A Pattern of Blood (7 page)

Flavius began to say something, but Lupus was not to be silenced.

‘He stopped my re-election, yet he is still demanding that I make a retiring contribution to the curial purse. For urgent civic repairs. You heard what happened? I imagine all Corinium knows by now. Some idiot sited the whole forum on poor ground: the Jupiter column is cracking and half the basilica is sinking into a ditch. Quintus is demanding huge contributions from everyone on the council. It will cost me thousands. He’s setting out to ruin me. My only hope was to be re-elected magistrate. That way I could at least sell a few contracts, or attract goodwill gifts from wealthy followers. I managed to get myself nominated. That cost me a fortune. And then he put a stop to it. Rest assured, young man, any enemy of Quintus’s is a friend of mine.’

Flavius gave a mirthless laugh. ‘In that case, you are the friend of half Corinium. Unfortunately, the other half adores him. The man who brings Quintus down will need a broad back. Or exceptionally good fortune.’

‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ Lupus said. ‘Do you know . . .’ He dropped his voice, and I could catch only snatches of the rest ‘. . . insisted on stealing him . . . Would have cost me half my estate to pay the fine . . . Thousands of sesterces . . .’

I might have gone on listening for longer, but at that moment a servant in a smart ochre tunic came bustling out of the far wing of the house, and stopped on the veranda to stare at me. I made a feeble pretence that I was merely bending over in order to re-fasten my sandal. The slave gave me a disdainful look – real gentlemen do not go around tying their own sandal straps with one ear in the hedge – and disappeared back into the building. I should have to be more careful, I thought, or my spying activities would be common gossip among the servants. Chastened, I went around to confront the speakers openly.

They were not a prepossessing pair. Flavius, the younger man, was perhaps thirty-five years old, but already thickset and paunchy. He might have been handsome, once, but he had gone to seed, and now managed somehow to combine dark features with a high colour, so that he appeared at once swarthy and florid. The idea of such a man being married to the beautiful Julia seemed an outrage to natural justice.

The other was older, probably even older than I was: stooping and scrawny, with wiry limbs and grey, thinning hair which he had vainly attempted to hide under an absurd and very obvious hairpiece. His skin had the yellowish-white tinge which is often associated with the infirm, and he clutched his right arm stiffly to his bosom as though it pained him, but the alacrity with which he leaped to his feet when I appeared suggested a certain sprightliness. Clearly the aching knees he had complained of were not troubling him now.

‘And who in the name of Mithras are you?’ Flavius demanded furiously. ‘Bursting in unannounced upon your betters in this way?’

‘Forgive me, citizens,’ I said, trying to look humble. Purple-edged togas demand deference. Even the younger man was a narrow-striper, and the badly draped robe of the other carried the broad stripe of senior office – though, incidentally, how I was supposed to deduce this through a thicket it was hard to see. ‘I am Libertus, a pavement-maker. I have come from Glevum with my patron, the governor’s representative, to see about laying a mosaic. We are guests in this house.’

The mention of Marcus won me a little more respect. Flavius, who had been scowling at me aggressively, glanced nervously at Lupus and took a step backwards. ‘You were looking for us?’

‘I was, citizens. I bring serious news. Did you know that Quintus Ulpius had been stabbed?’

It was not, taken all in all, the most intelligent of questions. If Junio had been there he would undoubtedly have reminded me of the fact. But the results were startling.

Flavius reacted angrily. ‘Of course I know. That is why I am obliged to dance attendance on him here, like a tradesman begging for payment. Of course he was stabbed. But if you are looking for sympathy, or a subscription, you have come to the wrong people. If I could find the man who stabbed him, I would clap him warmly on the back. And I dare say Lupus here feels the same. He was just telling me his grievances.’

If he was looking for warm support, he was disappointed. Lupus’s pale skin grew even paler, and when he spoke his voice seemed scarcely under his control. ‘Flavius, my friend,’ he plucked at his own toga folds with his stiffly held hand, ‘be careful what you say. Words spoken in jest are quickly misconstrued.’ He turned to me. ‘I had grievances against Quintus, yes, but I did not stab him. I have been sitting here on this bench all the time. Flavius will tell you.’

Flavius looked from Lupus to me and back again. ‘What? You mean Quintus has been stabbed – again?’

