The Ghosts of Glevum Read online

  I murmured something non-committal, and tried to look as if these dangerous remarks were not addressed to me.

  He refused to let the matter drop. ‘It’s easier for you, Libertus; everybody knows that you’re Marcus’s protégé. And you’re a pavement-maker, anyway – people need mosaics, whoever is in power. But if those three up there start quarrelling, the rest of us will have to choose between them, and I for one shan’t know which horse to hitch my chariot to.’

  If there had been a hush before, there was silence now. You could have heard a breadcrumb fall on to the tiled floor. Even the slave with the watered wine, refilling the old man’s goblet for the umpteenth time, paused in his pouring as if turned to stone.

  Gaius plunged on, as unstoppable as a runaway cart rattling down a hill. ‘I shall be glad when the new governor is properly installed, and things get back to normal again.’ He drained his cup and held it out once more. ‘What is the situation there, Libertus, do you know?’ His speech was getting rather slurred by now. ‘You’ve got your ear closer to the ground than most of us. Is it true that there has been yet more delay?’

  I was aware of twenty pairs of eyes, at least, fastened on me expectantly. Suddenly I wished that I was anywhere but here. The Emperor doubtless had his spies in Glevum, as in every other city of the Empire, and the wrong choice of words could be disastrous. ‘There have been a lot of rumours, Councillor Gaius . . .’ I began.

  That was the understatement of the season. Ever since it had been announced that Governor Pertinax had been promoted to the more prestigious African provinces, Glevum had been alive with rumour of all kinds. There were as many versions as there were inhabitants. You could take your pick. There had been a new governor appointed. There had not. Someone had actually set sail for Britannia, but had fallen overboard. Or had been pushed. A man had been selected by the Emperor, but had since been executed. Or proved to be a woman in disguise. Or both.

  The only fact on which the gossips all agreed was that no new governor had so far appeared. The date for the expected handover had come and gone, amidst a flurry of Imperial messengers. Pertinax had finally departed to take up his new post, but in the absence of a successor it appeared that he was still nominally in charge, and interim running of the province had devolved upon his regional representatives. Hence this hurried meeting of the local great: Praxus, Mellitus and Marcus were the chief military, fiscal and legal authorities in the area. It was not a natural alliance, and probably one of them would emerge as paramount. No wonder my inebriated friend was worried about where to place his loyalties.

  He looked at me contemptuously. ‘Rumours! Huh!’

  ‘Well,’ that was the florid trader sitting on my left, ‘someone told me only yesterday, in strictest confidence, that Jupiter has turned the governor-elect into a goat, and we are waiting for the gods to turn him back.’

  ‘It can’t have been Proconsul Fabius then,’ another man chimed in. ‘No point in turning him into a goat. No one could have told the difference anyway.’

  There was a murmur of relief and mirth at this. It was safe to laugh. The Proconsul Fabius in question was securely dead. He had been a favoured candidate for governor – I was fairly sure of that, from information I had gleaned at Marcus’s – but he had been executed recently for an alleged plot against the Emperor. (Not all rumours are necessarily false.)

  However, I did not tell my companions that. Instead I took advantage of the change of mood to divert attention to the honoured guests, who were showing signs of getting to their feet. ‘Well, councillor, it seems you have your wish. The feast appears to be coming to an end, so you will be able to make good your escape.’

  The last glass had gone straight to the old man’s head. ‘All right for you,’ he grumbled indistinctly. ‘The journey’ll be colder and wetter than the Styx for all the rest of us.’

  He had a point. This banquet was being held at Marcus’s country house, but only Praxus and Mellitus – and their attendants, naturally – were house-guests here, able to stay at the villa overnight. Most of the other diners would have to make their way back to the city, several miles away. Of course (since wheeled carriages were useless in the town, where they were only permitted to move about at night) most would have hired litters awaiting them by now – the poor carriers already half perished with the cold – but travel on a winter’s night like this was always dismal in the foggy damp and chill. I was glad that I had my cosy little roundhouse less than half a mile from here – so close that it had once formed part of the estate, until Marcus had given it to me as a reward for solving a politically embarrassing crime for him. I had no expensive carrying chair to take me home, but at least I would not have very far to walk.

