A Whispering of Spies by Rosemary Rowe Read Free Book Online Page B

overlooked.
    I took the seal and pressed it on the wax across the knotted cords, so that the writing-block was securely closed despite the faulty hinge, then chalked the word ‘Calvinus’ on the outside of the frame. ‘It is not elegant, but it will have to do,’ I said. I looked up to find Voluus’s slave-boy gazing at me as though I were some sort of conjurer. It occurred to me that writing might be a mystery to him: not every slave-boy in Roman households learns to read. ‘Here you are!’ I held it out to him. ‘Make sure the steward gets it as soon as possible. Now take your cloak – I think it is a little drier now – and my slave will show you to the door.’
    Brianus took the tablet and bowed himself away. A moment later we heard Minimus ushering him out.
    Junio raised an eyebrow at me as he looked up from the floor. ‘So much for your questioning of the boy,’ he said. ‘You treated him so gently, you haven’t got any information out of him at all.’ He frowned at a piece of pattern that did not seem to fit.
    ‘That depends,’ I told him, wiping the seal-block clean and returning the lid to the pot of sealing-wax, ‘on what he might have said to Minimus.’ I looked up as the boy in question came back into the room. ‘And here he is. Let’s ask him.’
    Minimus looked from Junio to me with obvious concern. ‘Have I offended, master? I didn’t like to ask while Brianus was here, but you seem annoyed with me. Is it because I did not climb the ladder straight away? Or is there something that I’ve not done well enough? If it is about the preparation of the mead . . .’
    I cut him off. ‘The mead was excellent. Almost as good as Junio used to make. And you are quite mistaken, I am not annoyed at all – unless it’s with myself, for failing to find out what my patron hoped to learn.’
    ‘If my father spoke sharply,’ Junio put in, ‘it was for the benefit of that unfortunate young slave.’ He took a piece of coloured stone and tried it in the space, first one way and then the other, before rejecting it. ‘Brianus is not used to kindnesses, I think – and would not have accepted our warmth and succour otherwise.’
    ‘Oh!’ Minimus looked visibly relieved. He turned to me. ‘Well, you may be right. I know that he was terrified the whole time he was here – he could not believe you’d given him a part of your own meal, but he was dreading what might happen when he gets home again. Apparently his master’s left a steward in the house who beats him savagely for almost anything. Poor thing! You should have seen his back!’
    ‘You did, I take it?’ I enquired. I tried to exchange a ‘told-you-so’ glance with Junio but he pretended to be busy with his coloured stones.
    Minimus, though, was nodding. ‘He pulled down his tunic neck so that I could see. He’s covered all over with blue bruises and red weals.’ He glanced up sheepishly at me. ‘He told me I didn’t know how fortunate I was to have an owner as compassionate as you.’
    ‘Because of a piece of oatcake and a sip or two of wine?’ I laughed. ‘What is special about that? Any other household would have done the same. No one sends a visiting slave away – especially the slave of a wealthy man like Voluus – without giving him something warming on a day like this.’ I could see that Junio was really struggling, so I went back to join him at the mosaic as I spoke – though he’d obviously been making a good job of it so far. There was just that piece of pattern . . . I set to work on it. ‘In fact, I felt quite sorry for sending you outside – it is much warmer in this inner room and he was soaked right through.’
    ‘It wasn’t only the food and drink that he was grateful for,’ Minimus went on, handing me the
tesserae
that I gestured to. ‘He says you saved him from a flogging earlier. Something about a vase which tumbled off its plinth? And you put in a word to say it was an accident and not his fault at