The Ghosts of Glevum

III

It was all over fairly quickly after that. The household servants were even now prepared to fight, but the soldiery had swords and they had none — and Marcus himself commanded them to cease.

He had been brought back to us at sword-point, his fine purple-edged toga mudstained and his wreath awry. He was panting and distraught, but he still retained his dignity. His face blanched when he saw his servant’s bloodied corpse. ‘There is some terrible mistake,’ he said at last.

Balbus said weakly, ‘There will have to be a trial, I suppose. Oh, Great Minerva! And when I had only a few months to serve!’

‘I shall appeal to the Emperor, of course.’ Marcus spoke angrily.

Even Mellitus was looking shaken now. He said, ‘Of course you must. There was no need for that.’ He rounded on the soldiers. ‘This is an outrage, you confounded sons of dogs! Can’t you see from his toga that this is a man of noble birth? From now on treat him with appropriate respect. I shall see that your new commander hears of this.’ He turned to the still cowering dinner guests. ‘As you are my witnesses, citizens, I asked only that Marcus be accused. I did not call for bloodshed or drawn swords.’

Bullface said sullenly, ‘Wouldn’t have been called for if he hadn’t run away. And as for that confounded slave, it is an offence to strike a Roman guard — let alone set fire to his beard. He would have had worse coming to him from the courts.’

Balbus seemed to find his tongue. ‘There is some truth in that. And, Marcus. . Excellence. . at the very worst, the court could surely only sentence you to be “deprived of water and of fire”.’ He was intending to be comforting. That sentence means exile beyond the Empire, effectively, since a man cannot live without fire and water for very long, and is a sub-capital punishment for the privileged. Balbus meant that Marcus, reputed to be related to the Emperor, would not readily be condemned to death, even if a charge of murder could be proved.

Marcus, however, seemed unimpressed by this. ‘Balbus, do not be a fool.’

I frowned at him. I knew that he had little time for Balbus: in fact I had once heard him publicly describe the twittering decurion as ‘more ambitious than his talents merited, and ready to lick anybody’s feet if he thought it would advance him by an inch’. (Only, of course, Marcus had not actually said ‘feet’.) But Balbus was now clearly in command, and this was not a moment to betray contempt.

Marcus however, seemed oblivious. ‘I have done nothing! Nothing, do you hear?’

‘There’s. .’ Bullface began again, but he was interrupted by a female voice.

‘What is the meaning of all this? Marcus, husband! What is happening here?’

All heads turned, and there was a sharp gasp from the assembled company. Julia Delicta, Marcus’s young wife, had come through from the new wing of the house. She was always beautiful, but I thought that I had never seen her more lovely than now, standing there in her simple shift in that misty colonnade, her hair twisted up into a hasty coil, with only a thin cloak to shield her from the cold and flimsy embroidered slippers on her feet.

There was a general shuffle of embarrassment and shock. Respectable Roman matrons were not supposed to appear on banquet nights before the guests had all gone safely home, unless by special invitation of the host, and especially not in such inadequate attire.

‘Madam citizen!’ Mellitus reproved.

But Julia ignored him, and came on. It was extremely brave. She must have felt utterly vulnerable and alone: her husband was arrested, there were two bodies on the floor, the house was full of men she did not know, she was inappropriately dressed for company and it was only a few weeks since she had given birth — even now two of her serving women were at her side to offer her support. Yet she faced the armed contingent with a defiance and energy which put the rest of us to shame.

‘How dare you treat my husband in this way? What has been happening here?’ she cried. Her voice was firm but there were tears trembling on her eyelids and an anguish in her glance which would have melted a statue’s heart.

Mellitus, though, was a Roman official of the most old-fashioned kind. Women, even wealthy and beautiful ones, were of no account. ‘Lady, do not meddle in masculine affairs. Your husband has been formally accused of homicide and arrested. He will be taken to the garrison under guard, and now the law must take its course.’

‘Homicide!’ The lady looked as if she might collapse. ‘But that’s absurd.’ She looked down at Praxus and the slaughtered slave. ‘Oh, dear Jupiter. What has happened here? That is poor Paulus, our attendant — who has murdered him?’

‘Stand back, lady,’ said Bullface, interposing dangerously and raising his sword again. ‘You heard what the procurator said.’

Balbus attempted to intervene. ‘You will be informed when a decision has been reached, and appropriate arrangements will be made for you,’ he said, as though talking to a child. Of course, in the eyes of the law, he was.

‘But, citizen. .’ Julia was about to protest again, but the guard cut her short.

‘Lady, go back to your quarters and get dressed. No harm will come to you — provided that your husband will come quietly.’

It was a threat — unsubtle, but it did the trick. Marcus capitulated instantly.

‘Julia, my dear, do not distress yourself. There is obviously some mistake. No doubt my old friend Libertus will help sort it out. In the meantime there is nothing you can do here. You are putting yourself in danger and will catch a chill. Go back to your quarters and take care of yourself — and of the boy.’ Marcus was inordinately proud of his baby son.

Julia looked at the bodies on the floor, and murmured ‘But. .’ again, and then lapsed obediently into silence.

‘There has been an unfortunate accident, but I have done nothing wrong. All the same, it seems I will have to bow to superior force, and go with these soldiers to the garrison. Libertus, I leave matters here to you. I’m sure the truth will shortly come to light.’ He turned to his slaves, who were still standing hesitantly by. ‘Thank you, my servants, for defending me. I do not expect to be away for long. Obey your mistress in my absence.’

His wife looked helplessly at him. ‘As you command, my husband,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Libertus, I would be glad if you’d attend me later on, when this is over.’ And, leaning on her handmaidens, she left.

