Enemies of the Empire (8 page)

Aurissimus took him gently by the arm. ‘Come on, Cupidus, that’s enough. You’ve made your point. We’ve had too much to drink. Let’s go, before this citizen decides to lay a charge.’ And, rather reluctantly, Cupidus allowed himself to be led away, with Laxus trailing after them.

I stood and watched them till they were out of sight. Only then did I start to feel secure.

The guard must have read my feelings in my face. ‘You look relieved to see the back of them. If they’ve been harassing you, you should have told me so. I’d have had them in for questioning and pleased to do it too.’ He winked. ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with young men like that – writing on buildings, fighting in the street, pawing women and frightening the elderly. But of course, I know those three – all sons of wealthy fathers hereabouts. Their families have got influence, and no one local dares to bring a charge.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s come over young people nowadays. No respect for proper authority, that’s what. It’s all down to drink. Too much money and not enough to do.’

He was obviously inclined to chat and I was glad to hear a friendly voice. I was in no danger here. ‘They do come from important families, then?’ I said. ‘I rather guessed as much.’

His teeth gleamed in the torchlight as he grinned. ‘Not as important as they’d like to be. Those three cousins in particular. You know what it’s like. When we got here – the army, that is – and took over in the area, we laid out the town and appointed a few of the most loyal local chiefs to help us run it – made them citizens and put them on the council, all that sort of thing.’

I frowned. ‘Their fathers are on the ordo?’ If those youths were citizens as well, that put a different complexion on the thing.

My informant laughed. ‘Nothing so exalted. But they would like to be. Set themselves up as patrons of the town, at considerable expense, and run the local suburb where they live – they’re on every council and committee which doesn’t actually require you to be a citizen – and try to court favour with the authorities, but at the same time they resent us, because we didn’t select them as councillors in the first place.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps we should have done. They fought beside us too. But nothing is ever simple round here. The tribes are always quarrelling among themselves, and it’s hard to work out who are the natural chiefs.’ Like many soldiers he talked of the Roman Empire as ‘we’, as if imperial decisions were his personal concern.

‘I understand there’s quite a lot of tension in the town. Rival groups have power in different parts of it.’

His face closed like a door. ‘Not as far as we’re concerned, they don’t. The civil administration works, that’s all that worries us. If these people want to carry on old feuds behind locked doors, that’s up to them. As long as they don’t interfere with the free passage of supplies and troops, they can murder one another till there’s no one left, as far as I’m concerned. Just provided they don’t start bringing cases to the courts, and that’s not very likely. Now – you’ve kept me gossiping too long. Move on.’

Obviously I had touched a nerve. I flashed a smile. ‘I will,’ I said. ‘Thank you for being so helpful. I’ll see that His Excellence hears of it. Goodnight.’ I started to walk past him into the mansio.

The sword flashed down across the entrance like lightning, forming a gleaming barrier. ‘And what do you think you’re up to? You can’t go in there.’

For a moment I thought he was jesting, but one glance at his swarthy face convinced me he was not. All trace of the earlier friendliness had vanished suddenly, and he was looking very menacing indeed.

In vain I argued that I was the citizen he had talked about. He clearly did not believe a word of it. ‘My name is Libertus,’ I said urgently. ‘I am that client of His Excellence, and I am staying at the inn. Surely you must have been expecting me?’

He looked at me coldly. ‘I’m not expecting anyone tonight, not even a mounted messenger with the imperial post. Anyway, as you would have discovered if you had made proper enquiries, Libertus may be a tradesman, but he is a Roman citizen, not a scruffy traveller like yourself.’ He looked at my cloak and tunic with contempt. I remembered the optio’s promise not to disclose the fact that I had gone out without my proper dress. Obviously the officer had kept his word. The first man on duty at the gate had seen me go, of course, but there had been a change of guard since then.

‘Send for the optio,’ I said. ‘He’ll vouch for me.’

‘The optio is off duty by this time, as you would have realised, if you had ever been inside an inn like this. And his instructions were to bar the gate.’

