Murder in the Forum by Rosemary Rowe Page A

gestured towards the drinking cup – ‘you may drink the rest of that if you wish.’
    Junio was raised as a slave in a Roman household, and he actually likes watered wine in the morning.

Chapter Nine
    ‘Master,’ Junio ventured, putting down the drinking vessel, ‘it is not for me to suggest it, but Marcus . . .’
    I got to my feet. ‘I had not forgotten,’ I said. ‘I am to attend on him this morning. If you had awakened me earlier I would have done so by now. And then the arrival of Octavius delayed me further. So you can fetch me my toga, and help me to get ready. Marcus will be impatient as it is.’
    It was unfair, of course. It was hardly Junio’s fault that I had slept long after sun-up, and I regretted my rebuke. But he was grinning cheerfully as he brought in my toga and began to shake it vigorously to expel the dust. ‘I have done my best with this, master, brushed it and hung it from the window to freshen it in the air, but I fear this toga really needs a visit to the fuller’s.’
    I stood up and he began the laborious business of folding me into it.
    ‘Will you go directly to Marcus, or will you try to find Phyllidia first?’
    He was reading my mind. I had been asking myself the same question. ‘I must wait upon my patron. Though, since his orders are to meet him at Gaius’s house, I suppose it is possible that I may do both things at the same time. It would be natural for her to come to the house where her father is.’
    ‘Even,’ Junio said impudently, ‘when he is “already” dead. That was an interesting remark, did you not think?’ He grinned at me. This was a game we sometimes played in my efforts to train Junio in other skills than mosaic-making.
    I adjusted my clasp. ‘You noticed that?’
    ‘I noticed that you noticed. And that you were suspicious of his early morning visit to the stables. And that made me think. He didn’t go to hire a horse, or he would have had one now. So he must have had some other reason for going there. To meet someone, perhaps, or to find out what horses had been liveried there overnight. He did not go to interfere with the animals – he spoke to the stable-boy.’
    I nodded my approval.
    ‘Then I remembered what the cake-seller had said, and it seemed to make sense. He was expecting Phyllidia and went to see if her horses had arrived. He may even have arranged to meet her there, though I do not suppose he would confess as much to us.’ Junio had been straightening my toga as he spoke, and now tucked the folded ends neatly into my belt. ‘There, now I think you will pass muster with your patron. Unless you wish me to trim your chin? Your beard is reappearing.’
    ‘There is not time this morning, I am late already. Fetch me my cloak.’
    This time when he brought both cloaks I did not dissuade him, and when I set off a few moments later, scurrying as fast as my toga would allow, Junio was with me, following at my heels.
    The town was already abuzz with the news. The words ‘banquet’, ‘Perennis’ and ‘dead’ seemed to issue from every street stall and soup kitchen. Huddles of citizens whispered together in doorways, while an enterprising street vendor was doing a brisk trade in selling long strips of dark cloth which could be tacked around the toga as mourning bands. Even a skinny peasant, touting his pathetic bundles of firewood, who had probably never seen a banquet nor heard of the late Prefect of Rome, offered to tell us ‘the latest tidings’ in the hope of earning a
quadrans.
    I tossed him a coin, but he had nothing new to add, except that an announcement of the death had been publicly read in the forum. That was interesting: it meant that the undertakers had finished their grisly task and what was left of Felix was now lying in state for three days in Gaius’s atrium. Presumably even now the first high-minded citizens were calling to pay their respects to the Emperor’s favourite.
    Indeed, as we neared the house, we were joined by