Murder in the Forum

Chapter Nine

‘Master,’ Junio ventured, putting down the drinking vessel, ‘it is not for me to suggest it, but Marcus. .’

I got to my feet. ‘I had not forgotten,’ I said. ‘I am to attend on him this morning. If you had awakened me earlier I would have done so by now. And then the arrival of Octavius delayed me further. So you can fetch me my toga, and help me to get ready. Marcus will be impatient as it is.’

It was unfair, of course. It was hardly Junio’s fault that I had slept long after sun-up, and I regretted my rebuke. But he was grinning cheerfully as he brought in my toga and began to shake it vigorously to expel the dust. ‘I have done my best with this, master, brushed it and hung it from the window to freshen it in the air, but I fear this toga really needs a visit to the fuller’s.’

I stood up and he began the laborious business of folding me into it.

‘Will you go directly to Marcus, or will you try to find Phyllidia first?’

He was reading my mind. I had been asking myself the same question. ‘I must wait upon my patron. Though, since his orders are to meet him at Gaius’s house, I suppose it is possible that I may do both things at the same time. It would be natural for her to come to the house where her father is.’

‘Even,’ Junio said impudently, ‘when he is “already” dead. That was an interesting remark, did you not think?’ He grinned at me. This was a game we sometimes played in my efforts to train Junio in other skills than mosaic-making.

I adjusted my clasp. ‘You noticed that?’

‘I noticed that you noticed. And that you were suspicious of his early morning visit to the stables. And that made me think. He didn’t go to hire a horse, or he would have had one now. So he must have had some other reason for going there. To meet someone, perhaps, or to find out what horses had been liveried there overnight. He did not go to interfere with the animals — he spoke to the stable-boy.’

I nodded my approval.

‘Then I remembered what the cake-seller had said, and it seemed to make sense. He was expecting Phyllidia and went to see if her horses had arrived. He may even have arranged to meet her there, though I do not suppose he would confess as much to us.’ Junio had been straightening my toga as he spoke, and now tucked the folded ends neatly into my belt. ‘There, now I think you will pass muster with your patron. Unless you wish me to trim your chin? Your beard is reappearing.’

‘There is not time this morning, I am late already. Fetch me my cloak.’

This time when he brought both cloaks I did not dissuade him, and when I set off a few moments later, scurrying as fast as my toga would allow, Junio was with me, following at my heels.

The town was already abuzz with the news. The words ‘banquet’, ‘Perennis’ and ‘dead’ seemed to issue from every street stall and soup kitchen. Huddles of citizens whispered together in doorways, while an enterprising street vendor was doing a brisk trade in selling long strips of dark cloth which could be tacked around the toga as mourning bands. Even a skinny peasant, touting his pathetic bundles of firewood, who had probably never seen a banquet nor heard of the late Prefect of Rome, offered to tell us ‘the latest tidings’ in the hope of earning a quadrans.

I tossed him a coin, but he had nothing new to add, except that an announcement of the death had been publicly read in the forum. That was interesting: it meant that the undertakers had finished their grisly task and what was left of Felix was now lying in state for three days in Gaius’s atrium. Presumably even now the first high-minded citizens were calling to pay their respects to the Emperor’s favourite.

Indeed, as we neared the house, we were joined by a customer of mine, one of the town magistrates for whom I had once built a pavement. He was wearing a proper mourning toga, with ashes on his head, and was carrying a gift. He looked askance at my toga and my empty hands. ‘Greetings, citizen.’ He sounded surprised. ‘I did not expect to find my pavement-maker here. Are you going to attend the lying-in-state?’

I explained that I was going to meet my patron.

‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘poor Marcus. An unfortunate thing to happen in his jurisdiction. The Emperor will not be pleased. I believe they have already despatched a messenger to tell him — and one to the governor also. It is bad luck for Gaius, too. It cannot be comfortable having an old acquaintance drop dead under your roof.’

‘Gaius knew Felix?’ It was the first I’d heard of it.

My customer shook his head. ‘Met him once years ago in Rome, or so the story goes. Jove knows if there is any truth in it — the city is full of rumour. It makes me uneasy. I shall attend the lying-in-state, one dare not show disrespect, but then I shall go straight to my country house and stay there till the repercussions are over. This death may have been an accident, but somebody, somewhere, will have to pay for it.’

We rounded a corner, to find a little spectacle awaiting us. The narrow street outside Gaius’s door was all but impassable: a small crowd had gathered, all bearing small funerary gifts — no doubt each bearing the donor’s name — and arguing fiercely about who should be admitted first. Even in death, I thought, Felix exerted influence. Most important men had opted to come themselves, instead of merely sending their slaves to represent them, and the question of precedence was a lively one.

I was surprised how many had come. Citizens had three whole days to pay their respects. Perhaps, like my customer, these men planned to leave the city as soon as they had done their duty. Three days was in any case an interesting choice of time, I thought. I know that in Rome public figures sometimes lie in state for twice as long as that, but around Glevum old beliefs die hard. Local superstition says that the spirit comes back from the afterworld after the third day if the body remains unburied. Whoever was arranging the funeral was obviously taking no chances with Felix.

I jostled my way through the throng. At first I made little progress, but Junio wriggled ahead of me, crying, ‘Make way, in the name of Marcus Aurelius Septimus,’ and the crowd parted like magic. Junio winked at me and I stepped smartly into the gap. Marcus’s name still counted for something in the city.

People must have been rather surprised to see the humble citizen they had made way for, and even more surprised when the doorkeeper gave me a reluctant nod of recognition, and opened the door a fraction to let me in.

