The Germanicus Mosaic Read online

  ‘Ah, citizen!’

  ‘Paulus! What brings you here? You have not come for water. You have no jug, I see.’ On the other hand, I noticed, he had no weapon either.

  He smiled weakly. ‘No, citizen. I came to look for you. Andretha said you had come this way. Aulus, the gatekeeper, wishes to see you. He has information, he says, which he forgot yesterday – and he cannot leave his post.’

  Aulus. Marcus’ spy. That seemed a plausible reason for coming to find me. Was it a real one or had Paulus been following me? Or, again, by coming this way himself, had he frightened away my pursuer? I did not know. I could only say, ‘Very well, tell him I will come. I will go up to the spring later.’

  I did not go directly to the gatehouse, however. I walked around the side of the villa, on my way, to look in at the stoke room by daylight. I was not followed this time, but one glance into the furnace room was enough to tell me that I was too late to learn anything there. The whole area had been swept and cleaned, and even the pile of fuel had been removed. There was a faint, rubbed line on the trodden earth of the floor, as if something had been dragged across it from door to furnace. I thought of the graze on the dead man’s foot, but there was nothing further to be proved from that. A glance towards the back gate showed me why. Half a dozen slaves, under the supervision of Andretha, were already engaged in dragging garden sledges laden with logs from the woodpile towards the farm cart standing in the lane. For the funeral pyre no doubt. Any of the sledges might have made the mark.

  It also explained how Andretha knew where to find me. He must have seen me go towards the nymphaeum. Why else would anyone seek me on that path? I gave myself a little shake. I was becoming unreasonably suspicious.

  I turned away and went to find the gatekeeper.

  He was sitting vacantly on a stool in his cell-like room beside the gate, watching the road through an aperture in the wall and looking even less prepossessing than yesterday. He was the right build for a country gatekeeper, I thought, tall, strong and swarthy, with lank hair to his tunic-collar, muscles like a gladiator and a stout club at his belt. A man to deter unwanted visitors, beggars, pedlars and wolves. He certainly deterred me. I eyed the club nervously.

  ‘Libertus!’ He crossed the room in three strides. ‘So you got my message. Come in, come in.’ He seized my arm, with an air of uncomfortably confident chumminess.

  I winced. The man had the strength of a bear. Yet, yesterday, when we had interviewed him, he had seemed edgy and nervous. I was on my guard. Nervous bears are dangerous.

  I gave him an encouraging smile. He released me, dropping his voice and bending his head to mine as if we were in a conspiracy. ‘Have you heard from Marcus?’ He smelt of onions and sour wine.

  ‘Not yet.’ I almost found myself whispering back. It must be always like that for spies, fearing the very walls are listening. I went to the window – away from the onions – and pretended to look out of it. I said, in a normal voice, ‘We shall see him tomorrow at the funeral. He will come at least to hear the oration read.’

  Aulus made a knowing face. ‘Thank Bacchus for that. I have things to tell him. At least we won’t have to trudge halfway to Glevum to see him, though naturally the pyre is in the furthest field. No doubt Andretha will have four of us slaves carrying the litter all the way – and in the darkness too. Why do funerals always take place at night?’

  I shrugged sympathetically. I would have to follow the procession myself, and that was an unpleasant prospect in the cold and dark, even without the weight of Crassus on my shoulders. ‘There will be torches,’ I said.

  Aulus scowled. It was not an encouraging sight. I attempted a joke. ‘I wish the torches would shed light on my enquiries.’ I was uncomfortably aware of his physical presence, large and loutish. He looked big enough to carry a funeral litter singlehanded.

  He didn’t smile.

  ‘But,’ I prompted, appealing to his professional pride, ‘you have something to tell me, too.’

  That was better. He breathed conspirational onions at me again. ‘I should have told you before, my friend. You and Marcus. But I feared trouble. It concerns someone in the villa. Someone who did not stay at the procession the whole time with the others. I wanted to speak to him before I told you, but . . .’ He shrugged and did not finish the sentence.

