Rosemary Rowe - The Ghosts of Glevum

I could feel some sympathy for Praxus too, although I had never liked the little I knew of him — unimaginative, inflexible and crass. The man who had so recently been a favoured appointee of the Emperor was subject to a double indignity: being sniggered at, as well as dead. And there was worse to come. There was only one way of moving him that I could see, and since Marcus was looking at me expectantly and something was obviously required, I voiced my thoughts.

‘I think we’ll have to drag him, Excellence. If I stay this end, and support his head, perhaps some of your slaves could take him by the feet? I think it might be managed then, without upsetting. . everything.’

Marcus nodded. He turned towards his slaves. ‘Six of the strongest among you do as he suggests.’ The dinner guests reluctantly stepped back and half a dozen burly kitchen slaves came forward in their place. Three of them ranged themselves on either leg.

‘Stand back,’ Mellitus advised, and the crowd unwillingly complied. I seized the hair and raised the head again — without kneeling on the floor this time — and on my cry of ‘Now’ the servants hauled, and the unfortunate Praxus slithered and bounced, still face downwards, out into the passageway. His pale blue synthesis rode upwards in the process, displaying a pair of huge and hairy buttocks and an inadequate pair of leather underpants. His hands, which trailed behind him, slithered through the patch where I had knelt.

I watched him go, and then — mindful of what my patron had required of me — I went back and, using the brass feather-pot as an implement, carefully fished out the bedraggled festive wreath.

Feeling rather in need of the facilities myself, by this time, I put the pot down, then turned aside and scrubbed my hands and soiled toga enthusiastically in the water bucket — which by some act of the gods had remained standing upright all this time. However, the goose feathers, and a large potted plant which had been placed in the far corner of the room in some attempt to beautify the space, had been knocked over in the disturbance, and now lay with the rest of the noisome rubbish on the floor. It seemed that some of the plant had fallen in the water too — at least, I hoped it was the plant. There was something unpleasantly soft and slippery at the bottom of the pail.

I flinched as my fingers touched it, and dried them hastily.

By the time I made my way into the corridor, the group was crowding round Marcus and the body once again. The portly priest of Jupiter, who (despite Jove’s connection with the army) was not supposed to see a corpse, was standing at the back, complaining loudly that this was a dreadful omen and portended woe, but at the same time stretching on tiptoe to get a better view. Only Mellitus kept himself aloof. He had been standing in the shadows, but suddenly he stepped into the ring of light from the torches and declaimed in his thin piercing voice, ‘This is what happens when people have no restraint at feasts, and encourage other men to drink too much.’

There was a sudden hush. It was such an obvious attack on Marcus that I was surprised that my patron did not protest. Instead he met the procurator’s eyes, and said in an expressionless voice, ‘Praxus did drink rather more than was good for him tonight. I ordered the servants to water down his wine, but he drank so much of it that it made very little difference, in the end.’

Mellitus looked gratified. ‘Perhaps it is a good thing for Glevum, after all. What sort of respect would such a man inspire?’ People were turning to look at him by now and he adopted a posture like a politician, clutching the shoulder-drape of his toga with one hand as he spoke. ‘A person who cannot govern himself is not fit to govern others. May the gods protect us from such leadership. See what his excess has brought him to, because he could not hold his drink. Ignominy. Desecration. Death!’

There was a little smatter of applause at this, as Mellitus had no doubt hoped. It was more oratory than conversation, but an assembly of magistrates and councillors enjoys such rhetoric, and the speech was certainly more polished than poor Loquex’s verse.

Something that Mellitus had said, however, gave me cause for thought. I made my way over towards my patron, who was still standing by the corpse. The slaves had just rolled Praxus over, and as I approached I got my first glimpse of that distorted face, under the clinging wet festoons of Jove knows what.

If I had taken a moment to consider, I should not have uttered the words which were on my lips. As it was, I spoke before I thought.

‘Your pardon, Excellence, but it occurs to me that it is rather strange that Praxus, of all people, should find himself so incapacitated by wine. He is such a giant of a man, and as a soldier surely he must be accustomed to drinking heavily.’ Marcus was staring at me fixedly, but he said nothing and I blundered on, anxious to make him understand. Usually he values my ability to see the implications of events, and I assumed that this was why he’d called me from the feast, and also what he wanted of me now. ‘He must have swallowed a prodigious quantity, don’t you think, to fall into the bowl like that and be unable to help himself? Surely there must be some other factor at work here?’

My foolish tongue! Too late, I recognised my patron’s warning frown. I looked down at Praxus’s upturned face again. Blue lips, protruding tongue and bulging eyes. Marcus had realised what I had not. Praxus had not simply fallen in and drowned: someone had either poisoned him or — given that red mark round the neck — pulled a cord round his throat and throttled him. Perhaps even both — Praxus would be no easy man to kill. And all this here, in Marcus’s house, after he had been drinking Marcus’s wine.

I did my best to undo what I’d done. ‘Possibly he had been drinking earlier? Or was he ill, perhaps? Did you have any inkling that he was unwell?’

‘He was perfectly all right five minutes earlier!’ That was Mellitus, who had moved forward now and was standing at my side with a calculating and gratified expression on his face. ‘It is obvious, my esteemed. . Libertus, is it?. . why your patron wanted you. You evidently have a swift grasp of events.’ The thin lips curved in an unpleasant smile. ‘Did you hear, gentlemen, what this clever citizen observed? Praxus was hardly a man to be overcome by drink — however excellent the Falernian wine — and besides, he was the only one affected, it appears.’

Not quite the only one, I thought, remembering how swiftly my table companion had succumbed, but I kept that observation to myself. Around me my fellow guests were murmuring assent and distancing themselves from Marcus by degrees.

‘Yet Marcus says he watered down the wine before it was served to Praxus, specifically.’ The sub-procurator’s mirthless smile widened. With his fleshless cheeks, his face reminded me obscurely of a skull. ‘That is particularly strange. I wonder what he ordered it to be watered with ?’

The mood was getting dangerous. There were distinct ripples of unease by now. I was aware of whisperings in the crowd. ‘Marcus? Never!’ ‘Well, you can’t be sure.’ ‘That pavement-maker’s right — Praxus is too big simply to get drunk like that, and so quickly too. Besides, Marcus quarrelled with him only yesterday, I heard.’

I could have cursed myself for what I’d done. The fear of trouble, even by association, spreads like fire in a store of hay. Several of the more cautious councillors, I noticed, had already slipped back into the dining room and others were following one by one.

The small page-boy who had been in attendance at the vomitorium all evening had brought a bucket of water from the spring at the nympheum , the sacred pool within the grounds that formed the villa’s chief water supply. Now, at Marcus’s instruction, he bent and cleaned the face. It looked more grotesque than ever, and more guests withdrew. A moment later Marcus’s Nubian slave appeared.