Lupus looked shaken, but he said steadily, ‘Well . . . I imagine so. This good citizen would hardly come to tell us something which the whole town has known for a month. This is some new attack. Is that not so, citizen? That is what you mean?’ His eyes, deep-set and too close together, gazed at me anxiously.

‘That is exactly what I mean,’ I said. ‘Ulpius was recovering from his first wound, but he has been stabbed again, in the last hour. And this time fatally.’

It was Flavius’s turn to pale. ‘Quintus is dead?’ He shook his head. ‘Well, that solves my problem, then. And yours too, Lupus. And since I do not imagine that his family will expect me among the mourners, I shall return home. Excuse me, gentlemen.’ He made to walk past me out of the arbour.

I forestalled him, choosing my words carefully. ‘I am afraid not, citizen. I think my patron will wish to question you. When Ulpius was found there was a dagger in his back. A very unusual dagger, with a carved black wood handle. They say it is yours.’

He looked at me for a moment, the colour in his cheeks darkening. Then he snorted. ‘Mine! Well, what of that? It was on the table in the ante-room for all to see. It does not mean I killed him. What sort of assassin would leave an identifying knife in his victim?’

Perhaps the sort of assassin, I thought, who expected us to reason in that way. But I did not say so. ‘Perhaps a man who had no choice,’ I said. ‘Withdrawing the knife from the wound was difficult. It is possible the killer intended to remove it, but could not stop to do so. There was so little time in which to commit the crime – unexpected delay would be fatal.’

Flavius licked his lips. ‘So you think . . .?’

‘I do not think anything, citizen. Except that owning the murder weapon does not absolve you from the crime. Marcus will wish to question everyone. You too, I’m afraid, Lupus.’

Lupus looked too terrified to protest, but Flavius was still scowling. For a moment he was silent. He seemed to be thinking furiously. Then he did speak, and when he did so his words were unexpected.

‘I want to speak to Julia,’ he said.

Flavius got his chance to see Julia more quickly than he imagined. When we reached the house she was already in the atrium. She had changed into a simple dark brown Grecian coat, presumably out of respect for the dead, and was looking pale and shaken. Indeed, she was leaning heavily on Sollers for support, to Marcus’s obvious irritation. The news of her husband’s death had been a visible blow to her. She looked, if possible, more beautiful in grief.

I tore my eyes away from her and turned to Marcus. ‘I bring you the citizens Flavius and Lupus, Excellence. I found them waiting in the colonnade.’ I said nothing about hearing their conversation. That was information I preferred to keep to myself, at least for the present.

Lupus greeted Marcus with all the deference due to his rank, and Flavius muttered his way through the appropriate formula. His attention, though, was elsewhere. Throughout the whole of the formalities his eyes never left his former wife.

‘Julia!’ he said, as soon as it was decently possible to do so. Marcus, who was already frowning, compressed his lips. ‘Julia, I must talk to you.’

At that she relinquished Sollers’s arm – to the satisfaction of every other man present – and drew herself up proudly. She had stripped herself of her finery – presumably in deference to the news – and wore a simple jet necklet. She looked pale, but magnificent. ‘Flavius. I heard that you were here. I have nothing to say to you. Our marriage is over. And you can have nothing to say to me – at least nothing that cannot be said here, in public.’

It was courageous. Now that Julia had no husband as protector, she had few legal rights. Flavius was a wealthy man and he would make a powerful enemy.

At the moment, however, he merely looked despairing. ‘But Julia! You know what I want to say to you.’

‘I know,’ Julia said, ‘I have heard it all before and I do not want to hear it again. There was no sorcery which made me leave you. I left because I did not want to stay. And do not send me gifts and messages. I will not accept them – do you understand? You are wasting your time. I shall simply throw them away, as I did the others.’ I looked at her with growing admiration. A lady to be reckoned with, obviously.

‘Julia! I came here to plead with you . . .’

‘You lie!’ the woman said. ‘You knew I would not speak to you. You came here to “plead” with my husband, as you call it. My poor sick, wounded husband. To threaten him, or try to bribe him, perhaps? And then he is found with your knife in his body. What am I to think of that, Flavius?’

He interrupted her. ‘I did not stab Quintus, I swear it. By all the gods.’

