Enemies of the Empire (24 page)

‘It must be Laxus,’ I said stupidly. ‘He is the only one who spoke in my defence.’ I was surprised. I knew that he’d been carrying an illegal knife, and he knew that I knew. I would not have expected him to raise complaints. He had too much to lose by counterclaims.

‘It’s not the youth himself,’ the soldier said. ‘More like his father, by the looks of it.’ Of course! It had been idiotic of me to think otherwise. ‘Says he has always supported Roman power, but he’d been passed over for appointments several times, and was this all the thanks he’s going to get,’ the soldier amplified. ‘I didn’t like to put him off, so I told him he could wait and speak to the senior officer when he got back – I hadn’t been expecting to see the pavement-maker and His Excellence again.’

‘I wasn’t expecting to be here,’ Marcus said, ‘but since I am, I think I’d better deal with this myself. It was my court, after all. But, Libertus, you can come as well. The wretched boy was called in as a witness on your account. You, optio, can have some towels sent in to us and some refreshments too.’ He turned back to our informant. ‘Where is the fellow now?’

‘I’ve left him in the commander’s anteroom.’ The junior officer looked sideways at his optio, but he could not well avoid addressing his answer to Marcus all the same. ‘I did take the liberty, Excellence, of offering the man a little something while he waits. I hope I’ve done the proper thing.’

Marcus beamed at him approvingly, although it is not the custom at a mansio, where those not on official business have to pay their keep, to deal with civilian callers as though they were visitors to a private house. ‘In the circumstances, I’m sure you did.’

The optio looked less convinced. Presumably this largesse would be at his expense, while his subordinate got all the praise for it. He managed a tight smile. ‘I, personally, will have something sent to you at once,’ he said, stressing the ‘personally’ to show that he had now resumed command. Then, in an obvious effort to ingratiate himself, he added, ‘And I’ll send a slave in with a towel. Perhaps you’d care to have him to wash your feet as well?’

‘No need to delay ourselves with that for now.’ Marcus was brisk. ‘The sooner we have dealt with this, the sooner we can dry ourselves and dine.’ He turned to the junior officer again. ‘Lead on, then. Let’s see what this angry father wants. He’s been a supporter of the Empire, you say. I’ll treat him carefully. From what I’ve experienced of this area, Rome needs to look after all the friends she has. Ah! A towel!’ He took the linen napkin from the slave who had run to fetch it and rubbed his head with it. Then he ran a ringed hand through his curly hair, adjusted his spattered toga, squared his shoulders and composed his face into a mask of dignity. ‘Come, Libertus!’ I trailed damply after him.

As we entered the optio’s waiting room, the visitor was already rising to his feet. He was a florid man of middle age, slack-faced and corpulent, but the similarity to Laxus was quite striking all the same. He was dressed in a Grecian-style robe of such a startling white that it made Marcus, in his damp toga, look quite dingy in comparison. An elaborate torc-necklace was round his throat, and on his arms and fingers there were silver bands of beautifully intricate design. His face was flushed with sullen discontent, and he was clearly ready to protest at once.

Marcus walked towards him with both hands outstretched, and a smile of diplomatic welcome on his lips. ‘My dear citizen, please accept our most sincere regrets. We had no notion that you were awaiting us. I am Marcus Aurelius Septimus, representative of the outgoing governor. Whom do I have the honour of addressing?’ The Latin was punctiliously courteous and correct, and he’d addressed the man as ‘citizen’. As a forestalling manoeuvre, it was consummate.

The man before us faltered visibly. He had been expecting a few minutes’ interview with the optio, at most, and here was a major dignitary greeting him as though he were a legate, at the least. He hesitated, took the proffered hands, then did as any right-thinking citizen would do and fell on one knee, kissing Marcus’s ring. ‘They call me Lucidus, Excellence,’ he muttered. ‘I prefer a Roman name. I am sorry to disturb your mightiness. I was only—’

‘It was about your son, I understand?’ my patron said. ‘He was required in my court yesterday, to bear witness on this citizen’s behalf. I summoned him myself, and he was brought, according to the law. You have some complaint about the matter, I believe?’ All this was delivered with a smile, but Lucidus was truly flustered now. There were beads of sweat appearing on his brow. He struggled to his feet.

