Rosemary Rowe - A Pattern of Blood

‘Who told you this?’

He gave me that impudent look again. ‘Don’t look so startled, master. You’ve taught me how to ask questions. I was told by a bald-headed slave girl.’

I gazed at him in surprise. ‘Bald-headed?’

‘Julia isn’t a bad mistress, but she is heartless in some ways. She sometimes does buy good-looking slaves. She won’t let them attend her, but she gets them for their hair. She has them forcibly shaved and then sold on again when their locks have grown back a little. The girl who brought us our supper was one of them — she was bought and sheared last week and is still balder than a rat’s tail. She is feeling her humiliation deeply — it was not difficult to make her talk about her mistress.’

I nodded. A girl with no hair. This, clearly, was the explanation of that caped female in the garden. She would have been sent to serve the slaves, because she was useless for public duties. The cape was obviously to cover her head while she went to the kitchens for the food. But she would have been punished severely if anyone knew she’d been seen — I was glad I had not confronted her in the grotto. But I could not resist the enquiry. ‘Why did Julia want the hair?’

‘She has several elaborate hairpieces, for different occasions.’

This was an unpleasant idea. I thought of my Gwellia and her lovely hair. Had that, too, been brutally shaved off to serve some mistress’s vanity? Or, worse still, lovingly dressed and brushed to rouse a master’s fancy?

I said sharply, ‘I want to see Julia in the morning. There is something about her that I can’t get out of my mind.’

Junio seized upon my words at once. ‘You have felt her charm too, master? You surprise me. I thought you immune to such things.’

‘That is not what I meant,’ I said severely. ‘There is something I would like her to explain, that’s all. You should be able to work out what it is.’

Junio gazed at me thoughtfully. I encouraged him sometimes to follow my reasoning and make deductions, just as I taught him to lay mosaics. It was another skill I hoped to leave him with, by and by. He shook his head.

‘When she left us. .’ I prompted, and saw the understanding dawn on his face.

‘Of course,’ he said eagerly, ‘she was going straight to Ulpius. Only she didn’t go. Maximilian came from his father on purpose to look for her.’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘So if she did not go to her husband, why not? Where did she go instead?’

‘And if she did go to him,’ Junio said slowly, ‘she must have been the last to see Ulpius alive. Or. .’ he looked at me with dawning comprehension, ‘the first to see him dead. I see! No wonder you want to speak to her. I am sorry, master, to have made a jest of it.’

I was just contemplating a magnanimous reply when there was a timid tap on the apartment door. Junio got up to open it, and I saw the turquoise page standing on the threshold, bearing an enormous carrying tray. He came in and set it carefully on the little locking chest beside the bed.

‘I am bidden to bring you this, citizen. His Excellence requested food, and it was thought you would require some too.’ He glanced covertly at the poor, faded under-tunic which I had kept on as a nightshirt, and which I was now attempting, not very successfully, to hide under the blankets. ‘And Sollers has sent you a sleeping draught. I did not realise you had retired for the night.’

I looked at the dishes set out upon the tray, and recognised, not for the first time, the privilege of rank. The kitchens of this house were straining with the preparations for a funeral banquet, which, given Quintus’s position in the town, was clearly to be a sumptuous one. Every slave would already be working most of the night, grinding spices and pounding herbs, skinning beasts and turning spits. Every surface would be crowded with spicy doughs and steeping snails, every pan full of simmering sauces, every salver groaning with gilded meats, every pot of oil that was set in the kitchen floor pillaged twice over to prepare for the feast. Had I requested a hot meal tonight I should have been lucky to receive a bowl of soup from the stockpot and a crust of bread. But Marcus, being Marcus, had only to say the word, and someone had sent him a magnificent light supper of braised pork with fennel, honeyed pheasant with mushrooms and something which looked like pickled quails’ eggs and peppers.

The problem, from my point of view, was that all of these delicacies had been liberally doused with that disgusting fish sauce, liquifrumen, without which no self-respecting Roman thinks any meal complete. Personally I loathe the stuff. Why anyone should think that a pickle of half-fermented fish entrails and anchovy should enhance the taste of honest food is something I have never understood, although I have sometimes been known to force it past my lips in the interests of maintaining good relations with the wealthy. However, the prospect of doing so at this hour and on this scale for no especial purpose was more than I could honestly bear. On the other hand, if I refused entirely I risked causing offence to my hosts and embarrassment to Marcus.

I looked hopelessly at Junio. He was rather better at fish pickle than I was, having been fed on Roman table scraps from birth, but even he was looking at me warningly. He had ‘dined like a king’ in the attic, I remembered. I sighed. Even high-society Roman table manners, which permit a man at a feast to tickle his throat with a feather so that he can make room for more, do not extend that toleration to normal household dining. Vomiting in the courtyard was not an acceptable solution for either of us.

‘Rollo,’ I said, ‘I did hear Sollers call you Rollo, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, citizen.’

‘Well, Rollo, I am not sure that I can manage this. I am a poor man, and not accustomed to rich meals at night.’

He looked at me aghast. Poor men who were guests in his master’s house obviously did not enter his picture of the world. ‘But citizen, it has been prepared especially for you. My mistress came to the kitchens herself to give the orders for it.’ He looked at me and, quite unexpectedly, giggled. ‘Your pardon, citizen. But it was amusing, really. First the chief slave came, to demand a meal for Marcus. Then Julia arrived to order special dishes. When she had gone, Maximilian stormed in, fresh from the lament, insisting on tasting everything, and ordering extra seasoning to show he was in command. Then Sollers turned up, muttering about “restorative regimen”. He is a great believer in diet to balance the humours, and he countermanded half the orders on medical grounds, and added a few of his own. In the end I think the cook just prepared what he thought was best.’

‘Each one trying to outdo the others?’ I suggested.

He snorted. ‘It was like Hadrian’s Wall in there, everyone trying to take control. It was the same with bringing your trays. Sollers told Mutuus to bring yours, and sent me to Marcus, since most of the usual house slaves are busy. Maximilian caught us doing it, and insisted we change places.’

I looked at him sharply. ‘For any reason?’

‘None that I can think of, except to contradict Sollers. Unless. .’

‘Unless?’

Rollo hesitated. ‘I am sorry, citizen. I should not have spoken. I cannot tell you that.’

I leaned back on my pillows and said, conversationally, ‘Rollo, your master has been murdered today. I am assisting Marcus to investigate. A man has been arrested, but there are some questions unanswered. If I think that you are withholding information, I shall have to tell His Excellence. That pretty turquoise tunic may get very dirty indeed.’ I dislike threats, as a general rule, but this one had the desired effect. Rollo paled and swallowed hard. ‘You were saying,’ I prompted, ‘unless. .?’