‘But they let you go?’ I was surprised at that. Holding my slave under duress would have been a useful way of securing me.
He turned and grinned at me. ‘I volunteered to show them where the barber’s was – they were from Praxus’s bodyguard, they said, so they’d just come from Gaul and didn’t know the town. I took them there, all right, but when we reached the door I stood back to let them in, then took to my heels. They were so busy looking in the shop for you, they didn’t notice I was gone – at least I suppose they did, but by then it was too late. Watch your feet here, master, the ground is slippery.’
I negotiated the patch of marshy ground. ‘So how did you know where to find me?’
‘I didn’t. I knew you were coming from the garrison – you clearly hadn’t been arrested there – but I had no idea which route you’d take. I just prayed to all the gods that the soldiers didn’t meet you on the way. I came back towards the workshop and lingered in the lanes nearby, hoping to catch you before you reached the house – I daren’t keep watch for you openly. When I saw you turn the corner, I thought all was lost, but then I saw you double back, so I nipped round to meet you by coming through the alley the other way. Ah, here’s the path I’m looking for. You see, it cuts straight down right to the waterside.’ He gestured to an even narrower path that crossed our own.
‘Where they sell fish-heads?’
He gave another grin. ‘Indeed. And if you carried water from the river as often as I do, master, you would know all the short cuts too.’ He led the way on to the smaller path, hardly wide enough to let us pass. It squelched with ooze. I could see the gleam of water at the further end and the ripe smell of river was reaching my nostrils already.
Yet at the water’s edge there was clearly commerce. There were noises in the tumbled shacks on either side – somewhere I could hear the creaking of a pulley-wheel and the dull thud of a hammer striking wood – and ahead there was a pile of rubbish heaped beside the path. From the water came a distant hum of voices and the splash of oars.
I was a little reassured by this evidence of industry, despite the reputation of the place. If Junio had passed this way unmolested, perhaps I could do the same. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ I said. ‘Lead on.’
But Junio put out a restraining hand. He said, in a low voice, ‘We should be safe enough for a minute here, it’s true. It’s daylight, and there’s nobody about. But then, master, what are you going to do? You can’t stay here. Thieves and beggars use these pathways after dark. And you can’t go back to the roundhouse, either, if the search is serious. Everyone knows where to find you there.’
That was true, I realised. Even my drunken tablemate the night before had known where I lived, and it would not take long for a group of Roman guards to track me down. Equally, as Junio pointed out, I could not stay here. The afternoon was drawing on. No doubt by this time Bullface had been offering bribes for news of me. Someone was sure to spot me soon, and in my toga I was more conspicuous on these fetid paths than a Vestal virgin in a troupe of dancing bears. And I was still carrying that purse.
What had been a pittance at the garrison was more than enough to get my throat cut here. The drawstring pouch was still suspended from my belt, and though it was hidden underneath my toga-folds a determined thief would find it instantly. I knew that could easily spell death. (There is a capital penalty for theft on thoroughfares, intended to protect the course of trade, but sometimes it has the opposite effect. It is often safer to kill the man you rob – a dead victim can’t tell tales to the authorities.)
As if to give substance to my darkest thoughts a fat, bearded man in a filthy slave-tunic staggered round the bottom corner of the path with an amphora full of something in his arms. He made directly for the rubbish pile and was in the act of tipping something over it – rancid fish-oil by the smell of it – when he looked up and saw us lurking there. His jaw dropped, and his jar almost did the same. His face took on a calculating look, and he stared at us for a long moment before he scurried off, taking his evil-smelling cargo with him.
That settled it. I turned to Junio. ‘I don’t like the look of this. That man would sell his mother for a quadrans, and cut her throat for two. He’ll be back, with friends, if I am any judge, and they’ll either rob me or they’ll hand me in. If Bullface has been asking questions here, I’m lost. We’d better separate.’
