Murder in the Forum

by Rosemary Rowe

  A pair of too-wise eyes flickered shiftily in the grimy face. ‘I have no doubt of that, citizen. He promised me money when I arrived with my tidings. No, it is about the red-haired men. I think I could tell you something about them – at a price.’

  I glanced at Junio, but he was looking impassive. ‘Go on.’

  ‘How much is this information worth?’

  Of course, that depended on what the intelligence was. Yet from the cunning look in his eye I suspected that if I refused to pay, the boy would try to sell his information elsewhere – perhaps to the red-haired slaves themselves. I was debating how much money to offer when Junio, who remembered what it was to be young, and besides had not been shaken up by a street attack, solved the problem for me.

  ‘A whole basket of food – bread, cheese, fruit and meats – plus a hot pie and a honey-cake from the street vendor. Just for yourself, in exchange for your information. What do you say?’

  I breathed again. That was a reward I could find (albeit with difficulty) from my own resources if necessary. And it might be necessary. My patron pretended to disapprove of my offering bribes for information, although it was a method he often employed himself. I might easily have to put up the reward myself.

  And Junio was right. The offer of immediate food was of more value to this pauper child than money, which he might have been bullied out of or, worse, accused of having stolen himself. A good meal, when you are starving, is quickly put beyond the reach of thieves.

  ‘Settled!’ The boy’s eyes were luminous with greed.

  ‘Well then?’ I demanded.

  ‘I’ll see the basket first!’ the child rejoined. I reflected again on the wisdom of this scheming little innocent. He had lived too long in the back streets of Glevum to give anything on trust.

  I nodded, and we limped the rest of the painful way towards the building where Marcus had his rented apartment.

  It was a sumptuous suite of rooms, the finest in Glevum. It occupied the whole of the first floor of a large building, but – like most other apartments – still suffered the inconvenience of being contained vertically between a wine shop at street level and a cluster of smaller flats above, and over that again a collection of squalid crowded rooms in the attics under the roof. The communal staircase, as usual during daylight hours, was crowded with comings and goings.

  With Junio still supporting my arm, we picked our way through the throng: malodorous honest inhabitants from the upper floors, stiff official supplicants and messengers having business with Marcus, and the usual sprinkling of the slightly nefarious and simply curious. At the door of the apartment, a smartly tunicked slave admitted us, and leaving the urchin to attend us on the stair Junio and I made our way into the spacious room where Marcus and his new wife were waiting to greet me.

  It was a fine room, with balconies and tiled floors, painted plaster frescoes, woven rugs, mirrors and braziers. Marcus was reclining on a gilded couch and his lady, as is the custom with women, sat on an upright chair beside him, looking more beautiful than ever in a glowing deep blue over-tunic girdled with gold. The silver-blonde wig was elegantly coiffed, and a cluster of jet beads at her lovely throat was her only other adornment. A greater contrast to the unfortunate Phyllidia could hardly be imagined.

  As I was ushered in, still leaning on Junio, my patron rose to greet me. His face was a portrait of the most flattering alarm.

  ‘My dear old friend. I rejoice to find you safely here.’ Junio was right about my reception. An attendant slave was commissioned to fetch me a stool, another to bring food and wine, and Delicta, who had once had a private physician in Glevum and prided herself on her medical knowledge, herself ordered salves and warm water and maidservants to bind up my wounds.

  I felt like a visiting emperor as – waving aside my proffered obeisance – Marcus oversaw the siting of the stool and watched solicitously as I lowered myself onto it. ‘You were attacked, I hear?’ Junio, in deference to my shaken state, was motioned to stand behind me. Normally he would have been sent away to wait in the servants’ quarters.

  ‘Attacked and robbed,’ I said ruefully. ‘I had found something I wanted to show you.’

  ‘You see?’ Julia Delicta turned to her husband with a smile which would melt bronze. ‘Attacked and robbed, just like my unfortunate slaves this morning.’

