A Pattern of Blood (23 page)

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that it took me a few moments to recognise the force of what Mutuus said next. ‘I have not returned to my father’s power. When a man is freed from bondage, he is not obliged to. He is able to operate – make contracts and decisions – on his own responsibility. He becomes legally a man.’

I groaned inwardly. This was obviously my afternoon for having lectures on the legal system.

‘I have gone further than that. I have called seven witnesses and repudiated my adoption altogether, just as I once repudiated my natural father’s estate. I shall go back to writing letters in the forum and wash my hands of Lupus and his affairs. It is no great loss: all Lupus’s estate will be forfeit, if this crime is proved against him. I would inherit nothing but his dishonour.’

‘But the crime is not proved,’ I said. ‘Flavius still has questions to answer, and there were suspicious stains on Maximilian’s clothes – and on other people’s too. I saw them at the fuller’s.’ Somehow, I could not bring myself to mention Julia by name.

Marcus was looking at me indulgently, as if I were a dancing bear at a street market. This visible condescension made me more vehement than ever.

‘Lupus could not have struck Rollo,’ I went on, ‘and it is hard to see how he could have stabbed Quintus either, without someone seeing him go into the reception room.’

‘But that is just the point,’ Marcus said. ‘Someone did see him. Mutuus did.’

I looked at the young man. ‘But when you were asked, you said . . .’

He looked calmly back at me, his shrewd gaze untroubled. ‘I told you no lies, citizen. I did not deny seeing my father yesterday morning.’

I nodded. I had noticed the evasion at the time. ‘I recall that I asked if you had seen your father and you replied that it was impossible to see through the window glass.’

He had the grace to colour. ‘And that is true.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘you were not looking through the window glass. What a pity that you are too young to seek office. You could make a fortune as a magistrate. You juggle words like a Greek.’ I did not add that without the inheritance from Lupus, he stood little chance of election even if he were twenty-five. There is a property qualification for public office.

He regarded me stonily. ‘I was under obligation then to my adoptive father. I did not know what Lupus had said to you. It was possible that he had told you about the events himself, but I did not wish to bring unnecessary trouble on him if he had not done so. He is vain, foolish and a bore, but he has been good to me in his way.’

There was some truth in this, I thought. There was no way in which Mutuus could know how much Lupus had said – I did not know exactly, myself, since I had not been present either. However, I maintained my hostile demeanour. ‘So you said nothing to help us, even though your master had been murdered?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t volunteer unnecessary information. Besides, I did not believe then that Lupus could commit a murder, especially with a knife. Lupus was not a robust man, and he preferred words to weapons. Later, when I heard about the bloodstains, I wondered if he might have struck in self-defence: Quintus appeared to resent Lupus much more than Lupus hated him. Last night I debated with myself, and this morning after Rollo was found I felt I must say something. Especially since I was no longer legally under Lupus’s tutelage.’

I said, ‘But Lupus could not possibly have attacked Rollo.’

‘If it was indeed the blow that killed him. You heard what Sollers said. It might possibly have been poison, and even an enfeebled old man can administer that. And Lupus would have had the opportunity to give Rollo something poisoned, after Quintus was murdered, when the page was ordered to the study to help prepare it for you.’

I nodded. I could follow that. ‘Lupus was still in the front garden then. In fact, when I went looking for him and Flavius, I met Rollo coming out of the study.’

‘But Rollo was alive long after that,’ Marcus interrupted.

Mutuus looked at me, and said nothing. I knew what he meant. A man does not necessarily eat food the minute he receives it, particularly not if he is a slave and is called upon, for instance, to clear a study or to pour out wine.

Marcus had come to the same conclusion. ‘Of course! I see. Lupus gave him a treat, perhaps, which Rollo might have saved to eat later. And of course, if he was poisoned he would go to the latrine. That would explain everything. It is possible that no one else was even involved.’ My patron looked extremely pleased with himself for that deduction, so I forbore to mention that in that case, Rollo’s corpse must have picked itself up and forced itself into the cavity behind the seats.

‘It is a possibility at least,’ Mutuus said. ‘Rollo was in the study when Lupus was in the garden. He must have seen him. That was where I was, when I saw Lupus.’ He glanced at Marcus.

