Still staring at nothing, the old man in the corner banged his cup against the table. The taverner waddled across the room. The least exertion made him wheeze and gasp for air.
'So you worry about runaway slaves?' I said.
'Things happen. Oh, not so much in the town, but I have a sister who married a farmer up north. Lives in the middle of nowhere. Of course they have their own household slaves and a few freedmen for protection. Even so, only a fool would leave his doors unlocked at night. I tell you, one of these days it's going to be more than just two or three runaway slaves. Imagine if it were twenty — or a hundred, and some of them professional killers. There's an estate not thirty miles up the way where they send slaves to be trained as gladiators. Imagine a hundred of those beasts escaped from their cages with nothing to lose.'
'Ah, you're a fool!' barked the old man. He raised his cup and emptied it in a single draught. The red wine spilled from the corners of his grey mouth and dribbled down his grizzled neck. He slammed the cup down and stared rigidly ahead. 'Fool!' he said again. 'Nothing to lose, you say? They'd be crucified and disembowelled! Do you think Sulla and the Senate would let a hundred gladiators go about killing landholders and raping their wives? Even a slave doesn't want to have his hands nailed to a tree. Don't worry, misery won't object so long as there's plenty of fear to keep it in line.'
The old man thrust out his chin and made a ghastly smile. I finally realized he was blind.
'Of course, Father.' The fat Etruscan simpered and made a bow that the old man could not possibly have seen.
I leaned forwards and turned the cup in my hand. 'Afraid of the slaves or not, sometimes it seems a man is not safe even in his own household. A father may not be safe even from his son. Only water this time.' I held up my cup. The taverner bustled over.
'Whatever do you mean?' His hands were unsteady as he poured from the jug. He glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the old man.
'I was only thinking of some gossip I heard yesterday in Rome. I mentioned my trip to some of my associates in the Forum and asked if they happened to know anything about Ameria. Well, most of them had never heard of it.'
I took a long sip and fell silent. The taverner pinched his brow, marshalling a host of plump wrinkles in the furrow of his forehead. The old man moved at last, inclining his head in my direction. The little room was suddenly as quiet as a tomb.
The Etruscan wheezed. 'And?'
'And what?' I said.
'The gossip!' It was the old man. He sneered and turned away, suddenly disinterested or pretending to be. 'The little pig lives for it. Worse than his mother ever was.'
My host glanced at me and made a helpless grimace.
I shrugged wearily, as if it were hardly worth the effort of telling. 'Only something about a trial about to take place in Rome, involving a man from Ameria. The name is Roscius, I think; yes, like the famous actor. Accused of — well, I'm almost ashamed to say it — accused of killing his own father.'
My host nodded slightly and stepped back. He pulled a rag from the belt of his tunic, rubbed the beads of sweat from his forehead, then began wiping the counter, wheezing from the effort. 'Is that right?' he finally said. 'Yes, I'd heard something about it.'
'Only something? A crime like that, in such a small place, so nearby, I'd have thought it would have been on everyone's lips.'
'Well, it didn't exactly happen here.'
'No?'
'No. The crime actually occurred in Rome. That's where Old Man Roscius was murdered, so they say.'
'You knew him, did you?' I tried to keep my voice light, as if I were only half-listening. My host might not be suspicious, but the old man certainly was. I could tell from the way he pursed his lips and slowly moved his jaw from side to side, listening to every word.
'Old Sextus Roscius? No. Well, hardly. We used to see him in here occasionally when I was a boy, isn't that right, Father? But not much lately. Not for years and years. A citified Roman with worldly ways, that's what he became. Must've come home occasionally, but he never stopped in here. Am I right, Father?'
'Fool,' the old man growled. 'Fat, clumsy fool…'
My host wiped his forehead again, glanced at his father and gave me an embarrassed smile. I looked at the old man with as much feigned affection as I could muster and shrugged as if to say,
I understand these things. Old and impossible to put up with, but what is a good son to do"?
'Actually, when I asked if you knew this Roscius, I meant the son. If it's true, what he's charged with — well, you have to wonder what sort of man could commit such a crime.'
'Sextus Roscius? Yes, I know him. Not well, but well enough to greet him on the street. A man about my own age. He'd come to market here on holidays. It wasn't rare for him to pay a visit to the Bleating Lamb.'
'And what do you think? Could you tell by looking at him?'
'Oh, he was bitter against his old man, no doubt about that. Not that he'd go on and on, he wasn't the ranting sort, even after he'd had a few. But he'd let out something every now and then. Probably other people would hardly notice, but I listen. I hear.'
'Then you think he might actually have done it?'
'Oh, no. I know for a fact that he didn't.’
'And how is that?'
"Because he was nowhere near Rome when it happened. Oh, there was-plenty of talk when the news came about the old man's death, and there were plenty of people who could tell you that Sextus hadn't left his main farm in Ameria for days.'
'But no one accuses the son of actually wielding the knife. They say he hired assassins.'
My host had no answer for that, but was clearly unimpressed. He furrowed his brow in thought. 'Strange that you should mention the murder. I was practically the first to hear about it.'
'The first in Narnia, you mean?'
'The first anywhere. In happened last September.' He stared at the opposite wall, remembering. 'The murder happened at night; yes, I suppose it must have. It was cold weather hereabouts, blustery winds and grey skies. If I was superstitious, I suppose I'd tell you I had a grim dream that night, or woken up with a ghost in the room.'
'Impious!' the old man snapped, shaking his head in disgust. 'No respect for the gods.'
My host seemed not to hear him, still staring into the depths of the mottled clay wall. 'But something must have woken me, because I was up very early the next morning. Earlier than my usual habit.'
'Always was the lazy one,' the old man muttered.
'There's no reason for a taverner to be up early; customers seldom come before mid-morning. But that morning I was up before daylight. Perhaps it was something I ate.'
The old man snorted and scowled. 'Something he ate! Can you believe that?'
'I washed and dressed. I left my wife sleeping and came down the stairs, into this room I stepped into the street. It was a bit chilly, but very still. Over the hills I could see the first streaks of dawn. The sky had cleared overnight; there was only a single cloud on the eastern horizon, lit up all red and yellow from below. And up the road there was a man coming from the south. I heard him first — you know how sound carries when the air is still and cold. Then I saw him, in a light chariot drawn by two horses, racing so fast that I almost stepped inside to hide myself. Instead I stood my ground, and as he drew by he slowed and stopped. He pulled off the leather cap he was wearing, and then I saw it was Mallius Glaucia.'