Requiem for a Slave

Three

I was still staring after them when I heard a noise behind me, and I turned round just in time to see the candle-maker from the tallow factory next door. He had opened his street-gate a crack to watch the litter leave and was about to slam it shut again, but I was too quick for him. He was a surly fellow, but he might have seen something which would throw light on events, though if he had information I would have to pay for it. I shouted out to him, ‘Candle-maker, have you seen my slave at all? Or anybody calling at my shop this afternoon?’

He was always unneighbourly, and I would not have been surprised if he had ignored me and gone away inside. However, he simply scowled and shrugged. ‘Your slave was here an hour or two ago; I haven’t seen him since. As for customers, I have no idea. I’m far too busy with my own affairs. Why ask me anyway? It isn’t my business to look out for yours.’ He went in and slammed the door, leaving me standing in the middle of the road.

I stayed there a moment wondering what to do. Quintus intended to notify the authorities and have them move the corpse, but I wanted to speak to Lucius’s mother first, if possible. And I wanted urgently to try to find my slave. However, I still had a dead man lying on my floor and I did not feel able simply to leave the place.

I could not even reasonably use the time to work, although I had a commission to accomplish fast. I hadn’t quite finished the Apollo plaque, and it was urgent that I did, since it was more than possible that the superstitious Pedronius would decline to pay if he learned that it had been in the company of a corpse. What’s more, I would be particularly dependent on the money from this job if the contract for Quintus’s pavement was to be annulled.

If only we had taken the mosaic yesterday, when Junio and I had laid the mortar base on which it was to sit! There was only half an hour’s work, at most, to finish off the piece — all that was missing was a border at one end. It would be possible to fix the mosaic into place today — before any rumour of the murder got about and awkward questions started to be asked — if I could only get it there, but I did not have a handcart that I could move it on. Junio had borrowed ours to fetch the numerous supplies that would be wanted for tomorrow’s naming feast.

It was doubly frustrating since I knew from my abortive visit to the villa earlier that the tax-inspector was now likely to be absent several days and could not possibly have heard about the death. But although the plaque was very near complete, glued upside down on to its linen back, and I had a terracotta tray prepared that I could move it on, I could not take it anywhere without a cart — not even from the shop into the street, where at least I could argue there was no question of a curse. Besides, I could hardly go inside my shop and do what was required with Lucius’s body still on my heap of edging tiles. Neither could I leave him till the army came.

If only I had Junio at my side just now!

‘Important-looking customer you had this afternoon!’ The speaker made me jump.

I turned to see the turnip-seller I had noticed earlier. He was a regular visitor to the area; a round, rough cheerful fellow with a stubbly beard and a brownish tunic smeared with earth and clay, which, together with his wide body and oddly skinny legs, gave him a marked resemblance to the wares he sold. People called him Radixrapum — ‘turnip root’ — though never to his face: a man who regularly wielded a spade and pushed a heavy barrow round the streets for hours was likely to be fit and handy in a fight.

Radixrapum flashed his snaggled smile hopefully — I had occasionally bought a turnip from him in the past. ‘That fancy cloak and private carrying-chair! Must be someone wealthy. Hope he paid you well.’ It was clear what he was hinting: that I could spare an as or two.

I shook my head. ‘I lost my contract with him, I’m afraid. There’s been an accident.’ I was about to turn away when a thought occurred to me. ‘You usually come here earlier than this. Have you been up and down this street previously today?’

‘As a matter of fact, I came by twice before,’ he muttered with an embarrassed grin as if I’d accused him of something untoward. ‘I was hoping to find you.’

‘You haven’t seen anybody else outside my shop this afternoon?’

He thought a moment and then said doubtfully, ‘No one that I can think of, except that red-haired slave of yours. He was here the first time I came — that would have been an hour or two ago.’

‘You are quite sure of that?’

He nodded. ‘Fairly certain. Of course, I wasn’t taking any special notice at the time, and there are always lots of people moving to and fro — street-vendors and messengers and clients for the various businesses — but nobody near your workshop in particular. I would have noticed that, I think, because I was looking out for you. But you weren’t here, of course.’ He did the grin again. ‘I decided to go on into town and come back later on. And when I did come back, I saw the litter and realized there was no point in calling while your customer was here, so I went off round the corner and waited until now. I’m trying to sell these last few turnips so I can go back home.’ He gestured towards the barrow. ‘Very good for soup.’

I shook my head again. ‘I shan’t be buying turnips to take home today,’ I said. ‘There’s been a tragedy. Lucius the pie-seller — do you know the man?’

