Rosemary Rowe - The Ghosts of Glevum

He bowed his head and murmured, ‘Master, some of the councillors are asking for their personal slaves. Should I fetch them down?’ Personal attendants, like my own Junio, having delivered their masters to the feast, are always shown to the servants’ quarters at the rear and offered a more meagre supper of their own.

Marcus nodded his assent. The Nubian seized a torch and went, and very soon a huddle of attendant slaves was following him back down the colonnade, avoiding our corner even with their eyes. Marcus looked at me and raised his brows. He knew as well as I did what was happening. The first of his well-fed visitors had abandoned all pretence at dignity and were making a panic-stricken retreat into the night, like soldiers deserting a losing general.

He made an attempt to reassert control. ‘This is certainly unfortunate. Praxus has sustained an accident. .’

Mellitus interrupted him. ‘Ah, but as this perceptive citizen points out, it does not seem to be an accident.’ He addressed himself to the few guests who still remained. ‘Now I have a problem, gentlemen, you see. I have the highest possible opinion of our host, of course. Yet Gaius Flaminius Praxus is clearly dead. If he was not simply overcome by drink, then — as our friend observes — there must have been some other factor at work here. Someone must have drugged him in some way, or given him something poisonous to eat, and then — when he came out here, already weak — managed to drown him in the vomitorium.’

There was a gasp of horrified assent.

‘It must have been something of the kind. Praxus was too big to overcome in any other way,’ Mellitus went on urgently. ‘But hear me, citizens. Given that this is Marcus’s house and that we have eaten Marcus’s food and wine, and that only Marcus’s slaves were in the colonnade, I cannot — unless someone can persuade me otherwise — see any other explanation but that Marcus, or one of his household, had a hand in this. Of course, it was cleverly designed to look like a mischance.’

There were mutterings of reluctant agreement now. Even the priest of Jupiter joined in. ‘It seems that the procurator’s right. Now I come to think of it, Marcus was standing in there with the corpse. I saw him there myself.’

Marcus said sharply, ‘This is preposterous. This death is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. I simply came out and found him lying there.’

Mellitus said doubtfully, ‘Perhaps there is someone who can vouch for that? Where was the attendant at the time?’ He whirled on the little page-boy with the water bucket. ‘Well?’

‘I was collecting water from the spring.’

Mellitus smiled. ‘How extraordinarily convenient. And why did you choose that moment for your errand, so late on in the feast? Did you receive an order from your master, perhaps?’

The boy turned pale. ‘I. .’ He stopped, and looked at Marcus helplessly.

Marcus said furiously, ‘I did not send him!’

‘But. .’ the slave began, and stopped again. He was sweating and clearly terrified, but none of the sub-procurator’s savage questioning could make him utter another word.

‘It does not signify,’ Mellitus said at last, with a contemptuous laugh, giving the boy a push which sent him sprawling to the ground. ‘We shall get the truth out of him in the end.’

I felt a chill run down my spine. I knew what that meant, and so did everyone else who witnessed it. When an important man is suspected of a crime within his house, his slaves are routinely tortured to discover what they know, since the authorities assume that loyalty to their master will otherwise drive them to lie in his defence.

‘By Mithras, don’t you dare treat my attendants so. .’ Marcus stepped forward to protect his slave, but then stopped in alarm. Clattering into the colonnade came half a dozen Roman guards, in military uniform and armed. Before them they pushed Marcus’s wretched doorkeeper, his arm twisted cruelly behind his back.

‘Master, I attempted to prevent them. .’ he began, and broke off with a cry of pain.

‘We are Praxus’s personal bodyguard,’ the biggest fellow said. He had a big, blunt square head and small eyes like a bull. ‘One of the departing guests told us that he was hurt.’

‘Dead,’ Mellitus corrected, and stepped aside to let them see the corpse. ‘And therefore it is my unpleasant duty, I’m afraid — and I call on these councillors and citizens to witness this — to formally accuse this man’ — he pointed towards Marcus — ‘of killing him, or, if not that, of having him killed by slaves in his employ. Balbus, have him seized.’

Everyone looked on, appalled. This was a formal indictment under law. Calvinus Nonnius Balbus was the corpulent decurion who had sniggered earlier at the poet’s verse. As president of the town council he was also its senior magistrate, so during his year’s term of office he was second in precedence only to Marcus himself. He was not sniggering now. He simply gave a little helpless moan and twittered indecisively, fingering his silver toga-clasp as though it were a charm. The few other guests who had remained glanced at one another doubtfully, uncertain what to do. However, the bull-like guard did not hesitate. He drew his sword and signalled to his men.

What followed was not a dignified affair. Marcus, after a startled glance at me, took to his heels and tried to run. He set off across the inner garden to the gate, while his slaves closed ranks to try to cover him. One of them, who was carrying a torch, lashed out with it, setting a soldier’s beard and hair alight. He was instantly cut down. The visiting dignitaries, shocked and splashed with blood, huddled in doorways and under arches as if turned to stone — like the statues in their damp niches near the garden pool, where two of the soldiers had caught up with Marcus now.

We could just make out their burly silhouettes against the misty dark as they tumbled him to the ground, seized him none too gently by the arms and hauled him to his feet.

It was all over fairly quickly after that. The household servants were even now prepared to fight, but the soldiery had swords and they had none — and Marcus himself commanded them to cease.

He had been brought back to us at sword-point, his fine purple-edged toga mudstained and his wreath awry. He was panting and distraught, but he still retained his dignity. His face blanched when he saw his servant’s bloodied corpse. ‘There is some terrible mistake,’ he said at last.

Balbus said weakly, ‘There will have to be a trial, I suppose. Oh, Great Minerva! And when I had only a few months to serve!’

‘I shall appeal to the Emperor, of course.’ Marcus spoke angrily.

Even Mellitus was looking shaken now. He said, ‘Of course you must. There was no need for that.’ He rounded on the soldiers. ‘This is an outrage, you confounded sons of dogs! Can’t you see from his toga that this is a man of noble birth? From now on treat him with appropriate respect. I shall see that your new commander hears of this.’ He turned to the still cowering dinner guests. ‘As you are my witnesses, citizens, I asked only that Marcus be accused. I did not call for bloodshed or drawn swords.’

Bullface said sullenly, ‘Wouldn’t have been called for if he hadn’t run away. And as for that confounded slave, it is an offence to strike a Roman guard — let alone set fire to his beard. He would have had worse coming to him from the courts.’

Balbus seemed to find his tongue. ‘There is some truth in that. And, Marcus. . Excellence. . at the very worst, the court could surely only sentence you to be “deprived of water and of fire”.’ He was intending to be comforting. That sentence means exile beyond the Empire, effectively, since a man cannot live without fire and water for very long, and is a sub-capital punishment for the privileged. Balbus meant that Marcus, reputed to be related to the Emperor, would not readily be condemned to death, even if a charge of murder could be proved.