A Pattern of Blood (18 page)

It was not, perhaps, the most propitious moment for making my announcements, but I could see no help for it.

I took a deep breath. ‘Excellence, something has happened that I think you would wish to know.’ I outlined everything that had happened since we spoke, beginning with Rollo’s visit to me the night before, up to the gruesome discovery in the latrine that morning.

Marcus heard me out in silence. He hadn’t been to the latrine himself. A glance beneath the bed told me that he had been given a more personal utensil. A latrine is a sign of status, certainly, but important visitors like Marcus cannot be expected to get up at night and walk all the way across the courtyard in the rain.

‘So,’ he said, when I had finished my tale, ‘you think that I have made an error? I shouldn’t have arrested Lupus. That is the gist of what you are telling me?’

It was not altogether the response I had been expecting. ‘I mean that since Lupus was locked into the attics, on your orders, Excellence, it is impossible that he could have done this. And it would take a stronger man than Lupus to force Rollo into that latrine.’

He looked at me with more interest. ‘So you think our killer is still abroad?’ He glanced around the frieze of the chamber as though there might be someone lurking among the painted acanthus leaves.

‘I think, Excellence, that you should be careful. There is, for instance, one dreadful possibility that occurs to me. Suppose that the boy was poisoned after all? Sollers agrees that it is possible. There may be something unwholesome in the kitchen. Or, possibly, a poisoner abroad.’ I did not wish to alarm him unduly, but to my relief he took the bait at once.

He nodded. ‘I’ll have my slave down from the attic, to act as a food-taster. You can use Junio. One cannot be too careful.’

‘And make sure everyone knows you’ve done it,’ I said. ‘By the by, Excellence, you have not, I suppose, received a message of any kind?’

‘A message?’

‘It occurs to me that since there has been another death, someone might have received another message. Mentioning Pertinax, perhaps. Sollers was right, in one respect at least. Murderers often do repeat themselves.’

Marcus smiled. ‘No, I have received no warning. We can take that, perhaps, as a sign that there was no deliberate attempt to poison you?’

I wished that I could be so certain. The message which Quintus had received was not exactly a warning either, unless you knew how to interpret it. In fact, when I came to think of it, Quintus had not actually ‘received the message’ at all. It had simply been discovered in the colonnade. The identity of that wax tablet troubled me. Was it the same one that Flavius had shown me, the one which Junio now had hidden in his tunic?

‘You did not see that earlier tablet yourself, Excellence? The one which Ulpius spoke of in his letter?’ I asked the question without any real hope. After all, Marcus had discussed the matter with me at length.

‘Oh, yes,’ Marcus said, as if it were the most natural revelation in the world. ‘He sent it to me with the messenger. It was rather a distinctive thing. I have it with me somewhere.’ He gestured helplessly towards the iron-bound wooden box which had accompanied him from Glevum, and which now stood at the foot of his couch. ‘If I hadn’t sent those wretched slaves away, I could have shown you.’

He could not be expected to rummage in the box himself, he meant. I could only smile wryly. First, because it was so typical of Marcus that he should tell me the details of the story without ever deigning to show me the evidence; and second, because my own bundle of possessions, wrapped up in a piece of cloth, would not have required a pair of slaves to search it: a strigil, a comb, a clean tunic and a fresh pair of under-breeches was all the baggage I possessed.

‘Perhaps,’ I suggested helpfully, ‘if Junio . . .?’

Marcus assented with a nod. ‘Why not?’ He produced the ring key from his finger and Junio lifted the heavy chest while he opened the lock. ‘You will find it in there, somewhere. It is wrapped in a leather pouch, since it is a delicate thing.’

Junio put the chest down gratefully, and fell to his knees beside it. It was full to bursting. Marcus had equipped himself for a visit to Corinium like an imperial general crossing the Alps: toga, cloak, sandals, underlinen, woollen foot socks, oils, combs, nose tweezers, ear scoops, even a travelling shrine and a box of ointments. And underneath, the leather pouch of which Marcus had spoken.

Junio pulled it out and handed it to Marcus. My patron opened it to reveal a fine wax writing tablet set in a carved ivory frame. Junio had just such another object hidden inside his tunic.

