The Germanicus Mosaic

Chapter Sixteen

‘What now?’ Junio said, as Andretha scuttled off in search of the barber.

‘I want to go and look at this roundhouse I told you about,’ I said. ‘We have time to do so. Lunch will not be served early. Marcus has not breakfasted yet, if he is still awaiting his shave.’

Junio grinned. ‘He may regret having a shave, with a blunt novacula.’

‘All the same, it gives us an opportunity,’ I said. ‘We will try taking that little rear path to the lane, from the nymphaeum. I am interested to avoid Aulus, if I can.’

It seemed we had succeeded. The path down from the spring was more difficult than I had anticipated — steep, uneven and overgrown. It was obviously not much used, although from the broken twigs and grasses it appeared that someone else had used it, and very lately. At the bottom it was particularly treacherous, half-blocked by broken branches, as if they had been deliberately placed there. I needed Junio’s assistance to clamber over them. The path did, however, bring us down into the lane.

There was no sign of Aulus. Part of my intention was to see how easily a man could escape his attention, so, motioning to Junio to follow, I slipped into the trees on the opposite side of the lane, and made my way among them until I was sure we had safely passed the gates and were out of view down the main lane. There was no real path here. It was treacherous ground, damp and muddy, and we were forced to struggle among thick branches, roots and clawing undergrowth. I was thankful I was not wearing a toga. In full armour, I thought, this would be impossible. Another promising theory had to be abandoned.

A little further on, though, we crossed the lane and struck out again in the direction of the old road, up to the roundhouse. There were signs that someone else had been this way — and recently. Branches were broken, bracken trodden, and there was a faint parting of the grasses as if they had been bent aside as someone struggled through. Someone small and light, I thought. Even a girl perhaps.

‘I have been thinking,’ Junio said, rather breathlessly, when we had fought our way back on to the old lane again, ‘do you suppose that Andretha had a hand in this killing, after all? He is more scheming than I thought, and he had a lot to gain from Crassus’ death. At least he may have thought he did.’

I looked at Junio, thoughtfully. ‘Go on.’

‘Suppose he had a plan with Daedalus? Daedalus is to imitate Crassus in the procession. Crassus agrees, for a wager — the missing stake money may have been arranged between them — but during the march Andretha takes his master away and poisons him. He doesn’t visit the moneylenders at all. Maybe he met his master by appointment; Crassus would have to hide somewhere during the march. Once Crassus was dead, both slaves would have their freedom, provided that it was clearly impossible for anyone in the household to have killed him.’

‘And how did the body get to the villa?’

‘I have thought of that. We know no horses were hired after the procession, but during the procession — no one has asked about that. On a horse a man would have time to return here, hide the body in the hypocaust and get back to Glevum before the rites were over. But suppose Daedalus cheated him, or simply took fright and ran? That leaves Andretha with a hundred denarii missing, and no chance of his own freedom. Andretha cannot do more than report a missing slave; that would draw too much suspicion to himself. But certainly he is anxious to find Daedalus.’

I nodded. ‘That is possible,’ I said. ‘Yes, certainly it is possible.’

‘But. .?’ Junio said, looking crestfallen.

‘It might be a little conspicuous, galloping across the country with a dead centurion across your saddle,’ I pointed out.

‘Then perhaps they both came here alive, but only Crassus rode. That would make sense. If Andretha walked here and rode the horse back, he would not have to pay for the hire, either. Crassus would have done it.’ He stopped. ‘Though I suppose there would be scarcely time, especially if he had to return the horse. He had to be there in time to shepherd the others onto the cart.’

He sounded so disappointed that I felt moved to say, ‘All the same, you reason well. That is why I wanted you to look at this roundhouse. Here it is.’ I added the last words as we turned the corner and Junio saw it for the first time.

It looked more ruinous than ever. I saw it suddenly through Junio’s eyes: a collapsing, pathetic old straw hut, hardly more than a hovel. No wonder Crassus had kept his pigs in it.

Junio looked at it thoughtfully. ‘That was someone’s home,’ he said.

There are times when I recognise why I love that boy.

I told him all I knew about the place, and showed him the piece of scale-armour from my pouch. ‘I found this here,’ I said.

He took it from me and turned it between his fingers. ‘It must have come from Crassus’ shirt. See how the hole has broken away where it was sewn or riveted to the cloth? That proves that Crassus came in here before he died.’ He caught my eye and amended himself. ‘It proves that Crassus came in here. Or at any rate that his armour did.’ He grinned. ‘Is that better reasoning?’

