She lifted the lid of the pot as she spoke. Something was smelling delicious. I had forgotten that enticing aroma, and I was sharply reminded by a rumbling in my stomach that I had hardly eaten anything all day. How wonderful to have a wife again. I took her hand in mine and was about to say something complimentary when I noticed Junio, standing in the background and looking rather put out. Of course, he must be feeling superseded. I mustn’t let my own joy blind me to his needs.
‘Get yourself clean and dry too, Junio,’ I said. ‘And then perhaps some water? My feet are rather muddy from that wet walk through the town.’
It seemed to work. Junio brightened. He stripped off his cloak, and then went to get a bowl and some of the water he had brought in earlier. Of course I then had to submit to the tedious rigmarole of squatting on my own work stool and having my feet and hands washed like a Roman emperor (and carefully dried in what looked suspiciously like a piece of my old tunic). Meanwhile Gwellia placed a bowl in front of me and ladled out more stew than even I could comfortably eat.
I picked up my spoon and both of them instantly took up station at my side, ready to watch my every mouthful, and outdo each other in their efforts to refill my drinking cup.
I smiled wryly. With these two competing to look after me, life was becoming distressingly formal. Up until now, I would have eaten my supper with Junio squatting companionably at my feet, enjoying his own meal and ready to eat the leftovers from mine – though, of course, he would be ready at any time to leap up and fetch anything I wanted.
I wished that Gwellia could be equally relaxed. But she had been a slave for so long that she had firm views about a servant’s place, and she was not comfortable sitting down to dine with me. When we were first reunited I’d insisted once, and she had sat obediently beside me, but the situation made her too embarrassed to swallow anything. I almost felt that I’d deprived her of her food. The experiment had not been a success and I had not repeated it. However, she was my one-time wife, and if she would not eat with me I could hardly allow Junio to take his customary liberties.
So here I was, sitting like a lonely emperor eating my stew alone, with both of them staring at me. I felt like one of the beasts outside the arena, when the urchins gather round their enclosures to watch them being fed.
I sighed. As soon as this temple enquiry was over, I promised myself, I would legalise the situation and marry my wife again. Then we would be equals, master and mistress in our own house once more – and I could indulge Junio if I wanted to.
‘Well?’ I said, when I had given the first mouthfuls of stew the attention they deserved. ‘About the Priest of Jupiter? We called at Honorius Optimus’s house ourselves.’
Gwellia settled her hands in front of her, an endearing trick I remembered from our early life when she had something interesting to tell. ‘Well! You know the high priest has a younger wife – I remember you talking about her earlier this morning – how she is interested in dressing in the fashion, and getting round her husband’s restrictive rules?’
I nodded. ‘That’s right. Everyone in town has heard of her, I think, although Junio knows more about her than I do.’
Junio looked at me gratefully, eager to furnish what he knew. ‘She is chiefly famous for spending a fortune on her appearance. Some of the more serious citizens think it is unbecoming in the high priest’s wife – it isn’t dignified for her to be so frivolous. But most people make a joke of it. They say, for instance, that there is more black soot on Aurelia Lucilla’s eyes than on the temple lamps, and more myrrh in her perfume flasks than was ever burned in the ritual censers.’
Gwellia looked at him unsmilingly. ‘Well, and no wonder too, poor girl. Imagine – dragged away when she was no more than a child to marry an old man she’d never seen, in a country she’d hardly heard of.’
I looked at her in surprise. It was a long time since I’d heard Gwellia express herself with such vigour. This was more like the wife I used to know, ready to defend the rights of victims anywhere. ‘A foreign country?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘Indeed, or so the cloth-woman told me. She had it from one of the maidservants, who calls at the cloth stall very often. The pontifex does not like it – if he were a flamen his wife would have to wear simple, homespun clothes, but Aurelia Lucilla will have none of it. Apparently she keeps a maid whose only job is to buy dyed cloth and to attend her robes. What a lucky life!’
I smiled. ‘To have a servant only for your clothes?’