I nodded to him and he pulled that out in his turn.

Marcus looked from one to the other in dismay. ‘But these are identical. Where did you get the second one from?’

I told him about my interview with Flavius.

My patron frowned. ‘So we are back to Flavius again. I should have guessed that he was involved in this. After all, it was his dagger. You said from the outset that Flavius had a motive for hating Quintus. And yet he was so quick to point out the stains on the old man’s toga . . . no doubt to deflect suspicion from himself. And he had arranged that Rollo should visit him last night.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘Ah, yes, it all fits. Once again, Libertus, I should have listened to your counsel. I was too hasty in forming my judgements.’

He sounded so despondent that I was moved to say, ‘Nevertheless, Excellence, one cannot dismiss Lupus entirely. Those bloodstains require explanation.’

He brightened. ‘Yes, they do. Perhaps the two men were conspiring? They arrived at the house together, and they spent a long time alone in the front garden. They were whispering to each other in the arbour when you found them, I recall. Oh, Mercury! Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. What do you advise, old friend?’

I considered for a moment. I was not convinced that Lupus and Flavius were totally innocent, but I did think the matter was much more complex than Marcus seemed to believe. I said carefully, ‘I think, Excellence, you might leave matters as they are at present. After all, there is no direct proof against Flavius, and one cannot have the whole household locked in the attics. A pair of stout slaves are already posted at his door, and he cannot leave the house, so he is effectively under guard already. As for Lupus, I should leave him where he is. He still has those bloodstains to explain, and even if you are wrong, the old man cannot be more offended than he already is.’

Marcus eyed me doubtfully. He has the Roman dislike of inaction. He would always prefer to be doing something, even if that something was wrong.

I gave Flavius’s writing tablet back to Junio, who put it back in his pouch and returned the other to the travelling chest. ‘Excellence, I hope you will excuse me. I wish to leave you. There are some questions I would like to ask in the town. The answers may help us to decide what to do with our prisoners.’

I said ‘our prisoners’ to ally myself deliberately with Marcus’s decision. That swayed him. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said, ‘go into the town if you must. I shall do nothing until you return. But do not be too long about it. And remember, I shall expect results.’

I bowed myself out, taking Junio with me. We crossed the courtyard, passing Julia and Mutuus in furious conversation in the colonnade, and went to the kitchens, where Junio returned Marcus’s breakfast tray and collected a jug for the wine we were to buy.

Even then, I failed to see what had been right in front of my eyes.

We went out through the back gate to avoid the press of visitors at the front. Even so, as soon as we were outside the walls of the enclosure, we were swept up in the activity and bustle of the town. A press of urchins surrounded us at once, offering to sell me everything from knick-knacks and copper pans to love potions and amulets, or simply volunteering to lead us to the best wineshops and dancing girls in town. One disreputable-looking fellow even approached us with a leer to ask if Maximilian had sent us to him. If this was the sort of company he kept, I thought, it was no wonder Quintus disapproved of his son.

We brushed them all aside and made our way down the side streets towards the centre of the town.

Corinium, it seemed, was in a constant state of rebuilding. Everywhere the old thatched timber shops and apartments were being pulled down, and finer ones were going up in their place, mostly built of limestone and roofed with tiles. The narrow streets were made still narrower by creaking carts laden with laths and plaster, or by the presence of lashed wooden ladders, where builders scuttled up and down with baskets of roof tiles or buckets of lime and mortar, while we picked our way along in constant apprehension of their rickety wooden pulleys swinging stone blocks overhead.

Amid this confusion, other stalls were doing a brisk trade, and all the way to the central square we were constantly hailed by shopkeepers hoping to entice us to buy their wares. Bone dealers vaunted their combs and pins, drapers held out lengths of woollen cloth and a draggled woman begged us to examine her ‘best spindles, made from antler horn – cheapest in the Empire’. A shoemaker, straddling his bench, paused in his hammering of hobnails to wave a hopeful hand at shelves of ready-made boots and sandals, and when I declined to purchase, offered to measure me for a new pair on the spot.

