Requiem for a Slave

Twenty-Five

Junio and I allowed the turnip-seller’s family to remove the bier — it would have been unthinkable to push in front of it — and immediately afterwards we set off ourselves, leaving the workshop in the care of Maximus.

The slave-boy had been waiting outside the workshop door and was desolated now at being left behind, but there was no time to explain. I would simply have to tell him later what this was all about. I said as much to him.

He nodded glumly. ‘Master, I am at your command.’ And then, as if he could not help the words, ‘But if there’s any news of Minimus, you will send word to me?’

‘I will,’ I promised with a heavy heart, though I’d begun to fear that Minimus might, after all, be dead. Virilis was too cool a murderer to hold his hand, if my slave had proved to be a threat to him.

Junio must have read my feelings in my face, because as soon as we rounded the corner and were out of sight, he turned to me. ‘What is it, father? Something is amiss. Are you still worried about Minimus? I thought that we were fairly certain he was safe, even if he is a prisoner somewhere. And if you can prove what you’ve been saying, it should not be hard to get him freed. He was only arrested at Quintus’s behest.’ He paused, partly to cross the wider road, which after the recent rain was very sticky here, so that we had to pick our way across it on the granite stepping blocks, carefully positioned an axle-width apart.

When we reached the further pavement and were side by side again, he went on. ‘But, I suppose, they claim to have that purse and you don’t have any actual evidence of who the killer was. And Glypto, who might have been a witness, has been silenced now. And you can’t prove who killed him either.’

‘If they catch up with Virilis tonight, I think there will be circumstantial evidence at least,’ I told him grimly. ‘He won’t have had the opportunity to change his clothes, and I’m certain that there will be spots of Glypto’s blood on him — and on the dagger-hilt, though he will have wiped the blade. No doubt he’ll tell some story at the military inn — fighting off a bear or something — to account for it. That’s where strangling is so much easier.’

I was hurrying onwards as I said this, and Junio had to scurry to keep up with me. ‘But, Father, surely, if you’re right, the cursor won’t have left the town? He’s made two attempts to kill you and not succeeded yet. You would expect him to try again.’

‘He has done, Junio. Don’t you realize that? Twice today he has come to look for me — once when we were walking into town and later at the workshop. Looking back, we should have seen that it was strange. It is rare to see horsemen on that stretch of lane — I thought so at the time. Even a skilled rider like Virilis would avoid it if he could.’ A sudden thought struck me, and I almost laughed. ‘I suppose that’s why Hyperius was suddenly so keen that I should ride back to Glevum in his company. I imagine that Virilis put him up to it — it would have been much easier to attack me then.’

Junio nodded. ‘But he did not attack you when he passed you in the woods.’

‘There were three of us,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s what saved my life. And the same thing at the shop, though Virilis probably thought that he would find me on my own. Doubtless he discovered that we’d parted company when we first arrived in Glevum. Quintus saw me in the street with no attendant at my side — I met him when he was on his way to oversee the vote, and we know that he’d been talking to Virilis since then. The cursor had just come from the curia when he called on me, and the decurion had given him a letter under seal. He told me so himself. And that’s another thing which I should have questioned at the time! Why should Quintus suddenly send him to enquire whether I had a message for Marcus Septimus? Of course, he did not do anything of the kind — it was just a ruse of Virilis’s, made up on the spot.’

Junio nodded his agreement. ‘Considering the outcome of the ordo vote, you’d think, if anything, Quintus would try to prevent you from sending word. Though, of course, you hadn’t heard the news about Gaius Greybeard then. I do see what you mean. It does seem Virilis expected to find you on your own, but it’s hard to believe that he meant to strangle you. He was so charming. He gave no hint of it.’

We had almost reached the centre of the town by now, but I changed my route to avoid the enclosure where the forum was, and where, of course, the basilica and curia building lay. I did not want to meet Quintus anywhere.

‘Charm was the weapon he most relied upon,’ I said. ‘He certainly charmed Gwellia — and my patron too. You heard the glowing testimonial that Marcus gave to him. And as for hinting, I think perhaps he did. He told me that he had something for me when we could be alone. Something that I did not expect and was connected with my patron — all of which was true — except that the ‘something’ was a piece of twisted silk around my neck. I suppose it amused him to play games with his prey.’

I had to check my stride and step into the road. The pavements here were cluttered with stalls of every kind.

Junio, too, was dodging the displays. ‘Then we’ll make sure you always have someone at your side. But if you manage to have Virilis caught, there won’t be such a threat.’