‘Somebody’s armour did, at any rate,’ I said, and his grin broadened.

‘What other soldier would it be?’ he said, playfully. ‘You don’t believe in Aulus’ conspiracy, do you? Although he did say that the roundhouse was used for “other purposes”. Shall we look inside? We may find something else.’

He led the way, turning up his nose at the fish heads. The stink seemed to have become worse than ever. He looked at the bloodstain and the fleas, but apart from that we found nothing, although we spent a long time searching.

At last he kicked over the little pile of rotting bedding. ‘That piece of scale-armour must have come from Crassus. I wonder what he was doing here? Checking on his property perhaps. I don’t believe what Aulus said. Rufus and Faustina might have come here “for other purposes”, but I can’t imagine that any soldier ever did. How would they know about the roundhouse? They wouldn’t go up and down this lane, when there is a perfectly good gravelled one not a mile away.’

I did not have time to answer. With the perfect timing of a spectacle in the amphitheatre there was the sound of hooves passing in the lane. More than one horse, too, and moving at a fair pace. Junio shot me a startled look and hurried to look out of the door-space. A slow, reluctant smile spread across his face.

‘Well?’ I said, straightening up painfully. I had been examining the bedding.

‘Soldiers,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know how many, I only saw the last one before he turned the corner. But several. Cavalry.’ He grinned again. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I would think you had arranged it, simply to prove me wrong.’

‘I wonder what they are doing here,’ I said. ‘I am sure Marcus would have mentioned it if he was expecting them. Perhaps we should go back to the villa. He will have had his shave by now, and there is nothing more to be discovered here. I found this.’ I showed him a hairpin which I had picked up from the floor.

Junio grinned. ‘So there has been a woman here!’ He examined it for a moment. ‘Fine metal — too fine for a slave. No, it isn’t Faustina’s after all. Very well, I admit it. Aulus was right. So now we know what our soldier was doing in the straw!’ He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘Regina’s, do you think?’

‘It could well be.’ I too had been struck by the workmanship. ‘I think it is.’

Encouraged by my find, we resumed our search with fresh enthusiasm, but we discovered nothing.

‘Poor woman, whoever she was,’ I said at last, swatting at a biting flea. ‘This can’t have been a pleasant love-nest. Unless the fleas came here later, on the pigs. Perhaps they did. We don’t know if Crassus kept his hogs here before or after Regina left.’

‘I keep forgetting about Regina,’ Junio said. ‘I wonder where she is? She is an expert on poisons, too, of course. Listen! What’s that?’

He hardly needed to ask. It was the sound of hooves. From the other direction this time, and only a single horse. I looked at Junio. He looked at me. The horse stopped, there was the sound of dismounting armour, and footfalls at the door.

We stood facing it together, like a pair of naughty schoolboys awaiting the paedagogus. The cavalryman seemed to fill the narrow doorspace. He ignored Junio and spoke directly to me. ‘You are Libertus, the pavement maker?’

I gulped. If Marcus had sent for me, there would have been a formal message, greetings, repeated verbatim. I did not like the sound of this. A thousand petty misdemeanours floated across my memory. The time I had helped myself to a couple of carrots from an army supply cart on the road, the night I lied my way past the sentry at Glevum after the gates were shut. Had my favourite joke against the garrison commander somehow come to his ears, or (I felt my heart sink through my sandals at the thought) had Governor Pertinax suddenly fallen from Imperial favour? If he fell, Marcus fell, and then I too could expect to be hauled off to Glevum in disgrace. Or had Marcus simply finished his shave and become impatient of waiting? I found my voice. ‘I am Libertus.’

‘Citizen. You must return to the villa at once. There is something which they think you should see.’

Better, but not good. Who were ‘they’? If the man had meant Marcus he would certainly have said so. Being messenger for the great confers status of its own, as I knew myself.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I am coming. Help me to the path, Junio.’ Under cover of leaning on his arm, I slipped the armour scale and the hairpin into his hand. If there was trouble, I preferred to have my evidence in safe keeping. It was much quicker returning down the lane, and it seemed a very short time before we were back at the villa gates.

There were five soldiers in all; the other four were waiting with their horses just beyond the gate. I was about to speak when Aulus came hurrying out to meet me, wearing an air of conspiracy even more overpowering than he was.

‘A word, citizen.’ He drew me aside, away from my escorting cavalryman.