I cursed myself. It had not been specifically referred to, naturally, but what I knew of such establishments should have forewarned me that this would be the case. Some subordinate would be on duty in there now, one who had never seen me. I tried another tack. ‘Well, what about the slave – Promptillius? He’ll know who I am.’

‘And how am I to call him? Leave the door, so you can slip inside? I wasn’t born last moon. In any case, he isn’t here – as you would have known, if you were the person that you claim to be.’

‘But I’m the citizen Libertus . . .’ I began again.

He interrupted me. ‘Now don’t start that again. Of course you’re not. Promptillius has gone to join his master at the feast. He had the most precise instructions from the man himself. Written orders, too. I saw the wax tablet they were scratched onto myself. I made him show me when I let him in, as proof of his identity. So it’s no use you pretending otherwise.’

‘Promptillius has gone to Marcus?’ I was bewildered now.

‘He’s gone to join his master! This Libertus fellow. You heard what I said. Don’t look at me like that. I saw the note. The slave was to come here and tell us that there’d been a change of plan: Libertus the pavement-maker was to dine with his patron after all, and attend the assizes in the morning as a spectator. He wanted his slave to take fresh clothes and go to him at once, so that he could bathe and change and make ready for the feast. Now, I don’t know what you’re playing at, my friend, but it won’t work with me. Some trick of those young scoundrels, I suppose. One of their stupid wagers, was it, that you could get inside the mansio? You should have more sense, at your age. Well, it didn’t work. I’m not as stupid as they take me for. So, are you going to move along, or shall I lock you up, for trying to impersonate a citizen?’

He had his sword-blade to my throat by now. I moved along.

His threat was not an idle one. Impersonating a citizen can, at worst, mean death – although it did occur to me, as I slunk off into the shadows, that since I really was a citizen, the charge would be difficult to prove. In fact – although it would mean a beating, chains and an uncomfortable bed of stinking straw – at least inside the military cells I would be safe. I would have a roof above my head and be protected from the other harassments, half-glimpsed and wholly unexplained, which had dogged me ever since I got to town. In the morning I would be brought before the optio, who would quickly have me freed – and what would happen to the pompous sentry then! I almost considered going back and defying him to carry out his threat, but I had thought of another, less drastic solution to my plight – one which did not involve a thrashing!

There is one place, at least, where a man can find a bed, behind a curtain and in privacy, at almost any time of night without too many questions being asked. Of course, there were the other occupants to think about – the girls with interesting specialities – but such females are paid to please their clients. I reasoned that if a customer required them to simply let him sleep while they kept watch, presumably they could be persuaded to do so, at a price.

I would not go to Lyra’s brothel, naturally. I was certain that she’d set Paulinus onto me, and probably my unseen follower as well, and in any case I remembered what Aurissimus Big-ears had said about the dangers to one’s purse in her establishment. However, the owner of the thermopolium had spoken of that other wolf-house with the girls upstairs, whose doors were always open day and night. The premises were not far from his own and the area was not controlled by Lyra and her friends. If I could find my way there, that seemed the safest place.

Even so, the plan involved some risk. It was getting very late by now, and I would have to retrace my steps back to the bath-house sector of the town where I had been followed so disturbingly before. My sole directions were from the hot-soup stall, so my only course was to go back and find the place from there – though Lupus’s thermopolium itself would be long shut by now. Such establishments stay open only as long as there are customers or until the stock of soup runs out.

Going back again through those deserted streets was not an inviting prospect, but I could not stay where I was, and by now it was threatening to rain. The first drops were already bouncing off the paving stones. I thought wildly of finding shelter underneath an arch, but that was less inviting still: such places are often frequented by vagabonds and thieves and – since murder is the safest form of robbery, as it leaves no witnesses to bring a case – I knew that if I attempted such a thing I would be lucky to survive the night. If I’d had the slightest notion of where my patron was feasting, I might have dared his anger and burst in on him, but I had no idea who his host was, far less how to find him in this unfamiliar town. The wolf-house seemed to be my only hope.

