Murder in the Forum (25 page)

He shrugged. ‘I returned to the ex-centurion’s house, as instructed. My master had left some further letters there he wished me to deliver – as I was doing, when they brought me here.’ He opened the leather saddle-pouch to reveal two small sealed vellum scrolls and a fine hinged wax writing tablet and stilus.

I thought of demanding to see the scrolls, but the memory of the warrant deterred me. I contented myself with asking, ‘Who are these for?’

‘The men he was talking to in Letocetum. I do not know their names. I am to deliver these to the house, that is all. Now, with your permission, I have a letter to write myself.’ He took the writing tablet from the bag, together with a wax stick and a flamboyant seal-press.

He turned himself away so that the tablet was hidden from me and scratched a few lines hastily upon it. Then he folded and latched it, and with a contemptuous glance in my direction made a great performance of sealing it, tying the cords of the tablet so that the knot lay in the recess provided and then warming the wax stick in the candle-flame and dripping it over the knot to hold it. Then, for ultimate security, he took the seal-press and impressed it onto the hot wax, saying with satisfaction, ‘This seal is still effective, citizen, whoever may be dead. And I am still empowered to wield it.’

Only then did he hold the tablet out to me. I hesitated.

‘A letter to the ex-centurion, to let him know what has happened. He lives apart and does not hear the rumours. It will be a shock to him. Perhaps you will see it is delivered. No doubt you will wish to interview him, in any case.’ He gave me a brief description of where to find the villa.

I wondered what welcome awaited me if I arrived there bearing this letter. I did not trust Zetso a thumb’s-breadth but I took the tablet without a murmur.

‘Now if I am to deliver my own messages before nightfall, citizen, I suggest it would be wise to let me go. Very wise. I still carry a warrant, and these letters are of imperial importance.’

I looked at the
octio
and he at me. I was defeated. Faced with the Emperor’s orders, I could only let him go. I nodded, and the door was thrown open. We all blinked fiercely in the sudden light of day.

‘My horse!’

The
octio
scuttled to fetch the animal. It was a handsome brute. I have not possessed a horse since I was taken into slavery, but I had once loved to ride and I knew good horseflesh when I saw it. I was seeing it now.

Zetso slung his saddlebag over the neck, took the reins and swung up effortlessly onto the animal’s back. He looked down at me. ‘Your servant, citizen.’ It was a sneer. Then, with a clattering of hooves, he was gone.

I stood there for a moment, clutching the writing tablet. I knew in my bones I should not have let him leave. But I could not hold him longer with impunity: I dared not even open his sealed letter. And he knew it.

I turned away and went back into the
mansio
.

Junio was waiting for me. Wine was on offer at the inn, but he had obtained from somewhere a flagon of honeyed mead and a handful of spices, and was in the process of heating them up in a borrowed pan over the communal fire, preparing my favourite drink.

‘Where did you get this from, you young scoundrel?’ I asked, taking the proffered drinking vessel with real relish and pretended severity. In fact, knowing Junio, I guessed that he had probably won them from some unsuspecting player of twelve stones.

Junio grinned. ‘There is a tax-collector newly arrived in the
mansio
from Glevum, with his slave. The others in the inn have kept away from him’ – I nodded, tax-collectors are generally as popular as lepers – ‘but I am not too proud to play a game of dice with his servant. Especially as he had a flagon of mead about him. I know your preferences, master. And there was little risk – they were his dice.’

I smiled, indulgently. Gambling in inns is technically forbidden, except on public feast-days, but provided there is no fighting over stakes the law is rarely enforced – one might as well attempt to stamp out an ants’ nest with a pin. ‘I see the Fates have favoured you again.’ I poured out a little of my mead in front of the hearth. ‘There, I have given the gods an oblation in gratitude.’

I was jesting, but there was method in my action. I am not a superstitious man, but my dealings with Zetso had frightened me severely. And it had distressed me to fail. I felt some sort of offering was necessary.

Junio knew me. ‘You let him go then, master?’

I sighed. ‘I had no option, really.’ I knew what Junio was waiting for, and (as is my custom on these occasions) I told him all about it, word for word as nearly as I could remember. Merely telling him is sometimes enough to give me insights, and he will occasionally notice details which I had missed.