I frowned at him. ‘Be careful what you say.’ Since we’d turned into this crowded area, I’d been avoiding names. Virilis was right. The town was full of spies, including, as he’d warned me, the ones I’d least expect. I wondered if he’d really, in the end, had some respect for me. It was a peculiar compliment, if that were true. I turned to Junio. ‘The man you speak of was an expert at his trade, if you can call it that. The deaths he meted out were swift and merciless. Let us hope that a different danger doesn’t face us now: a meeting with some other person’s gang of brutal thugs.’

‘You mean Qui-’ Junio left the decurion’s name unsaid. ‘Oh, dear gods, I hadn’t thought of that. You still think he’s behind this? And that Marcus is in danger too? I hope you can convince the garrison commander of all this.’

‘So do I,’ I told him. ‘We will soon find out. We are very nearly at the garrison.’ I brushed aside a trader who was offering me belts — ‘Finest leather, citizen. A special price for you!’ — and turned down a narrow lane, where we rejoined the main street that led towards the gate. I could already see the tower of the guardhouse block where the commander had his headquarters.

I was just hastening towards it, quickening my step, when I was halted by an imperious voice. ‘Citizen Libertus! Imagine seeing you. I had supposed that you would be busy with your pavement work today.’

I whirled round to see a curtained litter which had drawn up close to me, and the face of Quintus Severus peering out of it. ‘I am on my way to Pedronius’s house right now to admire your handiwork,’ he went on, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I hear it’s very fine. Perhaps if you are going there, I could save you the walk, though there is only room for one of you in the litter, I’m afraid. Or, if you are returning home, my slaves could take you there? They have nothing particular to do when they’ve delivered me.’

Junio, beside me, had stiffened visibly, but I tried to match the decurion’s mirthless smile with my own. ‘Thank you, councillor, but there is no need of that. I am only walking to the garrison. I have a message for the commander there.’

I saw momentary anxious puzzlement in his eyes, and an idea came to me.

‘Thank you, by the way, for sending Virilis to me. I have sent a message by him to my patron, as you suggested I might do, though doubtless it largely duplicates your own,’ I said, pausing to let my next words take effect. ‘But I’m sure that he’ll be anxious to learn the latest news — the result of the election was such an unexpected one.’

There was no mistaking now the look of doubt that crossed his face. I could see my ruse had worked. He must be wondering if his plans had gone awry, and Virilis was in the pay of Marcus rather than his own. After all, it rather looked like it. I was still alive and Virilis was gone, and Quintus could not know how I had learned about the vote.

‘Slaves, put the litter down!’ The smile had vanished now, along with all pretence that this meeting was polite. ‘And you, Hyperius, get that man into it.’

The stolid slave, who had been lingering on the other side, came round the litter and seized me by the arm. It happened so quickly that I did not resist and he might have managed to force me to get in, but Junio was a younger man and far too strong for him. He grasped the startled servant by the throat and pushed him violently. Hyperius fell backwards, spluttering on to the paving-stones.

‘Here! You two! What’s the meaning of this?’ There was a sound of ringing hobnails, and there was Scowler running up. His swagger stick was stuck into his belt, and he had drawn his sword instead. One of his companions was panting after him, carrying Scowler’s helmet and a dagger of his own.

By the time that Hyperius was on his feet again, Scowler had reached me. ‘Oh, it’s you again!’ he said.

Quintus leaned back in his litter, his face a mask of cool disdain. ‘I see that you’re acquainted with this citizen.’

Scowler gave a self-important nod. ‘I met him yesterday. You had us go and move a murdered pauper from his workshop floor.’

‘Exactly!’ Quintus gave me a triumphant, poisonous smile. ‘And there has been another murder at his shop today. So it will not surprise you that I am arresting him.’

Scowler looked doubtfully at me. ‘Is this true, citizen?’

‘That there was a body at my workshop, certainly. But I had no part in either of the deaths. On the contrary, I believe that the decurion ordered them. I had some information from the slave next door.’

The decurion turned purple. ‘But you can’t have had. This is preposterous. Why should I want to murder a pie-seller and a turnip-man? And who would trust the testimony of a simple slave?’

I gave him the best smile that I could conjure up. ‘Very likely nobody, decurion, it’s true. But how did you know it was a turnip-man? Or did you work that out from the description that your hired assassin gave? And, come to that, how did Virilis know that the first corpse had one eye?’