Cautiously I made my way along the shadowed streets, trying to recall my earlier movements and retrace my steps. I expected at every turn to hear footfalls behind me and know that someone was trailing me again, and once I did pause – thinking I heard a muffled, rhythmic thump – but it was only my own heart pounding in my ears.

I went up the alleyway where I’d followed Plautus earlier, and came to the narrow passage by the fuller’s shop. If I wished to find my hot-soup stall with certainty, there was little choice but to go where I had gone before, and edge up there in the dark and wet. I almost baulked at the prospect, but then I remembered the dining knife I carried at my belt. Marcus had given it to me quite recently, and I’d had it newly sharpened for this trip. I took it out, wishing that I’d recalled it earlier: it was not much protection but it made me feel a good deal more confident. Thus armed, I made my way gingerly up the sinister and oppressive little passageway, but encountered nothing worse than stench, the slippery blackness and the now relentless rain.

I reached the corner where the armour stall had been. Still nothing. The stalls were closed up long ago, the piles of wares all taken in and locked away from thieves. Lacking these landmarks, it was hard to find my way – the street seemed longer and wider than before and ominously empty.

I moved to the very centre of the road, between the carriage ruts, telling myself that there I was less likely to be surprised by anyone lurking in a doorway, or watching from a window space above. My sandals seemed to make a startling slapping noise on the wet paving stones, and I was getting drenched, but nobody threw open window shutters to shout down at me, and the one couple I passed (slaves, by their tunics, underneath an arch) were too busy with each other to pay much heed to me. Or so, at least, I hoped.

Then, on the distant corner of the street, I recognised the thermopolium. To my surprise I saw the glow of torches from within and the door stood wide ajar. The soup stall was still open, seemingly – certainly there were people in the shop. Quite a group of people – some of them women, by the look of it. I could see their shadows on the wall as I approached.

Suddenly I felt a flare of hope. I remembered how Lupus, the owner of the shop, had said to me that he’d thought of letting out a room. Of course, his wife had voiced objections to the plan, and he’d done nothing further, but it did occur to me that there might be sufficient space upstairs for me to sleep somewhere. It was just possible that his wife could be persuaded to agree. I would be prepared to pay them very well – the whole contents of my purse, if necessary – and I remembered that the woman was a Christian. I don’t have much dealing, in the normal way, with followers of that extraordinary cult but they have the reputation of being honest folk, even if their beliefs are rather odd. An appeal to her religion might well do the trick and save me tramping further through the wet.

Well, there was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath and tiptoed down the street towards the open door, still keeping circumspectly to the far side of the road. I saw that the females were not the wolf-house girls, as I had half expected at this hour, but a group of ageing, stoutish matrons in sturdy Celtic plaid. The men – by their fish-scale armour, brawny arms and leather tunics – looked like members of the town watch. All solid townspeople. No sign of Plautus or his youthful spies. Reassured, I crossed the road and made towards the doorway of the shop.

And then I saw what was lying on the floor – something which had been hidden from my view till now by the presence of the crowd of onlookers.

Lupus was sprawled against the counter, quite obviously dead. His tunic had been ripped aside and somebody had not only slit his throat, but savagely slashed that giant form from throat to stomach. There was more of Lupus oozing out onto the tiles than was good for anybody’s health. One of the watch was standing over him, holding the lighted taper in his hand.

Lupus’s wife was standing, shaking, in another woman’s arms, convulsed with silent sobbing, while the others looked on, silent and appalled. It was like a dumb-show at the theatre, representing death.

I suppressed the cry of horror which had risen to my lips, but before I could even think of slipping off again, Lupus’s wife glanced up and saw my face. Her eyes bulged with astonishment. She shrugged herself free from the arm that sought to comfort her and raised an accusing finger at me as she found her voice.

‘That’s him. That’s the man. The one I was telling you about. He came in and was drinking with Lupus here tonight. I saw them together with my own two eyes. See, he is still carrying a knife! Seize him, guards. I accuse him of this killing. You are all witnesses to that.’