He did so now.

‘Killers.’ He interrupted my recital. ‘Why should Zetso think of killers? In the plural? That is suggestive, don’t you think?’

I forced myself to smile. I have tried to teach Junio my trade, and I should be pleased when he is more observant than I am.

‘He talked of earlier plots, in Rome,’ I answered feebly. My pleasure at my servant’s skill does not necessarily entail drawing his attention to my own lack of it.

Junio grinned. ‘I am not surprised. Felix must have made many enemies. He had not been in Glevum above a day, and already I can think of people who would cheerfully have killed him.’

I sipped at my mead. ‘But who would have dared? Or had the means and opportunity?’

‘You think Zetso killed him? If Phyllidia could steal poison from her father, presumably his slaves could do the same. Or perhaps Zetso plotted with others, and his fellow conspirators struck sooner than he expected? That would explain both his surprise and his remarks.’

‘It is possible,’ I said. ‘He has the mentality for it. I saw his face when he recalled the herald. I think Zetso enjoys killing.’

‘Then he found himself the right master,’ Junio said.

I nodded. I might have said more, but at that moment the door opened and a short, thin, self-important man in a vulgar vermilion-dyed tunic and voluminous cloak looked in. He glanced at my dishevelled tunic with a mixture of disdain and astonishment, said, ‘Good evening, countryman,’ in an affected, but imitation, Roman accent and disappeared again. I didn’t need to be a rune-reader to recognise the tax-collector.

‘There goes the most hated man in all Britannia,’ I said, raising my drinking cup again. ‘Now that Perennis Felix is dead, that is!’ The mead tasted all the sweeter now that I had seen its rightful owner. It is rare that tax-collectors find themselves on the receiving end of improper extortion.

Junio refilled my goblet, with a grin. ‘I thought your Celtic friend with the damaged finger was your favourite contender for the title?’ My slave was doing his utmost to lift my mood.

I was ungracious. ‘Ah yes,’ I said. ‘Egobarbus. Another unsolved mystery.’

‘Do you suppose that Zetso murdered
him
?’

I sighed. Even my spiced mead could not console me on this one. ‘I would have sworn he did it,’ I said. ‘That would explain the poison bottle in the ditch. But Zetso himself does not believe that he did. That was obvious from his manner.’

Junio shrugged. ‘If you are right, he brought poison. You hardly murder a man in that fashion without knowing it.’

‘He did not push that body down the well – the house-owner was watching him. Nor did he return to do it later. He clearly has witnesses that he returned to the villa that night.’

‘Suppose that Felix had Egobarbus murdered because he owed him money,’ Junio said. ‘If he will kill a herald for bringing bad news he would do no less to escape a serious debt. Could it have been a plot, to substitute one Egobarbus for another?’

‘I had thought of that,’ I said. ‘But how, in that case, did he silence the slaves? They were not bribed. They had scarcely an
as
between them when they came to pay the coach-driver. And that was no pretence, they were almost imprisoned for it.’

‘Perhaps Felix promised to give them what he owed to Egobarbus,’ Junio suggested. ‘After all, they appealed to him from the jail.’

‘In that case, why murder Egobarbus at all? Felix would still have to pay. He could not hope to cheat the slaves, if they knew where the body was. And why invite them to the feast where everyone could see them? It makes no sense.’

‘Nothing in this
mansio
makes sense,’ the high-pitched, affected voice broke in from the doorway.

I glanced at Junio. Our tax-collector was back.

‘All I require is a roasted fowl and a goblet of decent wine,’ the newcomer went on, approaching the fire. I saw to my alarm that he was carrying a wooden gaming box. ‘And all they can offer me is some frightful Gallic vintage and a dish of some revolting local stew.’ He settled himself on a seat not far from me, and placed the box conspicuously in front of him. The laws on gambling do not extend to board games. Clearly, despite my dishevelled appearance, I was to be tolerated as a gaming partner. ‘I hear you are a Roman citizen, after all. Do you play?’

I don’t, if I can help it. I am not like Junio, and I am as likely to lose a gamble as to win it. But there was little I could do. It was too late to travel further that day, and clearly we were to spend the evening together. To refuse would be discourteous.

