Rosemary Rowe - A Whispering of Spies

Florens’s servant noticed and gave a little smirk, while I felt myself turn redder than his cloak. It was obvious what the crone and her husband were so anxious to avoid. Dressed as I was, I did not look remotely like a Roman citizen, so it must have looked suspiciously as though I were being hustled into Glevum under loose arrest — no doubt to be accused of some unpleasant crime, and very likely thrown into the jail, there to await some painful punishment. The wood-sellers were afraid that my fate might somehow pass to them, and that my breath and shadow were contagious, like the plague.

Their comic superstition almost made me smile, but then I thought again. Perhaps their interpretation of my plight was nearer to the truth than I supposed. For some reason which I couldn’t understand, I seemed to be suspected of collusion in this crime. But why? Was it simply because I had chanced to call on Calvinus today? That was unfortunate timing on my part, perhaps, but hardly more than that.

I couldn’t possibly have known about the robbery until I reached the flat, I told myself, mentally marshalling arguments in my own defence. The message had only reached Calvinus a few minutes earlier, and there was no opportunity for the news to get to me.

That made me pause. Who could have known, in fact? I could see how Florens might have learned the news. He was at the garrison, by all accounts, and Calvinus had sent there for assistance as soon as he heard about the crime. But, if Florens was at the army headquarters at that time, how did he find out that I had visited the lictor’s flat? There was no time for him to have set a watch on it.

Could it have been simple gossip which reached him afterwards — for example, from those gamblers on the stairs? I shook my head. Between the garrison and the curia, there was little opportunity for idle talk to reach his ears and no one would have made a point of going to find him to report the news. Unless. . I felt myself turn cold. An awful thought had just occurred to me.

Suppose that Voluus had posted spies himself, to watch the place and guard his property while he was away? Such things were not unknown, especially if the resident house-slaves were not trusted very much. So had there been somebody watching the apartment all the time? Or, more unnerving still, was someone watching me? But why should they do that? Because I had been asking questions about the lictor and his treasure-carts, perhaps? I had, of course — and Florens knew it, from what his servant said.

Dear gods! In the light of subsequent events, that must seem peculiarly suspicious now. What is more, my reasons for those enquiries, though genuine enough, would sound woefully feeble and unlikely, I could see. What an unfortunate series of events! I would have to call on my patron to speak for me, after all! I only hoped that he already had business in the town today; if they had to send and fetch him from the villa to speak on my behalf, he would be imperially annoyed.

‘Citizen? Are you planning to stay where you are all day? Remember they are waiting at the curia!’ My escort’s voice came sharply from somewhere ahead of me. I realized that I had been so lost in thought that I had paused, stock-still, and he was waiting in a doorway further down the street.

I paddled after him, my sandals squelching damply in the mud, and we walked on in silence to the northern gate. The sentry on duty watched us pass, openly astonished at this incongruous pair, and I felt his amused eyes upon us as we hurried through the archway and on into the town.

The forum, when we reached it, was filling up again after the passing storm — customers and people with business with the council or the courts were emerging from their shelter under temple porticos. Here, too, it had clearly been raining heavily: there were muddy puddles on the paving-stones outside the shops, and most of the bedraggled stalls now stood in little pools, although the live fish-market (a building with an open pond which did not mind the rain) seemed to be doing a substantial trade. The stone steps of the basilica were still slippery with wet, but there were already clusters of councillors and clerks standing in earnest conclave here and there, and an excited crowd was gathering below to hear the reading of a will. We wove our way amongst their babbling, up the flight of steps, and into the basilica itself.

Though I had often been to the basilica before, I had never seen the inner council room where committees of the curia — or town council — met. Like every other citizen, I knew exactly where it was: not in the main section of the building, which was given over to the great public assembly area, with its towering pillars, fine floors and enormous vaulted aisle, but in the centre of the range of rooms across the rear. All the same, I had never been inside, so I was curious to see it when my escort led me in.

It was a chamber between the central aedes , where the imperial shrine was set, and the smaller offices of clerks and copy-scribes, and despite the musty smell of damp and candle-wax, it was much more spacious than I had supposed. It had a row of window-spaces high up on the wall, three tiers of wooden benches set on either side, and an imposing dais for the presiding magistrate. There was a large mosaic in the centre of the floor: an ambitious design of flowers and deities, though there was evidence — in places — of indifferent workmanship.

But there was no time for professional assessments of that kind. There were people in the room. Three members of the curia were sitting in a row beside the wall — all purple-stripers, naturally, indicating that they were men of rank — while Florens, whose toga bore the widest stripe of all, was standing on the dais, resting his elbows on a fine carved speaker’s stand, with the expression of a man who has been kept waiting far too long.

He looked up and saw me. He said, without a smile, ‘Ah, citizen Libertus, there you are at last. Thank you, Servilis, you may leave us now.’ There was a moment while the messenger bowed himself away, then Florens turned to me. He was a plump and portly little man, with a fringe of wispy hair and faded pink-rimmed eyes. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’ He raised a podgy hand to indicate the other councillors. I was not sure if he intended me to sit as well — and to do so uninvited would be worse than impolite — so I bowed in their direction and remained standing where I was.

‘Sit down, sit down, citizen,’ the youngest of them said. ‘This is just a friendly meeting, not a formal trial.’

Until that moment I had not imagined that it was, but suddenly I began to have real feelings of unease. This was constituted rather like a court, and it did not look friendly — despite what had been said. Florens was forbidding and his tone severe, and the other magistrates were looking just as grim. However, as I walked across to take my place — painfully aware of my heavy sandal-nails on that expensive floor — I noticed with relief that two of the others were people I had met: the tall, thin man was Gaius Flavius, while the fatter one with acne was Porteus Tertius, both occasional dinner guests at my patron’s house.

I essayed a timid smile. Porteus ignored it and Gaius looked the other way. Nothing to be hoped for in that direction, it was clear. Matters were swiftly going from bad to worse. As a known protégé of Marcus’s, I had expected a measure of respect — from them, in any case. I felt my hands going clammy with anxiety.

I edged myself on to the lowest bench. It would not do to rank myself beside the magistrates. In fact, I was so concerned with avoiding such a thing that I made my first mistake. Instead of sitting on the form in front of them, I sat down opposite, like a scholar taking a test in rhetoric — so I found myself facing a panel of judges, as it were.