The Dreams of Morpheus(4)

Magnus handed his cloak to the young, blond doorkeeper and crossed the dimly lit atrium; the first signs of dawn could be seen in the courtyard garden through the window. ‘We were, senator.’ He sat, accepting a cup of warm, watered wine from another very attractive Germanic-looking slave boy.

‘You’ve not brought it with you, have you?’

‘Of course not, sir.’ Magnus took a slug of his drink. ‘I left it at the Brotherhood tavern. I stopped there before coming over to you for a bit of er … refreshment, if you take my meaning?’

Gaius chuckled and cast an admiring eye at the boy waiting on them. ‘I’m sure I do. How many tablets were there?’

‘A couple of dozen.’

‘More than expected; I assume you’ve kept a little something for yourself as commission?’

‘Just the one tablet.’

‘A fair price; but don’t let it be known.’ Gaius pulled a ringlet of carefully tonged dyed-black hair from in front of his eyes and fixed Magnus with a hard stare. ‘Were you seen?’

Magnus placed his cup down on the table between them. ‘Yes and no. We were challenged but only after we left the warehouse; all the lads got away – just. One lad was a bit too enthusiastic with a hammer and brought about an early demise to one of the Vigiles; but that might turn out to be a good thing.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, we left no sign of a break-in so the prefect of Ostia will only be concerned with who sent one of his ex-slave thugs to meet the Ferryman.’

‘Yes, but it would have been better to have had no fuss at all.’

‘Granted, but when the theft is noticed, if the owner reports it to the authorities, they’ll be too busy looking for a Vigiles murderer to care that much.’

Gaius raised a finely plucked eyebrow and slipped an olive between his moist lips. ‘I very much doubt that; not when they realise who the owner is.’

Magnus felt his insides lurch. ‘You said that it was no one important.’

‘Well, he’s not – in terms of Roman politics, that is. However, he does have some influential friends in the imperial household.’

‘Who is he?’

‘The Jewish Prince, Herod Agrippa.’

‘I heard that he’d fled Rome because of debt.’

‘He came back just recently; he managed to organise a very successful embassy of Parthian dissidents, which got him back in favour but not out of debt. The Emperor Tiberius rewarded him by making him tutor to his grandson, Tiberius Gemellus. So, in case the prefect takes a highly placed complaint of theft seriously and on the outside chance that you or one of your lads was recognised, I suggest you move the tablets out of your place to somewhere less obvious.’

Magnus downed the rest of his cup and held it out to be replenished. ‘Can’t you just dispose of them?’

‘I’m afraid not, Magnus; not yet. But I’ll send a message soon, telling you what I want done with them.’ Gaius heaved his massive bulk up from the chair, his tunic straining to contain copious folds of flesh, and stood whilst a third slave boy – equally as pretty – began draping his toga about him. ‘Now, I must greet the rest of my clients and then I’ve an appointment to see the Lady Antonia before I go to the Senate.’

‘She’s wanting a favour?’

‘No, I need her to return one. I’m hoping that as sister-in-law to Tiberius she can persuade him to grant my nephew, Vespasian, a travel permit to Egypt so that he can do some business there on his way back from Cyrenaica, once he’s finished his year as quaestor. As you know, senators are forbidden to enter that bounteous province without the Emperor’s permission and he doesn’t give that too easily.’

‘You’ll need to have done something very substantial for her to get that.’

Gaius smiled; his face aglow with firelight. ‘I already have, thanks to you, Magnus. What you stole was the very generous commission that Herod Agrippa received from the dissident Parthians for brokering their embassy. Antonia is going to sell it to recoup some of the considerable debt that he still owes her. You may find she’s in such a good mood that you’ll get a summons.’

‘Marcus Salvius Magnus, we have come to you because we hope that as the leader of the Crossroads Brotherhood in our quarter you can right the wrong that is being perpetrated on us.’ The speaker, Duilius, an older man in his fifties, whom Magnus knew to be conscientious with his monthly payments to the Brotherhood in return for their protection of his sandal and belt business near the Porta Collina, paused and spread his hands towards Magnus in supplication.