Rosemary Rowe - The Ghosts of Glevum

I recalled, with a cold tingle on my neck, what that slave-girl of Julia’s had overheard. Balbus had wanted me arrested yesterday, but had lacked official backing at the time. Suppose that, instead of waiting for the proper authority, he had bribed the guard to go ahead and haul me in for private questioning, with the intention of bringing public charges later on?

With Marcus gone, Balbus was the senior magistrate in the area, and the courts would blink an eye at such unauthorised arrest. Though I was a citizen, and therefore technically protected from such things, it was unlikely that my rank was going to help me now. It did not take much imagination to see what Balbus hoped to gain. A witnessed statement by a citizen who was Marcus’s erstwhile friend would seal the case, with no troublesome reprisals for the arresting magistrate. And if I could not be forced to sign such a statement of my own accord, as the price of my freedom and release, I could probably be coerced into doing so by force. Twenty-four hours of the kind of questioning I would be subjected to and even a strong man will swear to anything, I had no illusions about that. No doubt all this had been tacitly agreed while I was twiddling my thumbs outside the jail.

I sent up a mental apology to my secretarial friend. ‘Get right away!’ he’d said. Perhaps he had known the guard were after me, and had attempted to warn me that something was afoot.

The more I thought about it, the more likely this explanation seemed. If the murder of Praxus could somehow be interpreted as a plot against the state and Marcus was proved guilty of the crime, there would be a senior position to be filled, and Balbus himself would be a candidate — especially with part of the traitor’s fortune in his purse. The Emperor rewards loyal vigilance. Balbus would bear watching if I escaped from this.

And if I were arrested but did not co-operate? The idea sent shivers down my spine. Who, that mattered in the town, would notice the absence of an ageing tradesman like myself? It would simply be assumed I’d run away, especially now my patron was in jail, and my absence would lend credence to his guilt.

Well, if that was Balbus’s idea, I thought grimly, he would have to catch me first.

I only hoped Junio was safe. It was possible that they were already holding him prisoner at the workshop. That was a disturbing thought. For a moment I was almost tempted to go back, but I forced myself to stay still and let reason rule my head. Junio was relatively safe as long as I was free — the only point in holding him would be to threaten me. My best course was to get myself away, and make my plans when I was safe. But I was not safe here. Perhaps Bullface wouldn’t find me, here outside the walls, but there were other threats.

This area of neglected back lanes on the fringe of town is quite notorious. There are reasons why white-robers don’t venture there alone, at least not without the protection of a slave. Could I try to make a dash for it, and get back to the road? I edged to the end of the alleyway and peered out. An old man with a load of firewood on his back paused to give me a peculiar look.

I was still contemplating what to do, when a hand fell on my shoulder from behind.

‘Hush, master!’ Junio’s voice was in my ear. ‘Don’t cry out like that. You will alert them that we’re here. There are people trying to arrest you. You’ve seen that there’s a guard outside the shop?’

I was so weak with relief that I snapped at him. ‘Of course I did. And they will have no need of an arrest if you contrive to frighten me to death!’ As he tugged me back into the passageway, I collected my thoughts sufficiently to ask, ‘How did you know I was here? And how did you get here, in any case?’

‘There’s another entrance to this lane, down by the dyer’s shop, and this alley runs right down to the docks. I come this way for water — if you don’t need it clean. It saves queuing at the public fountains and good water is a waste when you only want it to mix mortar with. And I’ve got your fish-heads down here, once or twice, when there were none going cheap at the fish market.’

I nodded. I sometimes use fish-heads to boil up into glue. I need it to stick small mosaics on to backing cloth, so they can be laid as one single piece and then soaked off again. It is a technique which saves a huge amount of time — the fish-head glue soaks off quite readily — though I do not advertise the fact among my customers, who are often delighted by my speed of work.

Junio was anxious to show me how much he knew. ‘There is a quick way through as well — this lane links up with a pathway further on, not towards the colonia and the docks, but upstream of that, the uncommercial part. I’ll take you that way now. It isn’t very pleasant, I’m afraid, but you had better not go back towards the town.’

The uncommercial part. I knew the area he meant. Not the main river with its bustling quays, but the turgid half-silted channel that wound upstream of the dock, its murky waters full of eels and makeshift water craft. There had been a sort of suburb there some time ago, built up over time as this loop of the river slowly silted up, but that had been mostly abandoned a few years ago after a period when the Sabrina burst its banks each spring and flooded the whole area waist-high. Recently, I was aware, a few hardier souls had crept back to the waterfront again and set up new homes and businesses among the remnants of the old.

I knew the place by reputation only. An area of brothels, taverns and shacks, where shadowy men eked out a living on the fringes of the river-trade and often on the fringes of the law, while those who wished to become invisible flitted between the ruins like living ghosts. People spoke of the ‘Ghosts of Glevum’ with a laugh, touching an amulet to dispel bad luck. It didn’t seem a laughing matter now.

Not a place I care to visit, given half a choice. ‘I suppose we must?’ I said unwillingly. But I was already following Junio. No fancy Roman drains or fine pavements here — just a muddy passageway between high walls — but pretty soon we found the path he’d spoken of. I didn’t like the look of it at all. It wound remorselessly away from the civilisation of the town down to a shady reach of swampy ground, where broken walls were interspersed with encroaching clumps of marsh-grass and reeds. Even the path itself seemed treacherous, threatening to sink at every step.

I felt like a condemned man forced at sword-point out towards the beasts — urged into certain danger by a greater threat. Suddenly it seemed that nowhere was safe, though I reminded myself that I was lucky to be here, especially with Junio at my side.

‘I’m glad you managed to escape that guard,’ I said.

Junio threw me a sardonic glance over his shoulder. ‘There wasn’t one guard, master. There were three.’ He led me over another pile of bones and building waste. ‘I found them at the house when I arrived. They asked for you, and I told them you had business in the town — I said I thought you were intending to visit the barber’s shop after you’d seen Marcus at the garrison, and two of them set off to find you straight away.’

‘But they let you go?’ I was surprised at that. Holding my slave under duress would have been a useful way of securing me.

He turned and grinned at me. ‘I volunteered to show them where the barber’s was — they were from Praxus’s bodyguard, they said, so they’d just come from Gaul and didn’t know the town. I took them there, all right, but when we reached the door I stood back to let them in, then took to my heels. They were so busy looking in the shop for you, they didn’t notice I was gone — at least I suppose they did, but by then it was too late. Watch your feet here, master, the ground is slippery.’