Junio shook his head reluctantly, but I walked away from him towards the stinking pile. I saw that this one was made up of wood and rags – washed up from the river by the look of it. ‘That way at least if they catch up with me, you can take word back to Gwellia,’ I said, trying to sound masterful and firm. ‘Go on – you go back the way we’ve come. I’m attracting more attention here than an arena full of beasts. Even if Bullface hasn’t been this way, I might as well have put a label round my neck saying, “I am on the run, but I have money. Come and rob me now.” Go and take the message while you can.’
I’d given Junio an order, but he did not obey. Instead he came up and whispered urgently, ‘Then, master, why don’t you take your toga off? You’ve got a tunic underneath.’
It was such an obvious idea that I don’t know why it had not occurred to me. A man in a smart tunic in these parts might raise an eyebrow here and there but that was nothing compared to the stir my formal badge of citizenship would cause. Besides, Bullface and his men were looking for a man in Roman dress.
I nodded ungraciously, and raised my arms while Junio unwound the woollen length, and bundled it into his arms. ‘But what about the purse?’ I said, catching sight of myself as I looked down. The pouch, which had been hidden in the folds, now dangled invitingly from my belt.
‘Why don’t you hang that underneath your tunic, round your neck?’
My powers of reason, which had been paralysed by fear, came slowly to my aid. ‘Better still, why don’t you?’ I said, undoing it. ‘There’s enough money here for a few nights’ lodging, more or less. Take it to Gwellia, and tell her that if I don’t come home tonight, she is to take a cart and get you all to Corinium as quickly as she can. Explain that Marcus has another villa there that used to be his wife’s and that I’m sure the servants there will let you in. You’ve been before. You go with her and show her the way. I’ll try to join you there as soon as possible.’ As I spoke I hung the purse round his neck.
His tunic-top appeared to bulge a bit, but he hitched the toga-bundle up to cover it.
‘This toga’s very damp, master, and your tunic too. Are you all right?’
‘I stopped to talk to someone in the rain. But that hardly matters now. The question is, what are we going to do with it?’ I said. ‘We can hardly just carry it around.’
Junio gave me his engaging grin. ‘Of course we can,’ he said. ‘You are not thinking like a slave. Your toga’s wet and muddy and it needs a clean – obviously I’m taking it to the fuller’s shop, if anybody asks.’
‘There isn’t one here, surely? Any fuller who used the river water hereabouts would have the clothes come out of his treading vats dirtier than they went in.’
‘There’s a fuller’s shop inside the walls, beside the docks – that gives us every reason to be here. We go back up the way we’ve come, slip inside the city walls from there, and try to get back through the southern gate at dusk. But we should move – that fellow with the oil will be back.’
It was such a simple plan it made me laugh, but all the same I had to shake my head. ‘A good scheme, Junio, but you’ll have to go alone. It doesn’t take two slaves to take the laundry in. Anyway, I am too well known at those gates, in a toga or out of it, and no doubt if there is a warrant out for my arrest the town guards will be looking for me now. They will know that I have come into the town. I’ll have to skirt the walls and go the long way round. Don’t argue, Junio . . .’ (he was showing signs of it) ‘. . . I am your master, after all. Better that one of us is safe, at least. Just keep out of the way of Bullface and his men, and as long as you’re not se
en with me you should be all right.’
I hoped that what I said was true. It should have been. Even if Balbus had given instructions to arrest me on sight, they would not usually extend to my slave as well. Yet there was so much that was inexplicable – someone had allowed me to escape from the garrison unchecked, for instance, when guards were waiting for me at my former home – I could not be sure of anything. But there was no time to think it through just now, and on balance I thought Junio was safe.
I said, ‘Go now, and tell your mistress what I said. I’ll try to get home as soon as possible.’
‘And if the guards arrive at the roundhouse before you do . . .?’
‘You’ll just have to leave a signal, if you can. I don’t know what. Leave something at the gate. Something unusual. But go – go now! It may be too late otherwise. Every instant counts.’
He was reluctant, but he went at last. I watched him set off back the way we’d come, with his burden tucked underneath his arm. He was whistling, the very picture of a carefree slave taking his master’s robe for laundering. I, on the other hand, looked completely out of place.