‘Tell him the story,’ Marcus said, ‘just as you told it to me earlier.’

Mutuus nodded. ‘Well, citizen, I was standing at the study door. I had been in the
librarium
for some time: Sollers sent me away earlier, when he came to bleed Quintus – he always insisted that my master should rest and recover a little after the treatment. Quintus had been hot and flushed all morning, his earlier wound was paining him, and Sollers felt that he needed cupping before seeing Lupus and Flavius. Quintus disliked them both, and Sollers said their presence would make his blood run hotter and increase the fever.’

‘Go on,’ I said. So far the account accorded with what I knew. ‘You went to the study then, and did not return to Quintus afterwards?’

‘In fact I did return, but only for a moment. Quintus gave the signal by striking the bowl, and I collected my tablets and writing implements and returned to him. I had no sooner sat down and picked up my stylus at his instruction, ready to recommence, when Maximilian burst in and we were all sent away again. Lupus and Flavius were in the ante-room, and they were ushered back into the front garden, and I returned to the study to kick my heels once more. I had long since written all the letters that Quintus had instructed me to write. I kept walking to the door, attempting to discover if Maximilian had finished with his father, and I could decently go back for further orders. And that was when I saw him.’

‘Saw whom?’ I said, stupidly. Marcus had already told me the answer.

‘Lupus,’ he replied, ‘going back into the ante-room, when he thought he was unobserved. He went in, and disappeared.’

‘You watched him go? And that did not prevent him?’

‘He didn’t know that I had seen him. He glanced up and down the garden to make sure Flavius wasn’t looking, and then he went in. He did not think to look for me. A few minutes later he came furtively out again. At the time I was amused – I thought that he had burst in on the argument between Quintus and his son, and had tried to tiptoe away in embarrassment. That would be like Lupus. Even when I learned that Quintus had been murdered I persuaded myself that Lupus was too weak and frail to be guilty. But when I heard about the bloodstains, I had to recognise the truth. I saw him go into the ante-room with my own eyes. The dagger was there – I noticed it on the table when I came out. And, as I considered the matter this morning, I realised something else. When Lupus came sneaking out again he was not only whiter than a toga but he was pressing his right arm awkwardly to his side. He was not doing that before. That is what compelled me to tell you, citizens. There can be no doubt about it. Lupus killed Quintus. I saw him go in.’

For a moment there was silence, as I digested this news, then Marcus turned to me with a triumphant grin. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘I knew I was right to arrest him. I tell you, I can smell the scent of fear.’ He was looking more cheerful than I had seen him since our arrival in Corinium, and I realised how much the last few days had worried him. For all his apparent confidence in arresting Lupus, he had obviously entertained lingering fears that this might still be a political murder. Now, however, the testimony of Mutuus seemed to have removed his doubts. I was glad I had not mentioned the possibility of deliberate poison on his supper tray. ‘I have sent for the town guard. They will be here shortly to take him away. Though this will be a matter for the governor’s court, of course. I may even hear the case myself.’

I was unwilling to puncture his bubble of confidence, but there were still matters unresolved in my mind. ‘And the wax tablet?’ I enquired. ‘You think now that the message was unrelated to the murder?’

Marcus frowned at me disapprovingly, but Mutuus looked up sharply. ‘Wax tablet?’ he said, rather as I had hoped. As a secretary, he might be expected to take an interest in the household’s writing materials.

Junio was back at his station by the door and I motioned him forward. ‘Show him, Junio,’ I said, and for the second time that day my servant produced Flavius’s carved ivory tablet holder from his pouch. Mutuus looked at it.

I was expecting a reaction, but Mutuus’s face showed nothing but a kind of blank bafflement.

‘Well?’ I demanded, after a moment. ‘Have you seen this writing block before?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘of course I have. It belongs to Julia Honoria.’

Whatever answer I had been expecting, it certainly was not that. For the second time in as many minutes, Mutuus’s words produced a startled pause.

It was Marcus who broke it. ‘To Julia? That is impossible. You must be mistaken. Libertus collected this personally from Flavius this morning.’ He took the writing frame from Junio and tapped it with his finger. ‘Julia has not spoken to her former husband alone since he came to the house – indeed she has avoided doing so. You wish us to believe that she has somehow entertained private messages from him?’

