The Ghosts of Glevum

XXIV

Sosso was waiting when we reached the little roundhouse in the reeds. He looked so pleased and cunning, squatting in the smoky firelight beside the central hearth, that I felt my heart begin to stir with hope.

‘You have something for me?’ I demanded.

Sosso looked warningly towards the woman and the boys, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. All of them instantly withdrew.

‘Money first,’ he grunted. ‘Five facts. That’s five sestertii. That’s what we said.’

In fact it was nothing of the kind, but as usual with Sosso it was hard to disagree, especially when he took that rough knife out again, and began to clean his fingernails with the point of it. I understood. It was not a threat, exactly, simply a reminder that the knife was there.

I thought quickly. ‘I’ll pay you one fact at a time — that way I can decide if it is worth the fee,’ I said. I slipped my fingers into my makeshift purse and held out one sestertius.

He stretched out one misshapen arm and seized the coin. Then he threw back his head and produced that strange low owl-cry which I’d heard before, and a moment later Lercius came stooping through the entranceway, followed by Parva and Cornovacus.

I started. I had not seen anyone as I approached. No wonder these people of the shadows had earned the nickname ‘ghosts’. Sosso gave his blackened grin at my discomfiture.

‘Parva,’ he commanded, and the girl edged closer to the flames so that the flickering fire lit her face, while the others took up station by the door. ‘Speak!’

The pock-faced girl seemed to hesitate, but Sosso shook her roughly and she launched into her tale. ‘Your pardon, citizen, it is only what I heard from the soldier who’d been on guard at the gate.’

‘The villa?’ I said eagerly.

She shook her head. ‘The south gate of the town. Of course he was off duty by the time he talked to me. I’d arranged to meet him after it got dark under one of the arches near the market place — a sort of business arrangement, you understand.’

I nodded. I understood too well. Of course the girl had no licence from the town authorities, and was therefore acting outside the law. Her client should probably have been in barracks at that hour, too, but doubtless his colleagues on the watch could be persuaded to turn the other way. All the same, it was a risk. If Parva had anything to tell, she would have earned her money — more than once.

‘He was the kind that likes to stand there gossiping,’ Parva went on. ‘They’re not all like that — most of them want to do what they do, give you the money and get away, but one or two of them are different. They’ve left some girl behind, perhaps, or simply miss their homes and families and welcome an opportunity to talk. Others, like this one, simply want to boast and tell you what important men they are. Sosso always likes it if I make them talk — in case there are snippets we can pass on to Grossus, for a price.’

I glanced towards the ugly little dwarf, who was nodding judiciously.

Parva went on with her tale. ‘Anyway, I’d had dealings with this one before. He’s not too bad — a bit rough and inclined to bruise me, but he pays. And talks. He seemed a likely source of information on the garrison, so when I saw him on the gate I sidled up and let him make an assignation there and then.’

‘Never mind all that. Get on with it!’ Sosso was impatient.

Parva glanced at me with anxious eyes. Poor girl, I thought. She had been pretty once, and the thin body underneath the skimpy tunic showed only the first signs of womanhood. She would be lucky if disease and want allowed her to attain her twentieth year. ‘Go on,’ I said gently.

‘I listened to him bragging about this and that, and then I asked him outright what he knew about your patron in the jail. Of course it is the gossip of the town, so he was not surprised at that. I flattered him, and said I bet he knew a thing or two. So he told me. Most of it was only what we already knew: Marcus was first arrested on a murder charge and has appealed to the Emperor, but after that his villa was searched and a treasonable document has come to light — under a seal which he owns is his. So the charge was altered to conspiracy and all his property is under guard.’

‘And will doubtless be impounded by the Emperor once the trial has taken place in Rome,’ I said bitterly. ‘Unless we can avoid that in some way.’

She made a sympathetic face. ‘It may be sooner than you think, too, citizen. The magistrates have sent a messenger to the Emperor, and Marcus will be following in a day or two. There’s a suitable ship in Glevum dock. It came with olive oil and is almost ready to set sail again. When it does the prisoner and his guard will be aboard.’

I gulped. This was new information, and made things desperate. Once Marcus had embarked for Rome, there was precious little anyone could do.

‘Is he well treated?’ I could not help but ask.

