My voice – which had led me into this predicament – entirely deserted me now that I needed it, and all I could manage was a strangulated squeak. I essayed a foolish smile. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ I stammered.
The grip on my shoulder tightened even more – so painful that tears came springing to my eyes and I gave a whimper. I tried to stifle it, which only made it worse and it came out sounding like a mocking laugh.
The result was unexpected. The bear let go of my arm and gave it a playful punch – so hard that he almost knocked me off my chair. ‘The citizen is jesting!’ He let out a braying laugh. He bent down and stared into my face, breathing sour wine and bad fish over me.
I did the smile again as the page put an unexpected word in my defence.
‘Master warned us that he had a mocking wit. It’s my fault for using such a form of words. He was offered “anything” and he made a jest of it – as he might have asked us for the sun or moon.’
I knew when I had been given a reprieve. I sent up silent thanks to the good old household gods and nodded eagerly. ‘Just my little joke.’
The doorman laughed again and slapped his thigh as if this tickled him. I was not sure if he genuinely found my words ridiculous, or if he was delighted by his own cleverness in manoeuvering me into withdrawing my request. Either way, there was clearly no hope of leaving here. The bear was more intelligent than I had first supposed and every bit as dangerous. He was still chuckling and I feigned a laugh myself.
There was an uneasy titter among the other slaves, then the boy who had served me stepped forward from the rest. ‘Of course, citizen, I should have realized. You would not abuse your patron’s hospitality by asking for something we could not provide.’ He came across to help me to my feet. ‘I will show you to your bed. I have lit a lamp for you.’
He picked up a little oil-lamp made of bronze, shaped like a woman’s shoe and, holding it aloft, led the way back through the atrium and into the passage where the bedrooms lay.
He paused outside the second door and pushed it wide. ‘This will be your chamber for the night. I trust you find it a comfortable one. The bed is aired for you and I shall be sleeping right outside your door, in case there is anything that you require.’ He gave a sideways grin. ‘Anything within the realms of possibility, that is. Would you care to have assistance to undress?’
I took the lamp from him and looked around the room. If this was to be my last night as a free man, it promised to be a very comfortable one.
The bedchamber – like that of many other Roman wives – was well appointed, with an adjoining door, which I knew led into the master’s sleeping space. (Roman couples very rarely share a room at night, though they may often share a bed for a part of it.) Here in town there was no hypercaust to heat the floor – as there was in my patron’s country house – but there was a brazier, and a woven mat beside the bed, which itself was heaped with cosy rugs and furs. There were painted shutters at the window-space – stout ones which not only stopped the draught, but also reduced the noises from the street.
‘My patron is most gracious,’ I acknowledged to the page. ‘I am sure that I have everything I need. As to undressing, there’s no need for it. I shall sleep in my tunic, as I always do. However, if you have a fuller’s pot . . .’
He nodded. ‘In the master’s vestibule. Or I could bring you something in here, if you prefer . . . ?’
I shook my head. I used to keep a fuller’s pot myself when I lived in town – the fuller will collect it to use for cleaning clothes, when it is full of urine – though now we’re at the roundhouse we’ve constructed a latrine. ‘I’ll use it where it is.’
I was happy to do that for more reasons than he thought. I had never been in the sleeping area before, and was not sure where the vestibule might be, but a mad notion was forming in my mind. As the boy led me to it, I made a mental note of where it was in relation to that intervening door, and how far it was to the main entrance way from there.
I was already planning that, when the slaves were all asleep, I might elude the doorkeeper and slip out into the night.
TWENTY
It was not nearly as easy as I had hoped that it would be.
In the first place it was ages before I was left alone. The slave insisted on assisting me to bed, wrapping me in blankets and blowing out the lamp – which I had hoped to keep burning to light me on my way. I pleaded that I might require the fuller’s pot again, but it did not change his mind. He would be right outside the door, he said, and if I called him he would come at once, with a lighted taper, to accompany me.
‘The braziers in the passageway are left to glow all night and there is always one oil-lamp burning in the atrium so there is no problem about lighting a candle any time you wish,’ he said, standing in the doorway holding a fresh-lit taper of his own. ‘Shall I clean your sandals properly while you are asleep?’
I had to think quickly as to why I should refuse. I did not want to be barefoot if I got out into the town. I hit on a solution, of a kind, though it was rather thin and unconvincing, even to myself.
‘Tomorrow I am due to appear before the court,’ I said. ‘And I want to look pathetic, as tradition demands, so that the judge is as lenient as possible. I do not have a toga sordita – a special old soiled toga – to wear.’ In fact, the toga that I had at home would almost qualify, according to my wife; she was always complaining that I did not keep it clean – but I didn’t say that to the page-boy. Instead I pointed to the patches on my work tunic. ‘The garment that I’m wearing will have to do instead, and a pair of dirty sandals will obviously help.’
The young man nodded sympathetically. ‘Perhaps the master will allow me to rub some ashes from the lamps on to your hair and forehead, too. It is generally taken as a sign of penitence.’
‘Penitence does not come into it,’ I said, more sharply than I meant. ‘I want to look humble and downtrodden, that’s all. I am innocent of all the charges – as Marcus is aware.’