Scowler, who had placed himself between the two of us, bent towards the litter as if to wait for a reply.

‘I don’t know how he knew that,’ Quintus snapped impatiently. ‘He didn’t hear from me. I wasn’t at the workshop, as you may recall, until the pie-seller was dead, and even then I didn’t go inside. And he didn’t describe the turnip-man to me. You can’t implicate me in what Virilis may have said.’

‘But you do agree that it was Virilis who strangled them?’ I said. ‘Especially since he doesn’t deny that fact himself?’

It was a gamble. Of course Virilis had not denied that he was the murderer — nobody had taxed him with it up to now. But Quintus didn’t know that and I hoped that I could lead him to conclude something which I had already hinted at: that Virilis was secretly acting for Marcus all the time, and that he — the decurion — had been betrayed and duped.

But Quintus shook his head. ‘If he maintains I paid him to try to strangle you, he’s lying!’ he declared. ‘Trying to protect the man he’s really working for, I expect, and earn a lenient sentence by accusing me. He’ll be claiming I have dealings with the rebel bandits next, and that I am plotting to deliver certain people to their hands. Well, I deny it, do you hear! If Virilis planned that, he did it on his own. And as for this presumptuous mosaic-maker here. .’ — he was addressing Scowler, but he waved a hand at me — ‘he may not have been responsible for the murders at his house, but he attacked me earlier. Hyperius here was witness to the fact. Is that not so, Hyperius?’

The audacity of it took my breath away, but Quintus had already turned towards his slave. Hyperius was looking flabbergasted too, but after a long moment he inclined his head. ‘Certainly, master. Exactly as you say.’

I was about to protest my innocence, but Scowler already had his sword-point at my throat. ‘And when exactly did this incident occur?’ He did not look at Quintus, but kept on watching me as though I might somehow be tempted to make a dash for it.

Quintus leaned back in his litter, clearly satisfied, and made a vague gesture with his seal-ring hand. ‘Oh, just a little while before the ordo vote was held. I had just heard the bugle-call to tell us to convene. This fellow approached me at the door of my own home and threatened me with violence. Pushed me against a doorpost and banged my head on it. Hyperius saw it all. And even then he followed me to the basilica, shouting that I had his slave in custody, which I certainly did not! Crowds of people were witnesses to that.’ He favoured Scowler’s colleague with a winning smile. ‘And, of course, at that time I thought he’d committed the murders at his house. I didn’t know that Virilis had confessed to them. I simply knew that this man was violent, and guilty, at the very least, of iniuria atrox against a magistrate. I was planning to drag him before the justices. I was trying to arrest him when you came along.’

I had to acknowledge his ingenuity. The way he told the story, it did sound plausible, and no one was going to take my word against that of the chief official in the town curia. I would find it difficult to prove my innocence, especially if Hyperius was prepared to testify. Moreover, given that he’d made a proper charge, I was likely to be taken into custody for this, probably by the decurion himself — in which case some unpleasant accident was almost certain to befall me before I came to trial. And Virilis was getting ever closer to Marcus all this time. I could feel the cold sweat running down my back.

But Scowler had lowered his sword-point and stepped back suddenly. ‘I think you’ve misremembered, decurion,’ he said, putting his weapon carefully in its sheath again. ‘This couldn’t have happened at the time you claim. A moment after the ordo bugle blew, I was talking to this citizen myself. He was here at the gatehouse and there are witnesses. Your apartment, as I understand, is on the further side of town. He could never have got there in the interval.’

Quintus was glowering, but still irascible. ‘Then it was earlier in the day. Hyperius would know. I was so shaken that I can’t recall.’

‘But,’ Scowler said slowly, ‘he’d just come into town. I watched him through the gate. And — before you say anything else you might regret — I happen to know there was a bulla ceremony at his home today that didn’t end till almost noon. I heard that from the high priest who conducted it. It would not be difficult to prove it, I presume.’

There was a silence. Quintus had turned pink. ‘I still say he assaulted me. It doesn’t matter when. Perhaps I got the day wrong. I want him brought to trial. . if only for appearing in the forum in improper dress. There are certainly dozens of witnesses to that.’

I saw an opportunity and seized it instantly. ‘Then, soldier, you had better take me under escort to the garrison yourself. Put me under charge. I’ll appeal to the commander. I believe I have that right, and I would like to speak to him as soon as possible. I have some information he’ll be interested to hear.’