  Marcus gave me an awkward smile. ‘Delicta is convinced there is some group of itinerant robbers abroad, and these events are part of a pattern. Unlikely, don’t you think, on the evidence of just two attacks? And in different towns?’ He picked up a jug of wine and a morsel of bread from the laden trays which had miraculously appeared before us and, to my surprise, dutifully placed a little of each on the household altar. Then he took his place on the couch and picked at a date himself. It was a formal signal that I could eat, and (having had my head, hands and feet bathed by Junio in the bowl provided) I did so ravenously.

  Secretly I was amused. The arrival of Delicta had already effected a change in the household habits. Such strict social conventions had never been observed before when I had eaten informally with Marcus.

  The lady herself ignored the refreshments, as well-bred women do. Instead she said firmly, ‘These are just two attacks we know of. There may be many more. We have seen this before in Corinium. Some family of thieves moves in on market day and mingles with the citizens. Then, when they have filled their pockets, they disappear.’

  ‘But this attack was not in Corinium,’ Marcus said in a tone of amused patience, raising his eyebrows slightly in my direction.

  Delicta was not to be subdued. ‘Of course by the time the authorities are searching for them, they are far away. What more likely than that they should come to Glevum? I tell you, husband, if you do not apprehend the culprits swiftly, they will move on to the next town and never be caught. And they have robbed me of two valuable slaves and some expensive goods. I am your wife. They must be brought to justice.’ She turned the torchlight of her smile on me. ‘Do you not agree, Libertus?’

  I may be an old man, but when a woman like Delicta looks at me in that confiding way, I am almost ready to agree to anything. However, I had the presence of mind to say, ‘I believe, lady, that this attack was directed at me personally. I have come to think they wanted what I was carrying. It was of no value to thieves, but I had found something which I thought might throw some light on the events surrounding the death of Felix.’ Briefly, I outlined the finding of the supposed ‘tail’ pieces and the empty phial.

  Marcus nodded thoughtfully. ‘It seems a likely explanation.’

  Delicta, although still smiling, was unwilling to abandon her theory. ‘So you think the incident in Corinium was unconnected?’

  I was about to answer that I did, but upon reflection I modified that. ‘I do not think,’ I said carefully, ‘that the two attacks were carried out by the same people. But as for being connected in some way, that is another question. Two attacks, so close to Marcus, may be more than coincidence.’

  Whether I was right or wrong, it was a diplomatic answer. Marcus looked suitably grave and thoughtful, and murmured that the culprits must be caught, while his wife glowed at me more warmly than ever.

  ‘You are so shrewd, Libertus,’ she said. ‘And you are hurt. If you have finished your meal, I will have my maidens tend your head.’

  I indicated that I had, and the girls stepped forward.

  The next moments were delightful. I might have been a young man again, submitting to Gwellia’s ministrations. Whether an ointment of agrimony and hog’s grease is really a useful specific against cuts and bruises, I do not know, but the effect of having my forehead and then my knees softly bathed and salved by smooth willing fingers would have cured me of worse injuries. I was beginning to wish I had more grazes to tend.

  Marcus brought me out of my reverie. ‘Now then, old friend, is there anything more that you require?’

  It seemed churlish to ask for money, but the urchin was still on the stairs. Diff
idently, I suggested, ‘With respect, Excellence, could you lend me a little money? No great sum, merely some coins for the child who acted as messenger? I regret to have to ask you, but my own purse was stolen.’

  ‘My dear old friend, feel free to ask for more than that. I would do as much for a beggar.’

  He spoke with such warmth and alacrity that I was moved to add, ‘Of course, on reflection I will have to take the child home with me, in any case. He thinks he has some information about my attackers. I promised him a basket of food if it was useful.’ I hoped, of course, that Marcus would volunteer the reward, but I knew him too well to ask him for it outright.

  I was lucky. Marcus was still feeling benevolent. He smiled. ‘Leave it to me,’ and he sent one of his slaves scurrying. Mentally, I blessed the gods. That little exchange would save me a week’s provisions.

  The urchin was brought before us, his eyes wider than disci, so overwhelmed in the presence of Marcus and his broad purple edgings that I believe he would have parted with his information for nothing.

  We didn’t ask him to. Marcus fingered some coins from his purse and said, ‘You are the boy who brought the message here?’

