happy man. The death of his herald (whose identity I had tactfully omitted to mention in my own account of the day) was already the talk of the household, and he had learned of it from his scandalised servants while he was being dressed. As we made our way to the street — accompanied this time by a bevy of slaves whose spotless tunics were a rebuke to me — he was clearly fuming, not so much at the loss of the slave as at the affront to his own dignity. This, of course, was why I had not told him. Marcus in this mood was a very dangerous man.

Fortunately, it did not occur to him that my omission was deliberate. Identifying a dragged corpse is not easy, and he simply supposed that I had not recognised it. I was happy to allow him his illusions.

‘Imagine it!’ he muttered, as we went out to join the litters which had been summoned for us. ‘My herald, dragged to death in the road like a common traitor. Felix shall pay for this, Libertus, mark my words.’

I said nothing. I am not accustomed to litters, and the business of balancing aboard the narrow couch as it was first hoisted from the ground by its handles by two unevenly matched slaves, and then carried at a smart trot down uneven streets, was taking all my concentration. I was almost glad when we had to make a lengthy pause to let a funeral procession pass — a long straggling line of pipers, dancers, weepers and wailers. In Roman cities funerals — except those of really important people — are always held at night.

Marcus was still fuming when we arrived at our destination.

‘Here we are,’ he said, dismounting and dismissing the litters. ‘You know the house.’

I did. It belonged to one of the most senior of the town magistrates, Gaius Flavius Flaminius. I should have guessed as much — if I were looking for a man to donate his house to Felix for a fortnight, I could not have found a better candidate. Gaius was a wealthy man and had once been influential, but since the death of his young wife he had become an ineffectual old shadow with no interests in life beyond his pair of brindled dogs, one of whom could even now be heard howling fruitlessly somewhere in the interior. Whoever had offered Gaius a bed had clearly drawn the line at his dogs.

‘Ugly brute,’ Marcus said, referring to the dog. ‘I wonder someone does not stop its whining.’

If Gaius had whined with protest about being obliged to give up his house, I thought, he had no doubt been similarly ignored.

Marcus frowned. ‘I suppose Felix decided that the banquet should take place here, rather than in any public building, although of course we’ — he meant the town dignitaries — ‘were still called on to provide the food, cooks, servants and entertainment. I gather that I have provided wine.’ He sighed. ‘A trick that Felix learned from Commodus, I imagine. He sometimes does the same when he pays a visit outside the capital. It may create difficulties for everyone else, but it is highly convenient for the guest of honour. If anyone is to make their way home through the dim streets of an unfamiliar city in the cold of dawn, it will not be him. Well, there is no point in standing here. Shall we go in?’

The house was ready for company. Lighted torches flanked the entry and the sound of music and voices was already emerging from the open doorway, where a burly doorkeeper was standing, armed with a stout stave and a threatening frown, and already regarding me with suspicion.

Fortunately, my patron was clearly an important man, even to those who did not know him, with his wide purple stripe and his six panting slaves accompanying the litter. At a word from him the doorman stepped back reluctantly to let me pass, and turned his attention to another guest drawing up at the door. However, I felt him monitoring me. It was the same throughout the evening. Every time I raised my head I was conscious of some servant watching me, with disapproving eyes.

Nonetheless, we made our way inside and were announced by the usher. Formalities were beginning. The two reception rooms and the triclinium — the dining area — beyond them had been turned into a sort of three-part room by opening the screen doors in between. Low tables were set out with dining couches around them, in groups of three as fashion dictated, and strictly graduated in terms of grandeur and comfort, so that nine people could sit around the top table, nine at the next and so on.

I calculated that there must be at least fifty-four people expected — most of whom seemed to be here already — and the houses of all the magistrates in Glevum must have been pillaged for the furniture. Even so there was a cluster of lowly stools around a rickety trestle right at the back against the wall. I had no doubt whatever where my seat would be.

The rooms were alive with activity. All Glevum seemed to be there, important men most of whom I knew by sight and — like any sensible tradesman — spent much of my time avoiding: aediles, questors, magistrates, priests, augurers and senior commanders from the garrison. Slaves were moving among the guests distributing banqueting wreaths, knives, spoons and napkins. A trio of nervous-looking musicians were tuning up in a corner, and a nubile young dancing girl was adjusting her costume so that it showed off her assets as flatteringly as possible.

Poor child! If she hoped to impress the guest of honour, she was wasting her time. Felix, splendid in purple edgings, was reclining at the high table, a goblet in his hand, patently ignoring the earnest conversation of the ageing magistrate beside him, and gazing with speculative interest at the dusky young male acrobat limbering up in an abbreviated loincloth at the other end of the triclinium.

When he saw Marcus, however, he got to his feet and stood, waiting to greet us. Marcus walked deliberately towards him, and then — a little more than sword-reach distant — just as deliberately stopped.

Somehow there was a tension which communicated itself to the entire company. Conversation ceased, the musicians stilled their strings. There was a little rustle of anticipation, and then the whole room fell silent, motionless, as the two men confronted one another.