Quintus seemed ready to leap out of the litter and lay hands on me, but the presence of Scowler and his fellow soldier prevented this, of course.

‘I’ll make you pay for this,’ he muttered, as he pulled the curtains to. ‘I’ll find a way to prove you guilty, don’t imagine otherwise. And don’t suppose you’ll ever see your little slave again — I’ll make quite sure you don’t. Slaves, pick up the litter and take me quickly home. At the double or I will have you flogged.’

The litter jolted off. Scowler stood beside me as it vanished out of sight, with stout Hyperius panting after it. ‘I’ll have to arrest you, citizen,’ he said when it had gone. ‘I could have argued otherwise, but you agreed to it.’

I nodded. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘You may have saved my life. If I’d been forced into that litter, I doubt I would ever have got out of it alive. And I wanted to go to the garrison anyway. I meant what I said. I must talk to the commander as soon as possible. It’s vital that I do. We’ve lost too much time already, and there are lives at stake.’

Scowler pulled out his swagger-stick and scratched his head with it. ‘What’s all this about? Did that Virilis fellow really kill those men?’

‘I’m afraid so. He thought that they were me. That’s why he put them in my workshop afterwards. He took a lot of pains to put them there, too. That poor old turnip-seller you heard me talk about just now must have been carried halfway through the town, draped across his saddle in the growing dusk, wrapped in those hangings from the curia. The gatekeeper on duty when Radixrapum disappeared told me that there was nobody in sight, except an ox-cart — and a young man carrying a roll of something on his horse! That was Virilis, of course — that tallies with something that the market-trader said. I even saw the marks of the pommels on the corpse, though at the time I didn’t realize what they were.’

Scowler took his helmet and plonked it on his head. ‘I still don’t understand. Why has that decurion got it in for you?’

I shook my head. ‘There’s no time to explain. Take me to the garrison — and, Junio, you take a carrying litter and go, as fast as possible, to Pedronius’s country house. Get the youngest, strongest bearers you can find, and never mind the cost. I’ll see that they are paid.’

My son was boggling at me. ‘But I promised not to leave you!’

‘I’ll have an armed and armoured escort,’ I reminded him. ‘Being under guard has some advantages.’

Junio nodded. ‘So when I reach the villa, what am I to do? You don’t just want me to finish off the pavement, I presume.’

I shook my head and smiled. ‘You can tell the gatekeeper that it’s what you came for, if you like. That should ensure that he will let you in. Then find the steward and ask for Minimus. I think you’ll find he’s got him locked up somewhere in the place.’

‘What makes you think so? Something Quintus said?’ Junio was still havering. ‘And isn’t he intending to go out there himself? He said he was going to.’

‘Exactly so,’ I said. ‘Which is what makes me suppose that Minimus is there. That, and thinking through what happened yesterday. Though I can’t explain it now.’

‘Just a minute, citizen!’ That was Scowler now. ‘I have a vested interest in all this — you owe me a half-denarius if you find that slave today. So answer his question. Why do you think he’s there?’

I was impatient to be taken to the garrison, but one cannot argue with a sword. ‘Well,’ I said reluctantly, ‘I was called out to the villa on a false pretence: one of the garden slaves appeared and asked for someone to come out to the site. At the time I didn’t question it — I’d seen the boy before — so I hurried over, but Pedronius wasn’t there. I thought nothing of it — it happens all the time — but, on reflection, I don’t think it was chance. Normally, Junio, you would have been with me in the workshop too. So if there was a summons to do something to the site, and I was expecting an important customer, what would anyone suppose that I would do?’

‘Send me to do it,’ Junio replied. ‘But I was buying provisions for the bulla feast that day.’

‘Which Quintus — who would not dream of buying things himself — had not allowed for in his plans.’

‘That would have left you with Minimus all the same.’ Scowler observed, earning his name again.

I nodded. ‘They obviously had plans for diverting him as well, probably to carry something to the site, where he could be imprisoned and later charged with theft — I think they always meant to plant that purse on him. I believe that the garden-boy met up with Virilis, no doubt by appointment — he told me he had another errand to perform and he would have to let the cursor know the coast was clear. When Virilis heard I’d gone in person in answer to the call, and realized that only Minimus was left behind, he came up with a plan. It was so simple that it was spectacular. After a little while, he sent the garden-boy again, saying that there’d been an accident to me at Pedronius’s house and telling Minimus he was to come at once. But Minimus complicated things by trying to send a message home.’

‘So he did send the messenger after all?’ my son exclaimed.

