Free A Whispering of Spies by Rosemary Rowe Page A

Porteus ignored it and Gaius looked the other way. Nothing to be hoped for in that direction, it was clear. Matters were swiftly going from bad to worse. As a known protégé of Marcus’s, I had expected a measure of respect – from them, in any case. I felt my hands going clammy with anxiety.
    I edged myself on to the lowest bench. It would not do to rank myself beside the magistrates. In fact, I was so concerned with avoiding such a thing that I made my first mistake. Instead of sitting on the form in front of them, I sat down opposite, like a scholar taking a test in rhetoric – so I found myself facing a panel of judges, as it were.
    ‘Well,’ Florens linked his short, fat fingers on the desk in front of him, ‘I’m sure you know why we have summoned you.’
    ‘Something to do with my visit to Voluus, I understand from what your servant said – Servilis, as I now understand that he is called.’ Despite my nervousness – or perhaps because of it – I was privately amused to learn the servant’s name: it means ‘lowly and submissive’, despite that crimson cloak. No wonder he hadn’t chosen to introduce himself.
    ‘You regard that as amusing for some reason, citizen?’ Florens’s voice was icy.
    Another error. I had not realized that I had smiled at all. Certainly I had not intended to. But all the councillors were scowling at me now, visibly disapproving of my apparent levity. I said quickly, ‘Not amusing, councillor. I’m surprised, that’s all. I do not understand why you have called me here. I am just a humble tradesman seeking work and I called at the apartment – as I told your slave – to see if Voluus required to have a pavement made.’
    Porteus gave a disbelieving sneer and scrambled to his feet. ‘And you expect us to believe that, citizen? In an apartment of that quality? You must have known it would have splendid floors!’ He looked around as if for approbation from his peers.
    I had begun to realize that I was genuinely pleading for my liberty, and I saw a chance to win a point or two. ‘Of course I hadn’t seen the inside of the flat; otherwise I would never have presumed. The floors, as you say, are already excellent.’ I paused a moment to achieve the full effect before I added, in a puzzled tone, ‘But I understood from Servilis that no one but myself had been allowed inside? Yet it seems that you have seen it, Porteus?’
    Porteus turned pink beneath the acne on his cheeks, while the youngest councillor – the same one who had instructed me to sit – looked at him quizzically. ‘He is quite right, Porteus. Unless he had visited he couldn’t know about the floors. And nor could you. So how is that you speak about them with such confidence?’
    I sensed a potential ally here and I looked at him with more interest than before. He was a youngish, untidy-looking man – in his thirties if I am any judge – with an energetic manner and a tow-coloured mop of tousled hair. His face was moody but intelligent and he wore his toga rather as I wore my own, as though it were a slight encumbrance. I noticed, for instance, that several times he hitched his shoulder-folds, as though they were in danger of cascading down in coils.
    ‘I visited when the tax-collector owned the place,’ Porteus mumbled rather sullenly. He was clearly embarrassed at admitting this to his associates (as I said before, tax-collectors are not usually accepted in good society). There was a murmur among the other councillors.
    ‘Just a business matter,’ he went on, reddening. ‘Nothing of importance, but he invited me to dine . . .’ He tailed off.
    He must have known, as I did, what the others thought: that he had been prepared to feast with the taxman and to drink his wine, against the generally accepted rules of what was socially acceptable. Was this just greed for expensive food and wine, or had he been seeking favours when it came to paying dues?
    Titus Flavius voiced the feeling in the room.