The Ghosts of Glevum (2 page)

he began – or words to that effect. (It is impossible to convey the full banality of the original Latin.)

In the obscurity of a corner, I shifted uneasily on my banqueting couch. Others, placed nearer the centre of the room, were forced to endure this without fidgeting. I looked at our host, the Marcus Aurelius Septimus in question: the provincial governor’s personal representative, and by far the richest and most influential man for miles around. He was also my patron, so I knew him well, and I could already see the look of resignation glazing those ‘hooded eyes’, and detect frustration in the way that he was fingering the seal-ring on his hand. It was his own fault, of course; he had engaged the wretched local poet in honour of our two distinguished guests.

Loquex was just turning his attention to them:

Someone on the second highest table – I think it was Balbus, the chief town magistrate, whose brother was rumoured to have served with Praxus’s force – sniggered, but thought better of it and changed it to a cough. I had every sympathy. Of course, this poem was thrown together hastily for this evening, but Loquex did seem in even worse form than usual.

I glanced at Praxus – or Gaius Flaminius Praxus, to give him his full three Latin names. He was tall, one could not deny, but it was not the first word which would spring to mind. Praxus was tall in the way that – say – a small mountainside is tall and he was brave in much the same way – massive, unflinching and immovable, and about as impervious to anything as trivial as pain.

He was reclining at Marcus’s right-hand side, in the place of honour, where he was the first to be served with everything – as well he might. Praxus had recently been transferred from northern Gaul to find himself, pending the arrival of the new provincial governor, the senior officer commanding most of the Roman forces on the western borders of Britannia, including the garrison at Glevum.

This mountain of a man was improbably dressed in a skimpy pale blue
synthesis
– that fashionable dining robe which was a combination of toga and under-tunic – and wore a floral banqueting wreath lopsided around his head.

The effect was utterly incongruous, but Praxus looked no less menacing for that. However, his square-boned face had for a moment lost its scowl and softened to a glazed expression of amused contempt, but whether that was the effect of the verse, or of Marcus’s excellent Falernian wine, it was – at this distance – impossible to tell.

Loquex was just settling into his stride:

I heard a little ripple run round the room at this, and not just at the dreadful quality of the verse. Loquex had clumsily contrived to draw attention to the fact that Mellitus – the name means honey, but there was nothing remotely honeyed about his character – had been placed on Marcus’s left-hand side, in second position to Praxus as it were. Mellitus would not care for that. I recognised him: a wizened little sub-procurator based in nearby Corinium, and the local expert on taxation and finance. He was famous for his grasping hands and shrewd intelligence and had been a guest here once before. At that time Marcus had made an enormous fuss of him, but tonight was obviously different and Mellitus had been demonstrating his discontent by ostentatiously eating and drinking hardly anything, and greeting all the entertainments with a stony face. Now the unfortunate implication of the verse made matters worse. The sharp eyes narrowed more than ever and the thin lips pursed. It was an awkward moment.

Marcus, however, had seen an opportunity and risen to his feet. Taking his cue from ‘our applause’ he began to clap enthusiastically. I took the hint and did the same, and one by one the other guests joined in.

Loquex coloured, paused, and bowed – delightedly at first, but every time the claps and shouts slowed down Marcus began another round (‘Well done Loquex! What a splendid attempt!’) and after a few moments the poet understood. With a look of disappointment he put his scroll away, and – still bowing – allowed himself to be escorted from the room.

Gaius Flavius, the old ex-councillor seated next to me, gave an approving grunt. ‘Well, let’s hope that’s the last of the entertainments for the night, so the important people can retire to do some serious drinking, and the rest of us can decently go home.’ He sighed. ‘I’m glad that I’m too unimportant to be part of that. It’s obvious that those three aren’t going to get along.’

His voice was not loud, but he spoke into a hush, and I was afraid that everyone would hear. He was drawing startled looks from everyone, as it was, by motioning to a slave to fill his cup, and draining it at a gulp. That was shocking behaviour, especially on a formal occasion such as this, but he seemed oblivious. I realised uneasily that he’d drunk a great deal of sweet watered wine with the dessert and the alcohol was loosening his tongue.

