Saviour of Rome

XIII

The road from Legio took him first south, then west. He set a fast pace, only stopping to water the mare and the pack horse, and to change the animals at a government way station beside the road. It was a substantial place, as was to be expected on such a busy route, with several paddocks and a shaded terrace for weary travellers to rest and eat. He ate bread and olives there, and drank from a flask of watered wine, relaxed, but his eyes never leaving the road back to Legio. The plain all around was blessed with few distinguishing features and by the time he remounted he was certain enough he wasn’t being followed.

As he rode, he considered what Marius had told him. Not much on the face of it, but the fact he felt the need to draw attention to what Valerius might expect in Asturica was message enough. Trust no one until they’ve proved themselves worthy of your trust. Naturally, for a man of Valerius’s experience, that led to the question of whether he could trust Marius. The courier had made no attempt to show the supposed letter from Pliny, which left open the possibility of a trick. Yet … there was something about the young man that made Valerius inclined to believe him. For one thing, behind the boyish naivety lay a core of something much harder: you didn’t become an Imperial courier if you balked at the first obstacle. In some ways, Marius reminded Valerius of Tiberius Crescens, the tribune who’d accompanied him on his journey to join General Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo in Syria. Tiberius had betrayed him in the end, but that wasn’t the point. It had been nothing personal.

He retrieved the scroll case the courier had given him from a sack tied to the saddle. Using his left hand and his teeth he pulled a roll of parchment clear and sat back with his leg hooked over one of the front pommels, allowing the horse to make his own pace. The contents both surprised and intrigued him. He’d expected one of Marius’s charcoal drawings, but it turned out to be something much more valuable. What he had in his hands was a detailed map of Asturia, with Legio and Asturica Augusta towards the east and the Lusitanian border in the south. Roads and rivers, mountains and bridges, but most significantly the sites of the region’s gold mines all defined in ochre. He studied it closely, taking in the changes in terrain and the little clusters of brownish dots. Where on this poorly cured piece of hide would he find what he was looking for? What was it he was looking for?

He was wondering whether he’d have to stop for the night after all when the dipping sun created a blood-red sky that silhouetted a low chain of mountains on the horizon. Thanks to Marius’s map he realized he must be close to Asturica Augusta.

An hour later he approached the walls of a city that lay squat and secure on a low mound overlooking a river. Like Legio, Asturica had most likely begun life as a military camp, but had evolved into a civilian settlement at the end of the Cantabrian wars. Its location made it the gateway to the mountains and the goldfields they contained. A position like this, dominating major trading routes, had made the city of Emesa in Syria rich, and Valerius didn’t doubt he would find something similar in Asturica. Unlike Emesa, though, the riches Asturica gathered didn’t stay in the city’s treasure houses. They were transported to the treasury in Rome. At least they were meant to be.

He pondered his next move as he rode slowly towards the gate. Logically, it would depend on the reaction to his arrival. He had an introduction to the leader of Asturica’s council, and another to the man Pliny had suggested might be able to help him find Petronius. On the other hand he was hungry, tired and travel-stained. If he wanted to reach the mansio before they shut down the fires for the baths and the kitchens he’d have to leave the introductions till tomorrow. On reflection he decided there was no hurry. The delay would give him the opportunity to check out the lie of the land. He slapped his horse on the shoulder and laughed. ‘It never does any harm to have a bolt hole in mind.’

Proculus’s warrant ensured there was no trouble with the watch and a gate guard directed him towards the south wall and a stable not far from the mansio. He paid a groom to look after the beasts and carried the packs with his belongings to the guest house as darkness fell.

Tired or not, he quickly became aware of his shadow. A single man, if his instincts were to be believed. Only time would tell whether he posed a threat. For the moment he was keeping his distance, content to dog Valerius’s footsteps. Still, from what he’d heard of the depth of corruption, and presumably suspicion, in Asturica it wouldn’t be a surprise to find a stranger being followed when he entered the city. For the moment there was nothing he could do about it. He checked in, took a bath – ensuring he always had company in waters well polluted by the previous occupants – and had a simple meal in the communal dining room.

Returning to the private bedchamber he’d paid for, he paused for a few moments listening for any follower. When he was satisfied he hauled the bed across the inside of the curtained doorway. He lifted the thin mattress and placed it on the floor in the corner of the room and lay down with his sword within easy reach of his left hand and the wooden fist securely strapped to the right.

No point in taking any chances.

