A Pattern of Blood (4 page)

No surly questions at swordpoint on our arrival, either. The guards at the gate straightened smartly at our approach, lifting their arms in salute, and we whisked under the portico and into the town without so much as a challenge.

Corinium is a fine place by daylight. A man can buy anything here if he has the money for it: the little booths around the market place display oil, wine, leather, bone, glass, pottery, perfumes, herbs and statues from all over the Empire, while the many
macella
of the market house itself teem with the sounds and smells of livestock and the raucous calls of butchers, offering fresh-killed meat of every variety. The laws about wheeled transport were openly flouted, and as we swept down the road towards the forum we sent a dozen handcarts scurrying from our path, loaded with everything from turnips and roasted birds to firewood and fleeces. I wondered how many of these traders would exchange their freedom of movement for the dreadful hubbub and congestion of Glevum at night, despite the automatic Roman citizenship a colonia confers on those who live within its walls.

There was at least one inn, I knew, and there were doubtless others, but Quintus Ulpius, it seemed, had insisted on entertaining the whole party in his own house. That argued a residence of a certain size, but as we rattled up to his imposing outer wall and bowled through the gates, I realised that this was a town house grander than anything I had ever seen in Glevum – or anywhere else, for that matter. The dwelling did not open directly onto the street, as most such houses do, but was set back amid a screen of trees, behind a formal garden with statues and arbours, and a colonnaded walkway skirting the outer wall. It was more like a country villa than a town residence. There was even an elaborate water basin, where an overweight Neptune straddled a disconsolate dolphin in a cascade, fed, as I discovered later, from a private water supply piped in from a nearby stream.

Behind the leafy screen of branches I could glimpse the house itself, a fine stone building in the Roman style, with an extra wing on either side. I had an impression of graceful verandas, lofty rooms, and a fountain glimpsed through the open door suggested a further courtyard beyond. At the door, a veritable army of blue-tunicked slaves stood ready to rush out and help us to descend. Being a decurion has manifest advantages.

In more ways than one, I discovered. A pair of house slaves showed us down a paved passageway to the atrium. There was no open central pool, as they reputedly have in sunnier climates, but the effect had been echoed by an amusing blue mosaic depicting sea horses and dolphins. I had just time to admire this, a beautiful inlaid table and the fine painted walls, before a woman came to meet us. She was a small, shapely woman in a Roman stola, with bright, dark eyes and a little smile that made the heart skip. This, presumably, was the heiress wife that Marcus had spoken of.

Her first words confirmed it. ‘I am Julia, Quintus’s wife,’ she said simply. She had a way of lowering her eyes which I found quite charming. ‘My husband had hoped to greet you himself, but he is still weak from his wound, and has tired himself meeting clientes. He begs that you will refresh yourself, and he will see you as soon as he is rested.’

If jealousy over his wife
had
been the motive for that attack, I thought, it would be understandable. This was an enchanting woman. She was no longer young – perhaps as much as twenty-five years old – but she was still undeniably attractive: not classically beautiful and statuesque in the pale Roman style, but dark, curvaceous and fine-featured. There was no doubt about her wealth: her soft amethyst-coloured
stola
or over-tunic, was of the finest quality, worn over a long shift of deep lilac wool. She wore a plaited girdle of purple silk, and her neck and wrists were heavy with gold. Her hair had been prinked and curled in the latest fashion, her eyebrows were plucked, and as she moved she gave off a faint aura of some exotic perfume which, even to my untutored senses, smelled extremely expensive. And yet she conducted herself with simplicity, and the brightness of those downcast eyes was due, I realised, not merely to the painted kohl line edging them, but also to tears. She seemed deeply moved by her husband’s plight.

Marcus was looking at her appreciatively. No wonder Ulpius had made enemies, I thought. Taking one thing with another, the decurion was an enviable man.

He had arranged a gracious reception. Junio visibly fretted at not being allowed to attend me personally, as our baggage was bestowed, garlands distributed and our feet and hands washed, but that could not be helped. We were visitors in this house, and he was taken off to the attic to play dice and eat bread and cheese with Marcus’s serving boy, while we were shown to couches into the elaborate dining room and a tray of fruit and watered wine was set before us. Two attractive young slave boys, so alike they might have been brothers, hastened to attend us. In this household, even a snack was offered with a flourish.