I allowed myself to be shepherded to a verge under the trees, where Aulus bent forward, towering over me, and whispered urgently into my ear. The smell of sweat and stale beer was staggering. ‘I hope that I did right, citizen, in telling them where you were. I know you meant to be alone.’

I braved the odours to look him in the face. ‘How did you know where I was?’

‘I saw you come down the back path, earlier, and go into the trees. I thought at first you were looking for Paulus. When you didn’t come back, I guessed you had gone to the roundhouse.’

That answered my question at least. It was not easy to get past Aulus.

He gripped my arm. ‘Then the soldiers came, asking for Marcus. They had orders to report in person, but I said that you were working for him, and he would be angry if you were not informed at once. He knows they are waiting — he will be here himself in a moment — but he doesn’t know what they have brought. Better that he learns it for himself, and I thought you should see it first.’

‘See what?’ I said, although I had a sinking feeling that I knew.

Aulus gestured towards the waiting men, and I saw for the first time that there was an extra horse. It was tethered to a tree, with something long and heavy strapped across the saddle, something roughly wrapped in hessian but still dripping from either end.

I strode towards it, trying to look as much like Marcus’ agent as I could, dressed as I was in a simple tunic, with dirty straw in my hair. ‘Let me see it,’ I said, imperiously. ‘I am a citizen.’

The soldiers looked at one another doubtfully.

‘On Marcus’ orders,’ I said. That worked. The soldier who had escorted me stepped forward and pulled away the wet, coarse cloth.

It was a man, or it had been a man, once. The head and hands dangled gracelessly downwards, the legs hung limp and awkward in death.

‘Found him in the river,’ the soldier said, grasping the short, curly hair and lifting the head upwards to reveal the face. ‘The armour would have pulled him down anyway, but the cloak was weighted with stones. We would not have found him if we had not been ordered to search. I don’t know if it is the man you want — the rats have been at him as it is.’

The water-swollen face was too gnawed to recognise, but I moved forward and, slipping my hand under the arming-doublet and the scaled tunic, I found what I sought. I brought out the chain, and read aloud the inscription on the tag. ‘“If found, return to Crassus Claudius Germanicus, for this is a fugitive slave.” This is the man.’

‘I am sorry, pavement maker,’ the soldier said. ‘We did not look for name-fetters. He seemed to be a soldier, not a slave. He has no helmet, though he might have worn one once. The currents there are fierce. No weapon either.’

‘There was a dagger at least,’ I said. ‘In his back.’ It did not need me to say so; the dreadful bloodied rents told their own story. This man had been stabbed in the back, several times from the look of it, and thrown into the river afterwards.

‘He was robbed, too,’ the soldier said. ‘See where the purse has been cut from the thong? Strange, it seems to have been a civilian pouch, slung underneath the scale-shirt. That is awkward to manage. A soldier usually wears his purse under the wristpad on his arm.’

Junio was beside me, and he looked at me, his eyes shining. ‘So,’ he said, ‘that is why Daedalus did not return. It might be, then, as I suggested.’

I silenced him with an eyebrow. ‘We shall see. But look, here comes Marcus now, and Andretha with him. And still unshaved. That will not please him.’

But Marcus was, in fact, looking extremely pleased with himself. ‘Ah, Libertus, my old friend. There you are. I have been hoping to speak with you.’

I had kept him waiting. He was in good humour, but it was not wise. I said, hastily, ‘Humblest apologies, excellence. I was delayed about your business. These men have made an important discovery. They have found Daedalus.’

Andretha, who had been bobbing like a salmon in his wake, followed my gaze and let out a stifled sound. ‘Dead?’

‘And robbed,’ I said, and watched his face turn whiter. Junio did well, I thought, to suspect Andretha, but the steward had not known that Daedalus was dead, I was sure of that.

I do not know what I was expecting Marcus to do. Thank the soldiers, perhaps. Be surprised. Be interested at least.

In fact he gave a cursory glance at the lifeless bundle. ‘They have done well,’ he said, ‘but it hardly matters now. The man was only a slave. As well for him he was not found alive, impersonating a soldier. But since he is dead already, he is beyond our power.’

‘But excellence,’ I said, ‘the question of Germanicus. .’

He interrupted me, holding up his hand with an air of lofty indulgence. ‘Ah, yes, the murder of Germanicus,’ he said. ‘You have done your best for me, as usual. But this time, it seems, my methods are superior to yours. The matter is resolved.’

‘Resolved?’

‘Indeed.’ Marcus tried, and failed, to keep the triumph from his smile. ‘While you were out this morning. Rufus has confessed.’