Like stags, I thought suddenly.

And the herd was watching now, waiting for the heads to lower, the imaginary antlers to lock.

It was Marcus who moved first. ‘Tigidius Perennis Felix,’ he said, his voice poisonous with charm, ‘we meet again. An unexpected. . honour.’ There was a deliberate pause before the final word.

Felix smiled. If this was a sample, I thought, on the whole I preferred the scowl. ‘Marcus Aurelius Septimus. It is good of you to travel so far. Greetings on behalf of the Emperor, and of your esteemed mother.’ I saw Marcus stiffen. ‘I trust I have not curtailed your. . ah. . business in Corinium too much.’

He said it with a leering smile. Obviously Felix must know by now what the ‘business’ had been. But Marcus was equal to it.

‘On the contrary, Perennis Felix, my business in Corinium has reached a most satisfactory conclusion.’

Felix gave a lecherous laugh. ‘Splendid.’ He stepped forward and clapped my patron on the shoulder. ‘Come then, let us take our places. The chief priest is waiting to make the sacrifices.’

Almost as though it were a signal, there was a little movement among the watching company, a visible lessening of tension. The murmur of conversation began again, and the slaves recommenced their progress with the serving baskets.

But the noise was still subdued. Over the hubbub, Felix’s voice could be distinctly heard. ‘I have reserved a place for you beside me. There are important matters that I wish to discuss with you.’

I saw the flush rise to my patron’s face. I could see why. Marcus reclined at the top table by right, and usually — unless he was dining with the governor — in pride of place. The suggestion that he owed his place to Felix’s patronage was deliberately insulting. But he held his tongue. The first skirmish, it seemed, had gone to Felix.

But Felix had not finished. He placed his hand familiarly on Marcus’s elbow, and murmured something into his ear. I saw Marcus pull away angrily.

‘On no account!’ He spoke so loudly that people turned towards him, and there were one or two raised eyebrows and titters, hastily suppressed. I wondered what unsavoury proposition Felix had made. Whatever it was, my patron was having none of it.

Felix had turned the same colour as his edges, but he said smoothly, ‘No matter. We will talk of this again. For now, let us begin the feast. Besides, there is someone I wish you to meet. A bit of a barbarian, certainly, but a very influential man. He comes from the wildlands on the south-western margins of this island, but he runs the biggest tin and copper operation in the province. He produces some of the finest bronze in the whole Empire. Everything from weapons to jewellery. I have dealt with him before, through a bronze-trader, but the prices are extortionate.’ Felix gave his disagreeable smile. ‘So I will see what kind of bargain I can strike. That is one of the chief reasons why I have come to this benighted country.’

He gestured towards a man whom somehow I had not noticed before, perhaps because he was half hidden from my sight by a partition. He was conspicuous enough, in all conscience, here in this roomful of togaed officials — red-headed, flamboyant in Celtic plaid and a long Celtic moustache — yet somehow I had not seen him there, leaning quietly against a pillar with his back towards us, watching the musicians.

Felix led Marcus towards him, saying loudly, ‘He will join us at my table. Unattractive, perhaps, while one is dining. The fellow speaks barbarous Latin, and insists on diluting his wine so much that it is scarcely wine at all, but one has to humour these people. I have had to send for extra water for him. His name is Egobarbus.’

As he spoke I craned forward to catch a better glimpse of the man that he had indicated. And gasped aloud. ‘Dear gods.’

It was unfortunate, perhaps. Few people, seeing a scruffy Roman citizen in Glevum, would remember that I was once a freeborn prince among my own people, and that the wealthiest men of my homelands were at one time well known to me.

But it was so. I had met Egobarbus, or Andregoranabalus as he was properly called. His father then was the fabled owner of those mines of pure tin and copper on which the armourers of Rome depended for their bronze — a striking man, tall, red-headed, unpredictable, with a quick temper, a sharp mind, a foul mouth and a stout heart. I rather liked him, though he would make a ruthless enemy, and I had often dined at his table.

The son I had loathed on sight. He was the only child, and so petted and pampered by the womenfolk that he had come to think of himself as a kind of human Rome — the centre of the known universe. He had inherited his father’s ginger hair and quick temper, but allied to it a temperament so casually cruel and self-absorbed that even the trading Romans — despairing of ever pronouncing his Celtic name — had nicknamed him ‘Egobarbus’, ‘I the beard’, in honour of his spectacular facial hair. He had long since shaved off the youthful beard and adopted the long drooping moustache of the Celtic nobleman, but the name had stuck.

The last time I saw him he was whipping a helpless puppy for daring to bark in his presence. He was bigger than I was in those days, but all the same I had distinguished myself by seizing the lash from his hand and turning it on himself. It had caused a rift between our households, and it was twenty years since we had met, but I would have recognised him anywhere. As doubtless he would know me.

That was what had caused my exclamation. For this was not the man.