She looked surprised. ‘I meant to spend your life with nothing more to do than to choose fine wool and sew a bit, and then sponge your mistress’s stains with lavender and brush her hems each time she wears the gowns!’ She broke off. ‘I don’t mean you, dear master – but when I think of what some of my owners demanded of me!’
I winced. Gwellia never spoke much about her life as a slave. It still pained me to think of all the indignities she must have endured. But giving her that assignment in the market had been a good idea. It seemed to have given her back her confidence to speak freely to me – though she still lapsed into silence if I looked at her too long.
‘Go on,’ I said, turning my attention to the stew again.
She needed no further encouragement. ‘And there is another maid whose only job is to prepare her unguents, and bring the sheep’s milk for her beauty wash. That’s because Aurelia’s husband won’t have goat’s milk in the house: it is forbidden to the Flamen Dialis and he won’t allow her to have it, either, so she insisted on ewe’s milk instead. Claims that she had these luxuries in her father’s house in Rome, and would not consent to be sent here to marry the old priest without them.’
The spoon stopped halfway to my lips. ‘She comes from Rome, too? Now that I didn’t know. I was aware that
he
did, originally.’
Gwellia nodded. ‘From one of the oldest patrician families in the city. And so was she – and both their sets of parents were married in the old religious style. That is why he married her, they say. There aren’t so many people who fulfil those requirements, but the old man needed a wife who did, apparently, if he hoped to be appointed to the flamen’s post. The Emperor himself suggested the arrangement – since there was no other candidate in view.’
I swallowed another mouthful of soup. ‘No wonder he was disappointed at being passed over as flamen. He must have thought it was a certainty, with the Emperor taking an interest in his chances.’ Everyone knew that the senior priestly posts were largely political appointments.
Gwellia looked thoughtful. ‘Of course, Marcus Aurelius was emperor in those days, and he may not have intended that at all. The girl’s family was under his protection and he may simply have wanted to repay a favour. The girl was just of marriageable age, but apparently she had been a bit wayward at home – too many smiles for cavalry officers with good looks and no money – and her father was delighted to see her wed. At least that is what the cloth-woman said. It seems Aurelia didn’t want it in the least.’
‘And she submitted?’ It was a foolish question. Obviously once the Emperor had made the suggestion it would have been impossible for either party to refuse.
Gwellia gave me a look which said more than any words. We both knew that few Roman families take a bride’s inclinations into consideration – not when there is money, status and political connection hingeing on the match.
I said hastily, ‘She laid down conditions, though, you said?’ That was much more unusual.
Gwellia nodded. ‘They were accepted readily enough. The would-be priest was not short of money, and all he really wanted was a wife who’d last his tenure through. But he didn’t get the flaminate. They offered him the priesthood here instead. Though even now he hasn’t given up hope of being appointed, one of these days, when the current flamen dies.’
I was doing some rapid calculation. By Celtic standards Romans marry young – a girl can be a wife as soon as she is twelve. That meant Aurelia was now perhaps twenty-two or -three. Young enough beside her husband, certainly, but still a little older than I’d guessed. ‘Of course,’ I said, aloud, ‘I hadn’t thought of that. The Flamen of Jupiter must have a wife, and if he chose her before he came to Glevum . . .? She must have been married to him for many years.’
Gwellia leaned forward, as if the walls were listening. ‘It all depends, citizen, on what you mean by married. Poor girl. The cloth-maker says that in fact she is barely wife to him at all – the old man is too terrified of losing her in childbirth to come anywhere near her. He’d never find another wife with her qualifications, and then he could never be flamen. Or that’s what the household slaves report. But that’s not all. Do you know who the young lady was?’
I looked at Junio. He was more in touch than I was with the chatter of the town. But he shook his head.
‘Who was she?’
‘None other than the niece of that very Fabius Marcellus you are expecting here.’ Gwellia produced this sentence with a flourish, like a
praestigiator
at a festival conjuring a coin from a spectator’s ear.
Like the magician’s trick, it made me gasp. ‘Fabius is her uncle? Surely not. If her family were favourites of Marcus Aurelius . . .’ I hardly needed to complete the sentence. All the world knew that almost the first act of Commodus, when he attained the imperial purple, was to remove his father’s favourites by exiling or even executing the most important men in the city – especially after an early assassination plot hatched by his own household. ‘Fabius would hardly be singled out as a
legatus
now, if his family supported the old emperor.’
