Lucius stared after the slave’s retreating back. There was a moment’s silence.
‘You went out to the lane, then?’ I ventured finally, wondering what errand would take him from the house, especially while Marcus and Julia were in town.
When Lucius answered it was with disdain. ‘Of course. I believe I mentioned that there was a messenger?’
My turn to stare at him. A messenger? Why should that take Lucius to the gate? No citizen of his rank would go out to the road to receive an errand boy. More likely the messenger would be required to come in and wait for him – sometimes for a considerable time. However, I could hardly challenge Marcus’s cousin outright.
‘A messenger from your aunt Honoria, I think? And you received him, since your cousin was not here?’ I prompted shamelessly.
Lucius gave a thin smile. ‘Indeed. In this very atrium, in fact. But in view of the seriousness of the news from Rome, naturally I did not encourage him to linger here. I saw that he was given food and drink – he had ridden from Londinium without a stop, except to change his horses at the military inns – and sent him on to Glevum, to try to catch up with Marcus at the garrison if he could. Of course, the messenger doesn’t know the roads, so I escorted him to the gatehouse and personally asked Aulus to point out the shortest route.’
Without even giving the poor lad a chance to rest, I thought, after his long and dusty journey on the roads. However, it was logical enough. The rider would have a travel warrant to speed his way as regards the horses and assistance at the inns, but he would not know the short cut through the lane that passed my house, which – for a single rider – would cut off several miles.
‘And Aulus was at his station then?’ I asked. It was a meaningless enquiry, in the circumstances – obviously he must have been, or Lucius could not have asked him anything – and Lucius treated it with the raised eyebrow it deserved. I hastened to add a more judicious thought. ‘He did not seem peculiar in any way at all? Not ill, or anything?’
Lucius stiffened. ‘What do you mean by that?’ His voice was sharp. Still contemptuous of my idiotic questions, it appeared.
‘I thought – since he went missing shortly afterwards – there might have been some sign of the reason. Did he seem to be his normal self to you?’
Lucius gave me his thin smile. ‘His normal self? I’m not sure what his normal self might be. After all, I hardly knew the man.’
‘Shrewd and grasping and malodorous, and willing to sell information at a price,’ I said. Lucius looked properly scandalised at this – it is not polite to criticise the servants of one’s host. I hastened to explain. ‘You must have realised that the fellow was a spy? Marcus has relied on him for years.’
‘I heard rumours yesterday of something of the kind. Not that I would have used him in such a way, of course.’ He had turned that disapproving fish-gill pink again.
I laughed. ‘Don’t worry, citizen. It would not have been surprising if you had. Most of us have slipped Aulus a little something now and then. Though, naturally, your rank and purse would get more out of him than I am able to. He has been the ears and eyes of Marcus for so long, he is accustomed to being paid more handsomely than I can generally afford.’
Lucius seemed genuinely interested in this. He lost that stuffed and starchy look. ‘You used him, then, yourself‘?’ He glanced at Minimus, and then went on as if the slave boy was not possessed of ears and eyes. ‘Aulus did not strike me as having the qualities of mind to . . .’ he paused, ‘to pass on intelligence with much intelligence.’ The pale eyes glinted at this attempt at wit.
‘All the same,’ I said, ‘he is reliable. He does not see the point of everything you ask, but what he does tell you is generally accurate enough. For instance, I wanted to know what vehicles were passing in the lane the other day – the day I think the murder of our corpse took place. He gave me a sort of list. I’m not convinced that it was quite complete – if I’d had money in my purse, I might have learned some more – but I’m certain that what he told me is nothing but the truth.’
‘I see.’ The thin lips smiled. ‘Perhaps I should have questioned Aulus when I had the chance. Or we should have questioned him together, you and I.’
Another jest? He was talking to me as though I were his equal, all at once. I knew I should be flattered by the compliment, but something was niggling in the corner of my brain – a vague feeling that something important had been said, some significant detail which had passed me by. I racked my brains but for the moment I could not work out what it was. Meanwhile Lucius was still smiling in that impassive way of his, waiting for me to answer his remark.