For one thing, I thought, I was far too clean. I picked up a handful of mud from beside the rubbish pile and streaked my face and hair with it. It went against every instinct I possessed, but I was in the act of rubbing my backside – and therefore my best tunic – against the grimy wall when the fat bearded ruffian came back.
He was alone, rather to my surprise, and for a moment we stood eyeing each other up. He seemed as uneasy at this encounter as I was myself, and I saw his huge hands clench into fists. My hand went instinctively towards my belt, but of course I had not brought my knife with me. It is strictly an offence to carry weapons within the city walls, and though a dining knife is usually ignored, I had been visiting the garrison. I had taken no chances with the letter of the law. All I was carrying at my waist, now my purse was gone, was one of those fiddling Roman spoons – a present from Marcus at the banquet yesterday. It did have a spike at one end to open oysters with, but it was a small and decorative thing and precious little use in an emergency. For all practical purposes, I was unarmed.
Fatbeard took a step towards me. It was not a friendly step.
I gulped. I tried to remind myself that Junio had often been this way, unharmed. There was just a chance I could talk my way out of this. ‘Is something wrong?’ I said, using my native Celtic tongue. The man was unlikely to be of Latin blood.
He was chewing something, probably dried fish, but the rhythmic motion of his jaws stopped suddenly. It made him seem more menacing, if possible. He spat his mouthful out on to the pile and spoke. Latin – coarse and ill educated, but Latin nonetheless. ‘I don’t speak whatever tongue that is. We’re Roman-minded here. And who are you?’ His eyes looked me up and down, and came to rest on my best leather shoes, now ankle-deep in mire. His own lower legs were wrapped in bits of sack. ‘Runaway slave, I’d place a bet on it! That’s what you are, aren’t you, fancy-feet?’ You could almost see the promise of reward dancing in front of his greedy little eyes.
‘Freed-man,’ I said, matching my Latin form to his. I made to pull down the neck of my tunic so he could see the brand. It had been removed long since and the puckered injury was clearly old.
I saw his eyes narrow, but he let it go. ‘Never mind all that. Seen a white-rober down here, with his slave, have you?’
I looked up and down the alley, and tried to feign surprise. ‘Only me here,’ I said unhelpfully. I half expected him to ask again what I was doing here, so I bent over and began to pick through the rubbish heap, as I have sometimes seen the beggars do.
He grunted. ‘Fallen on bad times, have we?’
I shrugged and hung my head. ‘You know how it is. The chariots . . .’ It was the best I could think of at the time, but it was not impossible. More than one man has met his ruin by betting too much money on a losing horse.
He swaggered close to me. ‘Bet on the reds, did we? Well, let me tell you something, friend. This rubbish heap’s already spoken for. It’s taken my pals a month to put together a decent pile of rags and wood, and for me to get hold of a pot of oil to douse them with. And then you come along and try to help yourself. Well just forget it, friend. You want a fire, you pay, like anybody else. And one more thing. You tell anyone you’ve seen me here, and I’ll set a torch to you, as well. Especially that white-rober who was snooping round. You understand?’
Of course. I should have understood before. No one eking out a living in these parts could afford to throw away a jar of oil, however stinking and rancid it might be. Fatbeard had obviously stolen it – from his master probably. That was why he had retreated from a toga in alarm – ironically, he had been afraid of me. Now that he thought I was penniless, his swaggering manner had returned.
‘I understand,’ I said, ‘I’m off. Looking for fish-heads, that was all. I understand there’s a market for them in the town.’ For a moment I forgot my role. My Latin was too good. I backed away, in the direction Junio had gone.
He scowled after me, then his fat face screwed into a puzzled frown. ‘Here, wait a minute . . .’ he began. ‘Those shoes. That voice. You’re no mere runaway. It was you dressed up in that toga. Course it was.’ He gave an ugly little smile. ‘So either you’re a nasty little spy, sent by the market police, or you were impersonating a citizen, and that’s a capital offence. I think you and me have a lot to talk about. Come here!’
