I turned to Villosus. ‘Thank you for your escort, officer.’ He was not an officer, but flattery of that sort never comes amiss. ‘I see the very man I hoped to meet.’ And before he could protest, I had left his side and begun to work my way across the quay to where Vesperion stood talking to a resplendent citizen in an embroidered cloak, who — alone on the dockside — had his back to us, clearly intent on whatever was in hand.
I grinned. It looked as if the new arrangement was working perfectly. The citizen, who was obviously very affluent, was waving both hands emphatically while the wily steward stood simply shaking his grey head — driving a hard bargain, by the look of it. I even wondered if I ought to interrupt, but I continued to work my way across the crowd.
But then — perhaps I was moving against the general flow — Vesperion noticed me. He was an aged man, very stooped and thin, and rather slow and careful in his activities. But to my surprise, he reacted instantly. He murmured something to the citizen, then began to come to meet me, shuffling his way surprisingly nimbly through the throng, using his bony elbows to ward off pie-sellers and lifting his skinny sandalled feet to step carefully over the treacherous rope-coils that lay underfoot.
He was panting by the time he reached my side. ‘Citizen Libertus!’ The crowd was surging round us, jostling, and he had to raise his cracked voice and fairly shout at me — though even then it barely reached me over the general clamour of the crowds. ‘This is a surprise and privilege. Were you in search of me?’
‘I want some information, that’s all,’ I shouted back, though my voice too was almost lost amid the din. ‘But don’t let me interrupt. I see you already have a customer.’ I gestured vaguely towards the warehouse, though the press was so great I could not turn to look.
Vesperion glanced over there, then shook his thinning locks at me. Whispering was quite impossible, but he mouthed the words at me. ‘I think he’s gone.’ He made a cancelling gesture with his hands. ‘No prospect, anyway.’ A group of drinkers from the tavern barged past as he spoke and pushed him roughly into me, so that his face was forced unnaturally close to mine. He seized the opportunity to murmur in my ear, ‘Let’s go into the warehouse, citizen, where we can talk — and breathe — more easily than here.’
I nodded and he began to lead the way, hobbling through the ever-increasing throng and elbowing a path. I was glad to leave the situation on the dock. The crowd was getting more vociferous all the time — murmurs and complaints about missing wind and tide, and indignation at being required to wait to find out why. There was beginning to be a nasty mood abroad and I feared for the three soldiers if no move was made to reassert authority quite soon.
Obviously, they’d seen the danger for themselves. As we reached the warehouse the trumpet sounded again, and continued sounding until uneasy silence fell. The legionary had climbed on his makeshift dais angrily, and was shouting at the crowd. ‘You have been given the order to disperse. Or do you wish us to arrest the lot of you?’
There was a lot of scuffling and — very slowly — people started drifting reluctantly away. Vesperion’s old hand tugged at my toga-folds. ‘Come in here, citizen. I have an office at the back where we won’t be disturbed. Let’s go in there and you can tell me what it is you want to know.’
He shuffled into the warehouse, and I followed him.
SIXTEEN
I had been in this building several times before, but even so I was unprepared for the cool, aromatic quietness of the interior. After the noise and clamour of the dock, it seemed extremely still and peaceful here, and the mingled odours of fur-skins and exotic spice, together with the dimness of the light, gave it almost the atmosphere of a shrine.
However, by the smoky light of the torches, which even at this time of day were burning in stanchions on the wall, I could see the evidence of distinctly mortal enterprise: the sacks, boxes, crates and racks of amphorae, which were the stuff of trade. Each commodity was neatly stacked in one of the partitioned areas into which the whole huge space was sectioned off, and divided from other types of goods by wooden barriers a foot or two in height which had the names of the articles stored in that zone roughly chalked on them. I noted potted dormice, a stack of rough-sawn timber, and huge jars of olive oil and wine, and that was just in the four compartments I could make out from the door. Business was doing very nicely, it appeared.
‘You know where I have my office area, citizen, I think?’ Vesperion was leading the way along the central aisle, walking as quickly as his old legs would allow. ‘I’ll sound the gong and have the house-slave bring …’ He broke off as a spotty slave, whom I had seen here before, came out of the living quarters at the back and hurried down to us.
‘Your pardon, steward, but you have a visitor.’ He must have recognised me, but he gave no sign of it — or even that he’d noticed I was there. ‘I showed him to your office. I hope that was correct.’
Vesperion nodded.
‘Obviously a wealthy citizen,’ the pimply one went on. ‘I offered him refreshment but he motioned me away.’
‘Well, you can bring some watered wine for this citizen instead,’ my companion said. I suppressed an inward groan. The steward was intending to be courteous, but this hospitality was going to cost me time.
However, it would be discourteous to refuse and if I wanted information from him, I could not offend. ‘I’ll be very happy to taste a sample of your wares, of course,’ I replied. ‘Thank you, steward. But I cannot tarry long. I have an important engagement later on.’
‘Well, boy — you heard the citizen.’ The old man clapped his thin, veined hands together sharply, as men sometimes do when shooing geese. ‘Don’t stand there lingering. Go and fetch refreshments as quickly as you can!’
The boy looked disconcerted but departed with a bow.
Vesperion looked at me. ‘He can’t get used to thinking of me as a man to be obeyed,’ he murmured, deprecatingly — though I detected a certain pride. ‘But my new owner has put me in charge of everything. He’s even given me the use of the accommodation block, and that slave to go with it. It makes a change from all those years of sleeping on the floor, keeping watch at night the way I used to do. There is a special guard who comes and does that now — and if things go well I get my freedom in a year or two.’
‘Then I mustn’t keep you from your visitor,’ I said. ‘It may be the customer that you were talking to before, and he looked like too wealthy a client to offend.’
The steward shook his grizzled head at me. ‘It won’t be him, I’m sure. He didn’t really seem to want to do business anyway. Pretended to be interested in some wine we have in store, but would not make up his mind — kept asking questions I don’t know the answer to, and when I refused to quote a lower price, snapping that, he wanted the proprietor, and couldn’t do business with an underling.’
‘I’m surprised that he troubled to come down here himself,’ I said. It was not unknown for wealthy men to choose their wine in person, but generally a really rich man likes samples brought to him. However, there seemed to be a fashion for rich customers condescending to visit humble premises today — no doubt the augurers (if they knew) would claim this was an omen of the general collapse of order in the Empire. Perhaps it was.
‘It would have been much easier to deal with a member of his staff,’ Vesperion was saying, in his faded voice. ‘He kept demanding the proprietor, though I told him that my master may not even be back here again today — he was called to an urgent meeting of the curia somewhere — and he doesn’t come down to the warehouse every day, in any case.’