  ‘But he would not pay?’ I suggested. I tried to sound world-weary and matter-of-fact, as though taking bribes was all in a day’s work to me, too. It was a risk, but even if he took it ill Aulus could not well attack me in broad daylight when I was under Marcus’ protection. At least, so I told my pounding heart. Besides, I must not let him frighten me. Bullies are often cowards.

  Aulus looked at his sandals and toyed with his cudgel.

  I made a mental note to tell Marcus that if he wanted to choose a spy, he would be better served by one who did not fidget so openly when asked an awkward question. His uneasiness, though, gave me a little more confidence.

  ‘So,’ I hazarded, ‘Paulus left?’

  ‘Paulus?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Not that I know. He is a cowardly youth. I should have thought he was too frightened to have risked the lash again by leaving without permission. He is often beaten, as it is.’ He gave me a knowing leer. ‘They say he has joined the Druids, to seek revenge.’

  Paulus was right, I thought. It had not taken long for that rumour to reach me. ‘So I have heard,’ I said dismissively. ‘I should have thought the Druids would frighten him more than Crassus does.’

  He scowled, annoyed at having his gossip forestalled. He was probably hoping to be paid for that snippet of news. He rallied, though, enough to ask, ‘Why do you suspect Paulus?’

  ‘Paulus was not present for the whole procession. He told me so himself.’

  ‘Really? I suppose we must believe it. Did he say why he left?’

  ‘I hoped you might tell me that. And how long he was absent.’

  Aulus glowered, but he looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Andretha said nothing about it,’ I went on, conversationally, ‘but you are a paid spy. I had imagined you might have noticed a thing like that?’

  Aulus fidgeted again. ‘The truth is, citizen,’ he said shiftily, ‘it is not easy to watch everyone. Once we had got to Glevum we were not necessarily together all the time. People moved to get a better view, or buy things from the street sellers. Besides, when the procession passed, everyone was looking at the marchers . . .’

  ‘Where did you go yourself, gatekeeper? No – don’t deny it. If you had been there you would have noted Paulus’ absence. You were in Glevum, I presume? You were not left behind to guard the gates?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I was there. Only . . . I was following someone else. This man I told you about.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  He hesitated. Perhaps he was still hoping for money, but I had none to give him. ‘It was Rufus, the lute player. I saw him slip away, and naturally I followed.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘That is the trouble, I don’t know. I could not follow him for long – I had others to watch. He went out towards the South Gate, hurrying, that is all I know. I think he saw me, because he dived into a shrine. I could hardly follow him there. I thought he had gone to meet that slavegirl of his, but there was no sign of her. I waited a little and then came away.’ He shrugged. ‘I tried to challenge him this morning, but he would not answer me.’

  So, I was not far wrong with my guesswork. Aulus had tried to extract a bribe. And probably not for the first time. I had noted the smug smirk when he mentioned the slavegirl.

  ‘A slavegirl, you say? A secret love affair?’

  ‘Yes, citizen. Though it was scarcely a secret. Half the villa knew about it. I think even Crassus suspected.’

  Aulus had told him, I surmised, hoping to make trouble. Rufus was a slave, and a slave was not entitled to have relations with a woman without his master’s consent. What is more, if the slavegirl belonged to Crassus she was
his personal property, and any man who took her without permission was a kind of thief. I was surprised that Crassus had let theft go unpunished, even theft of something as trivial as a slavegirl.

  Aulus was watching me. ‘They used to meet,’ he told me, a salacious smile touching his lips, ‘whenever Crassus did not need their services. That was not often, but sometimes he did leave the villa overnight, to attend a banquet, or a gaming feast.’

  ‘At night?’ I said. ‘Surely the gates are locked?’

  ‘They are. Anyone coming to the villa would have to knock and wake me. But anyone could unlock the back gate from inside and slip out unobserved. They do not even have to pass this window to do it. But of course, on those occasions I was always awake, waiting for Crassus to come home. They did not know I saw them, but I did. They used to slip up the old lane. Going to the abandoned roundhouse, I imagine. I’ve seen soldiers go that way occasionally with their women, presumably for the same purpose.’

  ‘Risky,’ I said. ‘It’s a fair step from the villa.’