Mutuus had turned a sullen red, but he remained adamant. ‘As to that, Excellence, I cannot answer. I only tell you what I know. That writing tablet came from Flavius, certainly, but it was addressed to Julia. And it did not arrive today. It arrived many days ago. I remember it clearly, because it was the morning of the very day that Quintus Ulpius was set on in the street.’

‘Did Quintus know that his wife received gifts from Flavius?’ Marcus obviously felt that, if Julia had been his wife, such practices would not have been allowed to continue for long.

Mutuus shook his head. ‘Julia did not welcome it herself. I have known her many times repudiate his gifts. On this occasion, too, I think, if Julia had known what the packet contained she would not have accepted it. But there was no greeting on the packet, and none from the slave, who merely delivered the parcel and disappeared.’

‘Wait a moment,’ Marcus said, ‘what slave? What packet? And how, if there was no greeting, could you tell who the gift was from? Tell us the story from the beginning. Briefly, if you can.’

It was beyond Mutuus, of course, to tell any story briefly. But, laced about with circumlocutions and couched in the most pedantic terms, this was the gist of his account.

It was the morning before the chariot races. Quintus, in the prime of health, had dealt with the most pressing business, and was now lying in his room with a jug of wine, while Rollo massaged his feet for him. It was a fine day, and Mutuus, since he was not needed by his master, was sitting in one of the arbours in the front garden with Julia.

Marcus interrupted him sharply. ‘Doing what?’

The secretary turned scarlet to his ears. ‘I was reciting cadences to her. She likes to hear the old poets, and I have many verses by heart.’

‘Ovid, I suppose?’ Marcus asked, mockingly – then looked as if he wished he hadn’t asked. Reading amorous poems to one’s lady was a favourite pastime in some Roman circles. If this youth had been reciting erotic verses to Julia under the trees, Marcus might not wish to hear of it.

Mutuus was redder than Samian ware, but he did not deny the charge. ‘Only the
Heroides
,’ he answered.

Marcus looked furious. Even Ovid’s heroic love letters are not the kind of ditties one would expect a bondsman to be reciting to his master’s wife. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘so you were “reciting cadences”. What happened then?’

They were interrupted, it seemed, by a message from the gatekeeper. An anonymous package had arrived at the gate for Julia, wrapped in fine silk. Julia had no suspicions. In fact, she was delighted. Quintus sometimes sent her trinkets as a surprise, and she had been dropping hints about some new ivory combs for her hair. Mutuus was sent to fetch the parcel.

‘When she unwrapped it,’ the secretary said, ‘it was a writing block. A pretty thing. Julia still thought it was a present from Quintus. But when she opened it, there was a message inscribed inside the tablet, on the wax itself. “To Julia, a love token to bring you back to me.” I saw the writing myself.

‘Julia was furious. I have never seen her so upset. She scratched out the message with her nails, and flung the tablet on the floor. That put an end to the little recital in the arbour. She’d had enough of poetry, she said, and she made me accompany her inside while she craved an immediate audience with her husband.’

‘And did he grant it?’ I asked, remembering that he had retired to his quarters with Rollo and that the slave probably had more intimate duties than merely playing the cythera.

Mutuus looked surprised. ‘Of course. Quintus was devoted to his lady. She might have interrupted him at the bathhouse itself if she chose.’

‘And the writing tablet? You left it in the arbour. What happened to it then?’

He shrugged. ‘I cannot tell you that, citizen. Until you showed it to me just now, I had never seen it again.’

‘Oh, come!’ Marcus said sharply. ‘The tablet is a pretty thing, the frame is carved ivory and cunningly made. It would have a value anywhere. You don’t expect me to believe that you left it in the garden where it fell?’

Mutuus was doing his imitation of Samian ware again. ‘I did not say that, Excellence. It is true that I tried to recover it. When Julia went in to speak to Quintus, I was no longer required – Quintus always dismissed his slaves when Julia sought private audience with him – so I came back to the arbour, hoping to find the writing tablet. I spent a long time searching, but there was no sign of it. Doubtless one of the garden slaves had stolen it.’