The Legatus Mystery by Rosemary Rowe Page A

idiot.
    ‘Very well!’ I went on, with a pretence at severity. ‘We will say no more about it. This time! But in future, Junio, please don’t leave the workshop unattended without my permission. Suppose a customer had called?’
    ‘Pardon me, dear master, but a customer did call,’ Gwellia said, with a shy smile. ‘A wealthy gentleman. He wanted you to repair a pavement for him. He must have been in a hurry, because he came in person – offering fifty sesterces if you’d come at once.’
    ‘And what did you tell him?’
    ‘I told him you were otherwise engaged today – on important business with your patron.’
    I turned to Junio. ‘You see?’ Fifty sesterces was not a princely sum, but it was something: and agreeing a job like that, where a price is fixed, is as good as a contract under law. ‘I doubt if he will venture here again. So, while you were out, we lost an opportunity.’
    That was unfair, and I knew it. Junio was often absent from the workshop, usually with me. I did not dare to think of all the similar opportunities that must have escaped us, over the years.
    ‘But you have not lost it, citizen!’ Gwellia was looking at me with something of the old sparkle in her eyes. ‘I told him that, if he were to increase the fee a little, perhaps you could be induced to see him next.’ She looked at me, smiling openly at my astonishment. ‘I am sorry, dear citizen, if that was a mistake. It is something I used to hear one of my masters say. It always seemed to have the right effect. It did here, too. Now he’s promising a hundred sesterces for the repair if you will call and look at it before tomorrow night.’
    ‘A hundred sesterces?’ That was a handsome increase. I would never have dared to ask for half as much. I found myself smiling broadly in return. I had forgotten that my ex-wife had such unexpected talents. I attempted to reassert my dignity by saying, judiciously, ‘But it is doubtful I could do it very quickly. Marcus wants me to solve this problem at the temple.’
    ‘It’s not a very large repair, he says. Some of the outer border of the pattern was made of poor quality tile. He says you would remember the pavement – it is in his entrance-way. You laid a mosaic for him once before, he tells me, in his dining room, and you warned him about this problem when you came.’
    ‘I did?’ For a moment I could not recall anything about it. ‘Who was this customer? Did he leave a name?’
    ‘Gaius Honorius Optimus. He seemed to think that it would mean something to you.’
    It did. I looked at Junio and we both burst out laughing together. Honorius Optimus was the customer with the pompous Phrygian steward.
    ‘Well, he can afford a hundred sesterces, master. He used to be a commander in the legions, and he made a fortune out of it. As you know – you’ve seen that great town house of his.’ Junio grinned back at me, obviously delighted at this new turn of events. ‘He must be in a hurry too, to offer double the fee. He always seemed to me a man who’d walk a mile to save a quadrans.’
    ‘He is. That’s why he had some idiot lay that cheap pavement at his door,’ I said drily. ‘A few more sesterces, and he could have had marble, or proper tiles at least. But these! I could see they were lifting and splitting then – they had not been laid for long, and that was almost two years ago. I offered to replace them at the time, but he refused. I wonder why he’s in such a hurry now?’
    ‘He’s hoping for an important guest, that’s why!’ Gwellia said. ‘Some imperial ambassador who is visiting the town.’
    I thought of the temple and that disappearing corpse, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. ‘There is an imperial ambassador? Here? Now?’
    ‘Not now,’ Gwellia said, with a smile. ‘But there’s one expected in a little while. Something about a special service for the Emperor at the Imperial shrine.’
    ‘Surely not Fabius Marcellus!’ I exclaimed.
    ‘I think