I might indeed have been tempted by a new hammer from the blacksmith’s, but what I had said to the medicus was true. I was not carrying a lot of money. Not, truth to tell, that I had a great deal of money to carry, at least until I had been paid for one or two commissions in Glevum. So it was no use gazing at buckled belts on the leather stall, or the fine bowls and beakers of the glass and pottery vendors. I limited myself to the necessary purchases with a sigh.

We did not go into the forum proper: not being market day, it would be given over to politicians, peddlers and moneylenders, so we confined our attentions to the arcaded shops on the outside of the square. I sent Junio with a jug to buy a measure of sour wine, while I stopped at a baker’s shop and bought a cheap loaf of day-old barley bread. Poor Rollo would hardly need a fresh one, served hot on the long-handled iron bread slice straight from the great domed oven. I turned my face against the temptations of the other food stalls, although Junio, who had by then returned, was looking longingly at the honey cakes, and even the wares of the hot pie sellers smelled appetising now.

‘What now, master?’ Junio asked, tearing himself away from the sugared cakes reluctantly.

‘I want to know exactly what Maximilian did yesterday. It occurs to me that he arrived back at the house with clean garments after he had attended the baths.’

Junio shot me a look. ‘Direct from the fuller’s, you think?’

‘It seems unlikely, since he came dressed in mourning colours. More likely he sent a slave to fetch some from his apartment, or even to buy him new ones. But I would be interested, all the same, to see the toga Maximilian took off. I noticed it was stained when I saw him – though I had no reason, then, to ask what the stains might be.’

Junio whistled. ‘I see! Lupus may not be the only one with tell-tale marks on his sleeves. Then we should hurry, before the clothes are cleaned so much that it is impossible to tell.’

I nodded my approval and we hurried on, past the forum and the basilica (where the repairs which Lupus had resented so bitterly were still in progress), through the bleating, lowing, squealing chaos of the meat market and the accompanying fruit and vegetable carts, and so down to the fuller’s shop, next door to the baths.

I wanted to visit the baths, too, as part of my enquiries, but it was still too early: at this hour only women were admitted. That visit would have to wait until we had been to the laundry shop. I thrust back the entrance curtain and strode in.

The owner was out when we arrived, and the work floor was manned by three scrawny, underfed individuals in tattered tunics and bare feet, trampling garments in the cleaning tanks.

I went over to them and they stopped at my approach. Supporting one’s weight on a pair of stout handles while one treads wet clothes into fuller’s clay for hours is a backbreaking business, and they were obviously glad of a moment to rest their weary arms and legs. They looked at me curiously, their pale faces damp with sweat and their overdeveloped thighs glistening with moisture.

‘You had a customer, yesterday,’ I began. ‘From the house of Quintus Ulpius?’

They looked at each other nervously. I took out a purse and began fingering a five-
as
coin in an ostentatious manner.

One of the treaders gave me a grim, knowing smile. ‘Two customers,’ he began, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a languid youth in an elegant coloured robe. The owner’s son, clearly.

‘Can I assist you, citizen?’

Mentally I consigned him to Pluto. Any information was likely to cost me a great deal more than a few
asses
now. Unless I could somehow persuade him of my importance.

I put on my best formal manner. ‘I am a guest in the house of Quintus Ulpius the decurion,’ I said. ‘I believe there were some clothes left here for cleaning yesterday.’ He was looking at me suspiciously, so I invented an excuse for my visit. ‘I suppose they are not ready for collection yet?’

It seemed to work. The youth flushed with consternation. ‘I regret, citizen, they are far from ready. It takes days, you know, to get these things done properly. The young man’s toga is still bleaching on the frames, and the other garments have not yet been laundered at all.’

‘How far have they progressed?’ I said, imitating Marcus’s peremptory manner as best I could. ‘Where are they?’

‘Why, here, citizen, I will lead the way,’ he said, his manner all abject apology. He could not, however, quite disguise his alarm and impatience. He turned to the treaders. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? The return of Hadrian? Get on with your work.’

I felt a twinge of regret. My enquiry was unreasonable – no one could fuller garments in a day – but the poor fellows would feel the lash of his tongue when I had gone, if not a lashing of a more tangible kind. However, I followed him into the adjoining cell where the wicker bleaching frames stood. A number of garments were already set out to whiten in the lime fumes.