  He shrugged. ‘I would not choose it. The place is dangerous and it stinks. Crassus used to use it for the animals, but it is too ruined even for that. But – where else is there? It is not too far, and it is well out of sight of the villa.’

  He was right about that. There is very little privacy for a slave inside a villa, though they must have risked a thrashing if Crassus suspected. I said so.

  Aulus smirked. ‘I think Crassus did suspect, but he found other ways to stop them. He always enjoyed that. Choosing the punishment to fit the victim. He fenced off the roundhouse and had the roof pulled in. Said there had been beggars sleeping there. And took Rufus to every banquet with him after that, as well. Though that was all. Rufus has been . . . grateful . . . for my silence.’

  He looked so gloatingly pleased with himself that I felt the need to leave before I lost my temper and one of us got hurt. It would almost certainly be me.

  ‘I think I will take a look at this roundhouse,’ I said. ‘It may hold the answer to our mystery. Anyone might have hidden there on the day of the feast and murdered Crassus on his return.’

  Aulus sneered. ‘It would be difficult. How would they get to the hypocaust? The villa gates were locked and I had the key. Anyway the aediles had the roundhouse searched, and they found nothing – except fleas. I told you – Crassus used it for the animals.’

  ‘All the same,’ I said, ‘I think I will take a look.’

  I went out into the lane. However much the roundhouse stank, I thought, it could not be worse than the stench of stale onions and oafish self-satisfaction.

  Chapter Six

  I was wrong, as I discovered when I got there. Things could smell a great deal worse.

  It had taken me some time to reach the roundhouse. The lane was steep, and even when I got there I had to pick my way to the entrance. There was a path of sorts, but the old neat enclosure had fallen into disrepair, the outer ditch and wall had both collapsed and the inner compound had all but disappeared under bushes, thistles, grasses and young trees. The building itself was little more than a ruin. What nature had begun, Crassus had completed by pulling down most of the roof, so that what remained offered little protection against the wind and rain and only then if one huddled under the fallen thatch near what had been the door. The only thing still standing was the smell.

  It was a strange smell, compounded of damp straw, rotting vegetation and animal droppings, and a horrible odour of corruption which I eventually traced to a pile of old fish-heads under the fallen thatch. There was an old dark patch on the earth floor besides, where some unfortunate creature had once been slaughtered bloodily, and there was a general ambience of pigs. Hardly a welcoming habitation, and although a pile of bedding straw had been raked together in the one place of shelter, it was dirty, rumpled and damp. I remembered what Aulus had said about beggars sleeping here.

  And this was the only place that Rufus and his lady could find to be alone. I felt a twinge of sympathy. It was hardly a senatorial palace, even for Crassus’ hogs.

  Yet, ruined as it was, the building revived memories in me. I had not been in a Celtic roundhouse since they had dragged me, at sword-point, away from my own almost thirty years ago, and there was a strange bitter sweetness in visiting one again. Mine was a little bigger, of course, but otherwise no different. A Celtic chief measures his wealth, not in draughty corridors, but in the beauty and workmanship of his possessions, in music and song and the loyalty of his people. In just such a house was I born, and to such a house I brought my bride. I could picture as if it were before me the central fire, giving off its cheerful smoky heat, while something bubbled deliciously in the blackened pot. I could see the women huddled around it, weaving cloth and plaiting baskets, the dog basking by the hearth, one ear already cocked for the returning menfolk, while a lad – it might have been myself – struck music from a little harp and sang the old, sad, proud songs of my youth.

  I was accustomed, now, to Roman ways: to stone walls and floors, latrines and drains and aqueducts, to braziers and fullered linen. But there was a part of me which remembered, with regret, an older, wilder, less directed life, when a man’s time and land and labour were his own, without patronage or taxes, and a woman who needed an extra room could weave one out of osiers in an afternoon. Of course, there were drawbacks too, pirate raids and dirt and draughts, but all the same I felt a disagreeable tingling behind my eyes. There were so many things a man had to forget, so many compromises to make, simply to stay alive. I was proud to be a freedman now, but I had been freer, and prouder, then.