Mellitus watched her go. ‘It seems you’re very much in demand tonight, Citizen Libertus. Perhaps the lady will be in need of some support. We’ll have to search the villa later on, and probably round the servants up as well.’

‘The servants!’ Marcus looked appalled. He knew, better than any of us, what lay in wait for them. A slave’s testimony against his master is always sought in law, but is not valid unless extorted under torture. ‘The servants could have had nothing to do with it. Search the villa if you like. I tell you my household had no part in this. You might as well suggest that you would check the guests, to make sure they’re not concealing poison phials in their belts!’

Mellitus gave his mirthless smile. ‘An excellent suggestion, citizen. I should be the first to volunteer to undergo the search. Or perhaps your slaves could tell us where to look?’

My patron flushed. ‘My slaves are innocent! There were forty people here who can testify to where most of my servants were when Praxus died.’

‘That is quite true, Excellence.’ Balbus seemed suddenly concerned to support his erstwhile host. ‘Those who were attending us in the dining room cannot have had any part in this.’

Bullface stuck his chin out and said nastily, ‘It is my duty to take them in for questioning. Anyone who was serving here tonight. And I shall oversee the search myself. An army commander has been murdered here.’

Balbus was still trying to mediate. ‘Perhaps it is not necessary to arrest them all — not straight away, at least. Only those who were present in the colonnade after the final sacrifice to Jove. If His Excellence Marcus Aurelius Septimus would order the rest to stay here in the house. .’

Marcus understood. This was an opportunity to save his slaves. ‘Those are my orders. No slave is to leave the villa until I am released.’

‘Or sentenced,’ Mellitus put in. ‘To cover every eventuality, that is.’

‘Or sentenced,’ Marcus said, unwillingly, and the deed was done. The servants were effectively incarcerated now. They would be classed as runaways if they tried to leave, and that was a capital offence. If they were caught and brought back, they could expect to be tortured to death, whether or not they had anything to tell. Interrogators merely extorting information generally stopped short of that.

Mellitus nodded slowly. ‘Capital.’ He turned to the apprehensive slaves. ‘So who was out here at the time?’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody moved. Mellitus looked furious. ‘Then we’ll take those who were out here holding lights. And those who were not here at all, but might have useful information — including that page-boy with the pail and that fool of a doorman over there. .’ He gestured to where the unfortunate doorkeeper in question was still shivering in the shadows of the doorway where he had been pushed.

I realised that I could not see the pail-boy anywhere. Presumably, in the disturbances, he had taken the opportunity to run away, and at any moment now his presence would be missed. And then. .?

Suddenly my blood ran chill. Why the thought had not occurred to me earlier, I cannot explain (unless perhaps I too had been imbibing an unaccustomed quantity of Falernian wine, when I very seldom drink any wine at all, preferring the more robust ales and mead of my Celtic youth). If my patron and his household staff were taken under guard, then it might not be long before somebody decided to bring me in for questioning as well — after all, I was known to be his close associate and this evening had been singled out by name. Rather belatedly, I decided, as several of the lingering dinner guests had already done, that it would be conducive to my health to ensure that I was somewhere else as soon as possible.

Fortunately, Marcus’s wife had furnished an excuse, and I could take my leave without appearing to desert my patron in his hour of need. Not that I could have done anything immediate to help, in any case: Marcus had been formally arrested by the authorities, and the best assistance I could render now was to find some way of persuading them that this was a mistake.

‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I must attend the lady Julia,’ I began, in my best ingratiating voice, but it was a waste of time. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to me.

Bullface had just noticed that the bucket-boy had gone.

‘Where is he? Where is that confounded boy?’ He had his dagger drawn by now as well as his sword, and was jabbing both of them in the air in front of the bewildered guests, as if by doing so he could prod the truth from them. ‘Come on, if you know what’s good for you. One of you must have seen something. Where’s the boy?’

‘Mellitus!’ Gaius, the old ex-councillor who’d sat next to me, was sober now and had clearly been pushed forward to protest. He twitched at his toga to assert authority, but his voice had become high-pitched and wavering. ‘This must be stopped at once. This sword-waving is an insult to our dignity. We are not landless peasants to be treated in this way: we are councillors and magistrates, members of the ordo of the town — and not just a common town, but a military colonia with full republican rights! An affront to us is an insult not just to Glevum but to the whole Empire and to Rome.’

Everyone began to speak at once, and suddenly pandemonium broke loose.

‘Where is the boy?’ Bullface insisted in a roar.

‘It isn’t. .’ Mellitus, trying to keep the peace.

‘I don’t know. .’ The doorkeeper, as one of the soldiers twisted his arm behind him once again.

Balbus and the other guests were still protesting too. ‘By all the deities. .’

The high priest of Jupiter was muttering something at my side. He seemed to be invoking all the gods. It may have been an incantation or a prayer, but I interrupted anyway. I touched his sleeve.

He leapt to face me as if burnt and I murmured soothingly, ‘I must attend the lady Julia at once, since Marcus has nominated me her guardian. I did try to explain, but they did not hear. If anyone asks for me, that’s where I’ll be. I’ll look out for the page-boy on my way.’

I did not wait to see his startled nod. Taking advantage of the chaos created by the noise and the flickering shadows of the torchlit search, which was now beginning in the colonnade, I slipped away, taking the long route through the now empty triclinium and the central block, and through the side entrance to the even more opulent owner’s wing beyond, which Marcus had so recently had built.

It was as well I knew my way. Eerily — for any mansion on this scale — there were few oil lamps burning in the corridors, and there was not a solitary slave in sight.