Rosemary Rowe: A Pattern of Blood

I watched him in silence. If Ulpius is as immovable as that, I thought, he might make an intractable enemy in political matters. And he supported Pertinax, so he would be no friend to those with more flexible allegiances. That could win him implacable enemies — and powerful ones. It was an uncomfortable thought, and it was some moments before I plucked up the courage to share it with Marcus.

My patron thought about it for a moment. ‘You think that was the motive for this attack?’

‘It had occurred to me. When Pertinax was lying close to death, there must have been local councillors in Corinium who were ready to change their support to someone more likely to survive and reward them for their allegiance. Probably they said so in private. In that case, Quintus knows who they were. And that is no light matter. Sedition against the governor is a capital offence.’

Marcus looked at me gloomily. He was about to say something when there was a noise in the adjoining room. The screen was flung back and a young man strode in from the atrium. The slaves attending us stepped back, startled, to let him pass.

He was a tall, thin young man with a narrow face, close-set eyes and a petulant expression. He looked dishevelled: his hair was tousled and curly, there was the faint down of a beard on his unshaven chin, and though his rings were costly, his toga was stained with wine and his hems were even more frowzy than my own. The effect was to make him look childish, although there was no childhood bulla around his neck, and he was obviously a man.

‘Where is the woman?’

‘The woman?’ Marcus sounded even more startled than I was at this peremptory greeting. ‘What do you mean, citizen?’ He had risen to his feet, bridling, and his voice was ominous.

I winced. I have seen men flogged for showing less disrespect, but the young man seemed oblivious.

‘What do I mean? Why, Julia. The woman. My father’s new wife.’ He caught my frantic glance, and seemed, at last, to see that there was some impropriety in his behaviour. He added, ‘I’m Maximilian, by the way. Quintus’s son. I’ve just come from my father — I’ve upset him as usual. He wants to see her.’

‘She has this minute gone to him,’ Marcus said, in the same icy tone.

Maximilian shook his head. ‘Well, I did not see her, and I have just left his bedside. I shall have to look for her. If she doesn’t turn up at once, it’ll be my fault. Everything is my fault, since she came to this house.’ He turned to the slaves at the door. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Go and find your mistress and tell her my father wants her. Now!’

The two slaves looked at each other and scuttled off, while Maximilian leaned over casually and helped himself to the remaining fruit which had been set for us. Son of a decurion he might be, I thought, but he had appalling manners. And no sense of self-preservation. It was bad enough showing disrespect to his father, calling him by his familiar name, Quintus, instead of using his nomen properly, but now he was being equally disrespectful to Marcus, though the wide purple stripe on Marcus’s toga should have warned the boy that this was no ordinary guest. I glanced at my patron. He was looking increasingly dangerous. At any moment, I thought, there would be serious trouble.

‘This is Marcus Aurelius Septimus,’ I said, ‘my patron. We await an audience with your father.’

‘Marcus? My father’s guest?’ The boy paled. ‘Forgive me, Excellence. I took you for the two clientes my father still has waiting — otherwise I should never have presumed. .’

‘I see.’ Marcus was laconic. ‘Do you usually treat your father’s friends like this?’

‘These two are scarcely friends,’ the boy said heatedly. ‘They are not even strictly clientes. They told the secretary they were here on business. They sought audience with my father, but only because they have grievances against him. They should never have been admitted through the gates at all, with Quintus so ill, but they claimed friendship with me, apparently. My father thinks it is all my fault, of course, though I have scarcely set eyes on either of them. But he insisted that he would see them once they were here — he wouldn’t have it said that he shirked his duty to callers.’

‘But he hasn’t seen them?’ Marcus said.

‘Not yet. Sollers kept them from him — he thought Quintus should be rested before receiving them — though of course that wasn’t right either. “Skulking round the property, spying on his goods”, my father says. That’s why I thought you were the two in question — it would be just like Julia to order refreshment for them. She has a talent for spending my father’s money.’

She had brought a large dowry with her, I remembered, so perhaps she felt it was her own money. Though of course a man like Quintus would have extensive estates and interests of his own. ‘And you fear for your inheritance?’ I asked. He was not a prepossessing young man, but I could follow that grievance, at least.

He shot me a look. ‘And with reason! Julia and that Sollers of hers have poisoned my father’s mind against me. He’s threatening to disinherit me, and leave it all to them. He says I’m lazy, but what am I to do? I have no businesses. And I can hardly invest. He refuses to increase my allowance, now, even enough to pay my rent and wine bills.’

I nodded. It was a common enough story. In Roman law, of course, a man, even a grown man, is under tutelage until his father dies, dependent on him for every penny and unable to enter any legal contract without his permission. It is not a recipe for family happiness. I think we Celts manage these things better.

‘And as for that woman,’ Maximilian went on, ‘he’s becoming a laughing stock. He is completely blind where Julia’s concerned. And she’s turned him against me. She has made him turn me out to live in a measly flat, and then when I come to visit him because he’s ill, what does he do? Flies into a temper, sends me away and asks for Julia. And all I did was ask for a few denarii.’ He stopped. ‘I’d better make sure they’ve found her. If she doesn’t go to him, it will be my fault again.’

He went to the courtyard door. But before he could put a hand to the latch, the door burst open and one of the two slaves came panting in. He flung himself at Maximilian’s feet.

‘Master! Master, come quickly. It is Quintus Ulpius, your father. He has been attacked again. We found him slumped on the floor, blood pouring from a wound in his back. He had been crawling to the doorway. We raised his head, and he managed to whisper to us. He asked us to fetch Sollers, but I cannot find him. So I have come to you. . Oh, young master, come quickly. I fear your father is dead.’

There was a stunned silence, and then Maximilian spoke.

‘Dead? My father? He can’t be! Let me see!’ He threw us an agonised look, then, thrusting the slave aside with his foot, rushed out past us into the rear courtyard.

Marcus and I exchanged glances — it is rather an awkward social situation, finding yourself the guest of a man who has been unexpectedly murdered — but in the end there was nothing to do but follow. Out we went, skirting the herb gardens and flower beds, and when the boy disappeared in through another door we simply went in after him.

The room we entered was a large one, and formed the corner between the main block and one of the front wings of the house. It was not, as I expected, a master bedroom, but a kind of additional reception room, obviously designed as a place where the master of the house could meet his clientes without the inconvenience of having them trespass on his private apartments. It was lavishly decorated, with real blue-green glass in the windows, a painted frieze on the plasterwork and a fine tiled pavement on the floor. It boasted no less than three doors, not only the one by which we had just entered, but two interior folding doors: one to the side, which evidently led to the rest of the house, and another door straight ahead, through which we could see a long, thin ante-room, presumably for appellants to wait in, since there were stone benches around the wall and a sturdy central table for cumbersome gifts. By contrast, a carved and gilded couch was set in the centre of the main room, piled with embroidered pillows and blankets, with an elegant low table beside it. A lighted brazier of beaten metal stood to one side, and an exquisite but uncomfortable-looking stool to the other. There was another, similar stool against the wall. The effect was more like an emperor’s court than the home of a private citizen.