Rosemary Rowe - Enemies of the Empire

I flinched, despite myself — such novices are more dangerous than practised criminals, who at least have some idea of what they’re doing.

‘Come on,’ Spotty-face said eagerly. ‘We’ll question him ourselves.’ He turned to me. ‘Let’s have the truth from you, before I make you disappear the way my uncle did.’

I was about to protest weakly that what I had told them was the truth, when Big-ears suddenly spoke up. ‘Drop it, Laxus. Don’t let’s be hasty here. He might be right. I did hear that the Roman magistrate put in at the mansio and left a number of his party there. I suppose it is just possible that this man is one of them. Certainly he isn’t local, from his voice. I’ve never set eyes on him before.’ Spotty-face looked at him contemptuously, but he hurried on. ‘Suppose he is what he says he is, and the important Roman is his patron? Do you want to bring the wrath of the authorities down on your head? After all the money that your father spent on seeking civil office and trying to attract the attention of the provincial imperial power — even packed your seven brothers off to join the legions, just so that they’d all earn citizenship at the end. What do you suppose he would say, if you threw all that away and offended an important magistrate? Do you no good to be your mother’s favourite then — he’d cut off your peculium and leave you penniless. You’d be lucky to escape from army life yourself. And me, as well, since I consort with you. So, you do what you like. I want no part of it.’

Cupidus had not let go of me. ‘The man’s a spy,’ he said. ‘You heard what Laxus said. He came from down the bath-house way and lurked — you know what those barbarians are like. Spies everywhere. Just look at him. Does he look like a Roman citizen to you?’ He banged my head against the wall to emphasise the point. ‘What do you propose? We let him go? Our families would be delighted about that! They’d cut off more than your peculium then!’ His voice was slurred but he was in control enough to give me another sharp tap against the wall.

A little more of this treatment and I would be as fuddled as they were, though Big-ears, at least, seemed to be capable of sober thought. I said — as clearly as I could with Cupidus leaning heavily on my chest and crushing me against the stonework — ‘Well, there’s one easy way to check. Take me to the forum and we’ll find my slave.’

There was a pause. You could almost hear the workings of their minds. Then, very slowly, Cupidus let me go. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But no tricks, you understand. You lead the way and we’ll be right behind. And if you’re lying, Jove have mercy on you. .’

‘’Cause we won’t,’ both the others chorused, as if this was some kind of motto between the three of them.

I was still a little shaken from events, but I did have the wit to point out that I still did not know which way the forum lay — that this was, after all, what I had asked them in the first place.

‘Round that corner to the left and then straight on,’ Big-ears said, gesturing impatiently. ‘The pastry shop is on the outside of the forum buildings, to the left again — let’s hope that slave of yours is waiting there.’

So I had virtually been round the market in a square, I thought. I set off, as slowly as I dared, trying to buy a little time and think through the evening’s extraordinary events, though I was uncomfortably aware of the still drunken trio at my heels.

Venta was a town of many secrets, it appeared. First Plautus had appeared, although he was supposed to be dead and buried. Then Lyra, apparently, had set spies on me, and Lupus from the thermopolium had told me that, under the outward appearance of Roman civic rule, the town was virtually in the grip of rival local gangs. One, clearly, was the so-called ‘bath-side’ group, and — in trying to escape from them — I had stumbled into the hands of my inebriated friends, who evidently regarded the latter as mortal enemies.

Perhaps I could use that fact to my advantage here. ‘You might be interested to know that I think one of your bath-side friends was following me earlier,’ I said, slackening my pace to speak to them. ‘That’s why I was hiding in the door, to try to throw him off. I wonder why they were on my tail. Thought that I was an associate of yours, perhaps.’

Cupidus was clearly unimpressed. He gave me an unfriendly shove. ‘Keep walking, friend.’ He was still flushed with drink and his face was wreathed in an unlovely leer.

I had no choice but to comply. We were back in the commercial quarter now, and here and there men ran about with flaming links while small ox carts unloaded charcoal, wood and oil into half-shuttered shops, but at a prod from Laxus’s dagger I edged past without a word. I gave up all thought of reasoning with my captors and walked in silence, while they whispered taunts and jeers, until the dark bulk of the forum loomed up in front of us. It was deserted now. The colonnaded buildings which enclosed the forum square, and the massive outline of the basilica at the further end, were mere dark silhouettes against the sky.

I stood there blinking stupidly, almost unable to believe my eyes. I hardly needed Cupidus to come up behind and murmur unpleasantly into my ear: ‘There’s your pastry shop. Where’s this famous slave?’

I found myself gazing pointlessly up and down the empty street. I would have wagered a great deal that Promptillius had the kind of dogged and dutiful stupidity which would have kept him remaining obediently in a burning shop, if someone had not ordered him to move. But there was not the slightest sign of him.

Matters were looking distinctly menacing. Spotty Laxus still had his dagger at my back, and for a moment I thought that Cupidus was going to urge him on, but at that instant a grubby boy came out of the pastry shop. He was thin, half starved and wispy, perhaps seven or eight years old, and he was carrying a board, on which was piled what looked like the wood-ash of a fire. I guessed he was a slave-boy, set to work to clean the ovens out ready for the next day’s cookery: it is not unusual for tradesmen, even humble ones, to have young slaves like this, especially when they sell necessities. There is always some family more wretched than their own which has not the wherewithal to pay its bills and is happy to offer an unwanted child instead, reducing the number of hungry mouths to feed.

There was an oil lamp still burning in the shop, judging by the glow that filled the door, and the child stood a moment on the threshold, blinking in the dark. When he saw us he stiffened. ‘What are you doing here again? My master has already paid his dues this month.’ He was trembling so much that he spilt some of his ash, and he looked as if he would have bolted back inside if he had dared.

Cupidus came up behind me and seized me by the neck. He said, unpleasantly, ‘It’s not you we’re after. . this time. We’re looking for a non-existent slave. This lying wretch,’ he gave me such a shake that my teeth rattled, ‘declares he left one waiting here. You get on with what you’re doing, and be quick or I’ll tell your master you were standing gossiping.’

The lad’s eyes were wide with fright: the whites shone in the moonlight. He knelt to scrape up as much as possible of what he’d spilt, and, failing, scuttled round the corner to the passageway where obviously the household’s midden was.

As he was disappearing, I called after him. ‘I don’t suppose, since you were working here, that you happened to see anyone yourself?’ I guessed that he was not often spoken to without a curse or a blow, and I deliberately used a courteous form of words and tried to make my tone as kind as possible.