His round face puckered into a thoughtful frown. ‘I think I know the one. Fellow with an awful burn-mark who only has one eye? Grey-haired chap who sells the dreadful pies?’

‘Used to sell them,’ I corrected. ‘I’m afraid he’s dead. I found him in my workshop. Someone’s murdered him.’

The turnip-seller whistled. ‘Murdered? Well, I’ll go to Dis! Poor old Lucius! He was harmless. Who’d want to murder him?’

‘That is what exactly I am trying to find out.’

He looked at me. ‘Of course, you’re supposed to be clever at this sort of thing. Will you be able to catch whoever did it, do you think?’ He tapped his forefinger against his stubby nose. ‘Oh, now I understand. That’s why you were asking if I’d seen anyone. Well, I will think about it a bit more carefully, and if I remember anything, I’ll be sure to let you know. And, of course, if there’s anything else that I can do to help. .’ He was already turning as if to move away.

I prevented him by saying thoughtfully, ‘Well, in fact, there might be something you can do.’ I saw his startled face. ‘It’s nothing difficult. I want to find his mother and break the news to her. Would you be prepared to stand watch here for me? It doesn’t feel decent to leave the poor man lying there alone, and in any case the military might come to take the corpse. That decurion who was here said he’d ask them to do that. Someone will have to be here to meet them when they come.’ He was looking doubtful, and I added instantly, ‘I’ll give you half a sestertius if you’ll stay here while I go.’

‘Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure that I’m very keen on keeping vigil for a corpse. Particularly a murder victim whom I scarcely knew.’ But he was clearly weakening. Turnip-selling was not a very profitable trade, and a half-sestertius is a handsome bribe. The promise of a silver coin was far too good to miss.

I pressed my advantage. ‘And perhaps I’ll even buy a turnip too. But you must make up your mind. Will you stay here while I go and tell his mother what’s occurred, in case there are arrangements for a funeral? She’s only at the bake-oven, not very far away. But I’ll have to get there quickly, because if I don’t find her very soon, the army will be here and the body will be gone.’

‘And she’ll never have the chance to say goodbye or close the eyes. I know how much my wife would grieve if our son was lying dead and she could not perform those simple services for him. Very well, I’ll do it — to oblige you, citizen. Half a sestertius, I believe you said?’

‘Half a sestertius, when I get back again.’ I didn’t want him running off while I was gone. ‘But, on second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll ask his mother to come and close his eyes. They’re bulging from his head. Someone has pulled a cord around his neck. He doesn’t present a very pleasant spectacle.’

The turnip-seller had that doubtful look again. ‘Well, perhaps you’d better close them yourself before you go. They say that’s where the soul gets in and out — and we don’t want it coming back. I suppose you’ve called his name, and lit a candle at his head and feet?’

Of course, I had done nothing of the kind. ‘I scarcely had the time,’ I said, with more asperity than I really meant. ‘In any case, as far as candles go, I didn’t have the means — someone has blown the lamps and tapers out and let the fire go cold, and I don’t have any tinder in the shop just now. I was going to get some embers from the neighbour’s premises.’

‘Well, I tell you what, citizen,’ the turnip-seller said. ‘You go and get them, and get the candles lit — I’ll stay here while you do it — and then I will stand watch. I wouldn’t want to do it otherwise: you hear how ghosts get restless if the earthly body isn’t treated right, and come back to haunt the place and people where they died. But if you’ve done everything that you could do for him, it would be different. Even if the army put him in a pit, some of the rites will have been properly observed, and there’s less chance of his spirit coming back to haunt.’

I nodded. It was not a nonsensical idea, even if I was not afraid of meeting Lucius’s ghost! I could tell his mother that something had been done, and it might make the ritual cleansing afterwards a less expensive task. Besides, it would give the poor pie-seller a bit of dignity.

‘Very well,’ I conceded. ‘I’ll go inside and get something to put the embers in. While I am about it, I can close the eyes.’

He gave an enthusiastic nod. ‘And call his name three times, the way you’re supposed to do.’ Any minute now he would recommend that I put a coin for the ferryman underneath the tongue, but he did not do that. Instead, he said, to my immense surprise, ‘In fact, while you’re about it, why don’t I come in too? Then you have a witness that you did it properly. And I’ll know exactly where to show the soldiers when they come. Or is the body too horrible to contemplate?’

I realized suddenly what I should have seen before: that he was consumed with curiosity but far too superstitious to go in on his own. Perhaps he was also worried by my description of the corpse. I said, to reassure him, ‘It isn’t pleasant, but imagination often paints things more dreadful than they are.’