He gave me an exasperating, knowing smile. ‘Of course you are, citizen,’ he said, in a tone which suggested quite the opposite. ‘But worrying about the trial will be a strain for you. The master has left a draught of poppy-juice for you to take to help you sleep. I will fetch it for you, and when you’ve drunk it, I will let you rest.’
This was an unexpected complication to my plan. I knew my patron’s sleeping-draughts of old. If I was forced to drink a single sip of it I would fall into a sleep and then I’d never manage to elude my guards. Perhaps that was Marcus’s intention!
There was only one strategy that I could see. While the page was hurrying away to fetch the promised cup of poppy-juice I turned myself towards the wall and closed my eyes. When he came back, I did not stir.
‘Citizen?’ he murmured.
I did not reply, merely continued breathing with deep, even sighs. (I forbore to make an actual snoring noise, although I was almost tempted as the moments dripped away.)
After a long silence, he said, ‘Citizen?’ again, then came over to the bed. It was hard not to stiffen as he peered into my face. I feared I would suffer the irony of being ‘woken up’ to take a sleeping-draught, but after a little he tiptoed off again and I heard him very softly close the door.
Even then I lay unmoving for what seemed an age. The bed-frame was a fine one but it was apt to creak. I knew that the servants would be busy for a while with their evening chores and I could not make my move until the house was still. What is more, it was likely that the page-boy would return and look in on me again, before he settled down to sleep himself.
I was right on both counts. For what must have been the best part of half an hour, I could hear the clatter of dishes in the front part of the house, then laughter in the rear room where the cookery took place. (There was no proper kitchen in a place like this, because of the possibility of fire, but – as I knew from previous visits to the house – a room with a cooking brazier set on stone flags against the wall, where simple
things, like the stew I’d had tonight, could be prepared.) From the merriment I guessed the slaves had done their tasks and were enjoying the remains of the altar sacrifice: by tradition the household staff can generally eat whatever food offerings the gods have not consumed themselves.
I began to wonder if the household ever went to bed, but one by one the voices died away and all the movements ceased. I sat up cautiously and – in the dark, since the page had taken my oil-lamp away – began to feel with my feet for my sandals which were underneath the bed. I had just located one of them and was about to lace it on, when I heard a muffled creaking from the door. I snatched my feet up – sandal and all – and lay quickly down again, pulling the bed-rug up about my ears.
Just in time – the page appeared again, holding the lighted taper high to peer at me. I could just discern his silhouette against the candle-glow outside, though I took care to keep my eyelids almost closed.
I closed them tighter as he came over to the bed. ‘Still fast asleep,’ he murmured to someone waiting in the hall.
‘Then I suppose it’s safe for us to go to bed ourselves.’ I recognized the doorman’s growling voice. ‘If there’s any hint of trouble, you know where I am.’
This was not an encouraging exchange to overhear, since I was still hoping to get out of here. I was no match for the slaves, if it came to struggling – Marcus likes his boys athletic as well as beautiful – and as for tangling with the bear! My blood ran slower at the very thought.
Still, I would deal with that problem when I came to it. In the meantime I was struggling to keep completely still. At last, after what felt a lifetime, the light retreated and the door was closed again. I heard the scuffle as the page rolled out his sleeping-mat. I dared not make a move till I was sure he was asleep, though I was increasingly impatient at the wait.
Every moment made it harder to get around the town: people shut up shops and houses after dark and the streets were shadowy and dangerous. Few people did much work by candlelight, so unless they were feasting or attending funerals, respectable families went to bed betimes and stayed there until dawn. The night was the province of the underworld, in every sense: thieves, beggars, paupers, prostitutes – and ghosts. I did not want to leave here any later than I must.
Finally I judged that it was safe to move. I still had one sandal halfway on my foot and with a little effort I found the other one. I was about to lace them up, when I had another thought. My hobnails would inevitably make a noise – I remembered the centurion clattering down the stairs – much safer to wait until I was outside. I picked my sandals up and resolved to carry them.
I did not attempt to leave the bedroom by the passage door. My expedition to the fuller’s pot had taught me that, by going the other way, I could get out through the master’s room – provided that I did not walk into anything – and emerge further down the hall, nearer to the atrium and the outer door. My eyes had got accustomed to the darkness now and I could make out the corner of the bed, the outline of the cupboard and the chest, by the faint glow of the brazier by the wall.
Gingerly, carrying my sandals by their straps, I edged towards the intermediate door. It opened at my touch and I was pleased to see that here in Marcus’s bedroom the shutters were not closed and a faint light was filtering from the street. I tiptoed over to the window-space and looked out of it. There was still a group of would-be purchasers around the wine-shop door, though most of them were honest slaves by now, clutching the amphorae that they’d filled – to carry home to whatever master might have sent them there. Slaves in cloaks and tunics! That was good for me. I could attempt to merge with them when I got out. Supposing that I ever managed that!
Very cautiously I crossed the room and opened the outer door into the hall. In the shadows I could see the humped shape of the slave, wrapped in a blanket outside my former room. He had his back to me, which was doubly fortunate, so I closed the master’s door behind me and stole silently out into the deserted atrium.