She shrugged. ‘I presume so. He comes from a wealthy family, after all, and of course he is a Roman citizen. It would be more than the commander’s life was worth to let him come to any kind of harm, and no doubt he still has the wherewithal to pay for privilege. He was permitted to send a letter home, I hear — no doubt that was to ask for food and clothes.’

Of course, the letter that Julia received would have been longer than the extract which she’d quoted to me. Doubtless Marcus had requested some little luxuries as well as informing her about the second charge. But surely. .? I frowned. ‘Once that telltale document was found, I thought that communication was prohibited? Why did they allow a private letter to be sent?’

She shrugged. ‘Presumably the commander read it first. That’s usually the custom, so I’m told. I’ve heard of it before. A wealthy prisoner writes a letter and has it authorised — and the guards often sneak a look at it as well, since most of them can read. They laugh about the kind of abject things that people write.’

‘But what if it was sealed? He had his seal-ring with him.’ It distressed me to think of Marcus’s message being sniggered over by licentious soldiery.

‘It wouldn’t be — not unless some special arrangement had been made. Anyway, my informant tells me that his ring has been taken from him — it is to be used as evidence, it seems, to prove that it matches the seal on the document they found. Your patron might possibly have managed to send sealed letters home, being as wealthy as he is, if this was a simple murder case — but now that there’s conspiracy alleged. .’ She tailed off.

I knew what she meant. As I said before, the Emperor sees plots everywhere. ‘So his seal-ring was taken and his letter would be read?’

She smiled assent. ‘According to my customer, it was. He didn’t know exactly what was in it, though — he wasn’t there in person when it went. I don’t know who did see it, but I could possibly find out. Do you want me to go back and try again?’

I shook my head. I had simply wanted to find out if Marcus had used his seal-ring on that note. It seemed that he had not. I knew what the letter said. At least I thought I did. Come to think of it, I had only Julia’s word for that. Could she be trusted, in the light of what I knew? Perhaps, after all, it would be wise to check. ‘What about the messenger who delivered it?’ I said.

Parva was looking dubious. ‘I don’t know if he read it, citizen, or indeed if he could read at all. It wasn’t a proper military messenger. It was a slave — and not one I’ve had any dealings with.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘I do have the occasional client who’s a slave, of course, but mostly they haven’t got the cash. Sometimes, if they get an as or two in tips, they come to me — they can’t afford the licensed prostitutes — but even then they’re always from the town. They don’t come in from villas miles away.’

I stared at her. ‘You are telling me that the slave who delivered the letter came from the villa?’ In fact, I remembered vaguely, someone had spoken of a ‘slave-messenger’, but I’d not seen the significance of the word. ‘One of Marcus’s own slaves? You’re sure of that? How did your customer know that, if he wasn’t present at the time?’

‘Oh,’ Parva said lightly, ‘he didn’t tell me that. I heard it from. .’

Sosso stepped forward, interrupting her. ‘Different information. Another sestertius, citizen, I think.’

I had forgotten his presence in the room, but I would have parted with the aureus to hear the rest of this. I took out another coin and pressed it in her hand. ‘You heard it from. .?’

She looked enquiringly at the dwarf, who nodded his permission for her to go on. ‘From one of those two lads up at the other gate the other day. They were complaining because it was so dull out there: nobody had come or gone since they arrived, except one silly handmaiden who kept wanting to go out for remedies and lady Julia’s special messenger. Nobody from outside the house at all, they said, so it was very tedious to be on guard. Better to be on fatigue duty in the garrison, the younger one said — at least cleaning the latrines was something active to do. Then you turned up with your fertiliser cart.’

I thought of all the different ways in which we’d had communication with the villa in the last couple of days, and understood why Sosso smiled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I said.

Parva met my eyes. ‘You’d heard about the letter from your patron’s wife — and you have spoken to her since. I didn’t know it mattered who delivered it. It’s the same messenger that she has used throughout.’

Julia had spoken of a messenger who took letters to Corinium and back. Someone with the freedom to come and go. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? ‘I wonder who it was?’ I muttered aloud.

Cornovacus unwound himself from his post beside the door, and stepped towards the fire. He jerked his head at Parva, and she scuttled off into the darkness, clasping her money to her breast.

‘I can answer that, my fancy friend.’ His eyes were glittering. ‘Soon as I see the colour of that coin.’

I took out a sestertius, but he shook his head. ‘Worth more than that, I think.’ It was outrageous, but I had no choice. I looked at Sosso, but he didn’t look at me. He was picking at his fingernails again.