  ‘Beshides . . .’ the old ex-councillor began, but he got no further. The house-party was already on its feet, and the newly appointed priest of Jupiter, a self-important youngish man with a face like a moon and a hairless head to match, was already making his way towards the portable altar in the corner of the room. I am not a believer in the Roman pantheon, preferring the older darker Celtic gods of fire and stone, but as a citizen I am expected to observe the formalities, and in any case one can never be too careful with the gods. I rose obediently to my feet with everybody else while the closing libation and food-offering were made. The deities do very well out of official banquets such as this, I thought: sacrifice and invocation to begin, the usual oblation to the Lares halfway through, and now – since the guest of honour was a military man and Jupiter is the army’s patron god – this final offering to Jove. The household slaves would profit too, since they are traditionally permitted to enjoy any part of the sacrifice the immortals do not seem to want.

  My tipsy friend the councillor was finding it quite difficult to stand by now, at least without the help of my restraining hand. And he was not the only one. Various guests were looking flushed, and either scowling with drunken concentration or smiling inanely as they swayed. Marcus’s best wine was having its effect. Even the mountainous Praxus, ridiculous in his wispy pale blue robe, was clearly feeling the effects, and as soon as the solemnities were over he gave a brief nod to the assembled company and lurched off noisily towards the little chamber which Marcus had set aside as a vomitorium for the night.

  Marcus caught my eye across the room, and raised his brows. He had visited the vomitorium earlier himself, of course, as many other notables had done, but only for socially accepted purposes – to tickle the back of his throat with one of the thoughtfully provided feathers and genteelly regurgitate his food so as to make room for more. Stumbling out to void your stomach because of too much drink is not the behaviour of a well-bred man.

  Praxus had chosen an inconvenient moment for his exit, and there was an uncomfortable pause. It would be improper for the rest of us to move before the official party had withdrawn, and that was impossible until Praxus reappeared. The senior magistrate who had sniggered earlier, a corpulent decurion who notoriously enjoyed good drink, picked up his cup and sipped at the remnants of his wine, and after a moment more diners did the same. Others dabbled their fingers in dainty water bowls, removed their wreaths, untucked their linen napkins or otherwise made preparations to depart. Nobody was talking very much.

  Mellitus, who was rumoured never to visit vomitoria – too mean to give anything away, the wits said – compressed his already sour thin lips into a firmer line and sidled up to Marcus. He gave his mirthless smile and murmured something – clearly disapproving, but inaudible.

  Marcus nodded, and signalled to a slave. Then he appeared to reconsider and went out towards the vomitorium himself.

  I knew the little room. Of course I did – I laid the pavement in there myself, in the days when the previous owner used it as a cramped and wholly unsuitable librarium. It was tiny, a windowless and charmless space, distinguished only by the heavy door which had once been fitted with a complex lock, and – if I may say so – by a fine mosaic floor.

  Marcus – who had added e
xtensions to the house, including a new study for himself elsewhere – had little use for that tiny room these days. It was generally used as an ante-room for slaves except on occasions such as this when it furnished a near-perfect spot for accommodating the huge glazed bowl on its stand, the supply of goose feathers in their great brass pot and the bucket of perfumed water for rinsing lips and hands when the purpose of one’s visit had been fulfilled.

  Even then, it was not quite ideal. Once a diner had arrived to use the facility, there was no space in there for anything else, not even for the usual attendant slave. The luckless boy whose function at such feasts was to stand by and periodically empty out the bowl and replenish the water in the pail was generally obliged to wait outside, in the verandahed colonnade which – as in many country homes built in the Roman style – ran round the courtyard garden and linked the series of individual private rooms in the rear wings to each other and to the central portion of the house. The colonnade was open on the inner side, so waiting out there in the biting draught must have been a cold and thankless task tonight.

