Rosemary Rowe - A Coin for the Ferryman

‘I’m afraid not, citizen. I only wish I did have something more helpful to report. I’d be glad to have a little extra in my purse.’ He bestowed another whiff of onions on me, as he shoved his big face close to mine and gave me a gigantic, knowing wink. ‘You won’t forget to mention that I did my best?’

‘I shall tell my patron exactly what you said when I see him at the banquet later on. In the meantime, keep on the alert. If you see anything suspicious, or if you remember something that might have slipped your mind, make sure you let me know. Now, where’s that little slave of mine? It’s time for us to go.’

‘Here, m-m-master.’ Kurso was at the doorway, where he’d retreated, cowering. He looked at the brutish gatekeeper with uncertain eyes. I could understand his feelings, to a point. Aulus was so much bigger, he could have eaten him for lunch.

However, one cannot encourage timidity in a slave. ‘Come, Kurso,’ I said briskly. ‘Attend me down the lane.’ I gestured to Aulus, who was standing motionless. ‘And you, doorkeeper, may escort us through the gate. I have already taken leave of my patron and his wife.’

Aulus looked surly, but he undid the gate and ushered us outside.

I turned to him. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen the villa cart come back? Your mistress was promising us a lift if it was here. Though I suppose it would have gone round to the rear — it was bringing the entertainers for tonight.’

He shook his head. ‘I would have noticed it. I told you, I can see everything from my guardroom.’

‘Even if you were talking to someone at the time?’ Aulus had not had his eye to the spyhole while I was in the room.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Even Aulus could see the implication of my last remark. He wiped a fat hand across his massive face. ‘I would have heard it,’ he said defiantly. ‘Just as I would have heard anyone who drove past the other day, whatever you might think. Horses and wheels make a clatter in the lane, and that wagon, in particular, is a noisy one. I’ll bet a quadrans , citizen, that cart has not come back.’

In this, at least, he was demonstrably right, for even as he spoke the cart in question turned the corner of the lane and lumbered into view, with such a squeaking and clattering, such a thudding of hooves and juddering of wheels, that only a deaf man would not have noticed it.

Aulus flung me a triumphant glance. He didn’t say, ‘You see?’ but his smirk conveyed the message with perfect clarity. ‘You wish me to stop it, citizen, before it goes round to the back? So you and your slave can ride back to your house?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but set off down the lane, gesticulating at the driver as he went.

The wagon stopped, and there was a whispered consultation in the lane, with Aulus motioning towards me with his thumb, and the driver countering by gesturing at his human cargo with his whip. However, a decision was obviously reached, and in my favour too, because presently the passengers began to climb down from the cart.

They were a striking collection. Two handsome, muscular young men in leather skirts, who moved and looked like acrobats, and an ageing one who certainly did not; a pair of stunted men with exaggerated beards and straggling haircuts, who might have been a form of comic turn; and lastly a group of chattering young women — most genuinely Iberian from the look of them, with the typical striking red-blond colouring of Celts from that part of the Empire, though there were one or two with darker skin and hair. All of them were comely. Aulus was ogling them as they got down from the cart, and I found that I was staring at them too.

They invited stares. Their skin was powdered almost white, and they were wearing so much lamp-black round their eyes and wine lees rubbed into their lips and cheeks that I could see it even where I stood. They wore their hair luxuriously long, hanging free around their shoulders in a way no self-respecting Roman maiden would consider (although the effect was very pleasing, in an erotic sort of way). Their costume, too, was not of a modest nature, not only because of the boldness of the dyes — I noted reds and orange, yellow, pinks and greens — but because it was of a daring cut as well, with little tunic-skirts that barely reached their thighs and necklines that almost reached their waists. The floating scarves of different colours suspended from their belts gave only the illusion of covering their legs: at the slightest movement it did nothing of the sort.

They were moving a great deal as they climbed down from the cart, and Aulus was almost salivating at the sight. However, as each one reached the ground, an older woman, who seemed to be in charge, handed her an ankle-length brown cloak, and when all had descended she hustled them off towards the back gate of the house. Even then they walked with a kind of conscious, swaying gait that made the long, drab cloaks look sensual.

Aulus watched them go, lust and disappointment written on his face, and it was a long moment before he walked back to me. ‘The driver will turn the cart round and then he’ll take you home. And your little kitchen slave as well — supposing that he ever shuts his mouth again, that is.’

I turned to Kurso. I had forgotten him. He too was staring after the departing girls. He caught my eye and closed his jaw, which had dropped in what I thought was admiration for their looks.

I was wrong. ‘All those p-p-proper dancing girls?’ He sounded awed. He saw my face, and hastened to explain. ‘My former m-m-master had a s-s-single dancer at a b-b-banquet once, and said she c-c-cost too much to use again. And your p-p-patron. .’ He coloured and tailed off.

It was surprising, when you thought of it. Marcus was famously careful with his wealth. The entertainment at his feasts was more likely to be a local poet, or a group of tumbling dwarves, than any sophisticated group like this. These were expensive dancers, you could tell that at a glance: their dyer’s bill alone would have kept our household for a year.

I laughed. ‘Attempting to impress his cousin Lucius, I expect. I hear that they have entertainments between every course at court, and presumably the rest of Rome follows suit. In the best households, anyway. Obviously Marcus wants to prove that he can do the same, and for once he doesn’t care about the cost.’

Aulus gave me a sideways look. ‘It’s more than that. It’s rumoured that Lucius is on the lookout for unusual acts that he can take back to amuse the Emperor. He has already sent one act on its way to Rome with his chief slave and baggage. Apparently there is a lack of novelty at court. Commodus is tired of his freaks and naked dancing girls, and bored with people fighting to the death for him, so providing something different is a route to quick reward. They’ve had entertainments here every night since Lucius arrived.’

I frowned. ‘There’s nothing very different about tonight’s performers, though. High-class and expensive, but not unusual. If the Emperor’s been used to nude extravaganzas, this will seem very tame. There must be dozens of Iberian dancing girls in Rome.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Aulus spat noisily into the dust. ‘I just know there were some performers here the other night, and Lucius offered them a chance to go to Rome. And after that, of course, every entertainer in Britannia wants to come, in case they catch his eye. The master could have had his pick of the best acts in the province and paid them only an as or two apiece. He knows a bargain when he sees one — I expect that’s what he’s done.’ He glanced towards the back lane to the villa, where the dancing girls had disappeared from view, and bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin. ‘Not that I shall see them. You will be the one to benefit, at the feast tonight.’ He leaned forward and the smell of bad teeth came wafting over me. ‘You’ll tell me afterwards if they were any good?’