She withered him with a glance. ‘Perhaps you did not strike the fatal blow yourself – perhaps you are too much of a coward for that – but I know you, Flavius. I know what you are capable of.’

‘Julia . . .’

She ignored him. ‘I do not know, Flavius, what you hoped to gain by this. Did you think that with my husband dead I would turn back to you? If not from love, then at least from fear? Never, Flavius. Do you hear me? Not even if he leaves you guardianship of me under his will. I shall kill myself first. And if this death is proved against you I shall have my revenge, never fear. Citizen you may be, but if you did this, I swear I will see you thrown to the beasts.’

That was even possible, in fact – the murder of a decurion would call for the most savage rigours of the law. But even if wealth and status saved Flavius from being tied bleeding to a stake in the arena, to be set on by wolves or dogs, the other legal remedies were unpleasant enough. Flavius paled.

‘I swear I did not murder Ulpius. Before Jupiter, Greatest and Best, I didn’t even see him. I came to seek an audience, but he treated me like a common trader. I was sent away to wait. It was humiliating, but I had to see him. I was in the front court all the time after that. Lupus was there. Ask him.’

But they hadn’t been together all that time, I thought. I knew that, if the others didn’t. I looked at the elderly decurion, in his absurd wig.

Lupus licked his lips. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am an old man. I can’t walk about like Flavius can, I just went to the arbour and sat down.’ He looked at Flavius nervously. ‘But he was in the garden, certainly. He couldn’t have got into that room to stab Ulpius without my seeing him. And I couldn’t have done it, either. He would have seen me. We can vouch for each other in that, can’t we, Flavius?’

If Lupus had been paid money in the public theatre to represent the part of a shifty and untrustworthy conspirator, he could not have done it better. Everything about him – his faltering tones, the way he fidgeted from foot to foot and the way he refused to meet our gaze – contrived to make him seem about as reliable as a second-hand donkey dealer at a fair.

‘Well, we shall hear your story in a moment,’ Marcus said, in a voice which suggested that he shared my opinion of donkey dealers. ‘I shall want to question everyone. Libertus will assist – he witnessed the original attack, and he may have additional questions.’ He turned to Lupus and Flavius. ‘I am sorry to make you wait again, citizens. Perhaps you should send a message to your homes. This may take a little time. I presume you could give them a bed here, if necessary?’ he added, to Julia.

She looked at Sollers uncertainly. He nodded, and she said, ‘I am sure we can contrive something. There are couches in the
triclinium
.’

‘Great Minerva! I can’t stay here,’ Flavius expostulated angrily. ‘I am expected tonight at the dinner of an important client. Besides, I have appointments, business, affairs . . .’

Marcus looked at him coolly. ‘Of course, if you prefer a more formal detention, I am sure that it can be arranged. A night in the town gaol, perhaps?’

Flavius subsided, still muttering.

‘Then if there is no objection . . .’ Marcus began, but he was interrupted by a loud disturbance in the front court. There was a great deal of banging, followed by cursing and raised voices, and we all stopped, silent in amazement.

A moment later Maximilian stormed into the room, accompanied by two slaves. He wore a clean toga, this time edged with the black stripe of mourning that tradition demanded. Following a recent custom there were ashes rubbed onto his forehead, but otherwise he was hardly the traditional picture of grief. On the contrary, he was clearly furious.

He wasted no time on civilities. ‘What is going on here? I am to be master of this house, yet I come home to start mourning my father, and find myself locked out of it like a criminal, and have to threaten the gatekeeper before he will consent to let me in. On whose authority were the gates locked?’

Marcus was looking dangerous. ‘On mine.’

‘Oh!’ Maximilian looked nonplussed. ‘I see. Then I must defer and apologise, naturally. But it is humiliating, having to hammer on your own gates for admittance. And who are these . . . gentlemen?’ He gestured contemptuously towards Lupus and Flavius.

‘We have seen you,’ Lupus put in eagerly, ‘at the chariot races. You remember?’

‘Oh, I think he knows you well enough,’ Sollers said. ‘He identified Flavius as the owner of that knife only a moment ago.’

Maximilan flushed angrily. Interesting, I thought. The youth was a convincing actor, but a poor liar. Had he really forgotten what he had said to us? Perhaps these two men were genuinely friends of his.