Murder in the Forum by Rosemary Rowe Page B

a customer of mine, one of the town magistrates for whom I had once built a pavement. He was wearing a proper mourning toga, with ashes on his head, and was carrying a gift. He looked askance at my toga and my empty hands. ‘Greetings, citizen.’ He sounded surprised. ‘I did not expect to find my pavement-maker here. Are you going to attend the lying-in-state?’
    I explained that I was going to meet my patron.
    ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘poor Marcus. An unfortunate thing to happen in his jurisdiction. The Emperor will not be pleased. I believe they have already despatched a messenger to tell him – and one to the governor also. It is bad luck for Gaius, too. It cannot be comfortable having an old acquaintance drop dead under your roof.’
    ‘Gaius knew Felix?’ It was the first I’d heard of it.
    My customer shook his head. ‘Met him once years ago in Rome, or so the story goes. Jove knows if there is any truth in it – the city is full of rumour. It makes me uneasy. I shall attend the lying-in-state, one dare not show disrespect, but then I shall go straight to my country house and stay there till the repercussions are over. This death may have been an accident, but somebody, somewhere, will have to pay for it.’
    We rounded a corner, to find a little spectacle awaiting us. The narrow street outside Gaius’s door was all but impassable: a small crowd had gathered, all bearing small funerary gifts – no doubt each bearing the donor’s name – and arguing fiercely about who should be admitted first. Even in death, I thought, Felix exerted influence. Most important men had opted to come themselves, instead of merely sending their slaves to represent them, and the question of precedence was a lively one.
    I was surprised how many had come. Citizens had three whole days to pay their respects. Perhaps, like my customer, these men planned to leave the city as soon as they had done their duty. Three days was in any case an interesting choice of time, I thought. I know that in Rome public figures sometimes lie in state for twice as long as that, but around Glevum old beliefs die hard. Local superstition says that the spirit comes back from the afterworld after the third day if the body remains unburied. Whoever was arranging the funeral was obviously taking no chances with Felix.
    I jostled my way through the throng. At first I made little progress, but Junio wriggled ahead of me, crying, ‘Make way, in the name of Marcus Aurelius Septimus,’ and the crowd parted like magic. Junio winked at me and I stepped smartly into the gap. Marcus’s name still counted for something in the city.
    People must have been rather surprised to see the humble citizen they had made way for, and even more surprised when the doorkeeper gave me a reluctant nod of recognition, and opened the door a fraction to let me in.
    ‘His Excellence is in the
triclinium
,’ he murmured. ‘He asked that I send you to him. That slave will show you the way.’ He gave me another withering glance, and turned back to the business of admitting the waiting mourners in some kind of appropriate order without scuffles breaking out in the process.
    In the corridor I turned to Junio. ‘Take this,’ I said, unfastening my leather money-pouch from my belt. ‘Go down into the forum and see what you can discover. Any news of Zetso or the red-whiskered Celt, make sure you bring it to me. Meet me here again when the sun is over the top of the basilica.’
    Junio nodded. Doubtless the soldiers had already been through the town asking questions, but sometimes a slave can find out more by looking and listening than a centurion learns from wielding his baton. A good many
humiliores
have discovered that the safest way to deal with the military is to remember nothing, even if events have taken place before your eyes.
    Junio went out again, to the astonishment of the doorkeeper, while I followed the other slave into the depths of the house. It was an eerie experience.