Requiem for a Slave Read online

  He didn’t answer, just nodded brusquely and followed me inside.

  I wondered for a moment if he would turn tail. The body looked more gruesome than I’d remembered it, and the smell of greasy pies, mingled with stale sweat and body wastes, seemed to be even more pungent than before. But the turnip-seller seemed less affected than I thought that he would be.

  ‘You are quite right, citizen,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You see worse sights beside the roads – executed criminals and that sort of thing. This is much less horrible than what they do to highway thieves.’

  I nodded. Crucifixion is an awful death, though it didn’t seem to deter the rebels in the forest very much. The Romans did their best. Those few bandits who were rounded up and convicted of their crimes were strung up in prominent positions by the road, so that their tortured bodies would be a grim warning to the rest. Lucius, by comparison, had died a speedy death.

  I went over to the body, and Radixrapum followed me.

  ‘Obviously strangled, as you say, citizen,’ he said, examining the bloody neck with curiosity. ‘But no sign of the cord. You don’t suppose he might have hanged himself? Someone might have cut him down and brought him here, perhaps? Your young servant could have done it and then gone to seek for help.’

  It was an attractive theory, but I shook my head. ‘Look at where the cord was tightened.’ I pointed to the place. ‘You can see that the force was clearly back and down. If he had been hanging – or had hanged himself – obviously the greatest force would be from overhead. Besides, if someone had simply cut the body down, why would they remove the rope from round its neck?’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I expect you’re right. Will you be able to force the eyelids shut?’

  In fact, I was not at all convinced I could, and I was squeamish about touching that one protruding eye. I compromised by seizing a piece of linen cloth nearby – intended as backing for a piece of work – and binding it around the head to form a bandage, as embalming women sometimes do. The body was getting noticeably stiffer now, and I was glad to lay the purple face down on the tiles again. With the blindfold on, it did not look so bad. I got up, breathing heavily. ‘No question of the soul finding a route back that way now.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to call his name?’ the turnip-seller asked. ‘In case his spirit is still somewhere nearby?’

  I was quite sure that the soul had fled some little time ago and I was not anxious to encourage it to come back again. ‘Don’t you think I ought to go and find his mother first? Suppose that Lucius did not hold with Roman rites? He looks more like a humble Celt to me – or he might have been a follower of that Jewish carpenter, or Mithras or Isis, or some other modern cult. They all have their own customs when dealing with a death.’ As I spoke, I made a point of washing my own hands, very carefully, in my water bowl.

  The turnip-seller looked reproachfully at me. ‘Anything is better than being picked up in a cart and flung into a pit with no rites performed at all. Call his name, pavement-maker. It falls to you, if anyone. It should be done by the senior person in the house. Well, you’re the senior here. I am just a freeman, and you’re a citizen. Besides, this is your workshop, and it will be you he haunts if you don’t do it right.’

  Perhaps it was this last thought that made up my mind for me. I am not an adherent of Roman rites myself – I make the required sacrifices on holy days, of course, to Jupiter and the pantheon, and the Emperor as well (it is never wise to alienate a deity, just in case), but I am more inclined to venerate the older gods of tree and stone. However, I have witnessed the ritual enough to know what I should do.

  The window space was already open – as the rite demands – so I took a deep breath and stood beside the corpse and cried in a loud voice, ‘Lucius!’ It occurred to me that I didn’t know if he had another name, so I added ‘The pie-seller’ to be doubly sure. There was – mercifully – no answer, so I repeated it twice more.

  ‘There now, citizen. We have done all we could,’ the turnip-vendor said in a prosaic tone, though I noticed that he’d flattened himself against the wall as I called on Lucius’s name – presumably lest he should impede the spirit’s path. Now, though, he was smiling cheerfully. ‘You go and get the embers and I’ll stand watch outside.’