All the swagger had vanished from his frame, and he drooped a little in his finery. He looked like a defeated cockerel as he said, ‘I came on my son Laxus’s account. His mother asked me to. I have no wish to offend Your Excellence – I only had his version of affairs. He told me he was seized on in the open court and dragged up to testify for some wretch on a murder charge he’d happened to run into in the street.’

Marcus was still smiling as he disengaged his hands and sat down in the folding chair behind the optio’s desk. ‘And so he was. The wretch in question was this citizen.’ He indicated me. ‘A member of my personal retinue, brought to trial on a trumped-up charge. Your son’s intervention was of great account in seeing that justice was achieved. I am delighted to have the chance to thank you personally for your family’s help.’

‘Oh.’ Lucidus’s righteous outrage was suddenly as deflated as a wine-skin with a leak. ‘Honoured to be of service, Excellence.’

My patron glided smoothly on. ‘Of course it was a little difficult to perceive my client’s status at the time. Unfortunately his slave was murdered – by some rebel, it appears – and his clothes and toga were stolen.’ An attendant from the mansio had just appeared, bringing a tray of fruit and dates and wine. Marcus gestured to him to approach, selected a large date from the bowl and bit into it thoughtfully. ‘Most unfortunate.’

I was contemplating whether or not I dared to take a plum, so I was only half listening to the man’s reply. ‘These rebels, Excellence! They are a disgrace to all our peoples. A hundred years now Rome has ruled this area in peace – and brought us prosperity and law. My forefathers knew it and supported them, even in Caractacus’s day. This hand,’ he held out his right arm dramatically, ‘has never faltered in support of Rome.’

I found that I was gazing at it, mesmerised. All his jewellery was decorated with the same device – a convoluted reptile eating its own tail. I realised that I was acting like a snake myself, following the movements of his fingers with my eyes – much as I have seen serpents on the roadside stalls watching the street magician while he plays the flute and begs brass coins from the market crowd. I had to make an effort to tear my gaze away.

Even Marcus noticed. ‘What is it now, old friend?’ His little success in deflecting Lucidus’s complaint had pleased him, patently, and he was in a better humour than I had seen him for some days.

Emboldened by ‘old friend’, I took a plum and risked a bite of it. I said, ‘I was struck by the beauty of the citizen’s silver ring. It is a wonderfully delicate design.’

Marcus turned to the Silurian and laughed. ‘Trust Libertus to observe a thing like that. He is an artist, of a sort, by trade. But he is right. The work is very fine.’

Lucidus preened, but I saw him register the fact that I was, after all, only a tradesman and of small account. So it was to my patron only that he said, ‘A family emblem. And traditional. It belonged to one of my great-great-grandfathers. All his treasures were of this design. See, I have the same pattern on my wrist ornament.’ He held it out for the great man to inspect, but Marcus only nodded perfunctorily at it. Now that the complaint had been resolved, his real attention was on the dates and wine.

‘This treasure was not used as grave goods, then?’ I said. Both men looked at me in surprise and I felt obliged to explain my thoughts. ‘It is the Celtic custom, after all, to inter a man’s treasures with him when he dies, both as a sign of his importance here, and so that he can have the use of them in the otherworld. Something as valuable and beautiful as that might well have been selected for the afterlife.’

Lucidus looked a little huffy at my intervention, but he answered readily enough. ‘It was so valuable and beautiful that when he had it made he decreed that it should not be buried with him, but passed on through the generations as a sign that we are true warriors of the blood. All males are given a piece of it when they come of age, and each will hand it to his heirs in turn. As the first-born of my father, I have the bulk of it. Does that satisfy your curiosity?’

He obviously intended to put me in my place, so I could not resist the temptation to remark, ‘It must deplete the treasure quite a bit, if all your eight sons have a piece of it. Apart from Laxus, you have seven others in the legions, I believe?’ I took another bite of plum.

He stared at me. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Something young Aurissimus remarked when he was outside the tavern with your son. Though admittedly he wasn’t sober at the time. They were with Cupidus as well and all of them had had far too much to drink. I expect you know the youths I mean?’

Lucidus was already in retreat. He flushed. ‘Laxus keeps bad company. I’m sorry, citizen. He is the youngest of the family and his mother spoils him. But you are right. My other boys are in the legions – in defence of Rome. Posted to the Rhineland, and doing very well. Fortunately the hoard was large enough. Each of them inherited a ring.’ He gave me a placatory smile. ‘I shall leave mine to Laxus when I die, and he will bequeath it to his son, I hope, just as my father passed it on to me. In the meantime, I take care of it.’