He didn’t answer, just nodded brusquely and followed me inside.

I wondered for a moment if he would turn tail. The body looked more gruesome than I’d remembered it, and the smell of greasy pies, mingled with stale sweat and body wastes, seemed to be even more pungent than before. But the turnip-seller seemed less affected than I thought that he would be.

‘You are quite right, citizen,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You see worse sights beside the roads — executed criminals and that sort of thing. This is much less horrible than what they do to highway thieves.’

I nodded. Crucifixion is an awful death, though it didn’t seem to deter the rebels in the forest very much. The Romans did their best. Those few bandits who were rounded up and convicted of their crimes were strung up in prominent positions by the road, so that their tortured bodies would be a grim warning to the rest. Lucius, by comparison, had died a speedy death.

I went over to the body, and Radixrapum followed me.

‘Obviously strangled, as you say, citizen,’ he said, examining the bloody neck with curiosity. ‘But no sign of the cord. You don’t suppose he might have hanged himself? Someone might have cut him down and brought him here, perhaps? Your young servant could have done it and then gone to seek for help.’

It was an attractive theory, but I shook my head. ‘Look at where the cord was tightened.’ I pointed to the place. ‘You can see that the force was clearly back and down. If he had been hanging — or had hanged himself — obviously the greatest force would be from overhead. Besides, if someone had simply cut the body down, why would they remove the rope from round its neck?’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I expect you’re right. Will you be able to force the eyelids shut?’

In fact, I was not at all convinced I could, and I was squeamish about touching that one protruding eye. I compromised by seizing a piece of linen cloth nearby — intended as backing for a piece of work — and binding it around the head to form a bandage, as embalming women sometimes do. The body was getting noticeably stiffer now, and I was glad to lay the purple face down on the tiles again. With the blindfold on, it did not look so bad. I got up, breathing heavily. ‘No question of the soul finding a route back that way now.’

‘Aren’t you going to call his name?’ the turnip-seller asked. ‘In case his spirit is still somewhere nearby?’

I was quite sure that the soul had fled some little time ago and I was not anxious to encourage it to come back again. ‘Don’t you think I ought to go and find his mother first? Suppose that Lucius did not hold with Roman rites? He looks more like a humble Celt to me — or he might have been a follower of that Jewish carpenter, or Mithras or Isis, or some other modern cult. They all have their own customs when dealing with a death.’ As I spoke, I made a point of washing my own hands, very carefully, in my water bowl.

The turnip-seller looked reproachfully at me. ‘Anything is better than being picked up in a cart and flung into a pit with no rites performed at all. Call his name, pavement-maker. It falls to you, if anyone. It should be done by the senior person in the house. Well, you’re the senior here. I am just a freeman, and you’re a citizen. Besides, this is your workshop, and it will be you he haunts if you don’t do it right.’

Perhaps it was this last thought that made up my mind for me. I am not an adherent of Roman rites myself — I make the required sacrifices on holy days, of course, to Jupiter and the pantheon, and the Emperor as well (it is never wise to alienate a deity, just in case), but I am more inclined to venerate the older gods of tree and stone. However, I have witnessed the ritual enough to know what I should do.

The window space was already open — as the rite demands — so I took a deep breath and stood beside the corpse and cried in a loud voice, ‘Lucius!’ It occurred to me that I didn’t know if he had another name, so I added ‘The pie-seller’ to be doubly sure. There was — mercifully — no answer, so I repeated it twice more.

‘There now, citizen. We have done all we could,’ the turnip-vendor said in a prosaic tone, though I noticed that he’d flattened himself against the wall as I called on Lucius’s name — presumably lest he should impede the spirit’s path. Now, though, he was smiling cheerfully. ‘You go and get the embers and I’ll stand watch outside.’

I picked up an oil lamp and a copper bowl. ‘I will go to the tanner’s and see if they will let me light the lamp, as well as have some embers to start the fire again. Then we can set some tapers round the corpse. Besides, I can ask the tanner some questions while I’m there, in case he noticed anything unusual this afternoon. I’ve already asked the candle-maker on the other side.’ The tanner might be less churlish with his answer too, I thought.

Radixrapum nodded. ‘It would be a good idea. When I was here before, I saw someone with a donkey at the tanner’s gate, unloading hides. They might have noticed if anyone else was in the street.’

‘I’ll ask them,’ I agreed, though I would scarcely have much time for questioning if I wanted to reach the pie-house before the soldiers came. I turned to Radixrapum to say as much to him, but he was already on his way outside and there was nothing for me to do but follow him.