Well, two could play the game of flattery. ‘I’m sure your rank and status would ensure success,’ I said. I didn’t have to add ‘your bribe’ – that was implicit, as we were both aware. ‘Perhaps we could both talk to him when he turns up again.’
‘Willingly. Supposing that he does.’ Lucius arched his eyebrows. ‘Marcus was telling us, just the other day, about the trouble you are having with those rebels in the west, and how it’s feared they might now have a hideout in these woods.’
‘You think he might have been abducted or attacked?’ This was a possibility which had not occurred to me – though perhaps it should have done. What else would have persuaded him to leave his post like that? He would hardly have done so willingly, and risked a flogging for his pains. I thought a moment and then shook my head. ‘Aulus is not the kind of man that brigands set upon – not unless there was a well-armed band of them, at least, and even then he would have laid about him with his club, and bloodied one or two of them for their pains. And the way he roars, it couldn’t go unnoticed in the house. Besides, there’s no sign of a struggle – I can vouch for that.’
‘You don’t suppose that he simply took the chance to run away? He was always complaining about something, when I spoke to him.’
I had to smile at this. ‘And make himself a fugitive, with a price upon his head? Not Aulus. He must have earned his freedom price half a dozen times in bribes, but he’s never shown the slightest inclination to buy his freedom and depart. I think he quite enjoys his position as a spy.’
Lucius seemed unwilling to abandon his idea. ‘In normal times, perhaps. But no doubt, like the rest of us, he was alarmed by knowing that we had an unburied body in the house, just when the Festival of the Dead is coming up. Perhaps he feared the spirits and made a bolt for it?’
I could not see Aulus as a superstitious man – one whiff of his onions would frighten off any ghost! I shook my head again. ‘More likely there was some crisis in the lane and – not finding another servant when he called for one, since there were none about – he left his post to deal with it himself.’
‘Unless you are right and he was suddenly unwell.’ Minimus had been standing by and listening to all this. ‘I remember that did happen to him once before – we found him in the forest, being very sick. He’d gnawed some sort of flower bulbs instead of onions.’
‘Your attendant interrupts us, citizen!’ Lucius was outraged by this affront to his dignity. ‘If he were my servant I should have him flogged.’ Shutters had come down across his face, like a shop-front at the market closing up, and his previous thawing manner had frozen hard again.
‘Nevertheless, we must investigate all possibilities,’ I urged.
But he was not to be wooed into friendliness again. ‘Then you can leave me to arrange a search for the missing gatekeeper. You, I believe, have other things to do. I think there is someone awaiting you outside?’
It was a dismissal, and a timely one, in fact. So much had happened that I had almost forgotten Stygius and his land slave. ‘Of course,’ I murmured. ‘I must go at once. But . . .’
Lucius gave me that tight smile again and raised a warning hand. ‘That is your priority, citizen, I fear. Your patron requested you to solve this crime, and it is important that you make a start if you are to put that corpse to rest before the Lemuria begins.’ He swallowed self-importantly, so that the cartilage in his throat bobbed up and down. ‘I only hope that the disappearance of this Aulus fellow is not another manifestation of a curse upon this household. But, as I say, you can leave that in my hands. I will go and talk to the chief steward now, and arrange a search party.’ And without another word he turned away, and strode from the atrium.
‘I’m sorry, master.’ Minimus was beside me in a trice. ‘I did not mean to interrupt you and provoke the citizen.’
I grinned at him in mock severity. ‘Then ensure you mind your manners another time,’ I said. ‘Now, take me to the stable block at once. I’ll see Stygius and this land slave, if they’re still here.’
They were. Stygius was doggedly standing vigil beside the shrouded corpse – from which, as Lucius had said, a distinctive odour was now beginning to emerge – while his companion loitered uncomfortably nearby. The older man came across to greet me as soon as I appeared.
‘Ah, Citizen Libertus, there you are. This here is Caper – the slave I told you of. The one who interviewed the father of that girl. You’ll have to speak slowly. He’s fairly new to us.’