  The urchin nodded, too terrified to speak.

  ‘You say you have some information? About the men who attacked my poor old friend here?’

  The urchin glanced at me. Being called a friend of Marcus, however poor and old, had raised my status considerably in his estimation. He stammered, ‘It . . . it is nothing, Excellence.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Marcus said, ‘we shall hear it.’

  The boy gulped. ‘It is merely . . . I thought I had seen them before, selling trinkets near the market, outside the temple of Mars. They’d spread a cloth under one of the outer pillars, and had laid out their wares. They were blocking the alleyway. I saw the aediles move them on.’ No talk now of needing to see the basket first: he was gabbling in his eagerness.

  ‘Trinkets?’ I said, at the same time as Marcus demanded, ‘You are sure it was the same men?’

  The boy babbled, ‘I saw them dash out of the alley. Two of them. I thought they were the same. They are not easy to miss. Big men in brown tunics, with red hair and Celtic boots.’

  I nodded. That made sense, if my theory was correct. ‘What were they selling?’ I asked again.

  The boy shrugged. I did not cow him as Marcus did. ‘Bracelets, armlets, mirrors – that sort of thing. Bronze, they looked like. I am no judge of these things. People were buying them.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘I swear it, Excellence, that is all I know.’

  Marcus looked at me. We were not much further forward, but I was sure now that my attackers were the servants of Egobarbus. I nodded.

  A servant was sent out to fetch the basket, and I saw the boy’s eyes widen as he looked inside. There might not be honey-cakes, but the child looked pleased with his bargain. Marcus drew out the coins, and I saw the tip he proffered. I was not displeased to know that the urchin, for all his scheming, had earned much more than his twenty asses.

  Well, I would think about it later. For the moment, I had other concerns. I closed my eyes again, and, proffering my hands, let the handmaidens rub ointment into my wrists where the leather thong had chafed them. There were some advantages, I thought languorously, to having had my patron become a married man.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My patron’s indulgence and concern, welcome as they were, could not be infinite. In having him pay off the urchin I had, naturally, depleted the supply. It seemed a very short time before he was saying abruptly, ‘Well, well, that should be sufficient. Surely, Libertus, you are feeling better by now? You will remember there are matters to discuss.’

  I could do little more than acquiesce.

  He waved a lofty hand and at once the sybaritic ministrations halted, and my enchanting handmaidens picked up their balms and potions and drifted away. Their mistress, at a signal from her husband, followed them, and – apart from the inevitable attendant slaves – I found myself alone with Marcus, who was now sitting almost upright on his couch and tapping his thigh impatiently with his baton. Any dream that I was the Emperor Commodus (or Jupiter himself) enthroned in some earthly paradise tended by willing votaries had instantly vanished.

  ‘Excellence?’ I ventured, trying to sound briskly intelligent. ‘What do you wish me to do first? Interview Delicta’s gatekeeper about the trouble in Corinium, or report first on the progress I have made here?’

  He looked at me gloomily. ‘Is there more to say about that? You spoke of finding those items on the pile. Have you found other evidence of which I’m unaware?’

  ‘Not evidence,’ I said carefully. ‘But there are some important impressions. Suggestive incidents.’ I moved my stiffened fingers discreetly to touch the little phial hanging by its cord inside my clothes. The attack had driven it out of my mind. But my fall had not broken it. I was reassured.

  I was debating whether this was the most auspicious moment to show it to Marcus when he solved the problem for me by saying impatiently, ‘I cannot act on your impressions, my old friend. Give me the facts, when you have discovered them. In the meantime, speak to this gatekeeper of my wife’s. She will give me no peace until you have. Here, my slave will show you the way.’

  Junio helped me to my feet and we followed the tunic-clad servant out of the fine public chambers and into the humbler quarters at the rear of the building, where a cluster of shabby rooms led off from a smoky passage, and a still more smoky vented space with a large charcoal fire, set on an iron stand, in the centre. This clearly was the makeshift kitchen. Most Glevum apartments have no cooking facilities at all, and upstairs in communal blocks like this such things are actively discouraged, following the tragic blazes in Rome. Apartment owners these days either dine out or content themselves with meals brought in from the better class of hot-food stalls.

