A Pattern of Blood (27 page)

The slaves, however, led us to the last room in the row. This had a heavy door, secured with a bolt, and there was a whipping post outside it. Evidently the household place for disobedient slaves. Marcus gave a sign and one of the attendants withdrew the bolt with difficulty and pushed open the door.

Lupus was sitting on the mattress pile. They had given him blankets, in deference to his rank: there was good bread and cheese on a wooden platter nearby and a jug of what looked like watered wine. To many people in Corinium, this would have been luxury, but Lupus evidently did not find it so.

He looked up when he saw us, his face a picture of anger and misery. ‘So, you have decided to listen to me at last. Well, I shan’t tell you anything, now. I’ve decided. You may take me to the governor, and I’ll tell my story to him. I’ll tell him how you refused to listen. I shall appeal to the Emperor. I did not murder Quintus. And don’t think you can simply lock me in the town gaol to silence me. I am a Roman citizen, and I am well known in the town. You will not have me to the torturers without a struggle – as if I had not been tortured enough, set to sleep locked in a draughty attic at my age, with no lamp, no brazier, no panes in the windows and nothing but bread and cheese to eat.’

‘Lupus,’ I said. It was not my place to speak, but if I did not intervene there might very soon be trouble. Marcus with this much alcohol in his veins was likely to lose patience, and have the man whipped on principle. ‘Lupus, listen to me. You may still save your foolish balding head, but only if you tell us everything. At once. When you went into Quintus’s reception room – and I know you went, you were seen to go – was he dead, or merely dying?’

Lupus looked at me and then his face crumpled and he burst embarrassingly into tears. I was covered in confusion – I have never seen a grown man cry, except under torture – but I was secretly rather glad of this. It distracted Marcus’s attention from my question, which might otherwise have led to protracted discussions. As it was, he merely looked disdainful – as if to register that such unmanly exhibitions of emotion are despised in Roman circles.

Lupus mastered himself with difficulty. ‘You knew all along?’ he gulped.

‘I guessed,’ I said. ‘Answer the question, citizen.’

Lupus shook his head hopelessly. ‘He was dead. At least I thought he was. At first I could not see him at all. He had slumped to the floor beside the couch. I thought he had merely collapsed: his eyes were shut, his tunic was pulled sideways and his head was half supported by the stool. I went to him, without thinking, as I might go to any ill man, but when I put my arm behind him to raise him up he fell forward across me and I saw the knife. There was blood on my sleeve. And then . . .’ he shuddered, ‘and then . . . he moaned. I looked around for some way to summon servants, but I couldn’t find one – and next thing, I heard a noise at the courtyard door. If anyone came in, I thought, and found me with him dead, I would be arrested for sure, and blamed for the stabbing. I couldn’t prove I didn’t do it. I hurried out again and hid in the garden.’

Marcus was looking disbelieving. ‘What nonsense is this?’

‘It is the truth, Excellence,’ I said. ‘I think I can prove it to you. Lupus is a fool, and a coward, but I want to hear his story.’

‘Coward?’ Lupus wailed. ‘Why a coward?’

‘Only a coward would leave a man there so badly wounded, and think about saving his own skin.’

‘I heard someone at the door. I knew they would be with him instantly. I did not wish to be arrested for a killing I had not done.’

‘So who did you think
had
killed him?’

‘I thought that it was Flavius. He was in the garden with me, but I hadn’t been watching him, and he could have crept in, as I did. And it was his dagger – I have seen him with it. Then, of course, I was afraid that he knew that I knew – I didn’t want to be the next one with a dagger in my back. And I tried to let him know that I wouldn’t betray him.’

‘And that you would help him bury the corpse,’ I said, ‘in your cesspit. I heard you, when you were talking in the arbour. I thought at the time that you sounded like a man who thought
someone else
was guilty of murder.’

Marcus put in impatiently: ‘If that is what you think, Libertus, where is this “dreadful wrong” which Lupus did? If this story is the truth – which I am inclined to doubt – Lupus didn’t wrong Ulpius, except perhaps by leaving him bleeding on the floor. But that is not a crime.’

‘Lupus knows what dreadful wrong he did,’ I answered. ‘And Quintus suspected it, though he could not prove it absolutely. That is why, for years, he punished Lupus, in every way he knew. How long ago, Lupus, did you guess that Maximilian was your son?’

