Rosemary Rowe: A Whispering of Spies

‘I wonder if Florens feels guilty about that? He must have known the servants would be the first to take the blame.’

Marcus rose, yawning, and threw the ball again. It went about an arms-length and fell into a pool. He sat down with a laugh. ‘We’ll no doubt find that Calvinus was impolite to him. Florens was vindictive, I told you that before. That’s why — when the opportunity arose — he tried to imply that you had been involved. Not that he had anything against you personally, but he knew that by indicting you he would embarrass me.’ The slave had fetched the ball and rolled it to his feet. Marcus kicked it back, remarking lazily, ‘Well, he won’t be trying to embarrass me again. By sundown he’ll have had to leave the Empire for life.’

‘It’s lucky that Alcanta didn’t suffer the same fate.’ I licked my fingers delicately, as I’d seen my patron do.

Marcus laughed, slapping his hand against his thigh. ‘There was never any chance of that, I think. Of course, she had a representative to speak for her in court, since being a woman she couldn’t speak herself, but she lowered her lashes at the magistrate and looked properly contrite, and managed to convince him that she’d been overruled by men. He even volunteered to act as guardian himself. Titus Flavius — the man’s a recent widower. I think she’ll be all right.’

I had to laugh at this assessment of Alcanta’s charms. ‘She’s persuaded him to buy that pavement, too. I thought I was going to make a loss on that.’

‘Speaking of women, how’s your charming wife?’ Marcus was doing his best to flatter me. ‘She’s a doughty woman, too. You know she came here the other night to plead your cause? Wanted Julia to persuade me to speak for you in court. I had to promise that I’d do it if you really needed me. Combined their wiles against me, though I didn’t have to do it in the end.’ He glanced towards the gate. ‘Ah, and here they come! With that new slave of yours. Funny little fellow. What’s his name again?’

‘We call him Brianus,’ I answered. ‘And it’s worked out splendidly. My son and his family have been looking for a slave and Brianus will suit them very well. It’s sometimes difficult to make him understand that I am not his master and he works for Junio, but he is young and willing and no doubt he’ll learn. Now that he’s eating better, he is gaining strength as well. He told me he had never been so happy in his life.’

‘Well,’ my patron said, heartily, ‘I’m very pleased myself. You did very well to sort this problem out. They would never have caught the murderer if it had not been for you.’

Marcus was not good at compliments and I appreciated this. ‘Oh, it was nothing, patron,’ I told him modestly. ‘At first I made a number of mistakes. The only thing I really did was focus on the farm.’

He smiled benignly. ‘Come to think of it, I suppose that’s true. Anyone might have worked out the rest of it, if they’d happened to be there.’ He looked over at the plate which had been set for me, picked up the last date and ate it daintily. Then he got to his feet. ‘Shall we go and greet the ladies? I believe a light refreshment may have been prepared.’