‘He might be these days, master, with respect,’ Junio put in. ‘Look at His Excellence the Governor Pertinax. He was out of favour, wasn’t he, at first – and then brought back when things were difficult?’
The boy was right, of course. Pertinax had once been exiled in disgrace, but – since Commodus’s personal favourites proved themselves, one by one, as treacherous and unreliable as their master – he had been reluctantly reinstated and even given the governorship of this troublesome province. And now he was about to be promoted to still higher things.
I looked hopefully at Gwellia, but she shook her head. ‘If Fabius Marcellus was ever out of favour, I don’t know. But when Optimus knew him in the legions he was already rising fast, we know that – and that must have been in Marcus Aurelius’s time.’
That was well argued, and I should have thought of it. I had been teaching Junio to help me in my deductions, and now here was Gwellia out-thinking me. I nodded, in what I hoped was a judicious manner. ‘Exactly so. It seems Fabius Marcellus has somehow managed to continue in favour, despite the change of emperor. I wonder what service he provides Commodus?’ I pushed aside my plate and allowed Junio to refill my water beaker. ‘And speaking of Optimus, as we were, you learned something about him too, I think you said?’
‘He has a big house very near the temple—’ she began.
I couldn’t resist interrupting. ‘As I know, since we have just visited the place.’
She flushed. ‘Of course, master,’ she said humbly, and I felt ashamed. ‘It is merely that, being so close to the temple, it is also close to the chief priest’s house. Of course Optimus has a wife, she followed him around the legions and he married her as soon as he was free of the army, but she is no longer young. While Aurelia . . .’
I was so astonished that I jumped up from my stool. ‘You mean that Optimus and the chief priest’s wife . . .?’
‘Nothing as strong as that, dear master. This is women’s gossip, that is all. Only Aurelia’s servants say that last year Optimus came to the high priest’s house to arrange a sacrifice, and was invited to take refreshment with the pontifex – that is a signal honour, as you know. Aurelia was there, they say, and Optimus and she were very conversational – though the old man was too self-absorbed to see what was under his nose. Since then, there have been several “accidental” meetings – when Aurelia goes out into the street, or takes a litter, it’s odd how often Optimus is there. It is even rumoured that his steward was seen delivering a letter to her once.’
I thought of that cloaked figure in the ex-legionary’s garden. ‘Junio, had you heard anything of this?’
‘Not a whisper, master.’ Junio sounded as surprised as I was. ‘If there was the slightest scandal – or worse, if Aurelia was to leave . . . that would be the end of any hope of his becoming flamen. He’d have to resign his office in disgrace.’
Gwellia shook her head. ‘I don’t believe there’s any chance of that. The two have apparently been exceedingly discreet – and really there’s very little for anyone to see. They never do anything but smile and nod, and there has never been any other communication between them – at least as far as the servants are aware. But Optimus has started coming to the temple regularly, and bringing thunderstones for Jupiter. Though again, he has new business interests to protect – that’s why he wanted that sacrifice in the first place – so there may be nothing significant in that. In fact there may be nothing in any of it, except servant talk – those maids of Aurelia have nothing else to do. But I thought that all the same you’d like to know.’
‘I would,’ I said. ‘You have done well. And now, I think, I will prepare those tiles for tomorrow and then retire to bed. It will be getting dark soon and I need time to think.’
I knew that Gwellia would not consent to eat while I was in the room, and Junio would appreciate that stew as much as I did. I assembled my equipment speedily. I had a length of border-pattern mosaic, already made up and fixed to a strip of linen backing – a sort of pattern piece for clients. I could use that as a basis, I decided – lay it on one side of the passageway and tile the other side to match. It was an easy pattern, and I had the template made. With the help of that I could finish the whole entrance in a day or two – that would please Optimus.
I collected everything I’d need, ready for the handcart in the morning, then led the creaking way upstairs, and allowed Junio to help me into bed.