The Ghosts of Glevum

XVII

I knew who the tablet belonged to from the elaborate ivory carving on the box, but in any case it was tied and sealed — with what I recognised as the impress of Julia’s seal-ring on the wax.

‘Cilla gave you this last night?’ I asked, unable to believe that Julia had sent a message to me, and I had spent the night asleep on top of it.

The old woman nodded. Now that she had it in her hand, she seemed reluctant to part with it. ‘Perhaps I should. .’

‘This was meant for me,’ I said. ‘I was to meet Cilla in the lane, and obviously her mistress meant that she should give me this.’ The old woman was still looking doubtful but before she could protest I took it from her, slipped my finger underneath the tie and burst the seal. You could almost hear the silence in the room.

Julia’s inimitable style — full of misspellings and a complete feminine disregard for the rules of Latin prose. The message, however, was disturbingly clear. My friend if you receive this be warned they are looking for you too there is no hope for marcus though I have tried to buy him out they let him send one letter that is all they claim they have found a document sealed with his seal which shows that he was planning to dispose of praxus so that romnus could take over his command and lead a revolt against the emperor I don’t believe this if its proved I’ll take poison myself and kill the child. I sank down on the bedding with a groan.

‘What is it, citizen? Bad news?’

I nodded. ‘The worst.’

I meant it. Until now, despite what common sense might say, I had been trying to persuade myself of Marcus’s innocence. However, if evidence like this existed, I would have to revise my views. Romnus was a name I vaguely knew — I was sure that I’d heard Marcus mention him, quite openly, though I could not now remember what the context was. I take little interest in military affairs. But if I had heard it, others would have heard it too, including several of the household slaves, and no doubt the torturers would soon learn of it. That would look black for Marcus at his trial. Certainly there would have to be a trial — something which up till now I’d half hoped to prevent, preferably by providing some explanation of how Praxus died and getting Mellitus to withdraw his murder charge.

But this changed everything. My informants at the garrison had been right. There was a charge of conspiracy against the state. It now seemed inevitable that the whole affair would be transferred to Rome. Of course, that had always been a possibility — Marcus was far too highly born to be tried by any local magistrate, and every Roman citizen had the right to appeal to the Emperor. But the crime of maiestas was particularly serious. Even if Governor Pertinax had still been in Britannia, a case like this would still have gone to the Imperial City for the Emperor himself to arbitrate.

And it was no use hoping for any clemency. Commodus had a high opinion of himself — as any man must do who thinks himself a god, and has renamed the months and even Rome itself in his own honour — and was commensurately ruthless with his enemies, or those he believed to be his enemies. There was no shortage of candidates. Commodus imagined there were plots against him everywhere, so if any real evidence of conspiracy was brought he always made an example of those responsible.

Nothing was likely to save my patron now, short of some supernatural intervention by Jupiter himself, as Julia’s despairing letter clearly recognised. Marcus might be permitted — as a concession to his rank — to choose his mode of death, so that he could drink a draught of poison in his cell, or fall on his sword like a gentleman instead of having his head struck off by the executioner. On the other hand, Commodus might chose to make a public exhibition of his death: several of his former favourites had been hewed to death or dragged around the city on the hook. Or, if Marcus proved too popular with the crowds — which, given his lineage, might well be the case — he was likely to die of some mysterious illness, or be ‘murdered by an outraged member of the populace’ before the case was heard.

‘Your patron?’ Sosso was at my side, frowning at the tablet in concern.

I knew he couldn’t read a word of it, and for a moment I was tempted not to tell him what it said. Once Sosso knew the facts, I thought, that could well be the end of any cooperation from the gang. If — or rather when — Marcus was found guilty of this crime, all his goods would be forfeit to the state. That would leave me penniless and Sosso was not a man to work without reward. However, I knew it was impossible to keep this to myself. Julia had already heard the news, and if it was official all Glevum would know of it by dawn.

I sighed and read the letter out to him.

As I did so, I tried to calculate. What would Julia and the child do now? Marcus’s various estates, his forests and his farms, his luxurious apartment in the town, the villa and all his other worldly goods, would be forfeit to the Imperial purse. No doubt that was another reason why Commodus was so keen to prosecute his wealthy enemies.

Sosso listened in silence as I read. Out of deference to Julia I decided to omit her last remark about taking her own life. I put the tablet down. ‘She says she does not believe it,’ I concluded. I braced myself, expecting him to burst into a rage, now that my promise of money was unlikely to be met.

Sosso astonished me. ‘We’ll work fast, then.’ I had been expecting him to refuse to help at all. My surprise must have been written on my face because he grinned, baring his blackened tooth-stumps again. ‘Won’t get our four denarii otherwise,’ he said.

He was right, of course. Julia still had money. The property in Corinium was not under threat. That house and its estates belonged to Julia herself — she had inherited it in her own right from her previous husband and had brought it to this marriage as part of her dowry settlement. So Marcus had only the legal ‘use and profit’ of it, not the ownership, and it was exempt from seizure if he fell from grace. That meant that Gwellia and Junio were safe, for the moment anyway. The realisation almost gave me hope, and I began to think constructively again.

I got slowly to my feet. ‘Wait!’ I said — he was already halfway to the door. ‘Give me a chance to answer this. If you can get into the villa, you can give her my reply.’

He nodded, frowned, then shrugged lopsidedly. ‘Make haste, then. There’s no time to lose.’ He broke into his ungainly run and loped outside. I heard him calling, ‘Lercius!’

I turned to the woman, ‘Is there a stylus here?’

For a moment she looked mystified. ‘You can use anything you see,’ she said, stretching her toothless gums into a smile as if she wished to be of help.

