The Fateful Day (13 page)

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.’

I nodded. Of course, Alfredus Allius, the new owner of the export business was a curial councillor, and quite a senior one – no doubt he’d been summoned to the garrison. I hadn’t noticed him when I looked through the arch, but Alfredus was not a man to stand out in a crowd.

Vesperion misinterpreted the nod. ‘In the end I told the patrician that, since I obviously couldn’t help, he would simply have to call again another day to see my master – which displeased him very much. And then I saw you and excused myself. Frankly, I was glad to get away. I was clearly about to get a diatribe against impertinence – I don’t think he’s the kind of man who likes delays, or inconvenient truths. But I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t come in here to find me after that.’

‘This caller must be someone different,’ I agreed. No patrician that I ever met would deliberately seek to be humiliated twice.

‘One of our usual customers looking for some olive oil, I expect, if the news is round Glevum that there’s a shipment in. Well, we shall soon find out.’ He was about to lead the way towards the office area when he realised that I was hanging back. I hadn’t wanted to ask my questions with strangers listening in and run the risk of starting rumours in the town.

Vesperion seemed to guess my feelings. He glanced at me uncertainly, and paused. ‘You are looking doubtful, citizen. Perhaps the information that you want is something that you wouldn’t wish to share with anyone?’

‘I think I’d rather ask you privately,’ I owned. ‘Is there a quiet corner where we could talk out here?’ Not only was it likely to be more discreet, I thought, but perhaps I could be excused the time-consuming formalities and wine which politeness would otherwise require.

Vesperion looked flattered by the prospect of intrigue. ‘Follow me.’

He led the way into the right-hand corner of the store, where there was an empty storage compartment, screened from the rest of the warehouse by a pile of fleeces higher than my head. He patted an empty box invitingly. ‘Sit down here a moment, citizen, and tell me what it is you want to know. We won’t be overheard – even if that wretched slave comes out again.’ He gave me a sly grin and squatted on the stone floor at my feet. ‘If it’s about the market price of anything, I’m sure my master wouldn’t mind me telling you.’

He thought that I was hoping to make a profit on some deal! ‘Nothing of that kind.’ I returned his smile. ‘All I want are the names and destinations of any sea-going craft that left the harbour in the last few days. I assume that you would know. And – if possible – whether any of them had unusual private loads aboard – tables, statues, gold and silver ornaments, fine furniture, and personal effects?’

He gave me a sharp suspicious look. ‘What makes you ask? Are you in the market to buy or sell these things?’

I leaned back on my makeshift stool and found my back in contact with the soft wool of a fleece. ‘The truth is, steward, this is delicate. I’m trying to trace something which has disappeared since His Excellence, Marcus Septimus, has been away.’

This was a massive understatement, of course. I was trying to trace a whole houseful of goods, though I was not going to tell Vesperion that – the fewer people who knew what I was looking for, the more chance I had of finding it, and – with any luck – discovering the thieves. But as a slave himself, I knew the steward would sympathise and understand why even a single missing item would be troubling. A man who’s left in any way in charge – as I had been – is generally accused of theft or negligence if something disappears in his patron’s absence.

That was an uncomfortable thought, in fact, now it occurred to me. Not that Marcus was likely to blame me for the crime itself: fraud and theft on this scale was obviously planned by somebody outside – and by someone with sufficient wealth and influence to afford that number of horses, carts, and men to do his work. But would he think that I should somehow have prevented it? I shook my head. No one could possibly have guessed at such a scheme. My patron – surely – would realise that at once.

For the moment, though, my obvious concern and thoughtfulness convinced Vesperion that I was serious. He frowned a moment. ‘Private goods? Not that I can think of, citizen. The only ship that left here yesterday was carrying wheat and wool, most of it from our warehouse – from where you’re sitting at this moment, actually – in exchange for a few bottled dormice, and some olive oil and wine.’ He gestured to the stores that I had noticed earlier.

‘There’s no chance that there was any other hidden cargo, too?’

He shook his head. ‘I oversaw the loading of the hold myself, so I can assure you there was nothing else aboard. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, citizen.’

‘And what about the ships that are in harbour now?’ I asked, fidgeting with the curls of wool beside my neck and finding my fingers damp with lanolin.

‘They both came in this morning while the wind was light – and they are only just discharging their cargo as you saw. There’s been no opportunity for smuggling goods aboard. And I’m certain that there’s nothing of that kind in store in any of the other warehouses round here. I walk around each morning to see what goods our rivals have and what their prices are – and of course they do the same to us. No good asking a denarius for oil if someone else is selling it for half the price.’