‘I am sorry,’ Marcus said, when the rituals of hospitality had been observed, ‘that Quintus is so ill. I came especially in response to his letter. I have brought the pavement-maker that I told him of, too, to discuss designs for the caldarium. Libertus is also skilled at solving mysteries. He will discover who attacked your husband, if anyone can.’

Julia turned to me, and I felt the force of that beguiling smile. ‘Then you are thrice welcome, citizen. I would offer a thousand
sestertii
to learn who stabbed my husband. And this caldarium means so much to Quintus. He will want the finest pavements. You knew, of course, that he was proposing to endow the new hot room in the public bathhouse to mark his year in senior office? It will win him support with the populace, he says – the poorer electors appreciate a warm place to go in the winter – and probably an honorary edict from the administrative council.’

And, I realised, make him a favoured candidate for even higher office. No wonder the man attracted clientes. This generous ‘gift to the town’ might even, in the end, prove personally profitable to the donor. A project of this size would be worth thousands of denarii, and the man dispensing money on that scale could be sure of generous ‘donations’ from dozens of wealthy hopefuls. Someone, for example, would have to supply the building stone, someone’s ships would bring the marble from Italy, someone’s potteries and forests provide the water channels and gutters. There must also, I thought wryly, be several humble but ambitious mosaic-makers even now devoting precious time and possessions to wooing Ulpius, or even promising to alter their wills in his favour, in an attempt to win this contract for the caldarium pavement. They were wasting their time, poor souls, if they but knew it. That commission was already mine. The decurion had ambitions, in his turn, and could not afford to ignore a recommendation from someone as important as Marcus.

Basking in this knowledge, I smiled at Julia. ‘You know a great deal about the project.’ I meant it as a compliment. Not many women understood the practicalities of power.

She favoured me with that smile again, glancing up under her eyelashes as though we were conspirators. ‘He does sometimes discuss these things with me, and not just with his council of friends. After all, he has the usufruct of my dowry.’

Of course, since theirs was a ‘free marriage’, her husband could legally invest the income from her lands and fortune, provided he didn’t deplete it. No wonder he discussed his projects with her. No wonder, either, that her former spouse bitterly resented that she had chosen to leave him. Previously, he would have had the rights to that dowry.

Marcus was visibly unhappy with all this vulgar talk of money, and anxious to begin the real business which had brought us here. He said, suddenly, ‘Is Quintus able to receive us now?’

She flashed him an apologetic smile. ‘I will go and see. But please, gentlemen, I beg of you, if he receives you, do not overtire him. He is still frail. Sollers says the wound is deep and might yet become infected. Last night, in fact, my husband seemed to have a slight fever. Sollers was worried; he watched all night with him, but this morning Quintus declared that he felt better and insisted on receiving his clientes again.’ She dimpled. ‘He is an obstinate man. And he wants to see you, I know. But you will remember, won’t you, that he is still weak?’

‘Of course,’ Marcus said, and she was gone, through the inner door into the courtyard. He turned to me. ‘A charming woman.’

I hid my smile. ‘Devoted, too. See how she went to check on his condition for herself, and did not merely send a slave.’

I meant it as a warning, but Marcus merely chuckled. ‘If you knew Quintus, that would not surprise you. She is right to call him obstinate. If Quintus decides upon a thing, he is hard to shake. He wants to see us. Therefore a slave would have been ordered to fetch us, whatever the state of his master’s health.’ He picked up the remaining slices of pear and popped them one by one into his mouth.

I watched him in silence. If Ulpius is as immovable as that, I thought, he might make an intractable enemy in political matters. And he supported Pertinax, so he would be no friend to those with more flexible allegiances. That could win him implacable enemies – and powerful ones. It was an uncomfortable thought, and it was some moments before I plucked up the courage to share it with Marcus.

My patron thought about it for a moment. ‘You think that was the motive for this attack?’

