The Fateful Day

TWENTY-SIX

As Junio turned to leave us, Alfredus tugged my sleeve again. ‘Citizen,’ he said, ‘do you hear what I can hear? There’s disturbance in the town. If you wish to catch these people you must go at once — and your son must have a proper cart to take the servant in so you can have the mule to ride home afterwards. Don’t shake your head like that. I have an interest in solving this affair as well.’ His flat tone made the statement a more surprising one. ‘I’ve agreed today to underwrite a loan to Scipio for the purchase of the household items that I told you of. You know the law: “the buyer must beware”. If, for some reason, the purchase of the Egidius house was not what it appears, he stands to lose a lot of money — some of which is mine. If I had not helped you with the transport of your slave, I could only blame my ill-luck on myself for not obeying what the wise-woman advised. Accept my offer and let me do this to propitiate the Fates.’

Put like that, I could not well refuse. ‘In that case, thank you councillor,’ I said.

‘Vesperion!’ Alfredus Allius was decisive now. ‘Go to the hiring stables over there and arrange a cart. Have them bring it to the gateway here. The fastest one they’ve got. And a driver with it, as soon as possible. Tell them I will pay them twice the normal rate — double if they get it here before the tuba sounds again. Tell them to send help to load the bier onto the cart, and for good measure, they can take care of the mule until its owner comes to call for it.’

Vesperion looked startled, ‘But the stable-owner-’

‘Will do as he is asked for a curial magistrate,’ Alfredus told him, flatly. ‘And he will not try to cheat by asking an unreasonable sum. I can rely on my amulets for that.’ He touched them as he spoke.

I only wished I had his confidence, though, truth to tell, my own had sparked a useful train of thought. ‘Councillor, I can’t express my thanks for what you’ve done. I won’t forget it — but now I’ll have to go. You can still hear the noises from the town. If this goes on, they’ll put the soldiers in the street, and I won’t be able to find the men that I am looking for.’ I turned to Minimus. ‘You’d better come with me. I know you’d rather ride with Maximus, but I may have need of you.’

Minimus abandoned the mule to Junio and came trotting obediently to my side, then calling a farewell to Villosus — who was at his post again — I began to hurry back towards the city and the docks.

‘Don’t go without me, citizen!’ I turned to find Alfredus Allius hastening after me, rearranging his sombre toga into neater folds. ‘Vesperion will catch us — he knows where we’re going. He would be returning to the warehouse anyway.’ He fell into step beside me as he spoke.

‘You will accompany me?’

Alfredus looked surprised. ‘Naturally, I’ll come with you, citizen. You may need witnesses and as a councillor I can call out the town watch if they’re required. Anyway, as I say, I have an interest. And I am intrigued by what you say. I’d heard that you were clever, but I never dreamed of this. What made you so certain that the caller was Egidius?’

I made a rueful face. ‘I didn’t work it out until I’d heard about the heads — but looking back there were a lot of things which I should have noticed at the time. For one thing, there was the colour of his skin. I noticed it was reddened, but I did not think of sunshine as a cause for this. But if he was exiled on an island in the Inland Roman Sea, of course that would explain it perfectly. And he as good as told me that he had. He said he’d bought his servant as a boy “in one of the poorest islands of our sea”. I thought he meant the waters round Britannia, but I should have realised. Mare Nostra — our sea — is what the Romans call it, and that’s where Commodus always sent his exiles. No wonder Cacus has such golden skin.’

Alfredus nodded, not looking much impressed. ‘This is the best way to the docks from here.’ He led the way around the corner to the street which offered the most salubrious route down to the river quay. It was virtually deserted, the shops were closed and shuttered, entry doors were shut, and even the tavernas had no lamps alight inside. Our footsteps on the cobbles seemed unnaturally loud. It was positively eerie, the more so since — from the direction of the forum not very far away — there was now the muted but unmistakable roar of angry crowds. I glanced at Alfredus Allius but he seemed unconcerned.

‘So it was Egidius himself who sold the villa, after all? I suppose it would have been restored to him when he was pardoned, since it had not been sold before.’ I nodded ‘And he shrewdly turned it into gold and silver straight away. I saw the bracelets on his arm.’

‘I don’t suppose he cared to live in the old house himself. But it’s a legal sale.’ He sounded much relieved.

‘He wouldn’t have the money to repair it anyway,’ I said. ‘He only gets the part of his fortune which remains, and there was not much of that. It was all forfeited to the Emperor. That’s why one brother sold himself to slavery. And, of course, they blamed Marcus, who found against them in the courts.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t imagine why I didn’t wonder more about the gatekeeper who wasn’t there. But now I understand. They dressed him in the distinctive tunic the amanuensis wore — and you see what you expect to see, as your wise-woman said.’

The mention of the wise-woman caught his interest. ‘And the fact that the amanuensis had access to the house …?’

