The Germanicus Mosaic (15 page)

We were interrupted by a slave hurrying in from the gatehouse. ‘A message from the gatekeeper, steward,’ he said breathlessly. ‘The first guests are arriving, and Marcus Aurelius Septimus already awaits you in the atrium.’

Andretha’s face was a portrait of agonised hopelessness.

‘Perhaps,’ I murmured to him, ‘it would be wise to consult Marcus on this? And Rufus could, I think, be spared for the funeral procession. The guards are armed, it would be hard for him to escape during the ceremony.’ I made a calculated guess. ‘Besides, if he plays at tonight’s banquet, someone might toss him a coin or two. He could at least begin to pay.’

Andretha wavered visibly. ‘Perhaps . . .?’

I took him to one side, further out of earshot, and murmured, ‘Andretha, you are a man of the world. You will have to make some sort of shift this evening, for the funeral. It is impossible to replace the statuette tonight, but if you have to account for the figurine by having one walled into the funeral niche, it is not necessary to purchase an expensive one. No one will ever see it. And any statue consecrated to Crassus would serve to appease his spirit. You cannot use one of his war trophies, they are already dedicated to someone else, but the cruder models can be obtained anywhere in Glevum for a few sesterces.’

If I reasoned aright, Andretha was more interested in obtaining money than justice. Those all-important household accounts, I suspected, did not altogether balance. That would explain, among other things, the extravagance of the funeral preparations; no one would question the cost of an additional bottle of spikenard for anointing, for instance, or the price of an extra dormouse or two for the feast. On such small adjustments to the accounting can a man’s freedom rest.

Andretha looked at me. He raised his hands helplessly. ‘I do not know what you are suggesting, citizen. But perhaps you are right about the funeral.’ He turned to the lute player. ‘Rufus, you should be grateful to the citizen. You owe him your freedom, for tonight at least. But I shall alert the guards. Once the rites are over, we shall have our reckoning! Come!’ He hustled out of the kitchen.

Rufus followed him, throwing me a grateful glance.

I followed too, more slowly, taking a stroll with Junio around the inner garden first. If Marcus had been kept cooling his heels by Andretha, I did not wish to be visibly associated with the delay. By the time we arrived in the atrium most of the guests were assembled and Andretha was flitting amongst them like an agitated moth, overseeing the distribution of napkins and the provision of knives to those not carrying their own.

Rufus stood forward, striking up the lute, and the room fell silent. (His left cheek, I noticed, was reddening – in the distinct shape of four fingers. My intervention had not entirely saved him from Andretha’s wrath.)

Marcus led the way into the triclinium where, taking a goblet of wine from a young cupbearer, he poured out a few drops on the shrine before the
lar
and the
penates
in turn. Then he took a morsel of sweet cake and set it in front of the plinth between them, on which a seal of Crassus and a small bust of Commodus had been reverently laid. He intoned the usual invocations, scattered a pinch of salt upon the Vestal flame, and the feast began.

There were too many mourners to seat. Important people like Marcus were shown to the five couches by the low tables on the dais; we lesser mortals sat on chairs and stools, or simply stood against the wall, at the other end of the room.

‘Neatly handled,’ I muttered to Rufus as I took my place against the farthest wall. ‘Using the seal.’

‘Marcus’ suggestion,’ he returned. ‘The emperor bust is from his own travelling shrine.’ Then he was gone, to sit cross-legged on the patterned pavement, playing solemn music while the feasters ate.

There were quails’ eggs and speeches, shellfish and more speeches, the stuffed dormice were followed by yet more speeches and when, after the boiled lamb with plums (spoiled, as usual, by the inevitable fish sauce), a solemn-faced young man began: ‘O warrior and companion soul, farewell . . .’ I could scarcely restrain a groan.

The man beside me must have felt the same. He gave a stifled sigh. I glanced at him. Grizzled hair, leathery skin, hands toughened with weathering and the livid scar of an old wound visible on one wrist. He wore a civilian tunic now, but this was an ex-auxiliary soldier if I ever saw one. He caught my eye and I flashed him a smile.

‘You were a friend of Crassus?’ I murmured, when the interminable ode was over and it was possible to speak again.

‘Not a friend, no. I served under him. I was a tesserarius in his century.’