Lupus said nothing, but he opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

Marcus stared at Lupus, and I could see in his eyes a dawning recognition of the likeness that I had so recently perceived myself. Lupus was stooped and sunken, and time had shorn him of his curls, but once one had seen it, there was no mistaking the similarity of that slack jaw, those distinctive close-set eyes.

‘Your son!’ Marcus reached forward suddenly and, seizing Lupus by one scrawny arm, pulled him roughly upright. ‘What woman, married to wealthy Quintus, could have been drawn to this desiccated skeleton?’

‘It was many years ago,’ I said. ‘Lupus was younger then. And the woman had no dowry. If she produced no child, she must have feared divorce. So she turned to Lupus. I think Quintus suspected, even then. As soon as the child was four or five years old he quarrelled with his wife and put her away. I assume that was when the likeness became evident. I wondered why, in his testament, he called Lupus a bundle of “lascivious” bones. It seemed an odd adjective to use.’

Lupus was looking embarrassed. ‘I wanted her to leave Quintus and marry me, but she wouldn’t. He was richer, she said. I hoped she might come to me, when she was divorced, but then she caught the pox. I could not take her then; I should have had the whole town gossiping. But Quintus never forgave me. Nothing was ever said, of course, but he made it clear he hated me. And when I adopted a son of my own, he stole him from me by a legal trick. Deliberately, I believe.’

‘Does Maximilian know?’ Marcus asked.

Lupus shook his head. ‘I am certain he doesn’t. And Quintus is legally his father. He took him up from the floor, at birth, to acknowledge fatherhood. He wasn’t forced to do that. He could have had the child exposed, or sold into slavery, or even apprenticed to a temple. But once he accepted the boy, he always treated him as his heir. Even when he divorced the mother he kept Maximilian at his side. In fact, he spoiled him – with everything but affection. In any case, with fatherhood, who can possibly be sure? It is only that I have my suspicions, and it seems that Quintus had his.’

‘But it might have been true?’ Marcus released his arm.

‘Oh, indeed, it might have been true. The lady was very beautiful and she wanted a child. I saw her often, when she was supposed to be visiting her sister. Of course, Quintus would have been mocked in the curia if the town had suspected – a decurion who cannot control his wife would be a laughing stock.’

Strangely, now that the truth was out, Lupus seemed to have acquired a kind of dignity – just as Maximilian had grown in stature when the moment demanded. Poor Maximilian, trying so hard to please his supposed father. Quintus always resented me, he had said. I could almost feel sympathy for the young man.

‘Speaking of Maximilian,’ I said, ‘have you had cause to consult a soothsayer about all this? Or a sorceress, I should say?’

Lupus looked surprised. ‘That old hag in the forum? Never, though I have heard people talk of her. I have offered a curse tablet once or twice, but only in the temple. These market people are devious. And expensive, too. Quintus ensured that I never had money to spare for that.’

Marcus sighed. ‘I suppose in that case we must . . .’ He broke off. ‘But what is this?’

‘This’ was the chief slave, who had come panting up the ladder to find us. ‘Excellence,’ he exclaimed, between gulps for breath, ‘you are wanted in the courtyard. The guard has come to take Lupus away. Shall I send them up?’

I looked at Marcus, and he frowned. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said to me at last, ‘you shall have your escort.’ He turned to the slaves. ‘It seems that Lupus may not be guilty after all. But I will not release him yet. Take him to my room and lock him in. Let him have braziers if he wants them, and a bowl to wash in. As for me, I have a fancy to command a litter and see this sorceress woman for myself.’

I groaned inwardly. The meeting which I had in mind would not be bettered by the presence of the governor’s representative, especially a semi-inebriated one. And from the way Marcus was stumbling down the ladder I did not think his company would speed the errand, either.

‘With your permission, Excellence,’ I said, as soon as we had reached the ground again, ‘I should like to go on ahead. Sollers will be already waiting at the gate.’

‘Very well,’ Marcus said. He was still rather unsteady on his feet. ‘I will follow you.’ He did not ask for directions, and I did not offer them. Instead he said, ‘That business in the attic, old friend. What made you first begin to think of that?’

