Rosemary Rowe - A Whispering of Spies

The man sat at the table on the bench and carefully spread out one last sheet of bark-paper. He glanced around once more to check that he was quite alone, but of course he had already made quite sure of that: the servants had long ago been sent off for the night. ‘Business matters to attend to,’ he had said. ‘Accounts to settle.’ In a fashion it was true.

He moved the oil-lamp closer so that he could see, and stirred the mixture of lamp-black, vinegar and gum arabic which he had ready, waiting in the bowl. He fingered the handsome seal-ring beside him on the desk, but there would be no seal or sealing-wax on this — that would not be appropriate for what he had in mind. He smiled; not a pleasant smile. He dipped his iron-nibbed pen into the ink and began to write:

To Voluus, the ex-lictor of the Governor of the Gallic provinces. I hear you have been looking for properties to buy in preparation for a move from Gaul. So, you hope to settle in Glevum after all? I guessed that you would come here in the end. Did you think you would escape? Fool! I warned you once, my friend, that I do not forget. Set one foot in Glevum after this and I promise you that neither you, nor your treasure nor your family will be safe. You may not see me, but I know where you are — just as surely as you know who I am. He paused, and after a moment added with a scrawl, Your secret enemy .

He read it through again. Satisfied, he blew on it and scattered dust to dry the ink, then rolled it carefully into a tiny scroll, addressed it ‘to Voluus’, and tied it with a cord. Now, how should he proceed? One could not use one’s own slaves for a task like this. Tomorrow he would find an urchin on the street and have the note delivered to the mansio — Glevum’s official inn where Voluus had been staying for a day or two. Better still, have it pushed in through a window-space, so that the messenger could not be caught and questioned afterwards.

Of course, when the errand-boy came back to claim his fee, it would be wise to silence him, in any case. Nothing spectacular. A broken neck, perhaps. One more unclaimed body on the road — no one would even notice. Not this time, at least.

He was still smiling as he took his outer garment off, snuffed out the oil-lamp and — dressed only in his undertunic — lay down on the bed. A moment later he had fallen into dreamless sleep.

Voluus the ex-lictor was a newcomer to Glevum, recently retired from the Provincial court in Gaul, and I had never met him yet — though I could guess from his profession what kind of man he was. Glevum is a free republic within the Empire and we don’t have lictors here, but he had boasted publicly of what his previous duties were: personal attendant, bodyguard and on-the-spot torturer and executioner for the outgoing Roman governor of Gaul.

People were already whispering that he could flog a criminal with such precision that the wretch was ‘half a breath’ from death, and yet present him living to be crucified — an example of commendable professional expertise, since to lose a prisoner by beating him too much was an official failure on the lictor’s part.

Of course, Voluus was retired now, so perhaps was past his prime — though no doubt he was still strong. A man must have a certain vigour to carry a bunch of hefty five-foot rods, each thicker than my arm, especially when the bundle is bound round a heavy axe — yet that was the nature of the fasces which, as lictor, he would have borne in front of his master in public at all times. So perhaps he was not as old as I supposed. I couldn’t find anyone who knew what age he was, though I’d spent the whole morning trying to find out.

I would have liked to know who I was dealing with, but it seemed that very few people in the town had actually encountered Voluus at all. He had yet to move into the expensive apartment which he had recently acquired and no one I asked had met him face-to-face. So far he’d merely paid one visit some time ago to inspect the area, staying at the mansio while he looked round to find a place that suited him. Then, having found one (and allegedly having paid the full asking price in gold), he’d left his steward behind to get the property prepared, while he himself went to back to Gaul to supervise the shipping of his things. Of course, it takes a long time for things to come from Gaul, but at last the move was under way. Of that, at least, there was no lack of witnesses. Half of Glevum had seen the carts arrive.

Wagon-loads of his possessions had been lurching into town every evening for more than a moon, as soon as wheeled traffic was permitted past the gates. Gossips spoke in hushed tones of what was on the carts — sack-loads of onyx vases and priceless works of art, or maybe it was Gallic silver coins and crates of jewellery: the rumours varied on the detail. Whatever form his fortune took, it was clearly sizeable and the new apartment (which had belonged to a tax-collector previously) was said to be palatial and beautifully equipped. One of my informants — a former customer — had been inside it once.

‘Alabaster pillars and fine marble floors throughout,’ he told me with a laugh. ‘So it’s no use you turning up there, my good citizen pavement-maker, offering your services to lay mosaics in his rooms. He would not hire a Provincial craftsman to do work for him anyway — he’d think it was beneath him, however good you are.’ He looked at my face and added in alarm, ‘Dear gods, Libertus, don’t tell me that you really do intend to call! I’ve heard that Voluus has a wicked temper when he’s roused and flies into a tantrum at the slightest of affronts. What will he think if you just turn up unasked? And he won’t want your mosaics, anyhow. I should save yourself a journey, if that’s what you’re thinking of.’

But of course that was exactly what I was on my way to do.

Naturally the errand was not my idea. Left to myself I would keep well away from him — or any ex-lictor — especially after the warning I’d received. But when one’s wealthy patron suggests an enterprise, it is not wise for a humble citizen to demur, particularly when the patron in question is Marcus Septimus Aurelius, rumoured to be related to the Emperor and certainly the most important magistrate in all Britannia. Besides, this was less of a suggestion and more of a command: Marcus had summoned me to his country house yesterday specifically on purpose to send me on this task.

At the time, I was not sorry to receive his messenger. It had been a bright, cold spring morning — the Ides of March, in fact — which was how my patron knew that I would be at home, in my little roundhouse in the woods, and not in the mosaic workshop here in the colonia. (The fifteenth day of every month is seen as nefas , or ill-starred, but the Ides Martii is easily the worst. Since the assassination of the first Emperor, it has been deemed one of the most unlucky dates in the calendar, so much so that all courts and legal business cease, the theatres close and even a humble mosaic-maker like myself might reasonably shut up his shop and stay quietly at home.) I had been mentally planning a pleasant morning watching cabbage grow.

However, my wife, Gwellia, who like myself was born a Celt with scant belief in Roman auguries, had decided that — however unlucky the day — she had a task for me. The thatched roof of the little round dye-house that we’d built had sprung a small leak in the winter rains, she said, and this was the perfect opportunity for repairing it.

My pleas that it was an inauspicious date to begin an enterprise impressed her not at all. Anyway, she reminded me, the Emperor had recently renamed all the months in honour of himself, so this was now the Ides of Aurelius — and surely there could be no special curse on that? So when my patron’s messenger arrived it was to find me on a home-made ladder, fixing bundles of new reeds in place, while my three slaves tied more bunches and passed them up to me, with Gwellia supervising proceedings from the ground.