Rosemary Rowe - Murder in the Forum

Marcus paused in the act of alighting. ‘And leave me to walk the street unaccompanied? Besides, surely you wish to make your own ablutions? My slaves can bring you water and oils, at least.’

‘I thank you, Excellence, but that is hardly necessary. When I get home. .’

Marcus frowned. ‘But, Libertus, old friend, you are not returning home. At least, not yet. I wish you to accompany me to this banquet. The driver can go on ahead and tell them we are coming — you and I will send out for litters.’ He allowed Zetso to help him from the carriage and strode purposefully away.

Zetso looked at me, and smirked. I got down unaided and he drove off with a flourish. I seized a link from a passing torch-bearer, who glanced at my patron and yielded it without a murmur. Marcus still counted for something in this town.

I padded after him. ‘But, Excellence,’ I pleaded, holding the light aloft and trotting along by his side, ‘I was not invited. Besides, you are concerned about your toga. Look at mine.’ I gestured helplessly. I had hardly looked crisp and pristine in Corinium, and I was far more crumpled and dishevelled now.

Marcus waved my excuses aside. ‘This is a civic banquet, Libertus, given by the dignitaries of the city. I believe I would qualify among their number?’ That was an understatement. Marcus was one of the most influential men in the whole province. ‘I shall therefore feel free to invite anyone I choose. In any case, you have business there. I have decided to ask you to design a small commemorative pavement, in honour of this visit.’

I sighed inwardly. Marcus was likely to feel that the honour of such a commission was of more value than mere denarii , so the task was likely to bring me a great deal of prestige, but not a great deal in the way of bread and candles.

He misinterpreted my dismay. ‘As for your appearance, Felix will have to endure it. He was the person who summoned us in such haste, and in any case I think it hardly matters. You are not, after all, an important person.’ He smiled. ‘Except, of course, to me.’

There was no intended insult in this. Marcus was simply stating a fact. I was unimportant, sufficiently so to be paraded before Felix as a kind of living protest at the peremptory nature of his summons. It was not a role that I looked forward to.

Nevertheless, it was useless to protest further so I accompanied Marcus the rest of the way in silence. I was in any case slightly breathless from keeping pace with him; Marcus is much younger than I am and he was striding along very purposefully. Had he been a lesser man, I might almost have thought he was hurrying.

His town apartment was a fine one, the whole of the first floor over a wine shop near the forum, and we soon arrived at it. Marcus was right about the time it took to change. With a dozen servants to strip him, wash him, robe him and groom him he was cleansed, perfumed, bejewelled and immaculate in a sparkling new toga almost before I had finished rinsing the dust of the journey from my extremities in a bowl of rainwater.

My patron, however, was not a happy man. The death of his herald (whose identity I had tactfully omitted to mention in my own account of the day) was already the talk of the household, and he had learned of it from his scandalised servants while he was being dressed. As we made our way to the street — accompanied this time by a bevy of slaves whose spotless tunics were a rebuke to me — he was clearly fuming, not so much at the loss of the slave as at the affront to his own dignity. This, of course, was why I had not told him. Marcus in this mood was a very dangerous man.

Fortunately, it did not occur to him that my omission was deliberate. Identifying a dragged corpse is not easy, and he simply supposed that I had not recognised it. I was happy to allow him his illusions.

‘Imagine it!’ he muttered, as we went out to join the litters which had been summoned for us. ‘My herald, dragged to death in the road like a common traitor. Felix shall pay for this, Libertus, mark my words.’

I said nothing. I am not accustomed to litters, and the business of balancing aboard the narrow couch as it was first hoisted from the ground by its handles by two unevenly matched slaves, and then carried at a smart trot down uneven streets, was taking all my concentration. I was almost glad when we had to make a lengthy pause to let a funeral procession pass — a long straggling line of pipers, dancers, weepers and wailers. In Roman cities funerals — except those of really important people — are always held at night.

Marcus was still fuming when we arrived at our destination.

‘Here we are,’ he said, dismounting and dismissing the litters. ‘You know the house.’

I did. It belonged to one of the most senior of the town magistrates, Gaius Flavius Flaminius. I should have guessed as much — if I were looking for a man to donate his house to Felix for a fortnight, I could not have found a better candidate. Gaius was a wealthy man and had once been influential, but since the death of his young wife he had become an ineffectual old shadow with no interests in life beyond his pair of brindled dogs, one of whom could even now be heard howling fruitlessly somewhere in the interior. Whoever had offered Gaius a bed had clearly drawn the line at his dogs.

‘Ugly brute,’ Marcus said, referring to the dog. ‘I wonder someone does not stop its whining.’

If Gaius had whined with protest about being obliged to give up his house, I thought, he had no doubt been similarly ignored.

Marcus frowned. ‘I suppose Felix decided that the banquet should take place here, rather than in any public building, although of course we ’ — he meant the town dignitaries — ‘were still called on to provide the food, cooks, servants and entertainment. I gather that I have provided wine.’ He sighed. ‘A trick that Felix learned from Commodus, I imagine. He sometimes does the same when he pays a visit outside the capital. It may create difficulties for everyone else, but it is highly convenient for the guest of honour. If anyone is to make their way home through the dim streets of an unfamiliar city in the cold of dawn, it will not be him. Well, there is no point in standing here. Shall we go in?’

The house was ready for company. Lighted torches flanked the entry and the sound of music and voices was already emerging from the open doorway, where a burly doorkeeper was standing, armed with a stout stave and a threatening frown, and already regarding me with suspicion.

Fortunately, my patron was clearly an important man, even to those who did not know him, with his wide purple stripe and his six panting slaves accompanying the litter. At a word from him the doorman stepped back reluctantly to let me pass, and turned his attention to another guest drawing up at the door. However, I felt him monitoring me. It was the same throughout the evening. Every time I raised my head I was conscious of some servant watching me, with disapproving eyes.

Nonetheless, we made our way inside and were announced by the usher. Formalities were beginning. The two reception rooms and the triclinium — the dining area — beyond them had been turned into a sort of three-part room by opening the screen doors in between. Low tables were set out with dining couches around them, in groups of three as fashion dictated, and strictly graduated in terms of grandeur and comfort, so that nine people could sit around the top table, nine at the next and so on.

I calculated that there must be at least fifty-four people expected — most of whom seemed to be here already — and the houses of all the magistrates in Glevum must have been pillaged for the furniture. Even so there was a cluster of lowly stools around a rickety trestle right at the back against the wall. I had no doubt whatever where my seat would be.