‘You think that Calyx was lying, citizen?’ The officer sounded shocked, as if the idea of lying to an optio was the height of civil disobedience.
‘I don’t think that he was lying,’ I said. ‘I know that he was.’ I turned to my young slave. ‘Isn’t that right, Junio?’
Junio grinned. This was a game we often played. I was trying to instruct him in my skills, and he was delighted by the opportunity to show off his abilities in front of strangers. ‘I think so, master. Obviously he was lying when he said he wasn’t watching Fortunatus,’ he said. ‘The race had just begun, he said so himself, and that is the very moment when the whole event can be won or lost by someone getting into a good position. Calyx is the coach and manager, and there were hundreds of denarii hanging on that race, yet he tells us that his “attention was elsewhere”. Of course he was watching. Or if he wasn’t, that is still more odd. Fortunatus was his most successful driver.’
It was exactly what I had reasoned myself, and I rewarded the boy with a smile. Junio preened.
One of the soldiers looked admiring, too, but the optio said, ‘Oh,’ in the tone of someone who felt he should have thought of it himself. ‘He isn’t watching now,’ he added, as an afterthought.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You would expect him to be out here in the preparation area during a race. If he was in the stadium, it must be because that particular race was important to him. And yet, as Junio points out, he wasn’t even looking at a crucial moment. Or says he wasn’t. Very curious, to say the least. And he seems oddly unmoved by the whole event. Not that he would weep for Fortunatus, but he strikes me as a man who would become very angry if his financial expectations were crossed. Yet he appears to have taken his losses like a stoic.’ I signed. ‘I’d give a great deal to know exactly what happened to cause that shipwreck.’
A small hand tugged at my toga. ‘Citizen?’
I looked down. It was the cold-water slave with his bucket, his arms and shoulders already turning blue from the blows he had received. Around him, the four-in-hands were beginning to assemble again. The drivers seemed twice as lofty and assured after the amateurs of the last race. Even the new driver for the Whites looked perfectly at home in his flimsy car.
‘Citizen?’ the boy said again, more urgently.
‘Well?’
‘I can tell you a little bit. The slave who shares my sleeping space was on duty in the circuit at the time. There really wasn’t anything to see, he says. Fortunatus simply seemed to let go and topple out of his chariot — nobody was near him and there was nothing the matter with his car or horses. He thought perhaps Fortunatus had been ill.’
I stepped aside to let a stable-hand pass with the bandaged chestnut before I asked, ‘And had he?’
The boy glanced nervously towards Calyx and his companions, but they were still conferring earnestly, their backs now turned to us. ‘Not at all, citizen. That is the strange thing. He had been in the very best of spirits. And afterwards, when he was brought back to the inn on a shutter, the team coach cursed and ranted, but he did not seem really upset, if you know what I mean. I know what he is like when he is genuinely angry.’
‘I imagine you do.’ I looked at him suspiciously. ‘And you are in danger of enraging him now, if he sees us together. Why are you telling me all this?’
The boy shrugged his bruised shoulders. ‘You saved me from a flogging, citizen. Besides, I heard what you were saying just now, about how you would give a great deal for information. Fortunatus promised me a sestertius if I looked after his horse after the event, only of course, as it was. .’
I could take a hint. I did not have a great deal to give but I gestured to Junio, and he produced the extra denarius which we had won on the horses. The boy was delighted with it. His eyes opened as wide as oyster shells, and he took it reverently and slipped it into his tunic folds at once. Then with a murmur of gratitude he disappeared about his business. Not a moment too soon. The four-in-hands were assembling again, and already Calyx had left his companions and was glaring around the courtyard, thundering, ‘We are ready for the arena. Where is that wretched bucket-boy!’
We left him to it, and went back through the gates. We only just had time to get off the course and out of the stadium before the trumpets blew again, and the professional drivers came cantering in. As we walked away from the enclosure we could hear the cheering that told us the next race had begun.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Well then,’ the optio said briskly. ‘What is your next step, citizen? Do you wish us to accompany you to the inn where the Blue team is staying?’
I thought about that for a moment. ‘We might send a messenger,’ I said at last. ‘Just to be quite certain that Fortunatus really did go back to Londinium.’
The optio nodded. He muttered an order and one of the escorting soldiers set off at a lumbering run, his armour creaking and clanking as he went. ‘You suspect that he did not return to the city after all?’
‘On the contrary, I am almost certain that he did exactly that. If he did, then I should go back there myself at once. In the light of everything I’ve learned, I am particularly anxious to talk to him as soon as possible. I presume the governor’s gig is still at my disposal?’
‘It is standing by in the stables, waiting for you,’ the optio said. ‘The horses and the driver will have been fed and rested by this time. But are you sure there is nothing further that I can show you here?’
There was something rather plaintive in his tone, and it occurred to me that the officer was mildly disappointed. He had been looking forward to a day at the racing as my escort, and no doubt when he returned to normal duty in the barracks the duties awaiting him would be much less agreeable.
I hardened my heart. ‘I would love to see more of the city, but like you I have official business to perform. Perhaps we could return to the garrison, and wait for the return of our messenger? I will have a better idea of what I want to do when I find out for sure where Fortunatus is.’
‘As you wish, citizen!’ He seemed to take my words as a rebuke, and we made our way back, along the route by which we had come, at a brisk pace and without a word exchanged. No wonder the stares of the passers-by were more goggle-eyed than ever.
At the gate the optio gave the password of the day — ‘Mighty Saturn, chosen of the planets’ — and we were admitted, to make our way back across the little gravelled parade ground, where a group of men were now training noisily with swords and spears against wooden stakes hammered into the earth, under the shouts and curses of their officers.
Through the inner gate we went and into the headquarters building, where the optio went off to announce our presence and I was shown to a bench in an ante-room to wait.
The commander was unfortunately occupied, I was informed, but his resources were at my disposal. The optio delivered this message breathlessly and then retired, while my remaining escort took up a post outside the door — through whether this was to guard me against the army, or vice versa, it was hard to determine.
‘So the garrison is at my disposal, eh?’ I grumbled to Junio. ‘I suppose the commander is obliged to say that, since Pertinax is commander-in-chief of all the British legions, but from where I’m sitting I can’t see much sign of it.’ I craned my neck to look through the open door of the ante-room to the main street of the fort, and the lines of identical barrack-rooms opposite. ‘The legion is far too busy with its own business.’