Free Requiem for a Slave by Rosemary Rowe

pressing him, and I let him go, though I did call after him as he scampered off, ‘There will be a quadrans for you the next time that we meet – more if you happen to remember something else.’
    He paused and turned around. ‘But how can I be sure to see you, citizen? They don’t let Glypto out. Only to put on the rubbish on the pile.’
    ‘Then I will meet you at the midden-heap,’ I said. ‘If you can contrive to be there tomorrow’ – I was about to say ‘when the sun is at its height’ but I remembered that I had a naming ceremony to attend, and I amended it – ‘in the late afternoon. I will keep a watch for you.’
    He nodded. ‘Till tomorrow then,’ and he went back through the gate into the tannery. Almost at once I heard the shrill voice of the tanner’s wife. It raised in hectoring reproof, followed shortly after by the sound of blows. I cringed a little. I felt responsible.

Six
    Radixrapum caught my eye as I turned back. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Funny sort of fellow, that old slave. I wonder what he did see in the alleyway – or whether he really saw anything at all.’
    ‘I hope I’ll discover that tomorrow, when we meet,’ I said, but even as I spoke the words they sent a chill through me. If Minimus was in danger, that seemed too long to wait. Surely I had to find him before that! Yet my best hope of finding him was to trace the murderer, and I had little idea of where to start with that. Besides, there were other urgent things that needed to be done, and – what with questioning Glypto and lighting candles by the corpse – I’d already delayed too long. ‘I had planned to tell Lucius’s mother what had happened to her son,’ I told the turnip-seller, ‘but now there’s scarcely time to reach her before the cart arrives.’
    ‘There’s no chance at all of reaching her, I shouldn’t think, and certainly no time for you to get back again.’ He gave a little grin, tilting his turnip head at me. ‘Don’t look so stricken, citizen. You never did have time – and if you stop to think, you’ll realize that as well. When we were in the workshop just now, you mentioned that your recent customer was chief decurion, didn’t you? I could see he was wealthy, but I hadn’t realized he was as important as all that. If the senior town councillor tells the garrison to send the cart round here, obviously they’re going to do it straight away.’
    I nodded thoughtfully. ‘I suppose that’s true.’
    ‘Then perhaps you don’t need me to stay and keep a watch? Or do you still intend to go to the pie-bakery and find her anyway? You said it would be better if she didn’t see the corpse.’
    I suppose that had been vaguely in my thoughts, but I answered stubbornly, ‘I think she ought to know. And she may know something that will help me trace the murderer – for instance, whether Lucius had personal enemies.’
    He looked at me quizzically. ‘You wouldn’t like to put that piece of work up on a plank and rest it on my barrow before you go? I’ll give you a hand, of course, and you can wheel it out into the street. Then it will be out here when the army comes, and nobody need ever know that it was in there with the corpse. The decurion did not see inside the shop, you say – and I want that half-sestertius, so I won’t be gossiping – but you can’t prevent the soldiers from telling everyone. And they will have to go inside to pick the body up.’
    He was quite right, of course, and it was a concern. Quintus’s reaction to a dead man in my shop had been enough to tell me what my customers would think if rumour got around. I was beginning to look at Radixrapum with more and more respect. His suggestion was not a foolish one. In fact, I rather wished I’d thought of it myself.
    Although his barrow was much smaller than my handcart was, and currently full of earth and bits of turnip-top, it would be the work of moments to clear that away, and, with care, the Apollo plaque was not