  I picked up an oil lamp and a copper bowl. ‘I will go to the tanner’s and see if they will let me light the lamp, as well as have some embers to start the fire again. Then we can set some tapers round the corpse. Besides, I can ask the tanner some questions while I’m there, in case he noticed anything unusual this afternoon. I’ve already asked the candle-maker on the other side.’ The tanner might be less churlish with his answer too, I thought.

  Radixrapum nodded. ‘It would be a good idea. When I was here before, I saw someone with a donkey at the tanner’s gate, unloading hides. They might have noticed if anyone else was in the street.’

  ‘I’ll ask them,’ I agreed, though I would scarcely have much time for questioning if I wanted to reach the pie-house before the soldiers came. I turned to Radixrapum to say as much to him, but he was already on his way outside and there was nothing for me to do but follow him.

  Four

  The tanner was a small, squat, swarthy man, with bandy legs and eyes that were noticeably crossed. His face was lined and so raddled with the fumes that it had become the colour of his hides, and he rejoiced in the possession of a single tooth. It was impossible to guess what sort of age he was – he looked fully fifty or sixty years of age, but he had looked much the same when I first moved into the shop and that was now some fifteen years ago. Perhaps his tanning had preserved him too.

  I could see him through the open gate as I pulled the rope to ring the bell. He was arranging finished skins into a pile and selecting the best ones to hang up on display in a dingy little area which served as a front court. He came towards me, grinning – if, with one tooth, it could be called a grin.

  We knew each other slightly. In the days when, like him, I had lived above the shop, he had called round several times seeking an arrangement to collect my urine pots, so he could mix the contents with various leaves and herbs for a concoction which helped loosen the hair from stubborn hides. However, I already had a contract with the fullers-shop nearby, and nothing came of it. This was the first time that I had called on him.

  He was still baring his gums at me, in what was obviously intended to be a friendly smile. ‘Citizen Libertus.’ His voice was mumbling and cracked, though I have heard him raise it in anger many times when one of his workers’ efforts failed to please. ‘To what do we owe the honour of a visit? Do you wish to purchase hides? Or a piece of goatskin – I’ve got some nice ones here. For a blanket, or a pair of shoes for your good wife, perhaps?’ He gestured to the hides that he’d been stacking earlier.

  I was tempted to tell him the whole story but rejected the idea. Unlike the turnip-seller, my neighbour loved to talk, and I knew he had dealings with the wealthy in the town, including the customer for the Apollo piece. I thought of asking if I could borrow a handcart for an hour but rejected that as well – he would be bound to ask questions as to why I wanted it. So I simply shook my head and jerked my chin towards the oil lamp and the bowl. ‘I am not bringing business, neighbour, I’m afraid. I come requesting coals. A flame for the oil lamp and some glowing embers to get the fire alight. There’s nothing in the workshop that I can light them with.’

  He focused both eyes vaguely on my face. ‘Not even your Vestal flame alight? And you a Roman citizen?’ he said.

  It was true that there was a little altar-niche on my premises, dedicated to the goddess of the hearth – no doubt he had seen it when he came to call – but it dated from the time the little shop was built, in the previous owner’s time. Even when the upper storey had been a sleeping space, I never lit a sacrificial flame on it except on occasions like public holy days or the feast day of the Emperor, when such observances were generally required.

  I had made no answer, and he t
ook that as assent. ‘That was careless, neighbour.’ He raised his thinning eyebrows in a knowing arch. ‘Too busy talking to that fine customer of yours? I saw the expensive-looking litter at your door. And wasn’t it the chief decurion getting out of it? I sold him an ox-skin once. I hope he gave you a nice contract and made it all worthwhile?’

  ‘I lost the work, in fact.’

  He made a little grimace of sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, citizen. Someone came in with a lower estimate, I suppose. They’re all the same, these very wealthy men. Quibble about a quadrans with the likes of us, then spend a fortune on public works and games to woo the populace, especially when they want to win a vote. Like that Gaius Greybeard or whatever he is called, who’s been trying unsuccessfully to get an ordo seat for years, putting up that fountain at the crossroads recently. And your decurion’s the same – promised new hangings for the ordo room, they say, simply to impress the other councillors. Put extra on the taxes, I shouldn’t be surprised, so we shall pay for it.’