The next morning he rose early and broke his fast with a bowl of thin gruel sweetened with honey, followed by flat bread and olives. He already wore his sword belt beneath his cloak, but in a mansio frequented by soldiers loath to be parted from their weapons it excited no comment. He finished his meal and left a coin on the wooden table. The kitchen lay at the rear of the room behind a curtained doorway and he walked quickly across and stepped through.

A slave tending flat breads in a shimmering oven looked up as he stepped into the kitchen. Valerius met his puzzled frown with a stare and nodded imperiously as if he were here to inspect the place. Three strides took him out of the back door, which opened on to a noisome yard filled with reeking buckets of slops, empty amphorae and the gutted remains of soiled mattresses. On the far side a wooden door led to the alley beyond.

He followed the alley until he reached a cobbled roadway that hugged the inside of the walls. This would once have been the intervallum, the road that separated the barrack buildings from the walls. Now it was home to stalls already filled with produce from the fields outside the fort, and workshops where entire families wove cloth, cobblers hammered new nails into the soles of worn sandals, and carpenters worked to smooth timber baulks. Turning north, he passed a factory where thousands of bricks were drying in the sun, and another where two small twin boys in ragged tunics watched wary-eyed for any cats that threatened to walk across the ochre roof tiles laid out ready for the kiln. Clearly this was a place that encouraged enterprise.

The reason became clear as he walked the increasingly busy streets. Every one seemed to have at least one ostentatious villa and often more, the homes of rich men who could afford the finest of everything. The complacent, stony faces of those same men stared at him from each corner. Uniformly firm-jawed, their expressions were designed to convey honesty, intelligence and toil, the painted marble smoothing away the unpleasant realities of the human existence and creating something close to a god.

Valerius studied one statue that dominated the square in front of a large ornate building complex. Dressed in a formal toga, the man had narrow, patrician features and stared across towards the columned frontage. A dedication identified the building and its benefactor ‘The Guild of Pipemakers set this up in thanks for the kindness, generosity and devotion of Cornelius Aurelius Saco, architectus, who financed and dedicated these baths in the first consulship of the Emperor Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus.’

Someone had chiselled a line through Vitellius’s name to indicate he was now in damnatio and deserved no honour, but it wasn’t that which drew Valerius’s attention. It struck him that Aurelius Saco must be a very successful builder to pay for something on this scale. Then again, perhaps Marius’s warning had made him overly suspicious and the man merely came from a wealthy family.

Another turn brought him to an enormous building site covering an area fully a hundred and thirty paces square. On the far side dozens of slaves and craftsmen worked on a columned portico that took up the entire length of the square. Closer to Valerius, others manhandled sections of fluted pillar towards a partially built but already impressive basilica. A line of statues lay waiting like a row of dead bodies to be raised to positions at the top of eighteen – no twenty – marble columns. He recognized one of them as the official image of Vespasian the Emperor had approved for the provinces, and he had a feeling a figure in a sculpted breastplate might be Titus.

The sound of a minor altercation on a street off the square drew his attention. A master was beating his slave with a stubby block of wood from the building works. At first it was of little interest. In Rome it wasn’t becoming to be seen beating your servants on the street, but this seemed proof that Asturica’s sophisticated veneer was only wafer thin. A moment’s study confirmed that the man being beaten was the same who had followed Valerius the previous night. Presumably the slave’s job had been to follow him this morning and he was now reaping the reward for his failure.

Valerius stepped into the shadows of a shop awning and observed the scene with greater interest. The person doing the beating was tall, thin, and sharp-featured, a stork in human form, probably in early middle age, while his victim was little more than a boy.

A man in a toga was passing by with a pile of scrolls in his arms. Valerius stepped out to meet him with a smile and a gesture with the fingers of his left hand that signalled a fellow lawyer. ‘Excuse me, sir, but I am new to Asturica Augusta. Am I to understand you are renewing the entire forum?’

The lawyer sniffed, not best pleased to have been prevented from going about his business, but constrained by good manners from ignoring another professional. ‘That is the case, sir, but I beg you not to include me in the project. The old one suited me well enough and I do not much like pleading cases in the temple precinct during the construction.’

Valerius nodded his understanding. ‘It seems that at least one person believes it is too slow.’ He gestured in the direction of the slave, who was now on his knees and bleeding from a scalp wound as the other man stood over him. ‘Is it usual for masters to beat their slaves in the streets of Augusta?’

