Rosemary Rowe - A Pattern of Blood

‘And did he grant it?’ I asked, remembering that he had retired to his quarters with Rollo and that the slave probably had more intimate duties than merely playing the cythera.

Mutuus looked surprised. ‘Of course. Quintus was devoted to his lady. She might have interrupted him at the bathhouse itself if she chose.’

‘And the writing tablet? You left it in the arbour. What happened to it then?’

He shrugged. ‘I cannot tell you that, citizen. Until you showed it to me just now, I had never seen it again.’

‘Oh, come!’ Marcus said sharply. ‘The tablet is a pretty thing, the frame is carved ivory and cunningly made. It would have a value anywhere. You don’t expect me to believe that you left it in the garden where it fell?’

Mutuus was doing his imitation of Samian ware again. ‘I did not say that, Excellence. It is true that I tried to recover it. When Julia went in to speak to Quintus, I was no longer required — Quintus always dismissed his slaves when Julia sought private audience with him — so I came back to the arbour, hoping to find the writing tablet. I spent a long time searching, but there was no sign of it. Doubtless one of the garden slaves had stolen it.’

He spoke with bitterness. The slaves had ‘stolen’ it, I noticed. If Mutuus had picked it up, he would not have described the action that way.

‘What did you hope to do with it?’ I said, hoping to shame him by the question. ‘Sell it? Or show it to Quintus?’ It occurred to me that the secretary might have been pleased to drive a little splitting wedge between husband and wife.

I had mistaken my man. Mutuus looked at me gravely. ‘I would not have sold it, citizen, far less have given it away. It had been Julia’s, you understand — for a brief moment, true, but it was hers.’

‘You would have taken it as a keepsake?’ Marcus was incredulous. He had enjoyed his share of women, but it would never occur to him to be sentimental.

He spoke at the same moment as I said, ‘However could you hide such a thing?’ in equally disbelieving tones. I knew how little privacy a servant could possess.

Oddly, Mutuus addressed his answer to me. ‘I was a secretary, citizen, and a bondsman. I was not obliged to sleep with the common slaves, like a sheep in a barn. I had a small private partition at one end of the room.’

I nodded. ‘So you had somewhere to keep your things? A storage chest, at least?’ I blamed myself for not deducing that earlier. He had, after all, produced a spotless robe from somewhere.

‘What can a secretary have that warrants a storage chest?’ Marcus wanted to know, with more than a touch of impatience. It had not escaped him that Mutuus had unthinkingly answered my question first.

Mutuus inclined his head. ‘I have, in my sleeping quarters, Excellence, every stylus that her hands have touched. Believe me, when you feel as I do. .’ He trailed off.

I nodded. I remembered a time when I, too, had treasured a lock of hair, a scrap of perfumed plaid. Marcus, who had never married, but who could command any girl in Glevum at the turn of a coin, was looking less convinced.

‘Well! So you could not find the writing tablet, you say? And despite your desire to own it, you did not think that it was worth enquiring for?’ Marcus was scathing now.

He wanted to, Mutuus explained, but circumstances prevented him. He went to Julia and told her that the writing tablet had disappeared, hoping that she would start a search for it. Instead, she merely laughed and said that it was of no account. Whoever had found it was welcome to it, for her part — and if a slave had taken it, so much the better. That was all Flavius deserved. What was worse, from Mutuus’s point of view, was that she said so in the presence of her handmaids.

‘If I had attempted to ask questions and get it back, the maidservants would have told Julia. I did not wish her to think badly of me,’ Mutuus finished, sadly. He sighed. ‘I never did discover who had it.’

He stopped for a moment, wistfully, and then seemed struck by a sudden thought. ‘I wonder how Flavius came to have it? Unless, perhaps,’ he glanced at us from under his lids, ‘Rollo, you know, was talking to Flavius last night, in the courtyard. He told me he had an appointment to wait upon him later. You don’t think. .’

‘I don’t think,’ I said, ‘that this is even the same tablet.’

Mutuus looked scornful. ‘I could hardly be mistaken. The wax is set in a distinctive frame.’

I looked at Marcus, and raised my eyebrows questioningly. He nodded, so I signalled to Junio, who opened the travelling chest again and produced the second writing frame with a flourish. I gave him an encouraging wink and took the object from him.

‘You are quite sure,’ I said to the astonished Mutuus, ‘that it could not have been this one that you saw?’ I handed it to him for inspection.

He frowned. ‘I. . that is. . citizen, it is impossible to be certain. The two are much alike. But no, look — the corner of this one is chipped. That must be where Julia flung it to the floor. I saw it hit the corner of the stone seat as it fell. Yes, you are quite right, citizen. This is Julia’s writing tablet, not the other. But how did you acquire this? It disappeared in the arbour.’

‘It was sent to me ,’ Marcus said, with a certain emphasis. Mutuus had been addressing his answers to me again. Any moment now my patron would start tapping his baton. Mutuus looked to me for amplification, but I simply smiled encouragingly. One of the secrets of my success with Marcus is knowing when to keep silent.

‘To me,’ Marcus said again, as if Mutuus might have overlooked the implications. ‘It was found here in the colonnade, with a threatening message on it, shortly after Quintus Ulpius was stabbed in the street.’

‘A threatening message?’ Mutuus looked alarmed. ‘You do not suppose that I wrote it, Excellence? That I was responsible for that evening’s attack?’

I waited for Marcus to deny that, at least, but he did not.

‘Who is more likely than a secretary to inscribe on a wax tablet?’ Marcus demanded, taking the second tablet from him, ‘and who else knew where this one was to be found?’

Marcus is capable of surprising me sometimes. That was a shrewd deduction, in its way, although it ignored some obvious indications.

I debated for a moment whether to point them out to him, but I was spared the necessity. The screen door opened, so that the room was filled for a moment with the still unceasing wail of the lament, and then Julia herself came in, with her two plain maidservants in attendance.

‘Excellence, since you are now my sponsor, will you speak at the. .’ she began, approaching Marcus with a smile of greeting, but then she saw the two writing tablets in his hands.

The smile withered like a dinner snail in salt. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words emerged. Julia Honoria was a strong woman, but if Sollers had not appeared behind her to catch her as she swayed, I believe she would have fallen to the floor in a faint.

At the sight of Julia’s distress, the normal social formalities were forgotten. Mutuus rushed forward, heedless of protocol in his eagerness to help. One of the slave girls cried, ‘Water and vinegar!’ and disappeared unbidden to fetch it. Most surprisingly of all, Marcus at once put away the writing tablets and offered his stool for her assistance. I have never before seen him give up his seat to any living person.

Sollers, however, seemed characteristically self-possessed. ‘Air,’ he said, authoritatively. ‘The lady needs air. And hydromel will help revive her too. The kitchens know how to prepare it; I ordered it often for her husband, previously. See to it, slave.’ He nodded to Junio who bounded away instantly, without reference to me, as if he, too, had been transformed by events.