I murmured something non-committal, and tried to look as if these dangerous remarks were not addressed to me.

He refused to let the matter drop. ‘It’s easier for you, Libertus; everybody knows that you’re Marcus’s protégé. And you’re a pavement-maker, anyway – people need mosaics, whoever is in power. But if those three up there start quarrelling, the rest of us will have to choose between them, and I for one shan’t know which horse to hitch my chariot to.’

If there had been a hush before, there was silence now. You could have heard a breadcrumb fall on to the tiled floor. Even the slave with the watered wine, refilling the old man’s goblet for the umpteenth time, paused in his pouring as if turned to stone.

Gaius plunged on, as unstoppable as a runaway cart rattling down a hill. ‘I shall be glad when the new governor is properly installed, and things get back to normal again.’ He drained his cup and held it out once more. ‘What is the situation there, Libertus, do you know?’ His speech was getting rather slurred by now. ‘You’ve got your ear closer to the ground than most of us. Is it true that there has been yet more delay?’

I was aware of twenty pairs of eyes, at least, fastened on me expectantly. Suddenly I wished that I was anywhere but here. The Emperor doubtless had his spies in Glevum, as in every other city of the Empire, and the wrong choice of words could be disastrous. ‘There have been a lot of rumours, Councillor Gaius . . .’ I began.

That was the understatement of the season. Ever since it had been announced that Governor Pertinax had been promoted to the more prestigious African provinces, Glevum had been alive with rumour of all kinds. There were as many versions as there were inhabitants. You could take your pick. There had been a new governor appointed. There had not. Someone had actually set sail for Britannia, but had fallen overboard. Or had been pushed. A man
had
been selected by the Emperor, but had since been executed. Or proved to be a woman in disguise. Or both.

The only fact on which the gossips all agreed was that no new governor had so far appeared. The date for the expected handover had come and gone, amidst a flurry of Imperial messengers. Pertinax had finally departed to take up his new post, but in the absence of a successor it appeared that he was still nominally in charge, and interim running of the province had devolved upon his regional representatives. Hence this hurried meeting of the local great: Praxus, Mellitus and Marcus were the chief military, fiscal and legal authorities in the area. It was not a natural alliance, and probably one of them would emerge as paramount. No wonder my inebriated friend was worried about where to place his loyalties.

He looked at me contemptuously. ‘Rumours! Huh!’

‘Well,’ that was the florid trader sitting on my left, ‘someone told me only yesterday, in strictest confidence, that Jupiter has turned the governor-elect into a goat, and we are waiting for the gods to turn him back.’

‘It can’t have been Proconsul Fabius then,’ another man chimed in. ‘No point in turning him into a goat. No one could have told the difference anyway.’

There was a murmur of relief and mirth at this. It was safe to laugh. The Proconsul Fabius in question was securely dead. He had been a favoured candidate for governor – I was fairly sure of that, from information I had gleaned at Marcus’s – but he had been executed recently for an alleged plot against the Emperor. (Not all rumours are necessarily false.)

However, I did not tell my companions that. Instead I took advantage of the change of mood to divert attention to the honoured guests, who were showing signs of getting to their feet. ‘Well, councillor, it seems you have your wish. The feast appears to be coming to an end, so you will be able to make good your escape.’

The last glass had gone straight to the old man’s head. ‘All right for you,’ he grumbled indistinctly. ‘The journey’ll be colder and wetter than the Styx for all the rest of us.’

He had a point. This banquet was being held at Marcus’s country house, but only Praxus and Mellitus – and their attendants, naturally – were house-guests here, able to stay at the villa overnight. Most of the other diners would have to make their way back to the city, several miles away. Of course (since wheeled carriages were useless in the town, where they were only permitted to move about at night) most would have hired litters awaiting them by now – the poor carriers already half perished with the cold – but travel on a winter’s night like this was always dismal in the foggy damp and chill. I was glad that I had my cosy little roundhouse less than half a mile from here – so close that it had once formed part of the estate, until Marcus had given it to me as a reward for solving a politically embarrassing crime for him. I had no expensive carrying chair to take me home, but at least I would not have very far to walk.