  Meanwhile, we were waiting too. Now Marcus seemed to have disappeared as well. The guests were getting slightly fidgety, and even the array of household slaves, lined up patiently beside the wall, were glancing at each other nervously.

  Finally, it was Mellitus who spoke. ‘What can have happened to our host? The vomitorium is just next door.’

  There was a little rustle of undisguised relief. Mellitus was the senior man present and now that he had taken charge, the next step was up to him.

  Mellitus frowned. ‘They surely cannot have gone very far.’ He picked up Praxus’s goblet, sniffed at it disapprovingly and put it down again. ‘Perhaps our military friend is taken ill? It would hardly be surprising, given the quantity he drank.’

  There was another pause. Marcus and Praxus did not come back. More guests were perching themselves on the edges of their dining couches by now, though nobody had actually reclined again.

  At last Mellitus did what we hoped he’d do. ‘Well, we cannot be expected to stay here all night. You,’ he indicated the nearest slave, ‘go and find out what’s happening.’

  This time we did not have very long to wait. The slave was back in a moment, ashen-faced. ‘Your pardon, Excellence,’ he said to Mellitus. ‘There seems to have been an accident. A serious accident. I am sent to request the citizen Libertus to come with me at once.’

  II

  This announcement caused a considerable sensation, not least in my stomach, which lurched alarmingly. What would the notoriously self-important Mellitus think of this – an anonymous citizen being specifically asked to join Marcus, when the sub-procurator himself was overlooked? However, there was nothing for it but to go.

  I did not remain anonymous for long. Heads turned as I shuffled from my humble corner place and threaded my way towards the door. Five tables, with three couches each, meant that even this fine triclinium was packed and forty-two pairs of eyes were fixed on me. Mellitus, in particular, was staring at me with undisguised hostility.

  I attempted to make my exit as unobtrusive as I could, with a brief required bow in his direction as I went, but before I had reached the doorway he called after me.

  ‘Citizen?’ That was all he said, but what he meant was: Who in Mithras’ name are you, and why should you be summoned? I am the most important person here.

  I made a proper obeisance, this time, as I replied, ‘My name is Longinius Flavius Libertus, Excellence. Marcus is my patron and he sometimes calls on me if there’s an . . . incident.’ ‘Problem’ would have been a better word. That was another thing which worried me, in fact. If Marcus wanted me, there was something mysterious, and probably dangerous, afoot.

  Mellitus looked even sourer than before, but he forced a little laugh. ‘I see. Well, if your skills are so much in demand, pray do not let a mere sub-procurator delay you any more. Don’t keep your patron waiting. Go.’

  I went.

  It was not difficult to see where I should go, even without the slave to lead me there. Outside in the colonnade there was a little crowd. Every spare slave from house and kitchen had evidently been called to bring torches to the scene, and they were clustered round the adjacent doorway with their backs to me, peering forward and holding their smoking lights aloft. The slave who had fetched me went ahead, parting their ranks to let me through, and a moment later I was standing outside the entrance to the vomitorium.

  What met my eyes was not a pretty sight. Praxus was lying slumped across the bowl, his face submerged in that disgusting mess. His massive body blocked the entranceway, hairy legs emerging obscenely from the pale blue robe and protruding at an awkward angle into the passageway. Marcus had already squeezed past into the room, and now he looked up and gestured me to come.

  It was not easy. I was obliged to step between Praxus’s feet – huge sandals with the hobnails uppermost – and over the enormous bulk that blocked the door, before I could edge into the narrow space to join my patron.

  ‘Libertus!’ he cried, before I could say anything. Clearly there was no time for ceremony. ‘I’ll need your help. I don’t know quite what’s happened here, but anyway we’ll have to move him first. I told the slaves to lift him, and several of them tried, but they can’t. There’s only room for one here at a time, and they can’t get round him to grasp him properly. See what you can do, Libertus, before it’s too late.’

