Rosemary Rowe - The Ghosts of Glevum

I sighed. It was physically alarming, but a comfort mentally — it convinced me that there was someone else involved and that I was not a fool to go on questioning.

‘Citizen?’ Tullio’s gruff voice from the doorway made me start. I scrabbled to my feet. ‘I believe you offered to help us with the eels?’

I nodded.

‘Then come now, and I’ll show you how it’s done. We shall be glad of assistance. Sosso has sent word. He’s found your poet. I am to go and guide him through the marsh.’

He turned without a further word and led the way. I followed, taking care to plant my feet exactly where he’d planted his, until we came to more solid ground, where the two older children were busy doing something with a length of wool.

‘Watch them,’ said Tullio, and set off through the reeds.

It was not a complicated task, and not a pleasant one. The two boys were digging for worms and threading them lengthways along the coarse strand of home-spun yarn with the aid of a piece of sharpened bone. I watched them for a while, and then assisted in the provision of the worms. The threading exercise was more than I could bear. They, on the other hand, were quite adept at it, and very soon there was a sizeable length of worms, strung end to end, like so many squirming beads. My remarks and questions were ignored. Like the rest of the family, it seemed, these boys were used to working hard and speaking little.

‘Enough,’ the older one said suddenly. It was the first word that either child had addressed to me. He took the length of wool, tied the loose end firmly round a stick, and wound the string of worms around it so it formed a ball. Then he took it to the waterside, and plunged it in. ‘You?’ he said, and handed me the pole. He went back to his brother who, meanwhile, had pulled out another length of wool, and was beginning to create another string.

I was unsure what they expected me to do, but it soon became self-evident. There was a wriggling in the mud, a tug, and a moment later several eels — one of them quite large — were biting at the wool. I let out a howl of surprise and almost dropped my piece of wood, but the older boy was with me in a flash.

He looked scornfully at me and seized the stick, which he simply lifted to the shore. The eels, much to my surprise, clung on — too dedicated to their gruesome feast to let it go — until the younger boy came up with a sharpened stone and severed them just below the head. Even then the greedy, nasty little jaws remained clamped firmly to their prey, and had to be prised off with a piece of flint. I have never cared for eels very much, but this revolted me.

The carcasses were flung into a plaited basket waiting on the bank. ‘A good spot for eels,’ I said nervously.

The older boy gave me that look again. ‘Better in the dark. You should see them in the season,’ he said bitterly, and handed me the eeling pole again.

So that was how Tullio and Loquex found me, later on, standing by the river, trying to catch eels on a stick.

Tullio acknowledged my offering with the briefest grunt of thanks. ‘Here is your poet,’ he said shortly. ‘You stay here and talk to him — we’ll take these eels home. Better if the boys don’t overhear — the less they know, the happier their mother will be. This spot is safe enough. I’ll come back and get you later on. Come, lads!’ He signalled to his sons, and off they went.

Loquex looked at me suspiciously. ‘What is the meaning of all this? What do you want with me? I was told that I was coming here to see a citizen, acting on behalf of Marcus Septimus, otherwise I would never have agreed to come. I thought I was being taken on a short cut to the villa, but instead I find myself brought here to a swamp, to talk to a fisherman.’

‘I’m not a fisherman,’ I said, belying the assertion as I spoke by picking up my stick and landing another wriggling eel on the end of it. I tossed the whole thing to the bank — the eel did not let go. ‘Not by profession, anyway. I am indeed a citizen, a protégé of Marcus Septimus, and I was at the feast. I heard your poetry.’

I added this in the hope of flattering him, but the effect was unfortunate.

‘And so did everyone. It isn’t fair. I am invited to perform. I do my best, but nobody pays me what they promised me. No time to claim it — I’m just hustled off and told to come back another day. And then what do I hear? His Excellence is under garrison arrest, and no communication is allowed. What happens to the money I am owed? It took me several hours to write that verse, and find out all the information too.’

‘What information?’

‘To write my tributes. People never think of that. Just scribble a few verses, that’s what they think I do. They never think of all the work involved. I only recited a tiny bit of it, and wasn’t paid an as .’

‘Gaius Praxus came from Gaul

He’s very brave and very tall?’

I quoted. ‘You must have needed a lot of information to write that?’

Loquex was oblivious of irony. ‘You were there,’ he said eagerly. ‘You remember it?’

‘Who could forget?’ I muttered, softening the comment with a smile. Loquex was preening and I saw my chance. ‘Would you like the opportunity to recite the rest? What was Marcus going to pay you for the task?’

‘Six silver pieces.’

Six denarii. I could afford it, now that Julia had given me some coins, but it was an inflated sum. I thought quickly. ‘Of course that was a fee for writing it, and declaiming it before an audience,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you half as much if you’ll recite it now.’ I saw him hesitate and added swiftly, ‘That way it won’t be a total loss, and your fine verse will reach one listener, anyway.’

He looked around doubtfully. There was nothing to be seen except the reeds, the eeling stick and the marshy ground. ‘What, here?’

I nodded, and he cleared his throat. He took up a theatrical stance and launched himself into his verse. ‘Marcus Aurelius Septimus, just and fair. .’ he began.

If I hoped to learn anything from this, I was disappointed. The verse was every bit as bad as I recalled, and went on even longer than I feared. Far from concentrating on the most important guests, Loquex had managed a line or two about every single one. I listened carefully, but apart from a passing mention that the high priest of Jupiter had lands in Gaul, Balbus’s younger brother had been rising fast, and Councillor Gaius had got himself a younger wife — none of which fascinating facts had reached my ears — there was nothing of significance in any part of it, just a series of statements of the obvious. By the time he concluded the final stanza — which even mentioned me — my eyes were ready to glaze over. Loquex was looking at me expectantly.

‘Quite a feat,’ I said at last, trying to disguise my disappointment as I reached into my belt to find the coins. ‘You did well to remember all that without your scroll.’

‘As you said earlier, citizen, it is not easy to forget — especially when you have written it yourself. Of course,’ he added modestly, ‘I’m slightly famous for my memory.’

‘In that case, perhaps you can remember everything that happened at the feast?’ He looked about to launch into an account, so I added hastily, ‘After you left the dining room that night?’

‘Well, Marcus and the others cut me off, clapping before I’d properly begun,’ he said resentfully. ‘I was ushered out, into the court and round to the back door. That’s all. I tried to claim the money I was owed, but I was hurried to the entrance by a slave and told to present my bill another time.’ He looked at me. ‘I didn’t hear until next day that Praxus had been killed. I didn’t murder him, if that is what you are suggesting. Ask the slave who saw me out — he’ll tell you the same thing.’