The Germanicus Mosaic (2 page)

I was safe. Marcus was laughing. He said, ‘It was absurd. Crassus paid such a price for those manuscripts, but if one had given him laundry lists for the fullers, copied out on vellum, he would have been just as pleased with them. I presume the man went to school, like everyone else, but I am sure he never learned to read more than the company orders, and never opened a scroll for pleasure in his life. But he was very determined on his librarium pavement, I seem to recall.’

I nodded. Marcus wasn’t really asking me, he had been present himself when the mosaic was ordered.

‘Wanted it in a hurry, too,’ Marcus went on, ‘before his brother should visit. Did you manage to finish it in time?’

‘I did. I finished it a fortnight ago. He professed himself very satisfied.’ I did not add that I was never more pleased to finish a pavement in my life. I had scarcely seen my employer, of course, one rarely did on these commissions, but the whole household lived in terror of their master, and the once or twice I had glimpsed him myself had certainly sufficed. Crassus Claudius Germanicus was a singularly unpleasant man.

‘Ah.’ Junio had appeared with the tray, and Marcus took a goblet absently, and waited without glancing at the boy until it was filled. He sipped it appreciatively. ‘A fair wine. Roman, is it? You didn’t buy this from the market sellers.’

‘Your gift, excellence.’

I took my goblet in turn, and sipped at it, though I had never learned to like the sour taste of wine. I preferred mead, or the honest ale or apple-beer of my youth. I waited, but Marcus said nothing more until Junio had disappeared. I was surprised. Marcus – brought up with a household of slaves – usually ignored the presence of servants.

Not on this occasion. Marcus watched him go. ‘That slave of yours,’ he said coolly, ‘can you trust him?’

‘Implicitly,’ I said. ‘I would trust him with my life.’ That was true. I have done so, in fact, on several occasions.

‘Because,’ Marcus went on, as if I had not spoken, ‘it may be necessary for you to be absent for a day or two, and people may be asking for you. Friends, clients, acquaintances . . .’

I sighed inwardly. Not for my friends; a native nobleman who has been captured as a slave and been cut off from his family does not acquire many friends. But I had ‘advised’ Marcus before, and I was aware that his ‘day or two’ was more likely to be at least a week. That was the price one paid for having a wealthy patron. So much for Corinium, I thought, and there was still that pavement of Didio’s to be completed.

I managed a tight smile. ‘There may be customers, certainly.’

‘Well, you know what Glevum is, Libertus. Rumours everywhere, and this is one occasion when I would prefer that your movements were not the subject of public gossip. Perhaps your slave could tell callers that you are away . . . have left town, on urgent business perhaps.’

My mind was racing. I did indeed know Glevum. Garrison for the local guard-force, and the chosen retirement place for every wealthy ex-legionary in the business. A model of Roman local government, and therefore, naturally, a hotbed of political and social undercurrents of all kinds.

I looked at Marcus warily. ‘That could be arranged. And Caius Didio? He will be anxious about his mosaic.’ I meant that I was anxious about it myself.

‘Leave him to me,’ Marcus said.

I nodded. I could guess now why Marcus had come to see me, and I did not like what I guessed. I did not like it at all. I had first met Marcus after the death of a wealthy landowner nearby, a politically sensitive matter, which I investigated for him, and since then Marcus had always turned to me when he discovered some ‘accident’ or fraud which appeared to compromise the dignity of Rome. My help in these matters, he always says, first earned me his protection and patronage, and my refusal to ask for money won his respect. I had an uncomfortable feeling, now, that I was about to be given another opportunity to win his respect.

‘There is trouble, excellence?’ I prompted, hoping that my dismay was not written in my face.

If so, Marcus was too preoccupied to read it. ‘Trouble, yes. You are perceptive. It concerns Crassus. The aediles have been to see me.’

‘The aediles? The junior magistrates?’ For a moment, I turned cold. The aediles were concerned with commercial matters, and they could be ruthless. Marcus had many enemies amongst the market informers. They would enjoy making ‘an example’ of his protégé. I swallowed the rest of my wine in one gulp, before I could trust my voice to say, ‘Has Crassus complained of me?’

