A Whispering of Spies (23 page)

However, as we did so the fellow dangling from the sign abruptly lost his grip and tumbled to the paving right in front of us. He was too drunk to care and lay there giggling. The sight of the centurion had no effect on him, though his friends seemed suddenly sobered by the accident. They stole sideways looks at Emelius’s stony face and one by one slipped silently away, leaving their comrade lying in the road. He was tittering inanely, but seemed mercifully unhurt.

Emelius stood over him and ordered him to rise, but the boy just looked up at us with a foolish grin. ‘Will do in a minute, need to sleep, tha’s all.’

The shopkeeper came out. ‘Thank Mercury you’ve come! You see what state he’s in. He could have killed himself. I want him arrested and taken home at once. I’ll tell you where to take him – his father is a customer of mine. I’ll write out a bill for you to take as well. Someone’s got to pay. Emptied two
amphorae
before I got to them, and didn’t have a quadrans between the lot of them.’

The lad on the pavement gave a little grunt, rolled into the gutter and promptly fell asleep.

The centurion turned him over with his foot, though he never slacked his grip upon my arm. ‘I’ll deal with him later. He won’t stir from there. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. I’m delivering this . . . citizen . . . to His Excellence’s flat.’

‘Up those stairs and first door at the end,’ the shopkeeper supplied, obviously wishing to be helpful to the authorities. ‘But I don’t think Marcus Septimus is there. I saw him leaving an hour or more ago.’

‘All the same . . .’ My escort pressed me on, making no further effort to explain.

The wine-shopkeeper looked doubtfully at me. ‘Well, please yourself, of course. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Either way, I will be waiting when you come down again. In the meantime, I’ll keep watch on him.’ He gestured to the snoring figure lying in the road, whose mud-stained toga had half-unwrapped itself and whose hair was now full of fragments from the mire.

Emelius nodded and marched me to the entrance to the upper floors. The stairwell was poorly lit and I almost stumbled as we hurried up the steps. Unusually, there were no other inhabitants about to stare, a fact which I put down to the late hour of day. Secretly I was rather grateful, though, as it spared me the embarrassment of further scrutiny.

But as we reached the landing the explanation for this lack of bystanders became clear. Marcus’s town doorkeeper was awaiting us. This was a man that I hadn’t seen before, and he was enormous – huge, hairy and malevolent, with pointed yellow teeth, like one of the performing bears that you sometimes see paraded through the streets. His hands were enormous and so covered with matt fur that they might almost have been designed as paws. He held one up to challenge us as we approached. It was holding what appeared to be a twig – though it would have been a baton to any other man.

‘This is the citizen my master told me of?’ His eyes were small and close together, giving him a squint. I thought that I had never seen an uglier man, but his credentials as doorkeeper were in no kind of doubt. The gold-edged scarlet uniform in which my patron dressed his slaves only served to emphasize the giant’s strength and power: the flimsy tunic strained across the muscles in his chest and failed to hide the bulges in his arms and legs.

‘This is Libertus,’ Emelius agreed, ever the proper Roman officer. ‘I was instructed to escort him here.’

‘Then you can leave him with me. I’ll take good care of him.’ The bearish doorman directed a leering smile at me. ‘Welcome, citizen. If you’d just like to step inside?’

E
melius said nothing further – even a centurion does not argue with a bear – but he transferred me silently, and a moment later I heard his hobnails clip-clopping down the stairs as he hurried off to deal with the drunken youth outside. I felt like a rabbit that’s been let out of a noose only to find itself on the butcher’s block, as I looked up at the doorkeeper who had now become my guard.

He was still giving me that yellow-fanged smile as he raised the heavy latch on Marcus’s front door with one of his massive paws, and with the other steered me sharply in.

I had visited the town apartment several times before but not since my patron had come back from his recent trip to Rome: I knew that the place had been refurbished since, so it was no surprise to find it somewhat changed. It had always been luxurious – even more opulent than the lictor’s rooms and in huge contrast to the commandant’s ascetic residence – but now it was exotically crammed with ornaments and furniture. Here in the entrance-hall alone there was a table and a chest, two marble statues, an altar in a niche and a set of painted murals on the wall, depicting Jove in various guises capturing pretty girls. Bowls of dried rose petals gave off their musty sweetness to the air and lighted tapers flickered from a dozen sconces on the wall, throwing mottled shadows on the mosaic floor. That floor was almost the only feature that I recognized. It was a modest creation of my own.