‘But you’ll keep an eye out for me when the ships begin to load – in case something is brought in from the town?’

‘Gladly, citizen, but I doubt that they’ll be doing that until tomorrow, now. This proclamation will have seen to that. No point in having perishable goods stored in a stuffy hold any longer than you need.’

I made a sympathetic face. I’d spent tormented days and nights chained up in a stuffy hold myself when I was first captured into slavery. It was a memory that still recurred to haunt my dreams.

Vesperion mistook my grimace for disbelief. ‘The wind has not been favourable for going downstream today, though I know that at least one of the captains was hoping it would veer round later on so he could catch the breeze and get away again. But there is a favourable tide. That’s why there’s so much discontent at being made to wait. I presume it’s something urgent? People were muttering it might be some new tax, on ships perhaps, and that no one was to leave until it had been paid.’ He darted an uncertain glance at me. ‘It’s said that Emperor Pertinax, hail to his mighty name, is attempting to restore the public finances.’

He was obviously hoping that I’d enlighten him, but I said nothing. I simply did not dare.

‘You came here with the trumpeter, I think. I thought perhaps you’d know.’ He paused. ‘And possibly that you’d exchange your news for mine?’

It was an awkward moment. I had not – like the soldiers – been sworn to secrecy, but I knew that the commander expected it of me. If word of the assassination of Pertinax got out, the news could be all over Glevum in an hour – and if there were riots I would be responsible.

I shook my head. ‘I know there is some urgent news from Rome,’ I hedged. ‘Something significant, which is to be proclaimed throughout Britannia. There’ll be an announcement in the forum later on.’ It sounded uncommunicative – as indeed it was – but I did not want the steward concealing facts from me in turn. So I smiled, apologetically, and got up as I spoke. ‘I think the captains have been ordered to remain because it’s felt they ought to know before they leave.’

‘Something political? Or warnings of a bad storm threatening?’ His cracked voice rose an octave with anxiety as he, too, got stiffly to his feet.

Both, I thought, bitterly, but I merely shrugged. ‘I can’t tell you any more than that. I’m sure those two soldiers know exactly what’s afoot, but they didn’t talk to me. They’ve been sworn to silence till the proclamation’s made. It does not concern new taxes, I’m certain about that.’

What I had said was literally accurate, of course, but it disguised the truth, and was intended to. I offered a mental apology to the ancestral gods – I usually set great store by honesty.

Vesperion, however, appeared quite satisfied. ‘And I’m sorry I can’t help you more with your enquiry. But those are the only two ships that are in port – as you can see.’ He began to lead the way back to the centre of the room.

‘What about the smaller one?’ I murmured, padding after him. ‘That was empty, by the look of it.’

He laughed his cracked old laugh. ‘You are observant, citizen. I’d forgotten about him. He’s often at the quay. He brings in shellfish from the coast and he waits for a consignment of something to take downstream again. He’s been here two days already, but he’s empty, as you say.’

I frowned. ‘I thought all shipments were contracted in advance.’

He chuckled at my obvious innocence. ‘Oh, he doesn’t deal with exports, citizen. The captain is not a trader of the usual sort, he’s just a river craft, and holds himself for hire, plying between Glevum and the sea. He takes people too. Anywhere on the Sabrina where you want to go – he’s available to take you, if he’s going that way. But he was cursing just this morning that he’d been disappointed of a fare, and now he could not find anyone or anything to take – showed me the hold, so empty there was not a straw in it. I’m afraid what’s missing from your patron is not aboard. I am quite sure of that.’

So was I. Many of the missing items were made of gold or bronze – and with the items of furniture as well – would have filled that little vessel to capacity. ‘Well, thank you for your help, Vesperion,’ I said, reaching into my draw-purse to find a quadrans as a tip for him. ‘At least I can ignore the possibility that what I’m looking for has left town on a ship. So I’ll start to look elsewhere.’ We had reached the central passageway by now, and I held out my hand to him. ‘And now I’ll—’

I was about to say I’d leave him to his customer, but we were interrupted by a strident shout. ‘There you are, steward. What are you thinking of? Are you deliberately intent on compelling me to wait? And don’t say you didn’t know that I was here. I sent your slave to find you quite a time ago and instructed him to tell me when he’d passed the message on. I shall tell your owner when I meet him and see that you are flogged!’