I offered a denarius instead. Cornovacus tried the coin in his teeth then nodded as if satisfied. He must have put it somewhere, but I didn’t see it go. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. I got it from that twitching friend of yours — the one you spoke to near the fish market.’

‘The military secretary with the tic?’

‘That’s him. Crept up behind him in an alleyway and forced him to tell me what he knew. Said I had seen him taking bribes from you and threatened to denounce him to the garrison. That frightened him enough, but when I said I knew what he got up to with unlicensed prostitutes, I thought the wretch would twitch himself to death. Offered me money straight away, so I knew I had him then. Sosso was right.’

‘My suggestion.’ Sosso grinned in answer to my glance. ‘Thought he might be’ — he paused — ‘persuadable.’

‘He talked like Apollo’s fountain after that, non-stop burbling. Mostly it was all about this messenger — it was one of the slaves arrested at the feast. They had him in for questioning and then they let him go. I don’t know exactly how it was arranged, and neither did your frightened little friend — he couldn’t tell me, even when I picked him up and shook him like a leaf — though he thinks that sums of money were involved. All I know is, someone intervened on his behalf — that would be your patron, I presume — and the garrison commander agreed to let him go, explicitly to ferry messages, under penalty of being burned alive if he made any effort to escape, or didn’t turn up if wanted at the trial.’

Freeing a potential witness in this way is most irregular, of course, but somehow when it was explained to me like this it didn’t surprise me in the least. In fact, it accorded with what Parva had just said. Any wealthy prisoner would attempt to buy what privilege he could. And Marcus was a very wealthy man. ‘So Marcus managed to bribe the prison governor to let him send a message to his wife — with someone he could trust?’

Cornovacus shrugged. ‘I suppose it meant that military messengers were not involved, if there were any questions later on. Even the accusers were persuaded to agree — Great Mithras, it must have been a whopping bribe! Although Procurator Mellitus doesn’t like it very much. He’s keeping a close watch on the messenger, and insists that he’ll produce him at the trial — but your patron’s very gratified, of course.’

‘So it was convenient to everyone.’

‘Pluto only knows! Money opens doors, that’s all I know.’ Cornovacus had produced the denarius again, and was fingering the silver coin as he spoke, twisting it between his fingers like a conjuror. ‘And the slave had already given what evidence he had about that wretched banquet — not that it amounted to a whore’s dowry anyway. Now that this famous document has come to light, what happened on the evening of the feast doesn’t really matter a moneylender’s curse.’

Legally, the man was right. The murder case was trivial compared to the treason charge. But events that night had mattered to poor Golbo, I thought savagely. They had meant the difference between life and death to him. ‘And what about the other villa slaves, who are still being marched off in tens for questioning?’

Cornovacus pocketed his denarius. ‘Don’t ask me, citizen. I’m not a soothsayer. I only know what I was told. They’re following procedures, I suppose, and hoping for information about that document. That’s all he told me, citizen. You’ve had your money’s worth.’ He turned as if to walk away.

I clutched his ragged sleeve. ‘If this man gave evidence,’ I said, ‘did he mention a name, by any chance? A senior slave called Umbris, possibly?’

He stopped and looked at me. ‘Umbris? The big black Nubian slave? That’s the very man I’m talking of.’

I closed my eyes. Of course. I should have guessed, knowing my patron’s ironic touch with names. Umbris, man of shadow, so called not because he moved so noiselessly, but because he was so dark.

That thought brought another, which I did not like. Umbris had taken a letter to the villa at about the time that Golbo was murdered. Suppose that he spotted the runaway in the woods? Did he follow him to my dye-house and then murder him? For reasons I’d refused to countenance? Julia’s messenger, protecting Julia’s name?

I shuddered, imagining a dark figure that suddenly emerged from the disguising smoke and shadows of the hut, uttering a soothing word or two perhaps, then seizing and wielding the heavy axe. That would account for the astonished look on that grotesque, discoloured face. And the big Nubian had the strength necessary to take a man’s head off with a single blow, and do it at that particular angle too. That was no easy matter, as Molendinarius had pointed out. I was sure I was getting closer to the truth.

‘He was at my roundhouse!’ I exclaimed.

‘Of course he was.’ Lercius misinterpreted my words. ‘I saw him. He’s the one who gave me that message from your slave.’