I had reason to be wary. That pavement which Crassus had wanted laid with such indecent speed had not been of my own design nor even worked from a pattern book. I had been encouraging Junio to learn the art of pavement-making, and this was a small mosaic of his: a rather crude
Cave Canem
mounted on linen backing, a sort of apprentice-piece. When Crassus Germanicus had wanted an almost-instant pavement, it was that mosaic – with the lettering quickly altered from
Beware of the Dog
to
Art is Long
– which I had hastily cemented into place in his librarium.

‘Has he complained of me?’ I asked again. It had seemed amusingly ironic at the time, that ravening dog gracing the floor of the so-called reading-room; Crassus even seemed particularly pleased with it. But suddenly it seemed much less funny. ‘It was pre-patterned work, but it was the only way to manage it in such a short time. He wanted the floor finished and ready in weeks.’ I was gabbling in self-defence. ‘It took me almost the whole time to flatten and prepare the place. The slaves had dug it over roughly and brought in a fresh layer of clean soil – it had been the slavegirls’ room, you remember, and the floor was just trodden earth – but the floor was still hopelessly uneven. I had only enough time to roll out the mosaic and make it fit by adding an extra border at one end.’

Marcus inclined his head. ‘No, he has not complained. On the contrary, he was bragging about it in the marketplace. You did well to finish it at all, especially with an additional border. I don’t know how you managed.’

By using a template for the border pattern, was the answer – cutting the shape in wood and tiling up to it, and then filling in the space – but I wasn’t going to tell him that. It had taken me a long time to work out a usable system, and it was a secret I guarded jealously. One day, perhaps, I would tell Junio. But not yet. In the meantime I was content to allow myself to breathe out. I had been holding my breath ever since Marcus mentioned the aediles.

‘Why he wanted a librarium out there, off the back courtyard, and didn’t include one in the public rooms in the first place, I can’t imagine.’ Marcus drained his wine. ‘But then, I suppose, his brother came, and it was important to impress him. Anyway, he was satisfied. Has he paid you?’

‘No.’

Marcus said, ‘Ah!’

My heart sank. That was it then – not a complaint against me by Crassus, but a complaint against Crassus by his creditors. That was a blow. That commission had been worth many sesterces. But why all this talk of secrecy and discretion? I made a bold guess. ‘So what do you want of me, excellence? Has Crassus Germanicus disappeared?’

Marcus looked at me, the hooded eyes very shrewd. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Or no. He attended the festival of Mars yesterday . . .’

I nodded. ‘I went out to see the procession myself.’ Musicians, priests, sacrificial animals. The whole regional garrison, rank after rank, and following them, less firm of step but prouder than ever, the veterans: first the men of the Second Augusta, the Glevum ‘colony’, and then the retired officers from other legions and auxiliary regiments. And all of them, the whole procession from first to last, wearing the hammered mask of Mars. Even for a non-Roman like me it was a stirring sight: the breastplates and standards glinting in the sunshine, the plumes bobbing, and the heavy-soled hobnailed sandals ringing in unison on the paving stones. ‘Quite a spectacle.’ That was an understatement. I had felt like a child again, tiptoe amidst the jostling crowds – even the slaves had been given a holiday – eating hot pies from the street sellers with Junio, and pastries so sweet that the warm honey oozed out between our fingers as we ate.

‘I saw Crassus myself,’ Marcus said, ‘leading a contingent.’

I too had seen the stocky, bull-necked figure striding out among the column of veterans. I said so.

‘And that,’ Marcus said dramatically, ‘is the last time anyone saw him, it seems. He did not return to the villa after the procession. The servants were not unduly worried at first. You know how much feasting there is after the parade, and Crassus loved a feast.’

I nodded. ‘A man of expansive appetites.’ Germanicus was likely to have drunk himself stupid in some Glevum wineshop, and rolled into bed with a convenient ‘barmaid’. I added hopefully, thinking of the money he owed me, ‘Perhaps he will turn up, after all.’

‘He did not appear this morning,’ Marcus said. ‘Nor for lunch. In the end they sent out to find him. All his usual haunts – the bars, the baths, the market – but without success. No one had seen him since the procession. Or his personal slave either. They both seemed to have disappeared.’

Something in his tone caught me. ‘Seemed? Why the past tense, Marcus?’

‘An hour ago the slaves went to stoke the boiler – the underfloor heating had been allowed to burn down over the holiday. They found a body in the hypocaust. That is what the aediles came to tell me. It will be a matter for the governor’s court, of course, not the local ones. Crassus was a Roman citizen. But it is a delicate business. My spies tell me that Crassus Germanicus may have been . . . shall we say . . . a supporter of the army.’

