Lucius laughed and clapped him on the arm. ‘Oddly enough, it does not matter much, while Genialis is unaccounted for. And if he’s dead, I may not need a loan at all.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘Supposing that my hopes of matrimony come to pass.’ Then he sobered suddenly. ‘But I thought you had recently sold a piece of land. Surely you didn’t lend Genialis all of th-?’
Alfredus brought his fists down on the table with such violence that the bronze dish which had held the nuts bounced off and hit the floor. ‘That is the worst of it! I have been such a fool! He swore — upon the altar, in the presence of a priest — that he would return it to me by the Agonalia, and even add a little interest. There were urgent expenses which he had to meet in Dorn — largely for his intended marriage to his ward — but he’d arranged to sell some business interests within a day or two, and this loan was simply to see him through till then. But I’m not sure that’s true. Bernadus tells me he was laughing afterwards, when they were dining at the villa the next day, saying that he’d duped me, and this merely a device to find out exactly how much he dared to ask for those business assets. Though I don’t understand how that could be.’
Lucius’s smile had faded and he was looking grim. ‘I think perhaps I do,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘He knew that I was anxious to try to buy him out, and somehow learned that you were planning to make a loan to me — though I tried to keep it from him. He wanted as high a price as possible, of course, but didn’t know exactly what I could afford to pay. So he duped you into this — he now knew the maximum that he could ask of me, no doubt adding a little extra on for luck, including the interest that he promised you. So when he paid you back, you’d lend the gold to me and I would give it back to him again — that was the strategy. And it was not the wedding that he needed all this money for, it was his gambling debts.’
But I was hardly listening to this tale of perfidy. I turned to the purple-striper urgently. ‘You say you swore your stipulatio in the presence of a priest? Not by any chance the ancient one that tried to make the Janus sacrifice?’
Alfredus looked at me in some surprise. ‘How did you know that citizen? Of course, he hadn’t made — or failed to make — the sacrifice to them, otherwise I should never have consented to involve him in the act. I wasn’t very keen in any case — I would have preferred a senior magistrate — but Bernadus was insistent that we should ask the priest. A vow was better than a simple pact, he said, and this priest was willing to do things for a fee. So I agreed to it. And so did Genialis. Well he broke his vow — and now they are looking for his corpse, and serve him right.’
He said it with such venom that I was slightly shocked. ‘But I thought you were a friend? Were you not supporting him to be an aedile?’ I was only guessing that, but he did not demur.
‘A friend?’ For a moment the pale eyes sparked with unaccustomed fire. ‘A man like Genialis does not have real friends. Only people who are useful and people who are used.’ He gave that little mirthless laugh again. ‘I was fool enough to think that I was in the former group — but tonight I have discovered otherwise. Well if he has perished, he brought it on himself. The gods have punished him.’
Lucius gave a barking laugh. ‘And the old priest as well — though that was most likely because he spoiled the sacrifice. You have heard the story of the finding of his corpse?’ He told it, much as I’d related it to him, though omitting the grisly details of the missing upper parts.
Alfredus, however, was looking worried now. ‘So there is no longer a witness to our vow. I wonder how that will affect things in the court. You don’t think Genialis had a hand in that? We don’t know that he is actually dead.’
‘That is why we’re mounting this enormous search for him. Libertus here intends to join it, in the morning I believe, and you are welcome to send a slave to help.’
Alfredus was already rising to his feet. ‘I think I’ll do that. I hope the corpse turns up. If he’s dead there’ll be no problem in suing his estate — Bernadus will simply be relieved of acting surety and I’m sure he’ll testify for me, if there’s no penalty to pay.’ He bowed in our direction. ‘In the meantime, gentleman, I will go back home and find a servant I can spare to join the hunt.’
Lucius rapped the table with the jug to bring the servants back. Alfredus’s attendant (who, unbeknown to me, was being entertained by Vesperion in his warehouse lair) was sent for, and despatched to find a litter to take his master home. Meanwhile Adonisius went off to find my cloak and came back wearing a warm cape of his own, and carrying a lighted pitch-torch in his hand.
‘If you are ready, citizen? I will escort you to your shop.’ And together we set off into the night.
SEVENTEEN
The walk back to my workshop took much longer than I thought it would. Away from the docks, where an inn was brightly lit, and the prostitutes were lurking under every arch, I had expected that the streets would be deserted by this time. Unless people were invited somewhere else to dine, as I had been, or had a night-time funeral to attend, most respectable townsfolk are usually in bed an hour after sunset at any time of year, and certainly at home with all the shutters up — especially in winter when the nights are cold.
But tonight there was a different feel about the town — a background murmur like a thousand far-off bees — and as we picked our way along the snow-piled streets, I began to hear an individual shout or two. More alarmingly, a fiery glow was visible against the evening sky — and it came from the forum, by the look of it.
Of course, fire is not uncommon in a big town like this: some careless soul who overturns a lamp, or uses a taper to find something on the floor and accidentally sets the bed alight. (I had a fire in my own workshop once, which half-destroyed the roof and — despite the efforts of the fire watch to which I paid my dues, who brought buckets from the river and tried to put it out — I’ve never been able to live in the upstairs rooms again.)
A night fire is always a public spectacle, of course — people will always leave their homes to watch, if not to help — but this evening it seemed to be rather more than that. Every hot-soup stall or wine shop we came to had lighted links outside, and was clearly doing a brisk and noisy trade, and there were flickering torches visible down every street we passed, with cloaked figures hurrying towards the centre of the town — despite the fact that it was getting very cold and the pavements were already treacherous. It was obvious that something unusual was afoot.
Moreover, the red glow which was visible above the roofs was now beginning to flicker with leaping yellow flame. I began to wonder if a wagon had caught fire: such vehicles, which are not permitted in the day, come rumbling into Glevum for an hour at dusk to make deliveries, and the air is often loud with the rumbling of wheels and the curses of the drivers as their carts get stuck in ruts. A cartload of logs might create a blaze like that. But the recent snow and the condition of the roads had put a temporary stop to most wheeled trade into town and there was scarcely a vehicle to be seen tonight — only an old peasant with a donkey cart, at the corner of a narrow alleyway, shovelling up a frozen midden heap to take back and spread to fertilize whatever crops remained.
He looked up as I passed him, glancing with envy at the splendid slave, and then realized that his little vehicle — which he had positioned to hold the torch that he was working by — had blocked the pavement and was standing in our path.
He straightened up and sighed. ‘Want to come down this way, do you? Let me move the cart.’ He tugged at the reluctant animal. It moved a pace or two. ‘There you are. I think there’s room to pass. Going to join that rumpus in the town, I suppose? Well, if you think it’s worth it, then good luck to you!’ He stamped his hide-bound feet impatiently as if to keep them warm, obviously waiting to move the cart again.