So Umbris, carrying messages to and from Corinium, had come back to the roundhouse. Not to deliver a message, probably, but to see what had happened to the corpse. That explained the confusion of the message — Umbris had needed to think quickly of a way to explain his presence at my house to Lercius. I nodded. ‘You said at the time that it was dark and shadowy and it was hard to see him. That was because he was dark and shadowy himself?’

‘That’s right, citizen. A big black messenger.’ Lercius came over to the fire and squatted down, while Cornovacus went back to join the dwarf. ‘I’ve got another message, too, but Sosso says I mustn’t tell you till you’ve paid.’

Another sestertius changed hands. ‘Another message? From my slave?’ I was not very hopeful, if the message came from Umbris again, but it was worth a coin.

This time I was in for a surprise.

‘Your slave said to say he saw Mellitus’s shadow in Corinium again. He saw them together in the market place and discovered from the cake-seller that the shadow was Mellitus’s own. That was the message. It didn’t make much sense, but anyway he wanted you to know. Made me repeat it several times. It didn’t mean anything to me.’

Shadow, I thought suddenly. Was it possible? Is that what Junio had said? He had seen Umbris in Corinium? Lercius had never heard the name and his Latin, though fluent, was inaccurate. Umbris had been to Corinium, I knew. But surely Junio would not send a message that concerned the messenger himself? Unless Julia had sent a different slave the second time, via the garrison, perhaps, as I’d heard her suggesting to the guard.

‘A different messenger, I suppose?’ I asked Lercius.

Lercius nodded.

I sighed. The message made no sense in any case. Umbris belonged to Marcus, not to Mellitus.

Or did he? The Nubian slave had been a gift to Marcus, a bribe from someone staying in the villa. Mellitus had visited before. What if he had ‘given’ Marcus what seemed a handsome gift? That would mean he had a spy within the household, someone who could watch and listen — and report to him. Someone who was well placed to poison another’s food — and make sure that it reached the intended victim too.

I had decided long ago that Praxus’s murderer must be a man of strength. Someone with sufficient size to seize him by the neck and throttle him when the dose of toxin proved not quite enough. From the beginning I had thought that only someone in Marcus’s household could have done the deed. Umbris was the obvious candidate. I had not wished to countenance the thought, when I imagined Julia was involved — but supposing Umbris worked for Mellitus?

‘That’s it,’ I said excitedly. ‘That solves the mystery of Praxus’s death, at least. Mellitus gets Umbris accepted in the house. Marcus is very pleased with him, and uses him at feasts. Then when Praxus comes along, and power is to be shared among the three, Mellitus sees a chance to murder him and seize more influence for himself. He provides the poison, Umbris serves it to Praxus in a dish — a very hefty dose of it no doubt. All this takes place in Marcus’s house, so even if anything goes wrong suspicion won’t fall on Mellitus — who makes very sure that he doesn’t leave the banquet, or drink any of the wine. The only danger is the bucket-boy — who knows that Umbris ordered him away — so Umbris chases him and murders him, and hides the body to disguise that he’s been there. Dear gods! Of course. That’s why he talked of Marcus as his “owner” all the time — his real master was someone else! To Golbo, of course, master and owner were the same.’

They were all staring at me silently. Even the woman and her boys had clustered round the door, and were listening openly to this.

‘Don’t you see?’ I said. ‘It must have been Mellitus who arranged that Umbris should be freed and allowed to act as Marcus’s messenger. The arrangement was presented as a concession to my patron, but of course it was nothing of the kind. Mellitus handled it very cleverly. He controlled the go-between! That gave him access to Marcus’s messages — no wonder he allowed them to be sent!’

I looked around. They were still gazing at me, rapt.

‘And of course, as procurator he had sufficient rank to co-opt Praxus’s bodyguard,’ I went on enthusiastically. ‘When Praxus’s death stopped looking like an accident he ordered that the villa should be searched — I heard him do it. No doubt he got the guard to plant that document. That way he turned events to his advantage. He made sure that Marcus was arraigned — so both of his rivals were accounted for! It was very neat. And when I started asking questions, he set Bullface’s soldiers on to me. It all makes sense.’

I looked round the room triumphantly.

Then Sosso spoke. ‘Good theory, citizen,’ he grunted. ‘Pity that not all of it is true.’