‘Why, no, sir, it is not,’ the lawyer said stiffly, ‘but in this case it would not be technically accurate. Though I do not know his identity, I am acquainted with the fact that the person chastising the slave – I’m sure for the best of reasons – is in fact the secretary to one of our leading citizens.’

‘May I enquire the name of the citizen?’

The other man frowned. This was close to impertinence. Still, at least one of them had to show manners. ‘If you wish. The gentleman in question is a member of the ordo and magister of the guild of builders, Cornelius Aurelius Saco.’

The ordo, the council of one hundred, was the administrative heart of any provincial Roman town. Its members were elders of the property-owning classes and usually had substantial personal wealth. They acted as magistrates, set taxes, officiated over planning disputes and decided on water rights, but their authority was illusory. Real power lay with the duoviri iuri dicundo, the two senior members of the council. No decision could be ratified without their presence and they decided who was appointed to which court, and even which cases they tried. As Pliny had explained it, the system was ripe for exploitation in a place like Asturica. A plaintiff might bribe a certain friendly member of the ordo to take his case, but before that could happen part of the bribe would first have to travel upwards to ensure the duoviri appointed the correct person. It was one of the duoviri whom Proculus had suggested Valerius meet.

Normally the council would conduct business from a large room at the centre of the basilica, but Valerius discovered that because of the construction work Aulus Severus ran his little empire from his home in the east of the town. He changed his tunic for a toga and left his sword and other valuables in the mansio’s strongroom. His shadow stood hunched in a doorway down the street, more conspicuous now with his bandaged head and swollen eyes. Valerius felt a little sorry for him.

The slave was still some way behind when they reached Severus’s splendid house. A doorkeeper stood between the twin pillars to repel unwanted guests, but the seal on Proculus’s letter and a short exchange persuaded him to allow Valerius through the atrium and into a waiting area. The room had a polished mosaic floor depicting an alarmingly lifelike brown bear standing on its hind legs with its bloodied mouth open. Birds of different species pecking at grapes and nuts in a leafy canopy surrounded the central image. The workmanship wasn’t particularly fine, but whoever had designed the mosaic had done the subject justice. Valerius studied it until the waft of a particular scent told him he had company.

He turned to look into the eyes of one of the most striking women he’d ever seen. Her eyes, the aquatic green of a sunlit Aegean bay, seemed to strip him bare. Tall enough that she topped his shoulder, her dark hair fell in waves of tight curls and tendrils to a slim neck the colour of ivory. He barely registered the dress of bright red silk, cut low to show off the swell of her breasts. In Rome, she might have been mistaken on the streets for a courtesan, but this was not Rome and Valerius knew he was looking at the lady of the house. They studied each other for what seemed a long time before she smiled.

‘My husband is indisposed.’ She had a soft voice with a hint of affected sibilance. ‘I am here to entertain you till he is free.’

Valerius ignored the unmistakable hint of suggestion and returned her smile. ‘Then I fear I am going to be very poor company. I’m here on a business matter and I hope your husband can help me. I’m sure you are not interested in business.’

‘No,’ she admitted, her eyes still holding his. ‘But I would be happy to hear about Rome.’

The smile froze on Valerius’s face. ‘What makes you think I have come from Rome?’

‘Your courtly manners and the way you deal with a lady’s impudent suggestion.’ The full, reddened lips twitched. ‘But mainly the rather fine cut of your clothing. We are ardent followers of the latest fashions in Asturica. My dress, for instance, what do you think of it?’

Valerius knew a trap when he saw it and under those knowing eyes he decided he’d never faced a more dangerous one. The truth would never do. A lie would be instantly detected. Faced with no other choice he was forced into the soldier’s last resort, an orderly retreat.

‘I’m afraid I know nothing of fashion, my lady; all I can say is that such a dress has never graced a finer form.’

He thought he’d gone too far, but after a moment’s puzzled hesitation she laughed. ‘So I was right about your courtly manners. Let us see what else I can get right. You have been a soldier, I would guess.’ His left hand went up to touch the line of puckered flesh on his cheek. The right had been part-hidden in the folds of his toga, but he guessed she’d seen it, so he drew the wooden fist clear.

‘A memento of Britannia,’ he said wryly. ‘It happened when I was very young and I barely notice it now.’

‘Do not apologize for it.’ She took a step closer and the scent of her perfumed oil threatened to overpower him. ‘It makes you …’ He thought she was going to say interesting, but the word that emerged was ‘… distinctive.’