‘Of course, it made it easy for him to make the list. And he had constant access to Marcus’s writing desk. No doubt he stole the seal-ring — or had a copy made — and he, of all people, could construct the messages purporting to instruct the staff to load the goods. And I’m sure we’ll find he took the message to the land-slaves too — telling them to construct that useless woodpile and keeping them busy a long way from the house. Another forged letter which he could produce. Of course, they would believe that it was genuine.’

‘And you think he killed the slaves?’

‘Not personally, perhaps. He’d hired the thugs and carters — they may have done the job. It would not even be a very serious crime, if they thought they were working for the owner of the place. No doubt the carters thought the house was his — they don’t ask questions, provided they get paid, and some of Marcus’s treasure would have seen to that. He had a space under the pavement in his office-room, where he kept a money-box, and there was nothing in it when I was there today.’

We had reached the corner of the docks by now, and were about to turn onto the quay when the clatter of following footsteps stopped me in my tracks. In the unnatural silence of the empty streets the sound was ominous. I had not forgotten that my quarry was a murderer, and I pulled Minimus into the shadows of a portico with me.

Alfredus had more courage — or less imagination. He simply turned to face the follower. ‘Vesperion!’ I heard him cry. ‘You almost frightened us. Did you manage the business with the cart?’

The poor old steward was completely out of breath, but he managed to convey that the arrangements had been made, the mule was in a stall, and Maximus was safely on his way. He mentioned a sum which took my breath away.

Alfredus merely nodded. ‘I will see that it is done.’ He turned to me. ‘One more thing, citizen. What happened to the treasure and the furniture the brothers stole?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. There’s no sign of it in Glevum, so it didn’t come this way. I fear that you may discover you’ve paid for it,’ I said. ‘I think you’ll find it is the furniture that Scipio thinks he’s bought — the things that were alleged to have been stored elsewhere — which I suppose, in a peculiar way, is true. I’m almost sure you’ll find an elaborate travelling carriage in the stables too. They must have put it somewhere, and that’s the likely place. And of course Egidius senior wanted me to think that he was going to drive away in it, though he didn’t actually mention carriages. I think he takes a strange delight in saying things which are nothing but the truth — but which give the wrong impression to the listener. Look, here’s the tavern — you can judge that for yourself.’ And without waiting for an answer I led the way inside.

I don’t care much for wine shops, and this one less than most. The floor was filthy and the wine vats, set into the counter, were rimed with sediment. One or two customers perched on wooden seats looked up blearily as we came in, but to my dismay there was no sign of anyone I recognised. But it was too late to escape. The owner, a toothless ancient with an aimless grim, came lurching over to accost us instantly.

‘Can I assist you, gentlemen?’

‘I was looking for a customer,’ Alfredus rescued me. ‘I missed him earlier. I believe he came in here. This citizen has seen him, and can describe him properly.’

‘Fellow in a patrician toga, with an enormous slave,’ I supplied, without much hope.

The owner drooped one rheumy eye into a wink. ‘Busy at the moment upstairs, citizen. Which one were you after? The young one or the older gentleman?’

‘They’re both here?’ I exclaimed. ‘I was not expecting that.’

‘Been here all the afternoon — young one first and then the other one. Hope they’re going to pay the poor girls properly!’

I turned to Alfredus and Vesperion. ‘You realise what this means? I knew that Cacus had been looking out of your warehouse window-space, but I didn’t realise what he was looking for. Of course, they were waiting for the young one to get back — and no doubt he’s the one that Junio saw with Cacus on the dock. That explains one mystery. I was sure that Commemoratus was the one who called at our workshop when Junio was there, but he insisted that he didn’t recognise the man. Of course he didn’t — it was the younger brother he glimpsed the second time.’

The taverna owner paid no attention to my words. ‘Now, gentlemen, what can I offer you? It’s been quite a day for us. We don’t have a lot of patrician visitors, but suddenly today we’ve had a run of them. Watered wine, or ale, or our own special brew …?’ He waved a hand at his disgusting wares.

Alfredus turned to me. ‘I think that if the other men have gone upstairs, we ought to go ourselves. We don’t want them realising that we’re here, and dropping out of windows while we’re loitering downstairs.’

‘Upstairs, gentlemen?’ The owner gave us a delighted leer. ‘I’m not sure if there’s space. Most of the rooms and girls are occupied. There’s only Livia …’ He put his fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. There was a flurry on the staircase and Livia appeared — the plump and aging prostitute I’d noticed earlier. She’d taken off the toga and was wearing a stained tunic which did not enhance her charms. ‘You’ve got a vacant cubicle?’ he barked.

She was chewing on a stringy chicken bone, but she removed it from her mouth sufficiently to say, ‘Only the small one this end left.’

‘That will do nicely. We two will go upstairs and we’ll leave the slaves down here to guard the door,’ I told the astonished owner of the shop.

