The Ghosts of Glevum Read online

  Nothing was likely to save my patron now, short of some supernatural intervention by Jupiter himself, as Julia’s despairing letter clearly recognised. Marcus might be permitted – as a concession to his rank – to choose his mode of death, so that he could drink a draught of poison in his cell, or fall on his sword like a gentleman instead of having his head struck off by the executioner. On the other hand, Commodus might chose to make a public exhibition of his death: several of his former favourites had been hewed to death or dragged around the city on the hook. Or, if Marcus proved too popular with the crowds – which, given his lineage, might well be the case – he was likely to die of some mysterious illness, or be ‘murdered by an outraged member of the populace’ before the case was heard.

  ‘Your patron?’ Sosso was at my side, frowning at the tablet in concern.

  I knew he couldn’t read a word of it, and for a moment I was tempted not to tell him what it said. Once Sosso knew the facts, I thought, that could well be the end of any cooperation from the gang. If – or rather when – Marcus was found guilty of this crime, all his goods would be forfeit to the state. That would leave me penniless and Sosso was not a man to work without reward. However, I knew it was impossible to keep this to myself. Julia had already heard the news, and if it was official all Glevum would know of it by dawn.

  I sighed and read the letter out to him.

  As I did so, I tried to calculate. What would Julia and the child do now? Marcus’s various estates, his forests and his farms, his luxurious apartment in the town, the villa and all his other worldly goods, would be forfeit to the Imperial purse. No doubt that was another reason why Commodus was so keen to prosecute his wealthy enemies.

  Sosso listened in silence as I read. Out of deference to Julia I decided to omit her last remark about taking her own life. I put the tablet down. ‘She says she does not believe it,’ I concluded. I braced myself, expecting him to burst into a rage, now that my promise of money was unlikely to be met.

  Sosso astonished me. ‘We’ll work fast, then.’ I had been expecting him to refuse to help at all. My surprise must have been written on my face because he grinned, baring his blackened tooth-stumps again. ‘Won’t get our four denarii otherwise,’ he said.

  He was right, of course. Julia still had money. The property in Corinium was not under threat. That house and its estates belonged to Julia herself – she had inherited it in her own right from her previous husband and had brought it to this marriage as part of her dowry settlement. So Marcus had only the legal ‘use and profit’ of it, not the ownership, and it was exempt from seizure if he fell from grace. That meant that Gwellia and Junio were safe, for the moment anyway. The realisation almost gave me hope, and I began to think constructively again.

  I got slowly to my feet. ‘Wait!’ I said – he was already halfway to the door. ‘Give me a chance to answer this. If you can get into the villa, you can give her my reply.’

  He nodded, frowned, then shrugged lopsidedly. ‘Make haste, then. There’s no time to lose.’ He broke into his ungainly run and loped outside. I heard him calling, ‘Lercius!’

  I turned to the woman, ‘Is there a stylus here?’

  For a moment she looked mystified. ‘You can use anything you see,’ she said, stretching her toothless gums into a smile as if she wished to be of help.

  I realised what a stupid question it had been. Of course there was no stylus in a house like this. I looked around for ways to improvise. There was a wooden stick the woman had used for mixing up her stew. The end was rounded and I used that as a flattening edge to erase the letters and smooth out the wax. Then, using a thin stick of kindling as a point, I made a mark. It worked. I could scratch a few words of reply.

  I looked up. The woman was watching me with awe as though I were a conjurer doing tricks. ‘Surely you’ve seen letters written before? You must have seen scribes in the market place?’ There were usually a whole row of them squatting on the pavement by the wall: tattered and disagreeable old men who will read and write anything for a fee – not very accurately, from what I’ve seen of them, but I suppose that those who cannot read or write themselves are hardly in a position to complain. It did mean, however, that being literate was not usually regarded as something akin to sorcery.

  ‘I’ve seen the men who do it, citizen, but I’ve never seen it done,’ the old woman said, and moved herself to get a better view – so close that I could hardly write at all.