I winked at Junio, who had been waiting patiently for me at the bottom of the ladder. ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘it pays to listen to the gossip of slaves. Quintus wanted a son. The household said the problem was not Julia’s. I asked myself whose son Maximilian could be.’ I wrapped my cloak around me. ‘Your servant, Excellence. Will you command the guard?’

And I went out to the gate to find Sollers and the torches.

The medicus was waiting at the gate, wrapped in an impressive coloured cape which put my own to shame. He was accompanied by a pair of household slaves, equipped with torch-sticks, ready dipped in pitch, while a third slave carried burning coals in a metal pot, so he could light them when necessary. Flavius was also there, looking resentful, and flanked by two burly servants with staves.

‘This is intolerable,’ he grumbled, as soon as he saw me. ‘I have business, clients to attend to. Every moment I am kept here is costing me contracts. I am not a peasant to be kept here at your whim.’

‘Not my whim, citizen,’ I assured him cheerfully. ‘You are here at the express command of Marcus Aurelius Septimus, acting in the name of the governor.’ That was rather craven of me, since I had encouraged Marcus to send him, and I added, ‘Marcus is going to come with us himself. He has already sent us an escort – look, here they come now with Maximilian.’

Maximilian was not under arrest, but he was clearly an unwilling conscript, and the two guards that Marcus had sent me did not look pleased to be there either. It was comic, I thought. The people I had asked to accompany me were reluctant to come, while others, like Marcus and Sollers, had volunteered their presence on the outing.

We went out into the streets. The town was quieter now, although most stalls were still open, and the hot food stalls were already doing a roaring trade among those town dwellers who had no kitchens in their homes. The better ones served up spiced beef for the affluent, while from the less salubrious establishments women draggled by with buckets of hot ‘stew’. I didn’t envy them their meal. I had tasted that stew before. It is made of remnants from the market and I would have to be very hungry before I had an appetite for half-rotten turnips and floating eyeballs again. Though there were townsfolk, I was aware, who would have sold their souls to Pluto for less.

We turned left at the forum and out towards the Verulamium Gate.

It was as well we were carrying an escort. The watch at the gate were surly and suspicious – a group of Roman citizens, on foot, leaving the town gates just before dusk is calculated to arouse suspicion, even if one of them is a narrow-striper. We were not even going in the direction of the cemetery or the amphitheatre. The sight of the two soldiers, however, allayed their fears and we passed under one of the portals and crossed the fine stone bridge without further hindrance.

Only Maximilian, it seemed, had any clear idea of where exactly we were going. Flavius, as he protested constantly, had only consulted the woman within the gates, and as we left the town behind he was increasingly jumpy. One could not blame him. There was the usual straggle of buildings beyond the bridge, but after that, signs of habitation soon died out and we found ourselves in open countryside.

Not that there was any real danger here. The land around was cultivated, in parts, and there were open spaces where sheep and goats grazed dismally on the winter grass. And there was traffic on the road – men with carts and boys with sledges, peasants dragging home hoes and handcarts, stout women with donkeys, thin ones with firewood, bright-eyed girls carrying water from the stream – and all of them dashing for the verges when a scarlet-cloaked horseman came galloping by, carrying messages for some imperial post.

But we were not on the road for long. Our way led along a marshy track into a valley, hemmed in by bushes on either side. Sollers was looking definitely uneasy, and even Flavius, who had kept up an incessant grumble all the way, ceased his complaining and drew a little closer to his armed companions. I was glad we had brought our escort.

Maximilian, though, was leading the way as if an evening stroll through the wilderness was an everyday event. I waited until the path had widened a little, then went up to walk at his side.

‘Marcus told you, I presume, that we know you planned the robbery?’

He scowled at me. ‘Why else do you suppose I agreed to come on this miserable errand? If we find the woman, at least she can testify that I didn’t intend the stabbing.’

‘Marcus may search your apartments while you’re out.’

‘Let him,’ Maximilian said sullenly. ‘I don’t know what he hopes to find. Anything of any value has been sold long ago, to pay that wretched bath attendant. Not that I ever had much in the first place. If I had, I wouldn’t have needed to rob Quintus. I wanted money, that was all, and he refused to give me any.’