‘Here!’ he said loudly. ‘Two of you at once? There’s extra charge for that.’

‘It’s the room we’re after, not your mangy girls,’ I said. ‘We’ll go up there now. If there’s any problem, call the watch at once.’

‘Don’ need the watch,’ Livia said indistinctly, through a lump of chicken skin. She looked animated suddenly. ‘I got my soldier up there, though he’s half asleep. What’s this all about?’

‘We’ve come to get those purple-stripers who are here — they’re thieves and murderers.’

She stuffed the nibbled chicken inside her tunic top. ‘Blinking incomers — they think they own the place. Keep the proper customers away and won’t give a girl a quadrans for her time. What’s it worth to help you, citizen?’

I glanced at Alfredus Allius, who was looking dazed. ‘A sestertius says you get me in the room with them, another sestertius if we get them under guard.’

‘Done!’ She spat on her two palms and offered them to me. I realised this was a kind of contract, so I did the same with mine. She squeezed my fingers briefly and then leaned forward as if we were the only people in the room, saying softly, ‘It won’t be difficult. They’re in the big rooms round the corner at the back. They’ve sent the girls away into a single cubicle, and they’re sitting together in the other one, whispering, while the big slave’s standing in the doorway keeping watch. They think they can’t be heard but … come with me.’ She placed a chubby finger to her lips and led the way upstairs.

I was glad I’d not brought Minimus up here. It was a frowsty place, a row of little cubicles with ill-fitting doors with graphic illustration of the ‘skills’ available, and — judging by the one that Livia showed us to — nothing but a scruffy mattress and a bench within. Alfredus Allius had followed dutifully, but he was looking very uncomfortable indeed.

‘The others are just like this — round the other side. But put your ear here …’ Livia leant over against the wooden inner wall, as if to demonstrate.

I did as I was told. I could hear a muffled mumbling, but that was all. Any hopes of trapping the Egidius brothers in this way disappeared as quickly as they’d come. Alfredus Allius came to take my place, and then disaster struck. The bench-bed buckled and he tumbled to the floor, taking the outer door with him. He landed in the narrow passageway with a crash and an oath that rang across the dock.

The result was instant. I rushed out to help him, but he’d disturbed the house. There were shrieks and cries, and frightened faces peered from every door. The owner was already charging up the stairs and round the far corner came an enormous form. Cacus was standing on the landing watching me.

‘Great Dis,’ I heard him murmur. ‘It’s that citizen again.’

‘What is it, Cacus?’ It was Commemoratus, in his fancy cloak — utterly incongruous in this shabby place.

‘It’s Libertus, master. He must have followed us.’

‘Nonsense, Cacus. We saw him leave the quay.’ Commemoratus pushed the slave aside. ‘Dear Mercury, you’re right! It is the citizen. What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for the Egidius brothers,’ I said, evenly. ‘To accuse them of theft and of murdering several slaves they did not own. I’ve brought a curial magistrate to witness it.’ I gestured to the shadows at my feet, where Alfredus Allius was picking himself slowly from the floor.

Behind Commemoratus another man appeared. In this light it was difficult to see, but he was clearly younger — and as Festus had declared — his skin was pasty white. And he was burly — almost big enough to be a gatekeeper. But the wise woman was right — in his striped toga and elaborate cloak I would never have recognised the hunched amanuensis that I’d seen at work.

‘Citizen Libertus!’ His voice was dangerous. ‘I told my brother we should have killed you straight away. I’ve heard so much about you from your patron that I knew at once that you were dangerous. If we’d only run you over when we met you on the lane … But my brother wasn’t sure that it was you at all.’

‘And you did not want to draw attention to yourselves by leaving corpses on the road,’ I said. ‘Your intention was to disappear. No one was ever going to look for you — you were supposed to be among the dead. And you almost got away with it. If I hadn’t happened by, it would have been tonight, at least, before the bodies of the slaves were found. And no one would make a connection with a Druid grove.’ I saw a flicker of surprise. ‘Of course, you did not know that some children found your so-called sacred oak while they were collecting firewood today. Unfortunate for you. You must have hoped that by the time the heads were found they would be so decayed that nobody would recognise the features anyway. As it is …’

‘I told you we should have burnt those stupid heads.’ Commemoratus turned on his brother angrily.

‘And I told you to bring Libertus back out to our own villa where we could dispose of him. I knew he would bring trouble if we let him live.’

‘I did my best. I couldn’t help it if he wasn’t at his workshop when I called. And you did no better — you went to find him afterwards, and all you did was kill a slave!’

I felt myself go pale. ‘It was you who killed him! And now I’ve proof of it! Your brother has admitted it in front of witnesses.’