‘Beshides . . .’ the old ex-councillor began, but he got no further. The house-party was already on its feet, and the newly appointed priest of Jupiter, a self-important youngish man with a face like a moon and a hairless head to match, was already making his way towards the portable altar in the corner of the room. I am not a believer in the Roman pantheon, preferring the older darker Celtic gods of fire and stone, but as a citizen I am expected to observe the formalities, and in any case one can never be too careful with the gods. I rose obediently to my feet with everybody else while the closing libation and food-offering were made. The deities do very well out of official banquets such as this, I thought: sacrifice and invocation to begin, the usual oblation to the Lares halfway through, and now – since the guest of honour was a military man and Jupiter is the army’s patron god – this final offering to Jove. The household slaves would profit too, since they are traditionally permitted to enjoy any part of the sacrifice the immortals do not seem to want.

My tipsy friend the councillor was finding it quite difficult to stand by now, at least without the help of my restraining hand. And he was not the only one. Various guests were looking flushed, and either scowling with drunken concentration or smiling inanely as they swayed. Marcus’s best wine was having its effect. Even the mountainous Praxus, ridiculous in his wispy pale blue robe, was clearly feeling the effects, and as soon as the solemnities were over he gave a brief nod to the assembled company and lurched off noisily towards the little chamber which Marcus had set aside as a
vomitorium
for the night.

Marcus caught my eye across the room, and raised his brows. He had visited the vomitorium earlier himself, of course, as many other notables had done, but only for socially accepted purposes – to tickle the back of his throat with one of the thoughtfully provided feathers and genteelly regurgitate his food so as to make room for more. Stumbling out to void your stomach because of too much drink is not the behaviour of a well-bred man.

Praxus had chosen an inconvenient moment for his exit, and there was an uncomfortable pause. It would be improper for the rest of us to move before the official party had withdrawn, and that was impossible until Praxus reappeared. The senior magistrate who had sniggered earlier, a corpulent decurion who notoriously enjoyed good drink, picked up his cup and sipped at the remnants of his wine, and after a moment more diners did the same. Others dabbled their fingers in dainty water bowls, removed their wreaths, untucked their linen napkins or otherwise made preparations to depart. Nobody was talking very much.

Mellitus, who was rumoured never to visit vomitoria – too mean to give anything away, the wits said – compressed his already sour thin lips into a firmer line and sidled up to Marcus. He gave his mirthless smile and murmured something – clearly disapproving, but inaudible.

Marcus nodded, and signalled to a slave. Then he appeared to reconsider and went out towards the vomitorium himself.

I knew the little room. Of course I did – I laid the pavement in there myself, in the days when the previous owner used it as a cramped and wholly unsuitable
librarium
. It was tiny, a windowless and charmless space, distinguished only by the heavy door which had once been fitted with a complex lock, and – if I may say so – by a fine mosaic floor.

Marcus – who had added extensions to the house, including a new study for himself elsewhere – had little use for that tiny room these days. It was generally used as an ante-room for slaves except on occasions such as this when it furnished a near-perfect spot for accommodating the huge glazed bowl on its stand, the supply of goose feathers in their great brass pot and the bucket of perfumed water for rinsing lips and hands when the purpose of one’s visit had been fulfilled.

Even then, it was not quite ideal. Once a diner had arrived to use the facility, there was no space in there for anything else, not even for the usual attendant slave. The luckless boy whose function at such feasts was to stand by and periodically empty out the bowl and replenish the water in the pail was generally obliged to wait outside, in the verandahed colonnade which – as in many country homes built in the Roman style – ran round the courtyard garden and linked the series of individual private rooms in the rear wings to each other and to the central portion of the house. The colonnade was open on the inner side, so waiting out there in the biting draught must have been a cold and thankless task tonight.