  I muttered something indeterminate. The tanner loved to gossip and was enjoying this, but I did not wish to be lured into something indiscreet, which might reach the ears of Quintus Severus later on. I tried to change the subject, hoping that I might learn something about Minimus’s fate. ‘You didn’t see anyone else outside my shop, I suppose, talking to my slave this afternoon?’

  He shook his head at me. ‘Too busy looking after my own affairs. But if it was a time-waster, I more than sympathize. I had just the same thing happen earlier today. Fellow came in here and asked to look at hides, and when I’d spent half an hour showing off my wares, he suddenly decided it was all too dear. Though judging by the jewelled cloak-clasp that he wore, he could have afforded anything I had.’

  I listened with appropriate noises of concern, but inwardly I was impatient to get my embers and be off. I was about to offer money, but all at once he said, ‘Well, we humble tradesmen had better stick together, hadn’t we? You come this way and we’ll see what we can do. You’ll have to come right through to the workshop, I’m afraid.’

  He led the way along the narrow path beside the house, to the large rear courtyard where hides which had been preliminarily soaked were hung out on racks to dry. ‘Come in to the tannage room and get the coals. You’ve timed it very well. I’m boiling up a batch of tanning agent now – alder bark and acorn cups with alum in the blend – the fire’s very hot. Mind that horse hide, it’s still full of stripping mix.’

  I stepped back in time to miss the skin that he had gestured to, which was hanging dripping on a rack. It still looked disturbingly and recognizably like a horse, and as I looked about I could identify several sheep- and ox-skins drying off, and there was a group of smaller pelts as well, which I could not identify. The smell was terrible.

  He had noticed the direction of my glance. ‘Weasel, otter, stoat and seal,’ he said proudly, pointing each one out. ‘And that one there’s a wolf. The army like them for their signifers and pay a hefty price. This way, then, citizen.’

  I ducked around a deer hide and followed him inside.

  The tannery room occupied the whole front half of his house, which had been specially adapted to accommodate the trade. The entry door was situated oddly halfway down, and the front part of the space – which we had just walked past outside – was partitioned off from the rest by a low internal wall, and the area thus created was busier than a hive. A series of round vat-pits had been dug into the floor, and a large number of men were hard at work. Some were pushing the hides into the tanning mix with long wooden poles; others were actually standing in the pits with their tunics tucked up above their knees and – supporting their weight on ropes set in the walls – treading the hides into the evil-smelling brew with brown-stained legs and feet. I wondered for a moment how they got in and out, until I realized that the steep sides of the vats were lined with plaster and that there was a series of toe-holes in every one of them.

  Between the pits, an army of small children scuttled to and fro with jugs of tanning mix, filling the clay vessels which were set into the floor and which seemed to feed the liquid to the adjoining vats along a deep channel with a glazed pipe in it. The smell, if anything, was even worse in here.

  ‘You certainly demand good concentration from your slaves,’ I said, surprised to notice that most of the workers didn’t raise their eyes at our approach.

  He laughed. ‘It isn’t anything that I do, citizen. It’s simple common sense. One false step and you fall into the vat. It isn’t so much drowning – though that’s always possible – but the mixture doesn’t do you any good, especially if it goes into your mouth and eyes. I lose a couple of people that way every year. You get off lightly if it only stains you brown and makes you smell disgusting for a week or two.’

  I nodded. I could see that the whole floor was a series of traps for careless feet. I had to pay attention to where I put my own.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘these are not all slaves. I couldn’t afford the workforce to do all of this. The treaders are mostly my property, of course, but most of the other hands are freemen who are glad to have the work – there’ve been some dreadful harvests and winters recently – or lads whose parents have bound them to the shop. I get a fee for having them while they learn the trade. Some of the work requires a lot of skill and it takes time to train them properly. Through here, then!’ He gestured to the other side of the partition wall, towards the other, smaller section at the back, where he clearly intended we should go.