‘It had occurred to me. When Pertinax was lying close to death, there must have been local councillors in Corinium who were ready to change their support to someone more likely to survive and reward them for their allegiance. Probably they said so in private. In that case, Quintus knows who they were. And that is no light matter. Sedition against the governor is a capital offence.’

Marcus looked at me gloomily. He was about to say something when there was a noise in the adjoining room. The screen was flung back and a young man strode in from the atrium. The slaves attending us stepped back, startled, to let him pass.

He was a tall, thin young man with a narrow face, close-set eyes and a petulant expression. He looked dishevelled: his hair was tousled and curly, there was the faint down of a beard on his unshaven chin, and though his rings were costly, his toga was stained with wine and his hems were even more frowzy than my own. The effect was to make him look childish, although there was no childhood
bulla
around his neck, and he was obviously a man.

‘Where is the woman?’

‘The woman?’ Marcus sounded even more startled than I was at this peremptory greeting. ‘What do you mean, citizen?’ He had risen to his feet, bridling, and his voice was ominous.

I winced. I have seen men flogged for showing less disrespect, but the young man seemed oblivious.

‘What do I mean? Why, Julia. The woman. My father’s new wife.’ He caught my frantic glance, and seemed, at last, to see that there was some impropriety in his behaviour. He added, ‘I’m Maximilian, by the way. Quintus’s son. I’ve just come from my father – I’ve upset him as usual. He wants to see her.’

‘She has this minute gone to him,’ Marcus said, in the same icy tone.

Maximilian shook his head. ‘Well, I did not see her, and I have just left his bedside. I shall have to look for her. If she doesn’t turn up at once, it’ll be my fault. Everything is my fault, since she came to this house.’ He turned to the slaves at the door. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Go and find your mistress and tell her my father wants her. Now!’

The two slaves looked at each other and scuttled off, while Maximilian leaned over casually and helped himself to the remaining fruit which had been set for us. Son of a decurion he might be, I thought, but he had appalling manners. And no sense of self-preservation. It was bad enough showing disrespect to his father, calling him by his familiar name, Quintus, instead of using his
nomen
properly, but now he was being equally disrespectful to Marcus, though the wide purple stripe on Marcus’s toga should have warned the boy that this was no ordinary guest. I glanced at my patron. He was looking increasingly dangerous. At any moment, I thought, there would be serious trouble.

‘This is Marcus Aurelius Septimus,’ I said, ‘my patron. We await an audience with your father.’

‘Marcus? My father’s guest?’ The boy paled. ‘Forgive me, Excellence. I took you for the two clientes my father still has waiting – otherwise I should never have presumed . . .’

‘I see.’ Marcus was laconic. ‘Do you usually treat your father’s friends like this?’

‘These two are scarcely friends,’ the boy said heatedly. ‘They are not even strictly clientes. They told the secretary they were here on business. They sought audience with my father, but only because they have grievances against him. They should never have been admitted through the gates at all, with Quintus so ill, but they claimed friendship with me, apparently. My father thinks it is all my fault, of course, though I have scarcely set eyes on either of them. But he insisted that he would see them once they were here – he wouldn’t have it said that he shirked his duty to callers.’

‘But he hasn’t seen them?’ Marcus said.

‘Not yet. Sollers kept them from him – he thought Quintus should be rested before receiving them – though of course that wasn’t right either. “Skulking round the property, spying on his goods”, my father says. That’s why I thought you were the two in question – it would be just like Julia to order refreshment for them. She has a talent for spending my father’s money.’

She had brought a large dowry with her, I remembered, so perhaps she felt it was her own money. Though of course a man like Quintus would have extensive estates and interests of his own. ‘And you fear for your inheritance?’ I asked. He was not a prepossessing young man, but I could follow that grievance, at least.

He shot me a look. ‘And with reason! Julia and that Sollers of hers have poisoned my father’s mind against me. He’s threatening to disinherit me, and leave it all to them. He says I’m lazy, but what am I to do? I have no businesses. And I can hardly invest. He refuses to increase my allowance, now, even enough to pay my rent and wine bills.’