This time, I groaned aloud. I knew what that meant. Commodus was not the most popular of emperors, and though he had taken the title ‘Britannicus’ most of the army here was in ferment against him, and had imperial candidates of their own, ready to step in when the time was right. The last thing I wanted was to be investigating that kind of political intrigue. If Marcus got me involved in this, I could give up worrying about getting to Corinium next week. Ask the wrong questions here and I might never get to Corinium at all – or anywhere else either. And I had no desire to visit the netherworld.

‘Excellence,’ I pleaded, ‘this is a question for the law officer.’

Marcus ignored me. ‘I am on my way to the villa now. And I want you to accompany me. You see things which other men do not, Libertus. I need your pattern-maker’s mind.’ He favoured me with his most winning smile.

I said nothing.

‘I sent word to expect us,’ Marcus went on, as though there had never been the remotest likelihood of my refusing – as I suppose there wasn’t. Marcus was a powerful man.

‘Perhaps there is no mystery to solve,’ I said, without conviction. ‘Crassus Germanicus is a man of brutal temper. He has killed a man, and then run away. That seems the logical conclusion.’

‘I said so myself,’ Marcus replied, ‘but the aediles thought otherwise. Still, we shall go and see. My driver awaits us. Fetch your cloak, and your strigil if you need one, and give your slave some story about being called away. A private commission for me, perhaps. That should put a stop to any rumours.’

A strigil, I thought. To use in the bathhouse so that I could wash and shave. Marcus did not expect me to return home in a hurry. I got to my feet.

‘I will fetch my things.’

As I tied them into a cloth, I told Junio exactly where I was going and what I was doing. It was the only defiance I could think of. Besides, I felt easier that way. Then I went back to Marcus.

‘All right, excellence,’ I said, wearily. ‘Let’s go and find this body.’

I had donned a toga, of course, as the strict letter of the law demanded. All male Roman citizens throughout the empire are supposed to wear one ‘in public’, but often I didn’t bother. The edict is not much enforced, and a man in my position is more likely to be stopped and questioned on suspicion of unlawfully wearing the badge of citizenship, than for failing to wear it. Besides, frankly, I dislike the things: tricky to put on, hard to clean, and impossible to work in, because (as you will know if you have ever worn one) they force on the wearer that measured, upright gait which is the hallmark of Romans everywhere, otherwise the whole thing undrapes itself. But I do have one, for formal occasions – useful for impressing Roman clients – and today I was accompanying Marcus. Occasions do not come much more formal than that.

There were advantages, too, of a kind. The milling throngs in the street stood back deferentially to let us pass and the tanner’s man – who saw me every day in my simple tunic and cloak – goggled openly. Only a plain unbleached white-wool toga, of course, none of Marcus’ patrician stripes, but transformation enough. I sighed. Next time they wanted a contribution to maintain the neighbourhood fire-watch (one of the delights of living between a tannery and a candlemaker’s was the constant interesting possibility of conflagration) they would expect an extra few denarii from me.

When we got to our transport, though, I was glad of my warm garment. Marcus had brought along a courier gig, light and fast, but desperately draughty compared to the covered imperial carriage I had been expecting. The driver was standing beside it, holding the horse, looking bored and perished to the bone in his thin tunic. I followed Marcus into the gig, as gracefully as my toga would allow, and gave the lad a sympathetic smile. It is one of the less recognised miseries of being a slave, that everlasting waiting.

The driver seemed to take my smile as an encouragement and we set off at a clip which set the gig bouncing. We took the shortest route, back through the town, and I appreciated once again the advantages of rank. No humble mortal like myself could bring wheeled transport inside the walls in daylight, or blithely propose to take precedence on the military roads. But with Marcus anything was possible.

Out of the East Gate, skirting the narrow tenements of the straggling northern suburb, away from the river marshes and up towards the high road that runs along the escarpment. Towards Corinium, I thought with a pang. It is a good road, kept up by local taxes for the imperial post – the military messengers – and, like all Roman roads, paved and straight. We made good progress, out past the burial sites which line the roadside these days (the Romans have made it illegal to bury the dead within the city), and were soon into open country.