‘But you knew him?’ I was interested. I remembered those rumours about Crassus’ promotion – and those soldiers in the lane.

He looked at me suspiciously.

‘I am a pavement maker,’ I explained. ‘He commissioned work from me, that is why I am here. I hardly knew him. But he has not paid me, and you know how these things work. I must seek his heirs.’

His face cleared. ‘Ah! They will be hard men, if they are like him. A brave soldier, they say, but the most brutal centurion north of the Tiber.’

‘Ambitious, too,’ I prompted. Hinting that a superior is ambitious is enough to make the average soldier gossip like a woman.

This one was no exception. ‘Ambitious? Great Mars, I should say so! Always on the look out for a ransom or a bribe, and it was always Crassus who profited, not the company. He didn’t care about his men. It was rumoured once that he killed his own commander to gain the promotion.’

I pricked up my ears, but I was disappointed.

‘It can’t be true,’ the soldier said. ‘Treachery in the field is a capital offence. But he was ruthless enough. Some said he would betray the emperor himself if the bribe was high enough.’

I thought of Aulus, and that soldier in the dusk. Every man has his price.

‘You think he might have?’

He laughed. ‘He was planning something. Some wager he had laid. He was boasting about it at the Mars procession.’

The words stopped me, honeyed date to mouth. ‘You were at the procession?’

‘Yes, I told you. I was in his century. I marched behind him. He was late. He didn’t reach the column until the signifer arrived. Too busy talking to another centurion. He had to put his mask on as he came.’

‘I see.’ So that was how Daedalus had managed it, I thought. He would have needed to see the standard to know which column to join. ‘And afterwards? Did you see him leave?’

‘Oh yes, he rushed off as quickly as he came. He was in high spirits. Someone asked him to join us in the feasting, but he would not come. He said he had just won an important wager, and hurried off towards the West Gate.’

‘Strange!’

He laughed again. ‘Yes, very strange. Usually Crassus loved a feast. It must have been a substantial sum. He seemed very pleased about it.’

‘Did he unmask?’

The man gazed at me. ‘Now you mention it, I don’t think he did. He was pulling his mask off as he went away. But it was Crassus, I would know him anywhere. I recognised his voice.’

‘And this centurion he was talking to? Did you know him too?’

‘No,’ the tesserarius said. ‘He was not from our legion. He was clearly a stranger. I assumed Crassus knew him from somewhere. It was not surprising. There were hundreds of visiting veterans in Glevum that day, in the procession and out of it. Most soldiers honour the feast of Mars.’

‘But it was a centurion,’ I insisted, ‘you are sure of that?’

‘I saw the crest,’ he replied, irritated. The transverse crest of the centurion is the badge of office. ‘And the baton.’

‘It could not, for instance, have been a disguise?’ I asked. ‘This is important. That may have been the last time Crassus was seen alive.’

‘And you think the centurion might have killed him? Over this wager perhaps? It is possible. But a disguise? I shouldn’t think so. A centurion’s uniform is heavy, and the helmet awkward, with the plume going round the head, instead of front to back. A man has to be accustomed to it to wear it well. One can often tell a new centurion from the way he holds his head.’

I had time to murmur ‘Thank you’ before there was a ripple of tambours. Marcus got to his feet and the feast was over.

What followed was a long and tedious business. The body was brought out, on its bier, and carried in procession, preceded by torches and by the professional mourners and musicians, playing, singing dolefully and dancing. Then Rufus with his lute, more mourners, wailing, and after them the guests. The household slaves walked beside them, carrying lights or braziers, while the women followed at the back. I was glad of Marcus’ litter, though it lurched appallingly. There had been little wine at the feast – a mark of austerity – but my head was buzzing, as if to remind me that I had recently been hurt. I had much to think about, too.

We followed up the cart track to the hill, a strange, flickering procession in the torchlight. Some of the house-slaves had already brought fire and the back of the pyre was alight; the additional braziers would not be necessary. They were a useful precaution, however. Nothing is more embarrassing than a cremation pyre that does not burn.