I was not permitted to stand and look at it. The doorkeeper was still impelling me inside: through the lighted atrium, where there was a team of silent slaves lined up to welcome me, then – with the troupe of servants following – I was whisked on to the dining area beyond. Here again, the oil-lamps were already lit. Before I had the chance to say a single word, I found myself being simultaneously lowered to a folding chair, expertly relieved of my sandals and damp cloak and having a bowl of perfumed water placed before my feet while a hot stone from the brazier was dropped, sizzling, into it.

I was a little anxious about that heated stone: I had not seen it done before and was alarmed that some kind of painful questioning lay in wait for me, but I need not have been concerned. It was simply intended to warm the water up – surprisingly effective, as I soon found out. A pretty little page was already on his knees, solemnly washing my gnarled old toes and legs, while an older one performed ablutions on my hands and face.

I tried to wave them off, a little embarrassed by all the attention being showered on me. ‘There’s no need to cosset me,’ I spluttered, as the servant rinsed my face. ‘Give me that towel. I can manage for myself.’

The handsome attendant gave me a little bow. I recognized him as the page who had escorted Marcus from the garrison. ‘If you are quite certain citizen,’ he murmured, though he looked aggrieved, as though it were an insult not to be allowed to rub me dry. ‘Our instructions are to treat you as a guest.’ He handed me the cloth.

I buried my forehead in the linen towel and rubbed my cheeks and eyes, feeling the tension seeping out of me as if it had been sloughed off with the dust and perspiration of the day. The moment that I raised my head again, the cloth was whisked away – even before I had the chance to wonder what I was supposed to do with it. Meanwhile, thanks to the efforts of the kneeling page, my clean and newly-perfumed feet were dried and my deftly cleaned sandals were laced on again, quicker than I could have refastened them myself.

‘Then, if you are ready, there is a meal prepared,’ the page went on. ‘Nothing very fancy, just pork stew with leeks and some bread and cheese and figs for afterwards. I hope that will suffice? His Excellence assured us that your tastes were simple ones, but if there is anything extra that you might require, we are empowered to fetch it for you, if it can be had.’

‘His Excellence is very good,’ I said, with warmth. Someone was already tucking a fine napkin round my neck, while another servant hovered with a pitcher and some wine. If this was the lifestyle of a wealthy man, I thought, it would be easy to become accustomed to these little luxuries.

I wondered if I was expected to recline, as Romans do, to eat the promised meal – one of the three couches had been pushed up into place and cushioned pillows had been laid on it. I decided that – as His Excellence’s guest – I should conform to Roman ways and I began to rise, with the idea of doing so.

The pressure of a heavy hand prevented me. ‘Stay right there, citizen.’ I looked up and saw the doorkeeper still looking down at me. He flashed his yellow teeth. ‘There’s no need for you to move. Your meal will come to you. The serving slaves will see to it at once.’

It was clearly a command. A folding table was instantly produced and a tray appeared, as if from nowhere, with a covered dish on it. One of the servants removed the metal lid, and I was presented with more steaming stew than I could reasonably eat. I felt my stomach growl. I’d had almost nothing for the day and this smelt ambrosial. There was a helpful spoon provided and I picked it up, though I noticed there was no sign of any knife – as there would have been for any other dinner guest. Marcus was taking no chances that I might put up a fight.

‘Very nice.’ I dipped my spoon into the stew.

‘There is some garum if you wish it, but we were told that you would not.’ The page was anxious and solicitous, as if he could not quite believe that he had heard aright.

‘That’s true,’ I assured him, ‘I’ve never cared for it.’ That was an understatement. I detest the salty stuff. The Romans’ enthusiasm for covering everything with a sauce of semi-decomposing anchovies is something I have never understood.

The boy was looking politely scandalized by my refusal of the sauce. ‘Whatever your preference, citizen, of course. But there’s some in the kitchen if you change your mind.’

