A Pattern of Blood (13 page)

The problem, from my point of view, was that all of these delicacies had been liberally doused with that disgusting fish sauce, liquifrumen, without which no self-respecting Roman thinks any meal complete. Personally I loathe the stuff. Why anyone should think that a pickle of half-fermented fish entrails and anchovy should enhance the taste of honest food is something I have never understood, although I have sometimes been known to force it past my lips in the interests of maintaining good relations with the wealthy. However, the prospect of doing so at this hour and on this scale for no especial purpose was more than I could honestly bear. On the other hand, if I refused entirely I risked causing offence to my hosts and embarrassment to Marcus.

I looked hopelessly at Junio. He was rather better at fish pickle than I was, having been fed on Roman table scraps from birth, but even he was looking at me warningly. He had ‘dined like a king’ in the attic, I remembered. I sighed. Even high-society Roman table manners, which permit a man at a feast to tickle his throat with a feather so that he can make room for more, do not extend that toleration to normal household dining. Vomiting in the courtyard was not an acceptable solution for either of us.

‘Rollo,’ I said, ‘I did hear Sollers call you Rollo, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, citizen.’

‘Well, Rollo, I am not sure that I can manage this. I am a poor man, and not accustomed to rich meals at night.’

He looked at me aghast. Poor men who were guests in his master’s house obviously did not enter his picture of the world. ‘But citizen, it has been prepared especially for you. My mistress came to the kitchens herself to give the orders for it.’ He looked at me and, quite unexpectedly, giggled. ‘Your pardon, citizen. But it was amusing, really. First the chief slave came, to demand a meal for Marcus. Then Julia arrived to order special dishes. When she had gone, Maximilian stormed in, fresh from the lament, insisting on tasting everything, and ordering extra seasoning to show he was in command. Then Sollers turned up, muttering about “restorative regimen”. He is a great believer in diet to balance the humours, and he countermanded half the orders on medical grounds, and added a few of his own. In the end I think the cook just prepared what he thought was best.’

‘Each one trying to outdo the others?’ I suggested.

He snorted. ‘It was like Hadrian’s Wall in there, everyone trying to take control. It was the same with bringing your trays. Sollers told Mutuus to bring yours, and sent me to Marcus, since most of the usual house slaves are busy. Maximilian caught us doing it, and insisted we change places.’

I looked at him sharply. ‘For any reason?’

‘None that I can think of, except to contradict Sollers. Unless . . .’

‘Unless?’

Rollo hesitated. ‘I am sorry, citizen. I should not have spoken. I cannot tell you that.’

I leaned back on my pillows and said, conversationally, ‘Rollo, your master has been murdered today. I am assisting Marcus to investigate. A man has been arrested, but there are some questions unanswered. If I think that you are withholding information, I shall have to tell His Excellence. That pretty turquoise tunic may get very dirty indeed.’ I dislike threats, as a general rule, but this one had the desired effect. Rollo paled and swallowed hard. ‘You were saying,’ I prompted, ‘unless . . .?’

The words came out in a rush. ‘Unless Maximilian hoped to keep me from Flavius. He is sleeping in the triclinium on a couch, since you and Marcus have the guest apartments, and Maximilian is occupying his old room again. If I had served Marcus with his supper, I should have passed Flavius’s door.’

‘Would that matter?’

He gave me a crooked smile. ‘Everyone sees me as a messenger, citizen. Maximilian did it. He used to get me to speak to his father for him. Flavius has used me several times to take messages to Julia, and Maximilian knew it. He doesn’t trust Julia, and sees conspiracies everywhere. Flavius spoke to me privately in the courtyard tonight. I think Maximilian saw us.’

‘And what did Flavius want?’

Again that hesitation, before the page said, ‘Maximilian was right. Flavius asked me to attend him later. He has a very important job for me, he says. A secret.’

‘What secret is that?’ I asked wryly.

Rollo flushed. ‘Oh dear, here I am, talking too much again. Truly, citizen, he did not tell me what it was. I thought . . . I gathered the impression . . . that there might be money in it. Naturally, I agreed.’

‘Naturally.’ Money, I imagined, had changed hands on earlier occasions too. I did not blame Rollo. He was a slave, and if a house guest asked for his services, naturally he must give them. ‘You are only doing your duty. If there is money in it, that is your good fortune.’