  There is never a lot of room on a wax tablet, especially a decorative one like this, and it was intimidating writing under scrutiny, even by somebody who couldn’t read. Nevertheless I outlined the position as succinctly as I could, including the embarrassing request for cash. Then I folded the two hinged frames of wax back together and tied the cord again. I even went to the length of making an impromptu seal of my own, by holding Julia’s seal above the fire until the wax began to melt and then pressing my thumb into it across the knot. Then, leaving the old woman goggling, I went outside to find Sosso.

  I found him standing with the kindling-man.

  ‘Got to get rid of that,’ Sosso was murmuring, gesturing towards the cart. I realised he was referring to poor Golbo’s head, which to my great relief they’d covered up again.

  ‘I suppose we could put it with the body in that pit,’ Molendinarius suggested. ‘Cover it up with branches or fill it in with earth.’

  In the light of Sosso’s previous haste, it seemed an odd time to be discussing funerals, but I was glad that somebody had thought of it. Golbo deserved that dignity at least. But I had views on how it should be done.

  ‘A good idea,’ I put in hurriedly. ‘But let’s do it decently. Wrap him up and make some offerings of bread and water, so that he’s provided for on his journey to the underworld. Golbo was slave in a Roman house. He would have wanted that.’

  He would have wanted a good deal more, in fact. Even slaves in Roman households worry about their funerals. Doubtless Golbo, like the rest of Marcus’s servants, had paid his dues to the slaves’ funeral guild so that even if his master died and failed to provide he would still be entitled to a proper pyre, with priests and sacrifice. Of course, if that happened, the ceremony would be shared with other slaves from Glevum who had died that day, and the ashes would be buried in a common tomb, but the appropriate sacrifice would be made and the spirits of the dead would rest.

  Molendinarius looked at Sosso. Sosso shook his head. ‘As he is. With the rest of him. In the pit.’

  ‘I’ll come and help you dig one a little further off,’ I persisted. I am not superstitious about burial itself, but I didn’t want it right beside the house. For Gwellia’s sake, if not my own, I didn’t welcome the idea of poor Golbo’s ghost haunting my roundhouse for ever, looking for his missing skull.

  Sosso shook his head again and drew a finger across his windpipe in a gesture that said more than any words.

  The firewood-seller spelt out the message for me in his wheezing voice. ‘He means it would be dangerous. You can’t go to the house. Those guards won’t have given up, just because they didn’t find you yesterday. They’ll be back – you can be sure of it. You go back there and start digging pits and you’ll get yourself arrested, sure as Jupiter made thunderbolts. I’ll take care of it . . .’

  Sosso interrupted him. ‘See to it.’

  The man nodded. He took up a few rough armfuls of kindling from his pile, and stacked them on the handcart with his stump of a hand, so that the bag with its grisly contents was concealed. Then he set off lurching down the path again. I was surprised how easily he’d accepted Sosso’s authority. He was clearly an obstreperous old man, but here he was obeying orders like a new legionary recruit.

  Sosso grinned horribly at me. ‘Promised him a share of our reward,’ he said, as if to prove that – although he couldn’t read a written word – he was adept at reading thoughts. ‘Right, it’s time! Lercius!’ He gave a whistle and the boy came running up. Sosso turned to me. ‘You coming?’
<
br />   I nodded, though I really had no idea at all what lay in store. I opened my mouth to ask, but Sosso shook his head. ‘No talking now. Too dangerous. Follow us. Keep close behind.’ He set off, loping in the direction of the woods with Lercius scurrying at his heels.

  In my still weakened state they were too fast for me, but I limped after them. I saw them, to my astonishment, abandon the little path and slip in among the trees. I hoped Sosso knew what he was doing. Perhaps Molendinarius had told him where to go. I hoped so. He was not familiar with the area, yet he was striking out with confidence towards the deepest stands of trees, as if all the local rumours of marauding wolves and bears had no more truth in them than the political scandal at the barber’s shop. I followed him reluctantly. I have never encountered anything more violent in these woods than a shrew, but I’m still cautious when I am off the beaten track. At least, for once, I could smile at the idea that there were cut-throats and robbers about. I knew it was true: I had brought them with me.

