Rosemary Rowe - The Ghosts of Glevum

She could hardly have mustered a stronger argument, but I still demurred. ‘But if Golbo stays out here. .?’

‘You can say that he came in here to hide without your knowing it — which after all is no more than the truth. That might be some kind of defence. If he’s in the roundhouse, there will be no possible excuse. Oh, Libertus, please do come inside. There is obviously something serious afoot. If anyone comes searching here tonight, it’s better that they find us in our beds.’

This was so manifestly true that I complied. ‘You are right, of course. Very well, I’ll come with you now. Golbo, you can stay here by the fire, where at least you can be warm and dry tonight. There’s clean water in the big bowl by the door, and a pile of fleece. Lie on it and pull some over you. Tomorrow we must think where you can go.’ And what we should do about your testimony too, I thought, although I didn’t speak the words aloud.

And then, at last, I did submit to Gwellia’s urgings and went back into the house, where I allowed my weary slaves to undress me, sponge down my muddy clothes and legs, and help me to my welcome bed of reeds. Then they wrapped me in a woollen blanket and tiptoed away, leaving me to Gwellia and my thoughts.

I couldn’t sleep. Gwellia invited me to talk, but the more I turned the events of the evening over in my head, the less sense any of it made to me. It was Gwellia, in the end, who voiced the thought that I could not allow myself to think.

‘Husband,’ she whispered, when I had rehearsed the same thing for the twentieth time, ‘has it occurred to you that Mellitus could be right? Perhaps it was your patron who pushed Praxus in the bowl. What other explanation can there be?’

‘I don’t know!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yet surely there must be one. I don’t believe for an instant that Marcus murdered him.’ But when I came to consider all the mounting evidence I had to admit the possibility, though I couldn’t bear to contemplate it for long. That is why I didn’t sleep all night, and why — as soon as the first light of chilly dawn broke through the sullen clouds — I slipped away from my still sleeping wife, pulled on my sandals and a woollen cloak, and went out to find Golbo in the hut.

But I was too late. Golbo wasn’t there.

I searched the whole enclosure — behind the woodpile, in the chicken-house, even under the holly branches in the grain pit — but there was no sign of him. I went out to the steep rocky lane which ran past the house, but there was nothing to be seen, only the hazy outlines of the trees looming at me through the misty murk. No trace of footprints, either, on the frosty earth.

I was still there, gazing intently at the road, when a voice hissed, ‘Citizen?’ startlingly close to me. I whirled round to see a cloaked figure detach itself from the white-grey haze of the woods.

‘Golbo?’ I said, but it was not the boy. In the dim half-light I recognised the lumpy maidservant who had fetched Junio to me the night before.

‘It’s Cilla, master,’ the girl said, still whispering. ‘Golbo has not been found.’ She came up close beside me and went on, ‘Be careful, citizen, we may be overheard. There might still be searchers on the roads. The lady Julia, my mistress, sent me to find you here, as soon as it was starting to be light. She says to tell you that the guards took ten slaves — the ones who were holding torches — as hostages last night. They marched them off into the town for questioning, along with Marcus and the doorkeeper.’

My heart, which was already lower than my still damp sandal-straps, sank even more at this. Marcus was an important man, with wealth and influence: he would be locked up in the garrison — probably in the commander’s house, in case he proved to be innocent in the end. But everyone knew what such ‘questioning’ would mean for all the rest. The servants would be tortured until they ‘remembered’ something significant — who had sent the orders to the colonnade, for example, or where Golbo had gone — whether or not the events they confessed had ever actually occurred. Over the years I have attempted to dissuade Marcus from employing such techniques, since I was once a slave myself with no civic rights of any kind.

However, it was Marcus who was now under arrest, and lesser magistrates — presumably Balbus in particular, since he was now the most senior of those left — would be looking for the ‘truth’ as quickly and ruthlessly as possible, to minimise their own political embarrassment. The routine and perfectly legal torture of a few slaves was hardly likely to trouble them.

Now I had a moral problem on my hands. If I found Golbo, should I take him to the authorities? Or should I give them his testimony in any case and hope to save ten other innocent slaves from hours of agony — at the end of which, one could be almost sure, somebody would break down under the anguish and invent evidence against Marcus.

I was debating this when Cilla spoke again. ‘That is not the only reason why I’ve come. My mistress sent me to warn you, citizen. One of the serving girls overheard a conversation in the court. Balbus was arguing that they should send guards for you — he says you were the first to leave the banquet hall, and you probably helped my master in his task, because Praxus was too big for one man alone to overcome. He said he saw you standing by the corpse, holding a heavy brass pot in your hand, and that you’d almost certainly used it to hit Praxus on the head so that Marcus could more easily hold him down.’

I felt a chill run down my back, colder than the freezing morning air. It was true, I had been holding such a pot, and there would be half a dozen witnesses to that. Of course, I had not hit Praxus, I’d simply used it to retrieve the wreath, as any of the torch-bearers would testify — but if Cilla was to be believed these were the very slaves who were at this moment being flogged and questioned at the jail. When the Romans scourge you, you are inclined to remember anything they wish.

‘Balbus wanted me arrested by the guards?’ I repeated foolishly. ‘But surely only Mellitus could sanction that?’ Praxus’s bodyguard, like that of any military commander of high rank, would have been personally hand-picked from the legions under his control, responsible for his safety and answerable to him alone. These men had come with Praxus a few days ago, when he arrived from Gaul, and until alternative orders came they were not officially attached to anyone. A high-ranking official of the Empire, such as Mellitus, might co-opt them for some official role, but a mere local decurion like Balbus would need agreement from the ordo first, and probably the co-operation of the garrison as well, however many high-ranking brothers he might have in Gaul.

Cilla nodded. ‘I think he hoped that Mellitus would sanction it, and perhaps he will, if the master does not confess. I don’t suppose my owner will do that, citizen. Not when he is innocent of the crime.’

I rounded on her sharply. ‘You know that? That he is innocent?’

The plump plain face puckered. ‘Well, I thought. . naturally. .’ She was gazing at me in disbelief. ‘Surely, citizen, you do not suppose. .? My master would never dream of such a thing.’

‘Of course not,’ I said hurriedly. ‘I only hoped that you might have had some proof, so that I could declare it to the magistrates and have him freed. Supposing that anyone would listen to my plea.’ It occurred to me that without my patron’s influence that might be difficult to bring about.

She looked at me. ‘The new high priest of Jupiter might help you there, perhaps. He’s had no time to get involved in local politics, but he has dined at the villa once or twice. He has a theory that Governor Pertinax will be the future Emperor of Rome. Said he had read it in the stars. My mistress was very entertained. But if he believes that, surely he would help?’