  There was a solid floor there, to my relief, though it was fully occupied by two lines of trestle tables flanked by high three-legged stools on which the workers perched. There must have been a dozen older lads and men: each had a partly treated hide pegged, stretched out, on a rack in front of him, and was either painstakingly scraping it with strangely shaped bronze tools, or, once that was completed, plucking any recalcitrant last hairs out by hand. This time the men did glance up to look at us, overtly curious, as my guide led me down the narrow zigzag space between the rows.

  ‘The tannage room is through here,’ he said, gesturing to a doorway to the rear. ‘Come in and we will see what we can do about your coals.’

  He led the way into a second room, which clearly gave access to the private living area beyond. This area had the benefit of a stone hearth and a window space, and thus served for the preparation of the tannage mix.

  It was clearly brewing now. A copper vat was slung on chains above the fire, and something most unpleasant was bubbling inside, filling the area with clouds of acrid steam which the window space did very little to dispel. The boiling was being supervised by an ancient slave, dressed only in a loincloth, a pair of tattered boots and a heavy metal slave-ring of linked chain around his throat, reaching from his skinny shoulders almost to his ears – the sort of thing one sometimes sees on female Nubian slaves and which it requires a skilled blacksmith to remove. As we came into the room, he was being chivvied by a stout woman in a stained tunic and torn shawl, whose grey hair and skin had been dyed brown by smoke. She held a long wooden cooking-paddle in her hand – I suspected that the slave had felt the blade of it.

  ‘Get a shovel, wife, and fetch us some embers from the fire,’ the tanner said. ‘The citizen pavement-maker has a need of them. And fetch a taper while you’re at it, and light his oil lamp too.’

  The woman looked resentfully at him. ‘Fetch a shovel, is it? Just like that? You know it’s kept outside. And who’s to look after my tannage while I’m gone? Neither you nor your smart visitor could do that, I suppose. And don’t tell me that old Glypto will keep an eye on it – the old fool’s so stupid that he’d fall into it. He takes more looking after than the brew itself. Don’t you, eh, Glypto?’ She poked at the old man with the paddle as she spoke. He smiled, a patient foolish little smile.

  The tanner turned to me. ‘Glypto came to me many years ago, as part of my wife’s wedding portion,’ he explained. ‘I’m not sure that he was not the
better part of the bargain, too.’

  His wife flashed him a look that would have tanned skins on its own, then turned to me. ‘Glypto has got old and deaf and foolish with the fumes, but I can’t get rid of him. My husband keeps him just to taunt me, I believe. Says nobody would buy him, but that we cannot simply turn him out on to the street – though he’s good for nothing these days except stoking up the fire and taking rubbish to the midden now and again.’

  Poor fellow! I knew the midden-pile she meant. There was a narrow gap between the tanner’s shop and mine – hardly wide enough to be called an alleyway – which had once led through to a coal store behind the tanner’s house and to the lane beyond, but the tanner had moved the coal heap and the path was now disused and blocked by stinking refuse from the houses round about. From time to time, some enterprising fellow with a handcart came to sort it through and sell the rotting contents to the farmers for their fields, but otherwise the rubbish simply lay there mouldering until the river flooded and washed it all away. It was not a place where people chose to go.

  Glypto gave another of his feeble smiles. ‘You want me to take the rubbish to the midden now? But, mistress, I took some just an hour ago?’

  She made an infuriated sound and tossed her head. ‘You see what I have to suffer, citizen?’ She rounded on Glypto and raised her voice at him. She said very loudly and distinctly, ‘Listen, you old fool, I want you to stay here while I go and fetch a shovel. My husband wants me to supply some coals to this stranger, though I don’t know who he is or what he wants them for. But like you, Glypto, I must do as I am told.’ Then, with a last long hostile look at me, she disappeared into the living quarters at the back, leaving the old slave to glare at me suspiciously.