  As the thick trees closed around me, I heard the old woman call.

  ‘Citizen!’ she pleaded in a wavering tone. ‘You have been ill. You should be resting.’ It was true that I still ached in every limb, and I hesitated, almost tempted for an instant to go back.

  Sosso paid no attention, either to her or to me, but simply went on walking deeper into the trees. He was limping grotesquely as he always did, but he chose his route with skill, moving so lightly that he barely bent the grass or left a footprint in the fallen leaves. Anyone attempting to follow him would have a hard task to pick up his trail. Lercius was swift and noiseless too, and I felt clumsy as a bull as I stumbled after them.

  XVIII

  Sosso and Lercius were moving so quickly through the woods that I was in danger of losing sight of them myself. There was little foliage to screen them at this time of year, but already the two men were half lost among the trees. I hurried after them, ploughing through the fallen leaves and dodging the bare branches that whipped at my face. I was panting hard when I caught up with them.

  Despite his warning earlier, I had vaguely supposed that Sosso was going to lead the way towards my roundhouse and the pit where Golbo’s body lay, simply avoiding the main paths where there might be guards. But as we struggled through drifts of rotting leaves and over rutted, muddy tracks I realised that this was not the case.

  We came to a fallen tree a little bigger than the rest, and suddenly he veered sharply to the right, as if this was a marker on a predetermined course. He led us quickly to a place where the trees were decidedly less dense, and I saw that we were coming out on to the lane: not near the corner where my enclosure was, but some way short of that, where the old road skirted Marcus’s estate, uncomfortably close to where I had yesterday failed to meet Cilla as arranged.

  However, we did not take the track. Close to the outer limit of the trees, Sosso made a sudden sign that I should stand still and wait. I did.

  He gestured to his right, and I saw what he had seen. A guard, chainmail and helmet glittering, was pacing up and down the lane not very far away. The forest-side border of the lane at this point was a grassy bank, with only a few trees dotted here and there – tall, so that all their branches were high up, and they provided little cover if one wished to hide. The outer wall of Marcus’s land formed the other boundary of the lane. If we were spotted, there was nowhere much to run. I was uneasy, fearing that we’d walked into a trap.

  I looked around for Lercius, but could see no sign of him. I tugged at Sosso’s tunic, and mouthed urgently, ‘What’s happened to the boy?’

  Sosso placed a finger to his ugly lips and signalled me to look into the trees, above the soldier’s head. There, in the twisted branches of an oak, was Lercius. He had scaled it, swift and noiseless as a rat – though the lower branches had been lopped – and now he was hiding in a fork. I began to understand his value to the gang. Many a performing athlete could not have done so much.

  Once I had seen him, however, he seemed hopelessly conspicuous. There was very little foliage on the tree. One glance in the wrong direction from the guard and the boy must inevitably be seen. I turned to Sosso, frowning.

  Sosso smiled. Then, opening his hand, he showed me two stones that he’d picked up earlier. They were a fair weight – each perhaps half the size of my clenched fist, but he held them easily. Then, as I watched, he raised one arm and with a single smooth movement hurled one of the stones as far as possible. It flew as though it were a pebble, away from Lercius and the guard, and hit the wall at an angle, rebounded with a clatter, and bounced down the track. The soldier turned. One could almost see him furrowing his brow as he put one hand on his sword-hilt and took a few steps forward, peering down the lane.

  What happened next was so quick that it seemed a blur. Sosso took aim with the second stone, and at the same instant seized my makeshift robe and thrust me back against a tree where I was out of view. I heard the impact as the missile hit the wall, and bounced in fragments on the stony path. From my hiding place I saw the soldier draw his sword.

  ‘Stop in the name of Rome. Who’s there?’ He came a little further down the lane. By now he was within a pace or two of us.

  My heart thudded, thinking we’d been seen, but he blundered past and went on in the direction of the sound. As he did so I saw Lercius shimmy out across a branch and drop, lightly as a cat, on to the top of Marcus’s orchard wall. In another instant he was out of sight.