She took a step away and turned smoothly as a short, balding man enveloped in a toga appeared in the doorway behind her. ‘Husband.’ She bowed her head in welcome. Aulus Severus might have been her father, rather than her spouse. He had the wizened, irritated face of a newborn kept too long from its mother’s tit and a voice that dripped sarcasm.

‘My dear, I told you to take our visitor to the receiving room.’ His Latin, like his wife’s, had an over-quick sing-song quality. He turned to Valerius. ‘Sir, if what my atriensis tells me is correct, you will be desperate for refreshment.’ He nodded at the woman with a tight smile of dismissal. Valerius watched as she walked from the room with a swivel of the hips that would have done an Armenian veil dancer credit.

‘I arrived in Asturica last night, but I’m well rested. A little wine would be welcome, though.’

Severus gestured for Valerius to follow him through to another sumptuously decorated room with a pair of couches facing each other over a low table. He waved a hand to one and took the other as Valerius settled himself on his side.

‘My atriensis spoke of a letter of introduction from Tribune Proculus at Legio?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’

‘May I see it?’

It would have been good manners for Severus to formally introduce himself, but Valerius ignored the slight and pulled the scroll from the folds of his toga. The doorman appeared at his shoulder with his hand out for the document. Valerius handed the scroll over and the man passed it to his master.

Severus peered at the document through narrowed eyes as the atriensis held an oil lamp behind his head to improve the light. ‘If I read this correctly, Proculus informs me that you are a Hero of Rome,’ he frowned. ‘I apologize, sir. Aulus Aemilianus Severus welcomes you to his house. If only I had been informed of your status – the Corona Aurea, after all – I would have received you in a suitable style, rather than in this wretched fashion. We do things in the proper style in Asturica Augusta, you know.’

‘I apologize, sir.’ Valerius bowed his head. ‘In the circumstances modesty forbade me from making an issue of my position.’

‘But the protocol …? Zeno, bring us some wine.’ He returned to the letter. ‘He says you seek my help in some matter.’ A sniff and a little groan to let Valerius know what it was costing him. ‘Perhaps I should explain. My fellow duovir, Regulus, has been indisposed for several months and I carry the burden of running Asturica alone. Of course, we will do everything in our powers to bring your visit to a satisfactory conclusion, but …’

‘I would be very grateful, sir.’ Zeno placed a cup in front of Valerius and filled it. Then did the same for his master. Valerius took a sip and only just managed to suppress a cough. Experienced as he was in the rawest tavern piss, this made his eyes water. It tasted as if someone had marinaded a legionary’s foot wrap in vinegar.

‘And the matter is?’

‘I have a friend.’ Valerius cleared his throat. ‘An old army comrade. He saved my life in Armenia. I received a letter from Asturica Augusta asking for my help. Unfortunately, by the time I could reply it appears he wasn’t in a position to answer.’

Severus frowned. ‘His name?’

‘Marcus Florus Petronius. He was an engineer. I believe he was interested in your celebrated mining techniques.’

‘Of course,’ Severus preened. ‘We lead the world.’

‘But you have had problems?’ Valerius accompanied the suggestion with a puzzled frown.

‘What makes you say that?’ Suspicion and alarm combined to give the older man’s face an almost comical expression.

‘There was a suggestion in his letters.’

‘No, no,’ Severus assured him. ‘We have the same problems every mining area does. Collapses, mass asphyxiations, flooding, but nothing to be concerned about.’ He stood up and walked to the door. ‘I can assure you I will do all I can to find this fellow Petronius if he is in this city. As duovir it will be strange if I cannot track down his whereabouts. It may take a few days, but …’

‘I am happy to wait upon you whenever is suitable.’ Valerius took the hint and rose from his couch. ‘I’ve heard Asturica is a region of natural wonders and as a student of such things I am keen to witness them.’

‘Then I will send you a note. But wait, we cannot have a Hero of Rome staying in the mansio. The ordo keeps houses for honoured guests. Zeno will call on you and arrange your transfer.’

Valerius knew there was no refusing this offer of hospitality if he wanted Severus’s cooperation. ‘You have my thanks, sir.’

Zeno escorted Valerius to the door. Severus waited a suitable interval then summoned back the slave. ‘Now get me some proper wine.’

A familiar scent tickled his nostrils. ‘He seemed to impress you, Calpurnia. What did you think?’

‘I think he was lying.’