The bier was lifted reverently onto it, with some of the grave-goods, and the fire raked around it. The director of ceremonies, one of the funeral guild, sprinkled something over the body – wine and oil perhaps – and the flames leapt higher. The oration began. There were the usual cremation smells: burning cloth, burning wood, burning flesh, mingling with the perfume of the sprinkled oils. I was grateful for the pyre, the night was cold. How the slaves must have felt in their thin tunics I shuddered, literally, to remember.

Then at last it was over. The pyre had burned down very fast. Someone sprinkled wine over the ashes, and the slaves bent forward to scoop them into the urn. It was carried on a special salver, as if it was still warm, back to the nymphaeum. A long, last speech, an offering to the gods, the urn was placed into the niche and the remaining grave-goods with it – charcoal, food and the feeding jar, into whose neck the yearly offerings would be poured. Who would do that, I wondered, when the villa was sold?

A stone was placed in front of the urn, shaped to leave the jar-neck visible. A simple epitaph – probably it would be replaced by an elaborate one later:
Crassus Claudius Germanicus, builder of this place
.

I woke late, with a headache. Anyone who did not know me better might have supposed that I had drunk too much Roman wine – the last funeral guests had left at daybreak in their hired carriage – but the painful place on the base of my skull reminded me of the truth. I sat up cautiously.

Junio, who had been sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed, roused himself instantly. ‘You are awake, master?’

‘Almost,’ I groaned. ‘Go and get yourself something to eat, and then you can come back and help me strigil and dress – and fetch me some bread and fruit from the kitchens too. And some water, my head aches abominably.’

Junio grinned. ‘Then I shall find Faustina and ask her to send a draught for you. Her “pond-water” did you good yesterday.’

I grimaced. ‘Perhaps. But be quick about it. I learned some important facts last night. I must speak to Marcus and go back to Glevum. I have some news that might help us to find Daedalus.’

‘So you have finished here?’

‘There are some things I want to ask Aulus, first.’

‘Then . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Before we go, might I visit the librarium? I should like to see the pavement.’

I was sorry that I hadn’t thought of it. Of course Junio was interested. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing it, myself,’ I said, and he went off, satisfied.

I sat on the edge of the bed-frame, thinking. So, if my theory was right, Crassus sent Daedalus to Glevum, to take his place under cover of the mask. Why? Because he himself wished to disappear and not be missed? What pressing business had he to attend to, which must be kept a secret from the world? Was he plotting the downfall of the emperor as Marcus feared? And if so, was he friend or foe of Marcus’ governor?

And why did Daedalus, if it was Daedalus, go off towards the West Gate when the sacrifices were over? He was not going home, the villa lay in the opposite direction. Presumably then, it was to meet Crassus undetected. That would make sense. That tesserarius at the funeral had spoken of a ‘wager’ and I was beginning to guess what that might be. Daedalus had wagered that he could successfully take Crassus’ place at the procession. Presumably he had offered something as a stake, and he was to have his freedom if he won. That would explain why he was boasting at the villa that he would soon be free, and why he had left after the procession saying that he had won ‘an important wager’. He had just gambled for his liberty.

Why had Crassus consented, I wondered. If Daedalus had failed he might well have been arrested for impersonating a citizen. Either way, Crassus lost a good slave. But then I laughed aloud. Of course! Being Crassus, he had probably placed a huge stake with one of his gambling cronies, betting that Daedalus would succeed. That way, whatever the outcome, Germanicus would win, though he was obviously confident of his slave’s ability.

No doubt they had arranged to meet later to settle the debt, somewhere away from the public eye. But if the murder had already taken place, Crassus could not come as arranged. So what became of Daedalus, lurking in the seedy suburbs by the river, dressed in a borrowed uniform to which he was not entitled? Knocked on the head and robbed? That would not be impossible. He had not been arrested, as one might suppose, or Marcus would have heard of it. He had not returned to the villa, either. There was only one thing to do – go to the West Gate myself and try to retrace his footsteps.

I had other reasons, too, for wanting to go in that direction. I could reassure myself that my workshop had not burned down in my absence.

My reverie was interrupted by Junio, carrying my breakfast. Apples, I noticed, but no plums. I was secretly glad, though, to have Junio fetch my food. Eating from a communal platter at the funeral was one thing, but eating alone was another. I had not forgotten that there was still a murderer abroad, probably a poisoner, and that someone had already rapped me on the head.