There was a single oil-lamp as the page said, and in the darkness its rays spread very wide, though it was placed before the altar and did not light the route which I would have to follow to gain the outer door. There were compensations – it was safer to confine my path to the darker areas – but several times I almost barged into a table or a chest, and once I overturned a little statue from its plinth and only just managed to catch it as it fell. I held my breath lest I’d disturbed the page, but he only sighed softly and rolled over in his sleep.
The servants had taken my cloak when I arrived and I did not know what they had done with it, though I was hopeful of finding it in the outer vestibule. So when I reached that area, I was busy peering round to see if I could see it anywhere – and almost walked into what was right in front of me.
The doorman was lying stretched out on the floor. He looked even bigger than he’d looked when standing up – his massive body seemed to take up all the space there was and he was blocking the entire entrance-way. He lay diagonally, as though the area was not long enough for him: his head (which was towards me) was resting on my rolled-up cloak and the bulk of him was wrapped up in an outsized blanket-cape. He was lying on what might have been a rug and he looked so comfortable that I wondered if he slept here every night.
Certainly he was sleeping now. He was snoring – not an imitation snore but a whistling snuffle which would be hard to feign – so I crept forwardly hopefully. But (and it was a considerable ‘but’) his feet were actually pressed against the outer door, so that – even if I could have somehow stepped across his sleeping form without disturbing him – any attempt to open it would wake him up at once. What’s more, I realized, peering at the hinge, it was designed to swing inwards, and there was no room for that. There was not the shadow of a chance of getting out this way.
As I stood there considering what to do, the bear began to stir. Perhaps he was somehow conscious of my presence, as I had been of his, but I did not tarry to find out. I slipped back to the shadows of the atrium and hid there in the darkest corner, trying not to shiver audibly.
There was a shuffling and a grunting and the bear appeared, but to my great relief he did not come into the room, simply stood in the doorway looking up and down – mostly at the passage opposite, where the page-boy was still asleep. I did my best to look like a piece of furniture but he hardly glanced in my direction anyway, simply wrapped his cape around him, grumbling, and went back to his post. I heard him lowering himself on to his mat, and shortly afterwards the snores began again.
After a moment I risked letting out a sigh. I’d been standing so motionless I hadn’t even breathed. Then, slowly – and even more cautiously than I’d come – I stole back the same way. The door of Marcus’s bedroom squeaked alarmingly as I pushed it open and I slipped into the little vestibule inside, ready to protest that I had come to use the pot. But nothing happened. The page-boy did not appear and after a few moments I felt safe to move again.
It was the open shutters that gave me the idea. I knew that the window-space looked out on to the street, Perhaps, with a little enterprise . . . ? I went to have a look.
The wine-shopkeeper was in the shadows locking up his shop. The last of his customers had evidently gone and he’d snuffed his candles out, though there was still a lot of noise and light from the direction of the hot-soup stall and more shouts and laughter from the taverna down the street. If I was really going to scramble out, I’d have to do it quickly, before everyone went home. I did not want to draw attention to myself: any late straggler on the street was liable to be suspected of nefarious intent and questioned by the watch. I leaned a little further through the window-space, trying to judge how far I’d have to jump.
Too far, I decided. We were on the first floor up, and there was a solid granite pavement underneath. If I got through the window-space and hung on by my hands, it would still leave me six feet or more to drop – with every likelihood that I would break a leg. And once I’d left here, I could expect
no help from anyone. I would be in breach of every law there was and the whole machinery of state would be my enemy. I would also be abusing the commandant’s faith in me, to say nothing of my patron’s hospitality. Marcus, in fact, was legally responsible for me, and would be liable to a substantial fine and public humiliation if he could not produce me to the court. It was clearly nonsensical to even think of it.
I went back slowly into the other room and sat down on the bed. In the gloaming my eye fell on the rug. It was not a very big one, but it would have to do.
I picked it up and rolled it into a sort of tube, so that it was approximately the same length as me, then put it carefully into the bed and covered it with rugs. It did not look much like a sleeping person when you were close to it, but at a distance it was good enough, especially in the dark. Then, remembering to take my sandals in my hand, I crept back into the master’s room and eased myself – with some difficulty – through the window-space so that I was sitting on the sill, my bare feet dangling above the street below.
TWENTY-ONE
If I had been a hero in a story of some sort, no doubt I would have leapt lightly from the ledge and scampered off, but I am an old man and no longer as fit as I once was. For a moment I did not move at all. The drop seemed even greater now than it had looked before and I was tightly wedged into the narrow window-space. I could not see how I could turn around and dangle from my hands as I had so hopefully supposed.
I was beginning to think that I would have to spend all night sitting on this uncomfortable ledge until I died of chill, when I heard something moving in the wind and I suddenly remembered the existence of the sign. It must be here somewhere, because it was hanging near the wine-shop door, and I was sitting almost over that. It had been strong enough to support the young drunkard earlier. If I could locate it, would it take my weight? If I could manage to balance with my feet on that, perhaps I could manoeuvre myself round the other way and do my dangling after all.
A Whispering of Spies Page 19