I was too busy eating pork stew to answer him. I was so hungry that I would have eaten almost anything, but the meal was as delicious as it smelt – with just a touch of spice to liven it. Sometimes Roman dishes are cooked with garum in the mix, but this tasted only of coriander seeds. Marcus’s cook-slave had obviously been briefed.

After I had eaten much more than I should I pushed back my plate, only to find it immediately replaced by a platter of fresh bread and cheese and figs. I did not need it – I had eaten far too well – but I took some anyway, excusing my behaviour inwardly by telling myself that it was not a case of simple greed. If I were condemned to exile by tomorrow’s court, at least I would have eaten substantially tonight and I would not be seriously hungry for a day or two.

At length I washed down the last crumbs of my extensive meal with yet another cup of watered wine, leaned back – as far as I was able – on my folding chair, and indicated to the servants that I’d dined sufficiently.

The page-boy was at my side at once, to whip my napkin off and offer me a bowl to rinse my fingers in. ‘Then, citizen, unless there is anything else that you desire, I will show you to your bed.’

I hesitated. There
was
another thing which I desired, of course – apart from the luxury of talking to my wife. I wanted a chance to make a visit to the jail in the faint hope that somehow I could prove my innocence. Would it be possible to persuade the slaves of that? I did not expect to be allowed to go alone, of course, but the presence of an escort might prove to be a help. Arriving at the prison with a snarling bear in tow might persuade the warder to let me talk to Calvinus. However, looking round at the faces of the slaves, I was not certain that I dared to ask for this. It was obviously not the sort of thing that Marcus had in mind, and I did not want to antagonize the page by suggesting something that he very likely could not grant. Most of all I did not want to infuriate the bear. I glanced towards the little altar in its niche, wondering if the household gods would favour my request.

The page-boy saw my glance and misinterpreted. ‘You need not concern yourself about libations, citizen. The master has already dealt with that.’

Nothing had been further from my thoughts, but I managed to stammer something half-appropriate.

‘So, citizen,’ the boy went on, ‘if you would care to follow me? The master has decided that you should have the mistress’s room, and it has already been prepared for you.’

A guest in the second-best chamber in the house? Soft pillows and a proper Roman bed – a wooden frame with a goatskin stretched across so that the mattress did not touch the floor! I was really being favoured like an honoured guest. Marcus had never treated me so well before. In fact, my general reception here had been so warm that I decided, after all, that I could take a chance. I put on my most ingratiating smile.

‘You asked if there was anything more I might desire?’

The page-boy sketched a bow. ‘Name it, citizen. My owner’s orders were explicit on the point. You are not to want for anything we can provide.’

‘Then,’ I watched him nervously, ‘I had wondered if it might be possible for me to leave the house – not without an escort, naturally. I want to ask some questions of someone in the town. It might improve my chances before the magistrate.’

There was a dreadful silence. The shock I’d caused was almost palpable – enough to make me wish I’d never said a word. I saw the page-boy glance towards the doorkeeper, who was still hovering somewhere at my back. ‘What should we do with him?’ he said. ‘Lock him in the bedroom or send out for chains? The master said to treat him as well as possible.’

The bear’s voice growled, ‘You leave this to me.’ I was so paralysed with sudden fear that I did not dare to turn, but I heard the doorman’s footsteps – like a roll of drums – coming towards me across the pavement floor.

One, two, three – and then a hairy hand had seized my shoulder and swivelled me around – chair and all – as though I were no heavier than a fly.

‘Did you really think that we would let you out of here?’ The grip was painful and I flinched away, but the pointed teeth were grinning down at me, and the close-set red-rimmed eyes were leering into mine. ‘And have you get away? After the master’s promised to deliver you to court? And don’t tell me that you weren’t planning to escape. Do you think that I was washed in on the high tide yesterday?’ It was not a question; it was a sort of threat. Any moment, I expected, he would pick me up and shake me, as a dog will shake a bone.

My voice – which had led me into this predicament – entirely deserted me now that I needed it, and all I could manage was a strangulated squeak. I essayed a foolish smile. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ I stammered.