Rollo, though, must have caught the wryness in my tone, because he looked at me anxiously. ‘What should I do, citizen?’

‘Attend him, of course. But there is one thing you will do in addition. When he gives you the commission, you will come and tell me what it is.’ I was relying on Marcus’s authority here: I was, after all, asking Rollo to betray a confidence. But I was hopeful. The page said himself that he ‘talked too much’, and he had already been gossiping to me about the household as if he had known me for years.

He was looking at me doubtfully now, and I hastened to reassure him. ‘It may be nothing important – a message to his household, a wager on the chariot race tomorrow – and if that is so, I shall say nothing, not even to Marcus, and the secret is safe. But remember, a message may seem innocent to you, yet have some meaning which you do not understand. So whatever the errand is, tell me before you do it. It is your duty to your dead master. And to yourself. Is that clear?’

The page gave me an uncertain smile. ‘Yes, citizen.’

‘Good,’ I said heartily. ‘Now, what are we to do with this tray? I cannot stomach fish sauce at this time of night.’

‘Perhaps Flavius would like it,’ Junio suggested. ‘Or, if you could take something, the rest could be returned as scraps to the servants. No doubt some of them would appreciate it.’

That was an obvious solution, once he had suggested it, and judging by the hungry way Rollo was eyeing the pork and fennel, an appreciative recipient would not be hard to find. I took a spoon, for form’s sake, and moved the food around the plates a little, to disturb the symmetry with which it had been arranged, but without actually eating any. Then I took up the cup which contained the sleeping draught.

‘Very well, Rollo,’ I said, ‘you may deal with this tray and then attend on Flavius. Ensure that the platters do not return to the kitchens too full.’

Rollo seized the tray eagerly.

‘And don’t forget,’ I said, ‘that you are to come back when you have spoken to Flavius.’

‘I won’t, citizen. I won’t.’ Rollo gave me a conspiratorial look and fled, as though I had offered him a bribe.

Which perhaps in a sense I had. A plateful of good food is sometimes better than money to a slave. At least a man can hide food in a place where no one else can steal it. It was sobering to realise how much such a gift would once have meant to me – fish-pickle sauce or not.

Junio thought so too. ‘I think you have won a devoted friend there, master. At no cost to yourself. Now, since you have asked him to return, do you wish to drink this sleeping potion now, or would you prefer that I should sing for you?’

I had taught him some of the old, haunting Celtic melodies. He had a soft, pleasing voice, and he knew it delighted me to hear him.

‘Sing softly, then,’ I said. ‘We do not wish to disturb the lament.’

Outside, Julia was crooning her lamentations, wistful and heartbreaking. Her lamenting was replaced by Sollers, and then one by one by the voices of slaves. The night darkened, and the dawn had begun to lighten the courtyard before I drank the potion Sollers had sent and drifted finally to sleep.

And still Rollo did not come.

Neither was he in evidence next morning, when, aroused by a general commotion in the courtyard, I finally awoke.

Junio was standing beside me with a brimming bowl (I still liked to plunge my face, Celtic-fashion, into cold water on awakening), and an appetising morning meal of fresh milk and hot oatcakes. The Romans can keep their breakfast of fruit, bread and watered wine – this was a feast for a king. I said so to Junio as I made the ritual offering of the first few drops from my cup.

He grinned. ‘I bought it for you fresh from the street sellers, master. With Julia’s blessing. I said that you would like it above all things – though Maximilian was inclined to be irritated that I had scorned his kitchens. The family, of course, will eat only bread and water today until the funeral banquet, but they cannot expect Marcus to do so, or you and Flavius either, so it was easier to send out for something. In any case, the household kitchens are full to bursting with preparations for the feast.’ He tucked into one of the delicious oatcakes which, as usual, I had set aside for him.

‘Fit for a king,’ I said again, when the last warm, fragrant crumb was gone and we were licking our fingers reluctantly.

Junio’s grin broadened. ‘Well, if His Majesty has sufficiently feasted, perhaps he would like me to help him with his toga? I imagine you would like us to go and look for Rollo?’ He said ‘us’, I noticed, as if it were inevitable that he should assist me in any enquiries, but I made no comment. I allowed him to drape me in my toga and we went outside.

It was a damp and drizzling day, made drearier by the moaning rise and fall of the distant lament, but the courtyard was full of bustle. Slaves with buckets, cloths, feather dusters, sponges and ladders scampered everywhere, while a pair of lads were already busy scattering sawdust in the colonnade and sweeping it up again with their twig brooms. Clearly the house was to be as clean as the Emperor’s armour before the expected guests arrived.