The huge form of Cacus detached itself from the surrounding shadows. ‘What witnesses are these? Who do you think is going to live to tell the tale? Don’t stop me, master — this is the only way. It was such a perfect plan. By the time the deeds were known you would be far away — and we made sure you had an alibi for every incident. Whatever people thought, there was not the slightest proof. And no one knew your brother was involved — the amanuensis was dead, apparently. You had got the gold and we would all have got away — even selling Marcus’s own treasures with the house. It was perfect vengeance for what they did to you.’

‘No vengeance is enough. Justice would never bring my other brother back,’ his owner said.

‘So you devised a symbolic vengeance of your own — by hanging that poor gatekeeper?’ I said. ‘Hanging, as your brother had once hanged, in the front entrance to your own house — is that right?’

‘You may be clever,’ the younger brother cried. ‘But that won’t save you now. Let me have this one, Cacus — you can kill the rest — but I’ll slit his throat with that same knife his servant tried to use on me. On me!!! Because I asked him what his master knew — and then he wouldn’t tell me, though I shook him till his teeth were rattling in his silly little head. Even then he got away and went up the ladder like the fool he was — and after that it wasn’t difficult.’ He laughed, a crazy laugh that made my blood run cold. ‘And now we’ll see his master follow him.’

He made a lunge towards me and I saw the knife blade gleam. He was a big man, big enough to change clothes with a gatekeeper — far too big for me to stand a chance. I closed my eyes and tried, as a last resort, to decide which way to jump. There was a sudden rushing from between my legs, and I sat down heavily just in time to see a small form hurtle at my assailant’s knees. They buckled under him, and the man came tumbling down on top of me. I just had time to grasp his arm and force the knife away — and realise that the blood that covered me was not my own at all.

I rolled aside and let the body tumble down the stairs. It made a dreadful noise and a still more dreadful mess. I heard the taverna owner shrieking in the street, ‘Send for the town watch! The army! Anyone!’

I looked up, expecting to find an angry Cacus bearing down on me. But to my surprise the slave was backing off. The scruffy-looking soldier that I’d seen on the quay was holding Commemoratus in a practised lock with a drawn dagger pointed at his throat.

‘One move from you and the patrician’s dead,’ he snarled. Cacus looked uncertain. It seemed ridiculous. He could have smashed the soldier with a single blow — but his master would have died, and some ancient loyalty prevented him.

‘Take that, you horrible great man!’ That was Livia, furnished with the plank of broken wood. She raised it high and brought it down with force — not on the giant’s head, but on his crotch. Cacus doubled up and moaned in pain.

After that, things seemed to happen all at once. Several of the customers who had been watching this — not certain what was happening, but happy to join in — overpowered Cacus and bound him with a chain. Then, summoned by the shrieking, the town watch arrived, and shortly afterwards two soldiers hurried in, demanding to know what the disturbance was.

Alfredus Allius — who had hobbled to safety in the cubicle — reappeared and ordered the arrest of the Egidius brothers and their slave. He would personally bring a case against them in the courts, citing the crimes of theft and unlawful servicide — for both of which there were substantial fines — and wearing a patrician toga without entitlement. The amanuensis, as he afterwards explained to me, had sold himself to slavery and not bought his freedom back — obviously, since he was apparently a corpse — and therefore had forfeited the right to Roman dress. For a slave to wear a toga was a capital offence.

It wasn’t important. The erstwhile amenuensis slave was dead and the knife that had killed him was my patron’s own. It had been stolen from my workshop after Maximus was killed — for wielding that same knife in my defence. I had the concrete proof that I’d been looking for that the younger brother had been the killer of my slave. Between them, the watch and soldiers took the body off, and marched the others off to custody,

When they had gone, the girls came creeping down — including Livia. I slipped her the coins I had promised her. ‘It’s thanks to you I found them here at all. You told my son that Cacus and his master were inside.’

She shook her head. ‘I said, “You’ll find Cacus and his masters in there” — meaning both of them. Your son misunderstood. But everybody in the house knows what has happened now, and several of the “customers” will bear witness to the facts if you’ve a few more spare sesterces to encourage them!’

I nodded. ‘That could be arranged. And here’s another coin for you if you’ll take a message for me to an apartment in the town. It’s over the wine shop near the public baths — the biggest apartment, anyone will know it. Tell the slaves their mistress will be returning soon, and I’ll send a more detailed message later on.’

She tried the coin with her teeth and, satisfied, she hurried off with it and the taverna owner and his slaves began to clear up the blood. Alfredus was still talking to a member of the watch, who had stopped to take a statement and preferred the councillor. He was talking animatedly about the trouble in the town and how the soldiers subdued the crowd and were guarding every street.

I sighed. I clearly wasn’t needed here. I called to Minimus, who was winded but otherwise unhurt, and with the aid of old Vesperion I got him to the gate, put him on the mule in front of me again, and took him slowly home through the encroaching dark.