  Relief almost betrayed me. I was ready to make a clumsy run for it, but Sosso had more sense. He touched my arm and motioned me urgently to stay where I was, and a moment later the guard came back again, shaking his head.

  We waited for what seemed to me an age. The soldier took up his post and sheathed his sword again, but he was still peering suspiciously about. We lay where we were. I could hear my heart thudding, so loudly that I was sure the guard would hear, and my limbs ached with holding one position for so long. Even my breath came so hard that it seemed to drown out the gentle rustle of the wind in the trees and the coo of a pigeon, which were the only other sounds.

  At last, when the soldier had relaxed and resumed his pacing up and down the lane, Sosso made his move. Choosing the moment when the guard’s patrol routine took him the maximum distance from us up the lane, my companion beckoned me and led the way noiselessly back into the trees.

  I lurched upright and stumbled after him but I did not have his skill and I was aware of every rustle and the creak my flapping sandal made. Then I stepped upon a branch and heard it crack. I looked round, fearing that the guard had heard it too.

  He had. He had drawn his sword and started after us. ‘In the name of Commodus Britannicus, Divine Emperor of Rome and all its provinces, come out and show yourself!’

  I slowed, ready to obey, but Sosso flashed me his blackened ugly smile. ‘Not you!’ he murmured, and turned back himself, loping to the path with his lopsided gait. He purposely exaggerated the limp, and held his head on one side and his mouth ajar, with his arms held up by his sides.

  ‘Urgh! Urgh! Alms!’ I heard him croaking, ‘Urgh! Jove’s name! Urgh!’

  That was a clever move. There is a widespread belief among worshippers of the Roman deities that among the crazed are those who have been touched by a supernatural hand and thus enjoy special protection from the gods. Soldiers are notoriously superstitious, of course and – since they are required to make oaths and sacrifices to Jupiter and Mars, whatever other religions they profess – Sosso was clearly assuming a kind of moral shield by calling on the name of the father of the gods and looking as lunatic as possible. If my life had not depended on the stratagem, it would have made me laugh.

  It was successful, too. From where I was hiding in the woods, I could see the soldier backing off. ‘Go on! Be off! Don’t come close to me!’ He held his sword up warningly. ‘I’ve heard of you. You live the other side of Glevum, out among the tombs. What are you doing here?’

  Sosso lurched closer to him. ‘Birds!
Eat!’ he grunted, in a tone so horrible and slavering that even I shuddered, though I knew what the soldier could not guess – that this ugly, harmless little ‘idiot’ was in fact a natural leader capable of lightning thought and complex plans.

  Indeed, I realised, I was witnessing one now. Allowing me to alert the guard had been no accident, and Sosso was talking to the man not merely to protect me, as I’d half supposed. Behind the soldier, on the orchard wall, I saw a hand appear, and then another, followed first by Lercius’s face and shoulders and then – with a swift upward push – by his body too.

  Sosso loped closer to the guard, leering horribly. ‘Alms!’ he said again, making as if to paw the soldier’s arm.

  The man stepped backwards. ‘I ought to take you under arrest,’ he muttered, but he dropped his sword. He was clearly nervous, though, and watching Sosso like a hawk. ‘Go on, get out of here, before I change my mind.’ Behind him Lercius ran along the wall and dropped to safety further up the path. I saw him scuttle silently across the lane and disappear into the woods on my side of the track.

  Sosso must have seen him too. He gave one last, mock-despairing ‘Urgh!’ and then turned away. He loped towards me, turning off the path and ploughing through the moist brown undergrowth. This time he made no effort to be quiet. The guard watched him till he reached the shelter of the trees, then went back to pacing up and down the lane.

  I must have made a bit of noise myself as I joined Sosso in retreat, but the soldier did not glance our way again. I had enough sense not to speak until we reached the fallen tree once more and were well out of earshot of the guard. Lercius was already there, sitting on the jagged stump and grinning like a frog.