  This uncertain device was therefore an indication of Marcus’s stature. No wonder men of means, like Gaius, preferred to buy a house where possible, so that their cooks could prepare meals – and even banquets – without the constant risk of either asphyxiation or conflagration.

  The kitchen slaves, half stripped and wheezing with smoke and heat, were too busy skinning a goat and placing it on a turnspit to pay us attention as we went by. The slave-boy with the bucket, whose job it clearly was to douse the flames and cool the walls in an emergency, looked up and nodded.

  Junio was led off to the slaves’ waiting room, where doubtless he would win himself a few quadrantes playing at dice with the others. My servant has an innocent face and an uncanny talent for gambling. I don’t know how he contrives it, but the fall of tile and dice seem to favour him much more than chance alone allows. I left him to make his fortune while I was taken to the gatekeeper.

  I found the man in one of the cell-like rooms which were reserved as sleeping spaces for the servants. He was a large, brawny man with huge hands and even bigger feet – as befits a gatekeeper. I had seen him before at Corinium, and I smiled encouragingly, but if he felt any pleasure at seeing me he was quick to disguise it.

  ‘Oh, you’ve come at last, have you?’ he grumbled. ‘They said you were sent for. Why, is what I want to know. I’ve told them everything I can, a dozen times over.’

  ‘And what exactly could you tell them?’ I said affably, squatting beside him on the bundle of reeds which was provided as a bed. The room was small, but otherwise it was no more humble than my own.

  He looked at me savagely for a moment, then fetched a great sigh. ‘Oh, very well. If I must go through it all again, I suppose I must. He came to the house early this morning. I hadn’t seen him before that I remember. He brought a parcel of silk and some bracelets, and said they were a gift for Julia Delicta, on the occasion of her marriage. Then he left. I paid no great attention to his face. That is all I know.’ He produced it all in the fashion of a recitation.

  ‘I see.’ I thought about this for a moment. ‘How early did he come?’

  H
e frowned. ‘I don’t know. Do you think I am a councillor to have water-candles by me? Very early. The sun was hardly risen in the sky and I could hear the schoolmaster scolding in his pupils.’

  ‘And it did not surprise you that he brought a gift?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I suppose a little, since he was a stranger to me. But there have been gifts arriving ever since Delicta arrived home from the forum yesterday.’

  Of course, once the marriage was solemnised it was no secret. ‘No doubt the witnesses had spread the news,’ I said.

  For the first time the gateman almost smiled. ‘More than that,’ he said. ‘The old auspex was delighted by being asked to perform the ceremony – he must have told half the town. And since it was Marcus that she married, everyone was anxious to come and make a gift – and be seen to do it.’ He paused. ‘I suppose that is why I remembered the man. There was nothing with the gift to say who the giver was.’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  The man grimaced. ‘I did. He said it was from an old friend of Marcus’s. I could hardly argue. I know who calls on my mistress, but His Excellence has a dozen friends in Corinium that I have never seen.’

  It was hard to argue with that. I changed the subject. ‘So what made you suspicious of the man?’

  He shrugged. ‘I would not have suspected him at all, if there had not been this stabbing of slaves from our household in the town. Of course, when I heard of that, I began to wonder about the stranger who had called. But truly, citizen, I can remember nothing else. He was wearing a dark cape and hood, but I thought nothing of that. It had been raining and the man was very wet. He came to the gate and asked to be presented to Delicta. I had to tell him that she was in the town.’

  ‘Surely the shops were barely open?’

  That brought a reluctant smile to his face. ‘Delicta is a wealthy woman, citizen. The shops would open for her.’

  I nodded. Delicta was unusual in doing her own shopping. Wealthy Roman women are not like Celts, they prefer to send their husbands or their slaves, even for cloth and jewels. But Julia Delicta was accustomed to having her own way. No doubt the shopkeepers of Corinium would hurry bleary-eyed down the stairs at midnight to open their shuttered stalls if they had found her on their doorsteps. I said, ‘So the caller left the parcel. Did you get a look at him?’