  But this was no time for morbid introspection. I had come here for a purpose. I broke a stick from a tree nearby and scratched about in the straw, though not with any great hope of discovering anything. I found the fleas – or rather, they found me. I obviously represented their first square meal since the arrival of the aediles, and I wondered fleetingly what they lived on when I wasn’t there. Something, obviously, since there were plenty of them. I could see nothing else, however, and was about to give up when my stick dislodged something small and metallic among the straw.

  I bent forward to retrieve it.

  It was a single, small piece of hammered metal, thin and worn and shaped like a fishscale with a small hole in one end. I knew what it was. A piece of scale armour, like the ones on Crassus’ shirt.

  Yet it had not come from Crassus’ shirt. I had examined that only an hour ago and it was undamaged. Anyway, I asked myself, what would Crassus be doing here, in the resort of pigs and beggars? So, where had it come from? One of Aulus’ amorous soldiers perhaps? Or from some imperial conspirator? Whatever it was, Marcus would have to be told. I slipped the piece of metal into the pouch inside my belt, and sighed. The more I saw of this business, the less I liked it.

  There was nothing else to be found and I made my way back to the villa. Aulus was waiting for me.

  ‘There you are, citizen. Did you find the ruin?’

  ‘I did.’ I wanted to avoid further intimacy with the onions, but he was ushering me into his room again. I made a bid for escape. ‘I must speak to Rufus. What is he like, this man?’

  ‘Hardly a man.’ Aulus preened, relishing the opportunity to impart information. ‘He is small, red-headed, young. He is the lute player. You must have seen him. Freeborn, but poor, although so proud you’d think he was of patrician blood. He was sold into slavery by his parents, for ten years.’

  I nodded. It was not unknown. Parents too poor to support their children sometimes sold them into slavery for a fixed term, especially if they had a talent, like Rufus. Usually they hoped the child would get manumission at the end and citizenship with it, but Rufus had had the misfortune to be bought by Crassus.

  ‘He will be lucky to escape when his contract ends,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ Aulus agreed. ‘At least, that was true yesterday. Now, I suppose, he will be given to Lucius. That will ensure his contract is honoured. Lucius might even free him
at once – unless he has use for lute players in his hermit’s cell.’

  ‘Why Lucius?’

  Aulus shrugged. ‘That is an open secret. Crassus has no other family. He has sealed a will naming Lucius as his heir.’ He chuckled, an unpleasant loutish sound. ‘Not to enjoy the villa, though. That would be too simple for Germanicus. Lucius is to sell everything and have only the money, to build a church. It was agreed during his visit. Daedalus told me. Crassus would not wish this property to be openly owned by a Christian, it might dishonour his memory, but at the same time I suppose he will have secured prayers for his soul. Germanicus always preferred to bet on both sides of any coin.’

  I was thinking about the will. ‘Are there any other bequests?’

  Aulus shrugged. ‘Daedalus himself was to have something; and Andretha a pension and freedom, provided he could render the accounts. Apart from that it was mostly bequests to “substitute heirs”. The estate will go to them if Lucius refuses to accept the money – which, being Lucius, he might do I suppose. The substitutes are people that Germanicus wanted to impress. You know what wealthy men are like, always bragging about what is in their testaments, in order to win favours while they are alive. I hear Marcus and the governor are named as substitutes. There may be others, too. Of course, we shall not know for sure until the will is opened and read publicly in the forum.’

  ‘You realise,’ I said, ‘that you have just attributed to Andretha a motive for wishing his master dead? A pension and freedom.’

  ‘Andretha?’ That was a new idea, I was sure. ‘He’s a peculiar man. I suppose it’s possible. He’s got a mania about buying his freedom. He worked for a younger man before, you see, and was arranging to do it, but the youth died of a fever and Crassus bought him instead. Andretha still talks about saving his slave-price and buying his release – but now, I suppose, he will not have to. It has turned him into a hoarder, though. Crassus used to torment him by fining him for misdemeanours. Parting with a few sesterces was more painful to Andretha than the lash, I believe. Every fine delayed his freedom a little further.’