I do not care for tax-collectors, but since I am a citizen, and therefore liable to tax, I am generally careful not to offend them. If there is a shortfall in collection, as there often is, I prefer not to be an individual target for additional levies. Besides, he had not waited for an answer: asking the average Roman if he gambles is tantamount to asking if he breathes. The man was already laying out the inlaid board and counting out the coloured glass tiles into two heaps.

‘I should have stayed in Glevum,’ he grumbled conversationally. ‘At least I should have been assured of a clean bed and a respectable meal. But one might as well try to catch the clouds as attempt to collect any taxes there at present. What shall we play for, citizen?’

I had been afraid of this. After the expenses of the day I had little money with me. I placed a few brass coins on the table. ‘This, to begin?’ I knew that it was hopeless. The board itself was worth more than I possessed.

He glanced at Junio, and for a moment I thought that he was about to suggest the slave as a stake. In that case, offended or not, I would have been obliged to refuse him.

But I was safe. ‘That flagon of mead, perhaps, against another? I have acquired one, though I rarely drink it. I can sell it in Eboracum. At least there I shall be away from that confounded funeral.’ He placed his first playing piece on the board, and waited for me to place mine. Behind him, Junio had caught my eye and was signalling numbers with his fingers.

‘The funeral?’ I supplied, helpfully. Junio had signalled three, four, and I held my piece speculatively over the fourth square on the third rank. Junio shook his head. I moved it to the third square on the fourth rank and Junio smiled. I placed the piece. ‘I imagine there are lavish preparations.’

‘Wreaths and statues and Jupiter knows what,’ the tax-collector said, pausing only as we laid out our tiles one by one. ‘They are talking of having the whole garrison marching in procession. Gladiatorial games and spectacles in the arena . . . all funded from the public purse. And you know what that will mean, don’t you, citizen? More taxes, more trouble, more travelling for me. Why the governor has to come at all I cannot see. They could hold the funeral perfectly well without him.’

‘The governor?’ The board was almost complete by now, and I paused with my last piece in my hand. ‘Helvius Pertinax is coming to Glevum? In person?’ Under Junio’s discreet instruction, I laid down my counter. It was, appropriately enough, the
dux
– the high-ranking piece, like Helvius Pertinax himself. Marcus’s patron and friend was no more than a name to me, but I could well understand what a stir his arrival in the
colonia
would produce.

The taxman moved one of his coloured counters to jump one of mine. ‘Of course,’ he said, importantly, whisking my tile from the board. ‘This Perennis Felix was a powerful man. An intimate of the Emperor, it is said.’ He moved again; another of my tiles disappeared. ‘Of course, messengers were dispatched to the Governor at once, riding night and day, and they returned yesterday with the information.’ A third tile was taken from the board, and I glanced at Junio. He winked reassuringly.

It was my move now, and taking my cue from my slave I moved my
dux
into an open space. It looked feeble after our beginning, and the tax-man grinned hugely. He moved one of his own pieces forward to attack. ‘As soon as Pertinax received the news he set out towards Glevum with all speed. He is already on his way.’

Suddenly I saw what Junio had planned. ‘They will delay the funeral till he arrives?’ I said, and suddenly it was all over. One by one his pieces fell to mine, and I was left triumphant with more than half my tiles untouched. ‘My win, I think, my friend,’ I said. ‘A lucky chance. I think you said a flagon of mead?’ Next time I took Junio to the market, I thought, I would buy him a dozen honey-cakes if he chose, and I apologised mentally for having doubted his skill.

The tax-collector was glowering. He clapped his hands impatiently and a skinny slave appeared. The tax-collector gave his orders in an undertone, and the slave, with a reproachful glance at Junio and the pot of mead which was now bubbling aromatically on the hearth, murmured something back and disappeared again. The taxman cleared his throat.

‘It will have to be coins after all,’ he mumbled. ‘Our mead has apparently been stolen while we sat here, by a bunch of unscrupulous villains with cudgels.’ He looked at our flagon suspiciously, but Junio gave him the most innocent of smiles.

I could not repress a grin myself, but I saw an opportunity to ingratiate myself. It is not always expedient to win a game of chance.

‘Have a little of our mead in any case? My slave has made it hot and spiced, in the Celtic fashion. I warrant you will find it excellent.’