I led the way into the atrium, but there was no sign of Rollo, and we wandered through the front enclosure towards the gate. Visitors were already arriving. News of the decurion’s death had spread quickly overnight, and from the murmur outside it seemed that half Corinium was at the gates.

The gate opened to admit a slave in a fancy tunic, clutching gifts of oil and wine. Representing a member of the civic curia, no doubt, and come to offer lamentations by proxy, though his master would attend in person to grace the burial procession and enjoy the banquet.

Then came one of the clientes, genuinely weeping. No wonder, perhaps, if Quintus had been his only patron – without whose good offices he would now struggle for a livelihood. Perhaps he genuinely loved him, or perhaps he masked an inward glee with this show of public grief: if, for example, he expected to be mentioned in Quintus’s will, in recompense for favours done, or found himself unexpectedly relieved of the necessity of naming Quintus as one of his own heirs.

All the curia and clientes would attend, in turn. Add to these the funeral orator, the dancers, singers and musicians, the torch-carriers and litter-bearers, the family, the household slaves, one or two favoured tradesmen and a scattering of the simply curious, and you will see that the decurion’s funeral procession promised to be a very impressive one indeed.

But of Rollo there was still no sign. I wandered back into the triclinium (unannounced, to the consternation of the slaves at the door), and found Flavius reclining on one of the couches, eating. Someone had brought him a hot pie from a market stall, and he was stuffing it into his mouth as though greasy pastry and early-morning lumps of gristly meat were his idea of an ambrosial breakfast. A goblet of wine stood on a low table before him.

He looked up as I came in, wiped his fingers on the linen napkin he had been given and hastily rearranged his cushions. I had the distinct impression that he was up to something. He gazed at me with a triumphant air.

I had not been present the night before, when Marcus had interrogated him, and looking at that swarthy, fleshy face with its fleeting but unmistakable expression of cunning, I suddenly determined to repair the omission. Without Marcus, however, Flavius was unlikely to tell me anything. My best chance was to unsettle him.

I gave him a cheerful smile and sat down, uninvited, on a nearby stool.

It was an action of such unprecedented insolence, in the presence of a purple-striper, that he almost choked on his pie. I followed it up with another, speaking to my betters without being spoken to, and without the appropriate apologetic preamble. ‘Good morning, citizen.’ I sensed, rather than saw, Junio at my elbow, sending up silent prayers for my preservation to all the gods he knew.

I was offering a few unspoken petitions of my own. This was dangerously disrespectful, and Flavius was frowning angrily. I took a deep breath.

‘Well, Flavius,’ I said comfortably – worse and worse, no honorific titles and using his name like an equal – ‘I hear it was your sharp eyes which discovered Lupus.’

The scowl visibly lightened. I breathed out. Flavius was susceptible to flattery. I poured out a little more of it, hopefully, like a householder making a libation of oil to the pantry gods.

‘You have sharper eyes than I have,’ I said. ‘I did not notice the stains.’

He smirked. ‘The old goat concealed them in his sleeve folds, by holding his arm against him as though it were stiff. I noticed he was doing it, but I thought nothing of it.’ He leaned forward confidentially, the grease of the pie still glistening moistly on his lips: ‘I have known Lupus for years, and he is forever complaining of his aches and pains. Every time one sees him he has some fresh affliction – and one dares not ask, unless one wants a whole recital of his woes. He is famous for it in the town. No one would even have thought it odd that he had developed a new malady, until his greed betrayed him. The slave came by with the wine jug, and Lupus couldn’t resist holding out his bony arm for more.’

His right arm, I thought. I did a swift calculation. The dagger blow that killed Quintus had been delivered slightly upwards and to the right. Surely that would be most easily inflicted by a left-handed man? It was hard to be sure. Quintus had presumably been reclining on his couch when the blow was struck, so he could have been attacked from any angle. Besides, few Roman citizens would be left-handed – any such tendency was schooled out of them early. The Roman army did not tolerate ‘sinister’ infantrymen – they spoiled a formation, and left vulnerable gaps in a phalanx – and a similar prejudice ran through polite society. Soldiers and schoolboys learned very quickly, if not to be right-handed, at least to be ambidextrous.