I realised what a stupid question it had been. Of course there was no stylus in a house like this. I looked around for ways to improvise. There was a wooden stick the woman had used for mixing up her stew. The end was rounded and I used that as a flattening edge to erase the letters and smooth out the wax. Then, using a thin stick of kindling as a point, I made a mark. It worked. I could scratch a few words of reply.

I looked up. The woman was watching me with awe as though I were a conjurer doing tricks. ‘Surely you’ve seen letters written before? You must have seen scribes in the market place?’ There were usually a whole row of them squatting on the pavement by the wall: tattered and disagreeable old men who will read and write anything for a fee — not very accurately, from what I’ve seen of them, but I suppose that those who cannot read or write themselves are hardly in a position to complain. It did mean, however, that being literate was not usually regarded as something akin to sorcery.

‘I’ve seen the men who do it, citizen, but I’ve never seen it done,’ the old woman said, and moved herself to get a better view — so close that I could hardly write at all.

There is never a lot of room on a wax tablet, especially a decorative one like this, and it was intimidating writing under scrutiny, even by somebody who couldn’t read. Nevertheless I outlined the position as succinctly as I could, including the embarrassing request for cash. Then I folded the two hinged frames of wax back together and tied the cord again. I even went to the length of making an impromptu seal of my own, by holding Julia’s seal above the fire until the wax began to melt and then pressing my thumb into it across the knot. Then, leaving the old woman goggling, I went outside to find Sosso.

I found him standing with the kindling-man.

‘Got to get rid of that,’ Sosso was murmuring, gesturing towards the cart. I realised he was referring to poor Golbo’s head, which to my great relief they’d covered up again.

‘I suppose we could put it with the body in that pit,’ Molendinarius suggested. ‘Cover it up with branches or fill it in with earth.’

In the light of Sosso’s previous haste, it seemed an odd time to be discussing funerals, but I was glad that somebody had thought of it. Golbo deserved that dignity at least. But I had views on how it should be done.

‘A good idea,’ I put in hurriedly. ‘But let’s do it decently. Wrap him up and make some offerings of bread and water, so that he’s provided for on his journey to the underworld. Golbo was slave in a Roman house. He would have wanted that.’

He would have wanted a good deal more, in fact. Even slaves in Roman households worry about their funerals. Doubtless Golbo, like the rest of Marcus’s servants, had paid his dues to the slaves’ funeral guild so that even if his master died and failed to provide he would still be entitled to a proper pyre, with priests and sacrifice. Of course, if that happened, the ceremony would be shared with other slaves from Glevum who had died that day, and the ashes would be buried in a common tomb, but the appropriate sacrifice would be made and the spirits of the dead would rest.

Molendinarius looked at Sosso. Sosso shook his head. ‘As he is. With the rest of him. In the pit.’

‘I’ll come and help you dig one a little further off,’ I persisted. I am not superstitious about burial itself, but I didn’t want it right beside the house. For Gwellia’s sake, if not my own, I didn’t welcome the idea of poor Golbo’s ghost haunting my roundhouse for ever, looking for his missing skull.

Sosso shook his head again and drew a finger across his windpipe in a gesture that said more than any words.

The firewood-seller spelt out the message for me in his wheezing voice. ‘He means it would be dangerous. You can’t go to the house. Those guards won’t have given up, just because they didn’t find you yesterday. They’ll be back — you can be sure of it. You go back there and start digging pits and you’ll get yourself arrested, sure as Jupiter made thunderbolts. I’ll take care of it. .’

Sosso interrupted him. ‘See to it.’

The man nodded. He took up a few rough armfuls of kindling from his pile, and stacked them on the handcart with his stump of a hand, so that the bag with its grisly contents was concealed. Then he set off lurching down the path again. I was surprised how easily he’d accepted Sosso’s authority. He was clearly an obstreperous old man, but here he was obeying orders like a new legionary recruit.

Sosso grinned horribly at me. ‘Promised him a share of our reward,’ he said, as if to prove that — although he couldn’t read a written word — he was adept at reading thoughts. ‘Right, it’s time! Lercius!’ He gave a whistle and the boy came running up. Sosso turned to me. ‘You coming?’

I nodded, though I really had no idea at all what lay in store. I opened my mouth to ask, but Sosso shook his head. ‘No talking now. Too dangerous. Follow us. Keep close behind.’ He set off, loping in the direction of the woods with Lercius scurrying at his heels.

In my still weakened state they were too fast for me, but I limped after them. I saw them, to my astonishment, abandon the little path and slip in among the trees. I hoped Sosso knew what he was doing. Perhaps Molendinarius had told him where to go. I hoped so. He was not familiar with the area, yet he was striking out with confidence towards the deepest stands of trees, as if all the local rumours of marauding wolves and bears had no more truth in them than the political scandal at the barber’s shop. I followed him reluctantly. I have never encountered anything more violent in these woods than a shrew, but I’m still cautious when I am off the beaten track. At least, for once, I could smile at the idea that there were cut-throats and robbers about. I knew it was true: I had brought them with me.

As the thick trees closed around me, I heard the old woman call.

‘Citizen!’ she pleaded in a wavering tone. ‘You have been ill. You should be resting.’ It was true that I still ached in every limb, and I hesitated, almost tempted for an instant to go back.

Sosso paid no attention, either to her or to me, but simply went on walking deeper into the trees. He was limping grotesquely as he always did, but he chose his route with skill, moving so lightly that he barely bent the grass or left a footprint in the fallen leaves. Anyone attempting to follow him would have a hard task to pick up his trail. Lercius was swift and noiseless too, and I felt clumsy as a bull as I stumbled after them.