‘His Excellence is in the triclinium,’ he murmured. ‘He asked that I send you to him. That slave will show you the way.’ He gave me another withering glance, and turned back to the business of admitting the waiting mourners in some kind of appropriate order without scuffles breaking out in the process.

In the corridor I turned to Junio. ‘Take this,’ I said, unfastening my leather money-pouch from my belt. ‘Go down into the forum and see what you can discover. Any news of Zetso or the red-whiskered Celt, make sure you bring it to me. Meet me here again when the sun is over the top of the basilica.’

Junio nodded. Doubtless the soldiers had already been through the town asking questions, but sometimes a slave can find out more by looking and listening than a centurion learns from wielding his baton. A good many humiliores have discovered that the safest way to deal with the military is to remember nothing, even if events have taken place before your eyes.

Junio went out again, to the astonishment of the doorkeeper, while I followed the other slave into the depths of the house. It was an eerie experience. The plastered walls and tiled floors seemed to echo with unearthly wailing.

As we skirted the atrium, we could see the professional mourners gathered around the bed, some wailing on their instruments while others moaned and beat their chests in truly professional style. Their keening ululation hung in the air, heavy as the smoke and smell from the herbs and candles around the bier.

Two senior magistrates, looking embarrassed and furtive, had already made their required homage and were sneaking away. Felix, uglier than ever on his funeral couch, stared grimly into space, paying no attention to any of it. His expression was so baleful, even at this distance, that I was glad to reach the triclinium.

The dining room had been swept and cleansed. The additional tables had been spirited away, the painted screen partition doors were closed again, and only the customary three couches (from which the room gets its name) remained. The whole impression was of space and elegance. Only the burnt offerings still lying on the altar gave any reminder of the night before.

Marcus was lounging on one of the couches, talking to Gaius who was sitting despondently beside him. There was a small bowl of fruit before them — a sure sign that Marcus, too, had now done his share of ritual lamenting. Until he had fulfilled that rite it would not have been proper to eat. Both men looked up when I came in.

‘Libertus,’ Marcus said sharply, extending a ringed hand in my direction. ‘I expected you earlier.’

I bent low over the ring. ‘Your pardon, Excellence. I was visited this morning by a young man from Rome. I met him here last night. He tells me Gaius invited him.’

If I hoped to startle the old man I was disappointed. Gaius shook his head mournfully. ‘That young tradesman with the hairy hands? Yes, I invited him. He arrived here yesterday demanding to speak to Felix — part of the party from Rome, he said. I would have turned him away but he showed me a letter with the Perennis seal. I hardly knew what to do with him, so I asked him to the feast. Thought he could squat on a stool at the lowest table. He came, did he? I did not notice him. Nor hear him announced.’

When I came to think of it, neither had I. Octavius’s late arrival had coincided with the religious sacrifices, so the name had not been announced. And he had sat opposite to me, with his back towards the top table. Had that been deliberate, or a happy accident? ‘The young man left the feast early.’

Gaius got to his feet. ‘Like the driver and that Celtic fellow with the whiskers,’ he said heavily. ‘Sensible men. I wish I’d had the courage to do the same. I might have saved him.’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘Dead. So suddenly. And under my own roof. I cannot believe it. This has been a shock to me, you know. A terrible shock.’

It had. Manifestly so. Gaius was looking pale and hollow-cheeked, his face stricken, and his old eyes filled with genuine pain. This was no public ritual of mourning, this grief was sincere. I remembered what my customer had said. Perhaps, when Gaius knew him in Rome, Felix had possessed some redeeming qualities. I murmured, ‘I am sorry. I did not realise. He was. . a good friend?’

‘More than a friend,’ Gaius said. ‘More like. . a brother. A son almost.’

I tried to imagine what had endeared the swarthy Felix to the heart of this gentle old man, and failed. ‘Citizen-’ I began, but he interrupted me.

‘I hear that there is talk of commissioning a mosaic from you in the public square.’

That sounded hopeful. ‘I believe so.’ I glanced at Marcus but he was peeling fruit impassively with the heavy knife from his belt. ‘A small memorial pavement, perhaps, on the rostrum to mark the spot where the body lay?’

It was the obvious place. In big civic funerals the litter is always rested on a public platform during the last procession, so that the common people can gawp at it while an orator makes an uplifting funeral address. A small circular mosaic there would show respect without impinging on the landscape. Yet as soon as I made the suggestion I regretted it. I had forgotten how close that mosaic would be to the spot where the fractured corpse of Marcus’s herald had been.

But Gaius was thinking of other things. ‘Well,’ he said urgently, ‘when you have finished that mosaic, you can build another one for me. Here, in the triclinium, where he lay. Take up the geometric border at this end and replace it with something appropriate. Something to remind me of him. You will give me a price?’

I was astonished. I had hardly come here expecting to be offered commissions. But I knew a good offer when I heard one. ‘I should be delighted to accept your commission, citizen. But I shall need advice. You speak of designing “something appropriate”. What motif would you think suitable for a memorial to Perennis Felix?’

Gaius looked at me as though the gods had addled my wits. ‘Perennis Felix? The man was a tyrant and a bully and death is too good for him. He was a curse in Rome and he has brought a curse to my house again. He can rot forgotten in the afterworld, or be fed to Cerberus for anything I care. I do not want a memorial to Felix, I want a memorial pavement for my dog.’

And, shaking his head sadly, as though to rid himself of the wailing and drumming which reached us from the atrium, he bowed his head to Marcus and walked slowly from the room.