further riggings of the market with the diplomat, an old man sidled up to me. Short, thin, clean-shaven, he addressed me in a passable English of the Wessex dialect.
‘I know who you are,’ he said with a wheezing laugh. ‘You’re that boy whose friend was killed the other night.’
‘Where did you learn English?’ I asked nervously.
‘In England. Where else?’
A reasonable answer. Where else would anyone want to learn such an unimportant language, and learn it well?
He explained he’d lived there for several years, handling the local business for a company based in Carthage. He’d picked up pretty child slaves for rich profligates out East, and a few of our black pearls. He’d paid with dyed silks and pepper.
‘Good business in England,’ he said. ‘I hear Holy Mother Church is doing well there. Do you think King Ethelbert might want to borrow some money? You get me an introduction, and I’ll pay good commission. Kent has its moments in the summer months, and I’d like to see the place again.’
I said I’d consider his offer, asking him to keep our little secret from Silas, whose face I could see at twenty yards was turning the colour of a roof tile. The diplomat and I had worried I might be recognised, but had decided to risk that – bear in mind, I’d only been out in Rome dressed as a noble, and had never before ventured across the river. Most dealers never left their own district.
I thought to add to the old man that I had some good contacts in Wessex who probably wouldn’t hang him if he turned up with a bale of silk. At that moment, though, I saw through the open door that Martin stood in the square.
At first, I thought I must be mistaken. But as I pressed my way through the tight crowd of dealers towards the door, I knew it was him. He was dressed in nicely pressed white linen. He was holding hands with a very pretty young woman. Dark, braided hair, obviously pregnant, she was gazing up at him with a look of happy trust on her face. Martin looked back at her.
It was because of the expression on his own face that I thought I’d mistaken him. I was used to the reserved, often sullen look of a slave. Now he smiled, his face creased with the happiness of a day out in the sun. He pointed at the Exchange.
I dodged behind a pillar and continued to observe. They carried on walking until I could no longer see them through the open door. I came out into the square, but they were disappearing into a crowded side street. I would have followed, but the old man had caught up with me.
‘Bad business with your friend,’ he said. ‘Still, he’s soon to be a saint of the Church if I hear right. But a bad business, all the same. You know,’ he continued, ‘you should be careful with the Column of Phocas. They’re a bad lot. They did for your friend. If you get on their wrong side, they’ll do for you.’
‘What is this “Column of Phocas”?’ I asked, spinning back to him, Martin forgotten. ‘What do you know about the Column of Phocas?’
‘All wise men know about the Column of Phocas. The wisest men don’t speak about it.’ He laughed at his epigram.
I pressed him, but he’d closed up. I offered him dinner with Ethelbert. I did think to threaten him with a beating outside. But he’d closed up.
‘Beware the Column of Phocas,’ he said, slipping back into the crowd, ‘if you ever want to pray with me in the church at Canterbury.’
31
‘Have you any notion of who this diplomat is?’ Lucius asked over lunch. ‘Did he tell you anything about himself?’
He’d taken me to a select place in one of the restaurants in the Market of Trajan. Being higher than the Forum, this was still in use. We sat in the open with a canvas overhead to keep the hot sun at bay. There was a fine view over the upper parts of the Forum. In the bright sunshine, it didn’t look too derelict.
‘I really have no idea who the man is,’ I said. ‘I know he spends a lot of time at the Lateran. Otherwise, he sits in his rooms, thinking of ways to defraud the Roman dealers.’
‘We know that he spoke with Maximin on the day of the killing,’ Lucius said. ‘We have only his word for what was said.’
I asked Lucius if he really thought the diplomat might have been involved in the murder.
‘I think nothing,’ said Lucius. ‘The man has been in Rome some while on a mission that no one is able to explain. If he’s from his local king, he should be in Constantinople, addressing himself to the emperor.
‘One rumour I picked up is that he’s working for the exarch of Africa. If old Heraclius can get the Western Church on side, that’s all the worse for Phocas. But I think nothing of rumours in themselves. All I know for certain is that he’s been flashing money all over the place, buying horses and various luxury goods. You now tell me how he gets his money… Oh, yes, and don’t forget – he was the last person known to have had an extended conversation with Maximin. I say you should keep an eye on him.’
Lucius asked me to explain again what I’d been doing with him in the markets. It still didn’t seem to go in. He knew enough about the law of property, and had been forced by circumstances to learn about the intricacies of the testacy laws. But financial speculation was beyond him. And I got the impression he thought it all somewhat demeaning. I let my words trail off.
We turned back to the assault on me the previous evening. While I was going once more over the story in outline, a slave returned from the place of the attack. No bodies, he said, but plenty of blood. He held out the slashed, bloody cloak I’d left there. No one to identify, I groaned to myself. The one I’d injured must have come back with help. Someone at least was showing an unusual interest in keeping the streets uncluttered.
‘From now on, my dear Alaric,’ Lucius said, ‘I want you to promise me you won’t go out again at night by yourself. I should have sent back that escort for you. It was wrong of me to go off and leave you like that. Worse,’ he smiled, ‘it was careless. Nevertheless, I think we can now be sure those letters are still about somewhere.’
I agreed.
‘And I think we can say that those men weren’t sent to kill you. I don’t doubt for a moment you can be good with a knife. But one of you against four experienced street scum – they’d have had you before you could realise if murder had been on their agenda. They wanted you alive. Someone wanted you to take him to those letters. The question now is, who wanted you?’
‘It was the Column of Phocas,’ I answered. ‘Our column isn’t a thing of stone and gilded bronze. It’s a group of men.’
As you ought to know, my Dear Reader, the Latin word ‘ columna ’ means ‘column’. But it also can mean general support. ‘ Columna Phocasi ’ can therefore be translated into Greek as ‘Movement for the Protection of Phocas’.
I was pleased I had uncovered more of the mystery – and had done it without help from Lucius. For the first time, I was taking information to him. I was less pleased that Lucius was so sure I hadn’t been in serious danger from those men.
I suddenly felt less happy with myself. I hadn’t told him about the stranger who helped me. And I’d decided to hold back on my sighting of Martin. The first made my side of the fight less impressive. Revealing the second might only get Martin into a trouble I didn’t feel inclined to inflict on him.
We sat awhile in silence. I looked past Lucius, over the terrace, down past the shabby or ruined or still fine buildings, to the Forum, and to the gleaming statue atop its column. I looked back to a polished wine pitcher on a table just a few yards from us. Though distorted, I could see myself in the reflection. I’d got those crude barbarian things off me as soon as I’d got back to Marcella’s. I was now dressed in my one good remaining suit of clothes. This was of heavy linen – white with no colour for the border. I looked decidedly beautiful. I felt better at once. I had to resist the urge to get up and go looking for a better reflection.
Now I was even richer, I’d have those tailors stitching through the night for an entire new wardrobe. Perhaps I’d go for the heaviest grade of silk.
