Free A Pattern of Blood by Rosemary Rowe Page A

you suggest.’
    It was soon arranged. Marcus and I were shown into the room, which had been prepared for us with oil lamps and a brazier and even a water-clock to enable us to keep track of time. A couch and table had been provided for Marcus, and after we had partaken of a ‘snack’ (a tray of cold roast meats with fish pickle, and a selection of bread and cheeses which would have been a fine meal in my house), we were ready to begin.
    Marcus and I had worked together before. What he liked was to have people brought before him one by one. He did most of the questioning, sitting in state on a chair, while I squatted on my stool beside him and threw in an additional query now and then.
    It was a system which worked well in many ways. Marcus had authority and status. Even members of the curia could be exiled at a word from the governor’s agent, and he could open the doors of the gaol or bring the torturer running. People who would have dismissed me with a supercilious stare were inclined to grovel helpfully to Marcus.
    However, terror can tie as many tongues as it loosens. I have often found that a little unguarded gossip is more help in an enquiry than hours of carefully constructed testimony – and no one is truly unguarded in the presence of an imperial agent. Besides, Marcus is inclined to lose patience with a line of questioning if he cannot see the immediate relevance of it, so I didn’t expect this joint questioning session to produce any immediate answers.
    Even so, I was surprised by how little we learned.
    Sollers was right to suggest starting with the gatekeepers. Their testimony was crucial because, from their little rooms beside the front and back gates they could see everyone who came in and out of the house.
    The keeper of the main gate was whiter than goat’s cheese with terror, but his story was quite clear. Yes, there had been a small crowd of clientes calling at the house early this morning. Yes, he recognised most of them. Two of them were strangers, but they claimed to have been invited by Maximilian, and they were admitted. Then our party arrived, and then Maximilian in a litter, but by this time most of the visitors had left again. When the message came to close the gates there were, by the keeper’s calculation, apart from ourselves, only the two strangers within the walls, an ‘elderly councillor with a wig, and a red-faced narrow-striper who had left a fancy carriage waiting in the street’. Lupus and Flavius, evidently.
    Marcus pressed him fiercely, but he was adamant. No one else had come to the house, and no one else had left it. The walls around the property were high, and no one could have scaled them without ladders and grapple irons. Whoever stabbed Quintus had not escaped that way.
    The slave guarding the back gate had a similar story to tell. Various slaves had come and gone, sent into the town for oils and provisions, but there had been no strangers admitted. Visitors did not often come to that gate, which was reserved for animals and for access to the small farm at the rear of the property, where fresh food for the table was reared.
    The slave who kept this gate was older, plumper and more confident. ‘We get an occasional tradesman or peddler, but there were none this morning, only a scruffy urchin asking for alms, and another wanting Maximilian. I sent them both packing. No one else. Though I am expecting a delivery of charcoal for the kitchens, and the funeral musicians and anointers will be at the front gates in a minute. And, of course, the slaves will be back with their various purchases. Are we to let them in?’
    We gave them permission, and let them go.
    ‘Well,’ Marcus said, taking another sip of wine, ‘what does that tell us?’
    ‘Only what we knew before,’ I said. ‘Whoever stabbed Ulpius is still on the property. There is no question of some stranger with a grievance coming in on an off chance and murdering him, unless whoever it is is still hiding here