‘A red-haired slave, exactly as described. And he gave the message to the garden slave, who seems, in fact, to have delivered it after he had spoken to Virilis again, though this time Glypto found them at the pile and heard him saying that “everyone was out” and, by implication, that the coast was clear.’

‘Dear Mars!’ said Junio, ‘So Minimus hurried to the villa, supposing you were hurt, but when he got there. . what?’

‘I imagine that the steward took him in and sent to Quintus for orders what to do. I’m sure that Minimus was there. The gatekeeper told me that he’d seen no visitors, except a slave in a blue tunic. I thought he was talking about a different one — a boy that I myself saw scurrying out — but I realize now he must have meant Minimus all the time. The steward was no doubt perplexed in any case — first I turned up and then my slave-boy did, when he’d been told each time he was expecting you. He had orders to detain you in the garden, I expect.’

‘So he knew all about it? The attempt to murder you?’

‘I doubt that very much. It would be too dangerous. He was just obeying orders, as he always did — he used to work for Quintus after all, and no doubt his former master retains him as a spy. The man was saving for his slave price, and I’m sure he’d just received a small donation to the fund. When I went back later on, I saw him counting it.’

‘So he was the one who locked up your little slave?’ Scowler was incredulous. ‘I heard he’d been arrested by a private guard.’

‘Well, in a sense he was, though doubtless it was Quintus who began that rumour too — just as he lied to me when he denied that he knew who’d taken Minimus.’

‘But wouldn’t the whole villa staff have known of this? Someone would have told you when you visited the house,’ Junio objected.

I shook my head. ‘Not necessarily. Pedronius wasn’t there, and the steward, in his absence, has full authority and controls the keys. In fact, when I went there the first time in answer to the summons that never was, I did not even see a door-keeper. The steward came out to me himself to tell me that my errand was in vain — quick thinking, since he was expecting you! With no one at the gate, it would have been easy for him to let Minimus come in and march him to some storeroom and turn the key on him. Quintus had really put a warrant out, of course, and the steward probably believed what he had been told — that the slave-boy was a thief — especially when Quintus later sent the purse, claiming it was evidence against the boy.’

Scowler was still scowling. ‘This is all speculation. You have no proof of it.’

‘I think you’ll find that it is what happened all the same. As I am hoping that Junio will find out — if he gets there before Quintus Severus, that is.’ I turned to the soldier. ‘Then you can have your half-denarius.’

A crafty smile spread over Scowler’s face. ‘I think we can arrange that, citizen, don’t you? We heard the decurion tell his litter-men to take him home. If we can delay him for a little while. .’ He turned to his companion. ‘Get over there at once. Say that the garrison needs a written charge from him regarding this assault. Make sure you slow him down. And don’t say who sent you or anything you’ve heard, or I’ll have you down the lead-mines as fast as you can blink.’

The soldier nodded and set off at a run.

But Junio was still trying to follow what I’d said. ‘So when Virilis knew the coast was clear he came back to the shop and lay in wait for you? He must have spent a long time hiding close nearby. He might have been discovered — that was dangerous.’

‘Not for Virilis. He hid himself by visiting the tannery next door, pretending to be interested in buying hides. The tanner told me he’d had a customer with a jewelled cloak-clasp, and, of course, the cursor had one with a ruby set in it. I only saw the implication when it was far too late.’

‘Speaking of lateness,’ Scowler’s voice broke in. ‘I’m due off duty soon. Besides, you are supposed to be under my arrest. Come along, citizen, or I’ll have to draw my sword.’

‘I’m coming,’ I told him and made to follow him.

‘But, Father,’ Junio bleated, ‘suppose that you are wrong? Or the steward just denies that Minimus is there? Or locks me up as well!’

‘The steward thinks our slave-boy is a criminal and that he is holding him until he can be tried. Tell him that armed soldiers are already on their way, to take Minimus into official custody,’ I answered. ‘I’ll talk to the commander and try to make it true.’

Scowler pushed his helmet back and scratched his head again. ‘If it’s worth another half-denarius, I will make it true myself. As I say, I am off duty soon. Give me a few minutes and I’ll follow this young citizen. I’ll bring the slaveboy back to the guardhouse, if we find him there. If we have a bargain, that is, citizen?’

‘We have a bargain, soldier,’ I told him thankfully. ‘You bring the lad back safe and I’ll pay twice as much.’

So I let him march me towards the garrison while Junio scuttled off to find the bearers and the chair.