We crossed the street together and climbed sordid stairs which hung together merely by a lath or two. As we went up my nostrils clenched against the stench of a huge unemptied nightsoil vat in the well of the building. Somewhere a heartbroken baby wailed. The door to the Pertinax apartment had shrunk in the summer heat so it hung aslant on its hinges and needed to be lifted bodily.
The room was bare of character, partly because unlike his Campanian hayloft no one had filled this with artefacts for him, and partly because he had no personality anyway. There was a bed with one faded coverlet, a stool, a small cane table, a broken coffer-all stuff that came with the room. Pertinax had added only the normal filthy plate he lived with when there was nobody to wait on him, a pile of empty amphorae, another pile of laundry, a pair of extremely expensive boots with the mud of that farm on Vesuvius still unscraped on their toestraps, and some open baggage packs. He was living out of his luggage, probably from idleness.
In my helpful way I offered to look round. Tullia hovered in the doorway, keeping a nervous eye out for movements below.
I found two interesting items.
The first was lying on the table with the ink barely dry-documents drawn up that evening by the scribe I had seen with Pertinax. I replaced the parchment wretchedly. Then, because I was a professional I continued to search. All the usual hiding places appeared to be empty: nothing under the mattress or the floor's uneven planking, nothing buried in the dry soil of the flowerless window box.
But deep in the empty coffer my hand found something Pertinax must have forgotten. I nearly missed it myself, but I was bending low, taking my time. I brought out a huge iron key.
'What's that?' whispered Tullia.
'Not certain. But I can find out.' I straightened up. 'I'll take this. Now we'd better go.'
Tullia blocked my path. 'Not until you tell me what that writing is.'
Tullia could not read; but she had realized from my grim face that it was significant.
'It's two copies of a document, as yet unsigned-' I told her what they were. She went pale, then she reddened with anger.
'Who for? Barnabas?'
'That is not the name the scribe has written. But you're right; it's for Barnabas. I'm sorry, sweetheart.'
The barmaid's chin lifted angrily. 'And who is the woman?' I told her that too. 'The one from Campania?'
'Yes, Tullia. I'm afraid so.'
What we had found was a set of marriage certificates, prepared for Gnaeus Atius Pertinax and Helena Justina, the daughter of Camillus Verus.
Well a girl does need a husband, as the lady said.