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
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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.
Julia was waiting in her dressing room, a little ante-room next to the smaller of the two adjoining bedchambers which Marcus had constructed for their use. The original master of the house was not a married man, and all the bedrooms round the central colonnade – though luxurious – were self-contained: small individual rooms which opened off the court. This further wing had been my patron’s fantasy, a tribute to his beautiful new wife, and he had showed me proudly round it when it was complete.
It consisted of this connubial suite (well-bred Roman couples always have separate rooms, a practice I have never understood), a nursery and a servants’ room nearby, and a fine new librarium as well, all situated around another little walled enclosure containing a statue of Venus and a lily pond. The extension to the front façade, through which I’d just approached, also provided another small triclinium, an intimate dining area the family had used when the approaching birth had kept Julia from any public gaze, and where she could still dine in comfort and apart on purely masculine occasions such as tonight’s. I still hoped for a commission for a floor in there – the current plastered one was only a temporary expedient, hurriedly laid down by the builder to ensure that the room was ready by the promised date.
‘Libertus.’ Julia rose to her feet to welcome me. She had been sitting on a little gilded stool, surrounded by her maids, and was now demurely dressed in a warm dark-coloured Grecian robe with a cloak around her shoulders and her arms, and her hair obscured by its handsome hood. Of course, it was much more fitting garb, for both the climate and the company, but I was a little disappointed at the change. I may be an old man – at over fifty I am one of the oldest men in Glevum – but I am still susceptible to female charms.
She misinterpreted my glance and shook her head. ‘It was foolish of me to come out like that, I know, but I did not stop to think. I was told that they’d seized Marcus, so I came just as I was. However, I have recovered my wits now, as you see.’
‘I see that you have wrapped up against the cold.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘And against the wagging of malicious tongues. With Marcus gone, there might be allegations of impropriety. Of course the idea is perfectly absurd, old friend – no one could imagine you in such a role – but those who have trumped up charges against my husband would no doubt gladly do the same against his wife.’
I nodded glumly. Her absolute discounting of me as a virile male was hardly flattering, but I did see what she meant. She was alone in private with a man at night and in her personal quarters too. It was most unusual for anyone but the spouse to bring charges of adultery, but it was not utterly impossible, and for those found guilty of the crime the punishment was cruel.
I said, ‘Marcus has appointed me your guardian. It would be hard to make an accusation stick, even if there was anyone to bring a charge. Besides, you have your maidservants as witnesses.’ This was thin comfort, as we were both aware: the presence of slaves – especially female ones – would hardly signify. However, my own words did give me an idea. ‘Perhaps you could send one of your attendants to go and fetch my slave as well? He will be waiting in the servants’ quarters in the main part of the house.’
She gave a wan smile. ‘Of course. Cilla, see to it.’ She nodded to one of the handmaidens, a large and rather lumpy girl, who trotted off at once. All the time that I’d known Julia, she’d always surrounded herself with unattractive maids, not out of compassion for their plight, to offer the poor things employ, but so that she could sparkle the more in comparison. It was an unnecessary and rather disappointing vanity. Julia would have sparkled in any company. Even now in the flickering light from the oil lamps, muffled in a cloak and looking tired and strained, she was astonishingly beautiful. If I did not have a dear and much-loved woman of my own, I might have envied Marcus his delightful wife.
One of the female slaves had brought a stool for me, but I preferred to stand. Julia, however, sank down again and muttered in a breaking voice, ‘Libertus, what are we going to do? To accuse Marcus – Marcus! – of murdering a guest! And a senior officer in the army, too! Of course my husband hated Praxus, we all knew that, but Marcus would have contained his power in other ways. This is simply unbelievable!’
‘Contained his power?’ I must have been peculiarly dense that night.
Julia seemed to think so. She gave me a startled look. ‘Of course. The three of them were to rule the area, under Pertinax’s nominal control, until the new provincial governor is installed. Surely you were aware of that?’
I was, of course. I nodded.
‘Praxus seemed to think that, since he had the army under his command, he was the one with ultimate authority. Obviously Marcus was not happy about that. He was the senior man, if anything – he was named as the governor’s personal representative in Glevum long ago. And not only that, Marcus was concerned about the rule of law. Praxus has come here from Gaul, and his idea of exercising power there was always to use his forces first and ask questions afterwards.’
I looked at her with admiration. How many pampered Roman wives could give so cogent an account of their husbands’ political concerns? Marcus was a lucky man indeed. I said, ‘And they quarrelled about that? I heard that there had been an argument.’
Julia coloured. Even in the shadowy light I could see that the cheeks beneath the hood were flushed with red – and not merely from the brazier at her side. ‘Not exactly that,’ she muttered awkwardly.
‘What then?’ My mind was on disturbances in Gaul. There had been several recent instances of civilian unrest in that province, which the army had repeatedly put down. Perhaps Praxus’s methods had been needed there. But in Britannia it had been the other way. Here it was a group of legionaries who’d rebelled, wanting to overthrow the Emperor and set up Governor Pertinax in his place, until Pertinax himself loyally subdued them, and denounced the ringleaders to Rome. The whole event had almost got him killed – one reason why he’d begged to be replaced. It had also won him mortal enemies among those jostling for Imperial regard and, since Marcus had supported Pertinax throughout, presumably my patron might be a target too. This was a seriously worrying thought.
Julia’s answer to my question, therefore, astonished me. ‘I was the cause of the quarrel, I’m afraid.’
‘You?’
‘Praxus had just come from Gaul. Marcus presented me to him – he was after all a guest in our house – but Praxus, well . . .! His behaviour was positively uncivilised. He started with lewd looks and ribald jokes. Then, when he heard that I’d just had a child, he made some extremely coarse remarks about what Marcus must have done to bring that about, and suggested that he’d like to do the same – with graphic variations on the theme. He seemed to expect Marcus to be flattered and amused. All this in my presence, too, as if I had no ears.’
‘And Marcus took exception to all this?’
‘Well, not at first, at least not publicly. He kept telling me that Praxus was a military man, and used to soldiers’ ways, how he couldn’t marry till he surrendered his command and very likely had to leave a would-be wife in Gaul, and that anyway we should forgive him because he was a guest. Oh, Marcus made every excuse for him at first. And then Praxus asked for a female slave to bring a phial of oil to his room, and used her when she came, without so much as asking our permission first. That did it. Marcus really lost his temper then. That was more than simply uncouth words, he said, it was a kind of theft.’
I nodded, closing my eyes in horror at the tale. My wife Gwellia had been a slave – captured into servitude with me when we were young – and though she never talked about those years, every time I caught a glimpse of what her life must have been it struck chill to my heart. I had been luckier: although I was mistreated for a while, I was sold at last to a just and wealthy man who had not only had me taught a trade, but bequeathed me my freedom when he died.
Julia, though, was typically Roman in her attitude. She nodded, misinterpreting my pain. ‘Unforgivable, was it not? And Praxus seemed to feel that he’d done nothing wrong – that any slave was simply his to take, as if he was the Emperor himself. I think that is really what sparked the quarrel off. One thing led to another then, and harsh words were said, until Marcus threatened to take him to the courts. Then Praxus did calm down a little. He even apologised, after a fashion, saying that if a guest of his had asked for a female slave he would have known how to interpret it; and that he was sorry if he’d offended me, but he thought that as I’d been married twice before I was no shrinking virgin to be horrified by a man’s carnal needs.’