I hadn’t finished. ‘Yet I am sure that I have seen the pattern somewhere else. I am trying to remember where – could it have been on Laxus’s dagger-hilt? Or on the sheath, perhaps?’ I asked this with affected unconcern, taking another bite of plum meanwhile. Perhaps that was a tactical mistake. The fruit was excellent, but it is difficult to strike a threatening note when one has plum juice dribbling down one’s chin.

All the same, my little thrust went home. The punishments for carrying unlawful weapons are severe and Lucidus eyed me anxiously, realising that I knew more about his son than was altogether conducive to his health. I felt a sudden sympathy for him. The unprepossessing Laxus was his mother’s pet, and it was at her behest that Lucidus had come here to complain. Given what I’d just revealed about his spotty son, he was obviously wishing that he’d never come. I wondered what would happen to the lad when he got home.

‘Perhaps it was his cloak clasp that you saw.’ Lucidus ran a tongue round his lips and glanced at Marcus, who – uninterested in Celtic silverwork – was still busying himself with the refreshment tray. ‘Laxus was given that when he became a man – the day that he removed the
bulla
from his neck and sacrificed his childhood toga to the gods.’ He leaned towards me, dropped his voice, and added urgently – although he clearly did not believe the words himself – ‘There is an ancient knife of that design as well, but that’s not his at all. I’m sure it’s never left the house. We keep it locked up in a chest at home, with all the other things. Of course, citizen, if there is anything that I can do, anything at all that you require . . .’

‘Great gods!’ I interrupted, with such suddenness that even Marcus looked up from his wine. ‘I’ve suddenly remembered where I’ve seen this workmanship before! It is a family design, you say? Only a male member of your tribe would wear or carry something of this kind?’

He stared at me as though I were an idiot – but one it was important to appease. ‘I believe I have just said so, citizen. The details of the pattern might be copied, I suppose, but even then the silversmith would need a pattern-piece – and I do not see how that could be achieved. No item worked in this design has ever been permitted to leave the family. It is a part of our ancestral heritage.’

Marcus was losing interest in all this. He shrugged. ‘Yet Libertus thinks he saw it somewhere else. Perhaps the original craftsman made secret template copies of his own? Such things are not unknown. The design is not to Roman taste, but it is clearly fine. No doubt such things would fetch a splendid price.’

‘I do not think so, Excellence.’ Lucidus was stung into contradicting him outright – not treatment Marcus was accustomed to. ‘My ancestor was a man of culture and though he was a fearsome warrior, he was also an artist in his way. He created the design himself, but it is very intricate and he had no tribesman with the skill to work the silver as he wanted it. The silversmith who did it was captured in the wars, and taken by the family as a slave. This set of pieces was his masterwork. He spent ten years making it, the legend says . . .’ He paused.

‘So perhaps he made some others afterwards.’ Marcus was abrupt.

‘Afterwards?’ Lucidus shook his head. ‘Afterwards my ancestor himself cut off the man’s two hands and burned them, together with the bark designs and templates, in front of all the tribe so that the feat could never be repeated.’ It was a stark picture and there was a moment’s thoughtful silence before he added, ‘I do not believe that any man alive could replicate the work, certainly not by eye alone, still less from memory.’

I said softly, ‘Then why did I see one like it in the marketplace here, only a day or two ago?’

I had expected some response to what I said: bluster, perhaps, or efforts to explain. In fact what happened was that Lucidus whirled round to stare at me, and said, ‘Impossible!’

‘Impossible to you, perhaps,’ I said, remembering the flattened arm-band that I had noticed on the armour stall. ‘But all the same, it’s true. I assure you I saw it in this very town, on . . .’ I was about to say ‘a stall that sells Roman armour’, but that was hardly tactful in the mansio, and I amended it, ‘on a stall with chiefly Roman things – a sort of trophy by the looks of it. I noticed it particularly, at the time, since it was clearly Celtic workmanship, but I knew there were Silurians who supported Rome and fought alongside the legions during the campaign so I presumed it had belonged to one of them. As I suppose it did? Perhaps one of your forefathers lost it in the struggle, long ago?’