I nodded at Caper. The word means ‘he-goat’ and presumably some recent slavemaster had given him the name. I could see why. He was a tall, rangy-looking youth with curly, thick black hair, which sprouted not only from his long and bony head, but from his sinewy hands, legs and forearms too. A straggling beard and whiskers formed a sort of frame around his face so that he did look like a kind of half-tamed animal – a mountain goat perhaps – standing on its hind legs for a trick. He was dressed in a grimy tunic, with a leather apron and rough rags tied about his feet for boots. He raised a pair of wary eyes to me as I approached, and Stygius prodded him forward with one brawny arm.
‘Now then.’ Stygius poked the unfortunate Caper fiercely in the ribs. ‘This citizen is your master’s special protégé, so you make sure you answer when you’re spoken to.’
It didn’t altogether look as if the goat could manage that. He was gazing at my toga with a doubtful air, as if it overawed him.
‘You spoke to the family of this girl?’ I said.
He nodded, but said nothing. Before Stygius could offer a rebuke, I spoke again. ‘You could take me to the place?’
Another nod. ‘Nicely place,’ he said at last. His voice was what I had expected, gruff and low, with the strong accent of the local tribe. Brought up in some poor family, I would judge, and sold to slavery to help the funds when he was old enough. As Stygius said, his Latin was not good, though obviously he could understand my words. I wondered how he had coped with asking questions in some of the Roman households round about.
‘Nice place?’ I said, in Celtic, and earned a wondering smile. My dialect was not the same as his, but it was close enough to give him confidence.
‘Good pigs, they’ve got. And hens. And cabbages,’ he told me eagerly. ‘All sorts of things. It’s quite a little farm.’
‘How long will it take us to get there?’ I asked.
He looked at me, taking in the toga and the greying beard. ‘Took me half an hour,’ he said. ‘Take you a good bit longer, I expect.’
It took me twice that time, in fact. Several times Caper had to wait for me (though sometimes for Minimus as well, I was amused to note) and once again he lived up to his name. He led the way so quickly there was no time for speech. After a mile or two I was panting after him, far too breathless for conversation anyway.
Our destination lay in the opposite direction from my house, and we were soon in an area that I did not know at all. We hurried past the trappers’ hut and a scattered farm or two, but Caper did not pause. Away from the main lane he led us at a trot, till we were toiling up hilly forest tracks. We seemed to be leaving civilisation far behind when, stumbling along a little stony path, we suddenly came to a clearing in the woods. Caper stopped, and spread out one arm to indicate the crest of a small hill with a roundhouse enclosure on the top of it. ‘There it is,’ he said triumphantly.
It was a sizeable homestead, for a peasant farm, and I could see why Caper thought it a ‘nicely place’. I could make out four roundhouses at least, a large expanse of cultivated spelt, and half a dozen sheep and horses corralled into a field. But there was evidence of Roman ways as well. There were watch-geese roaming inside the inner yard; plump ducks and chickens pecked among long rows of cabbages, and we had already passed the portable woven fences which were moved around the woods to give swine new feeding grounds while keeping them enclosed. A stack of firewood was cut and standing at the gate, with a sprig of holly hanging over it for luck, and another pile of something (it looked like bundled leaves) was drying in a rick as winter fodder for the animals. Woodsmoke curled up from the roof-holes and from somewhere inside the enclosure a dog began to bark.
Clearly the place was mildly prosperous, but I was rather surprised to find that this was the household we’d been looking for. Stygius had told me yesterday that his land slaves were looking for news of a missing girl with soft, unblistered hands. The inhabitants of such a farm as this would work their land themselves – just as they would have built the roundhouses, dug the surrounding ditches and woven the triple fence. No troops of slaves to do the work for them – the women of the household would labour with the men. I said as much to Caper, when I found the breath to speak. ‘You were looking for a girl with tender hands,’ I said. ‘What made you come and ask your questions here?’
He looked at me, furrowing his eyebrows closer across his narrow eyes. ‘They told me at the big Roman house down there’ – he waved a vague hand in the direction we had come – ‘that there was someone missing from this farm. Apparently the father went down there a little while ago, saying that his eldest girl had run away, and asking if their land slaves had seen any sign of her. Of course they couldn’t help him, but they told me what he’d said. So up I came. I didn’t think there was much chance of its being any use, considering the hands and everything, but I thought I’d be in trouble if I didn’t try. I didn’t know then that the body was a man, or I might not have bothered coming here at all.’