But the rubbish heap was still between us. I reached out and toppled it across the path, and then I turned and ran.
I half heard him lumbering after me, but I did not stop. I was old but he was fat, and I was still sprightlier than he was, especially now that I was not impeded by a toga at every step. I had no idea where I was going, but when I saw a proper alleyway I took it. I panted down a narrow little path between two tenements and out into a crowded thoroughfare.
Straight into Bullface and his men.
I was trapped like an eel in a basket. There was no escaping them.
The three guards were only yards away, brutal as only private soldiery can be. They were coming towards me as I turned into the street, their faces black as thunder, marching like an execution squad and banging their shields with their daggers as they came. People were melting away to let them pass.
There was no way to avoid them. I leaned up against a friendly wall and shut my eyes.
IX
I felt, rather than saw, Bullface raise his arm, and a moment later a harsh backhanded blow sent me sprawling to the floor.
I waited, huddled on the ground, expecting a dagger in the ribs. None came. I opened one eye – just in time for Bullface to aim a spiteful kick at me, and then the group walked on without another glance.
I did not move again until they had moved round the corner out of sight. Then I raised myself gingerly on to one elbow, and felt myself all over to make sure I was alive. I was. Blood was streaming from a cut above my ear, my arms and legs were bruised and scratched from contact with the ground, and my ribs ached where Bullface’s hobnailed foot had thudded into them. Otherwise – if there was an otherwise – I seemed to be more or less intact. I rolled over on to my knees and clambered painfully upright by leaning on the wall.
I stood there for a moment to collect myself. I could still hardly credit that I’d escaped again. I realised I had Junio to thank. Stripping out of my toga had been a good idea. Bullface was looking for a citizen – dressed as I had been at the banquet yesterday and again this morning at the garrison – so by becoming a dirt-streaked nobody in a tunic I had rendered myself effectively invisible. Of course it did not help my throbbing arm and ribs, but the attack had not been personal, merely an outburst of military impatience with an ageing non-citizen who got in his way. I sent up a mental prayer of thanks to whatever gods there were, and promised them a sacrifice or two, but I knew I was running out of miracles. No one can be that lucky for very long.
And I was not out of danger yet. I w
as not far from where my workshop was, and Bullface and his men were still in the area. Suddenly this suburb, where I’d lived and worked for years, had become a very dangerous place to be. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever feel secure again.
Working on the old adage that the best hiding place is where the searcher has already looked, I told myself that my best course was to set off in the direction Bullface and company had just come from, and to do it as fast as I could limp. I was shaken, sore and bruised, but I thought that I could manage if I held on to the wall.
I had taken perhaps half a dozen painful steps before I realised that even this was not to be. Fatbeard had materialised from the passageway and was in front of me. He had armed himself now with a rough piece of timber from a rubble heap, and was holding it before him like a kind of club.
I looked wildly about, but I couldn’t run, and anyway there was nowhere I could hide. Between Bullface’s men and this ruffian, I was truly in a trap. Without my patron I was nobody, and though I was not very far from home there was no one I could look to for support.
Fatbeard reached my side in two long strides and seized me so roughly by the shoulder that I winced. I had already bruised it in my fall.
‘All right, fancy-feet,’ he said, thrusting his fat hairy face into my own. His breath stank of bad teeth and rotten fish. ‘Let’s have the truth. I thought at first you were some sort of spy, but you were hiding from those troops, weren’t you?’ He shook me fiercely. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? So what do they want you for? Impersonating a citizen, and what else? It can’t be for stealing purses, like an ordinary thief – they wouldn’t go to all this fuss for that. So what was it? Selling secrets? What?’
Tradesfolk were coming back on to the street – Bullface and his guard had cleared it faster than the rain. For a moment I thought of hollering for help, but it was patently no use. People who were anywhere near us hurried past, averting their eyes and trying to pretend they hadn’t seen. I could hardly blame them. If there is an altercation in the street, it is usually safer not to get involved, and my assailant was not a figure to be meddled with.
The Ghosts of Glevum Page 8