  I forbore to mention that it was clearly far too late already, or that – although Marcus could hardly be expected to lift Praxus up himself – I was also supposed to be a guest. However, I did suggest what the slaves would not have dared, that if Marcus were to move there would be more room to operate. He looked surprised. He didn’t seem to have thought of that himself: shock seemed to have robbed him of the power of thought, though there was a degree of sense in his request to me. As one who handles heavy blocks of stone I have some expertise in lifting things.

  Marcus nodded at me distractedly. ‘I had to come and see what had happened. Have this, if it’s any use to you.’ He passed me the brass pot that had contained the goose feathers, which he’d been clasping to him like a talisman. ‘Perhaps you could also . . .’ He gestured towards the bowl.

  Praxus’s banqueting wreath had unwound itself and fallen off. It was floating bizarrely by his ear on the malodorous pool of half-digested delicacies and regurgitated wine. It seemed an odd thing to be concerned about, but these symbols are important to patrician Roman men.

  It was my turn to nod. ‘In just a moment, Excellence.’ I put down the pot and waited until my patron had edged past me and picked his way distastefully back to the corridor, where Mellitus and half the company of guests – who had by this time followed me – were openly assembled, craning to peer in. Curiosity had evidently got the better of good manners in the end.

  I endeavoured to ignore my audience and position myself for the lift by planting one foot on either side of what was, by now, undoubtedly a corpse. I had planned to slide my hands round underneath the arms: but, as Marcus had correctly observed, that was impossible – not only because of the angle at which Praxus lay, but also because my toga would not permit me to straddle that huge girth. I was obliged to give up in the end, and try to raise him from the side.

  There was evidence of previous attempts to do this when I moved the drapes of his synthesis aside. A red line of bruise ran round the neck, under the edge of that ridiculous blue robe, and the material at one point had parted in a jagged tear, as if someone had grasped the cloth there in struggling to lift him up, and it had given way beneath the weight. I did not want to make the same mistake. I laced my hands round underneath his neck and hauled.

  To no avail. I only succeeded in raising the head and shoulders an inch or two. Try as I would, I could do no more than that. Even then, it was an awkward lift, and in the end I let him go again. Praxus’s head dropped back into the bowl, but at a different angle now, tipping some of the contents in my direction
as it fell.

  I scrambled sharply to my feet, but not quite in time. The splashing slime made contact with my knees. There was a murmur of laughter from the spectators, and in the torchlight I was aware of grinning faces watching me. Even the slaves who held the lights were having to suppress their smiles. Only two men did not seem at all amused: Mellitus, who was looking on with pained disgust, and Marcus himself, whose expression conveyed something closer to despair.

  He was right to be dismayed. The death of an important guest during a banquet at one’s house is always socially unfortunate. When the visitor in question is a senior member of the military and has just been appointed with you as a member of a regional triumvirate, it is also a political embarrassment – an embarrassment made even more acute if the man is drowned in vomit and gawped at by a crowd. Poor Marcus. No wonder he had attempted to extract his guest before news of the manner of his death got out. He had intended, no doubt, to have Praxus moved somewhere a little more salubrious before announcing his in any case unfortunate demise.

  I could feel some sympathy for Praxus too, although I had never liked the little I knew of him – unimaginative, inflexible and crass. The man who had so recently been a favoured appointee of the Emperor was subject to a double indignity: being sniggered at, as well as dead. And there was worse to come. There was only one way of moving him that I could see, and since Marcus was looking at me expectantly and something was obviously required, I voiced my thoughts.

  ‘I think we’ll have to drag him, Excellence. If I stay this end, and support his head, perhaps some of your slaves could take him by the feet? I think it might be managed then, without upsetting . . . everything.’

  Marcus nodded. He turned towards his slaves. ‘Six of the strongest among you do as he suggests.’ The dinner guests reluctantly stepped back and half a dozen burly kitchen slaves came forward in their place. Three of them ranged themselves on either leg.