‘You did the right thing, all the same,’ I said. ‘It turns out that we may be looking for a peasant girl.’
He grinned – a malicious little smile that showed his long and yellow teeth and reminded me more than ever what his nickname meant. ‘Course, that enquiry from her father was a little while ago, before her family got word that she was safe. She has joined a travelling entertainment troupe and sent a message home, saying she was well and happy and not to look for her. You knew that, didn’t you?’ He seemed to take a gleeful pleasure in the notion that my breathless exertions might have been in vain. ‘But there’s the father – you can ask him for yourself.’
I looked in the direction where he was gesturing. There was indeed a man – a burly man in Celtic trousers, tunic and plaid cloak. Borrowing from Roman ways clearly did not extend to personal appearance. His hair was pulled back into a long tail at his neck, which emphasised his jutting chin and long traditional moustache. He was leaning on the enclosure fence and staring hard at us. There was a none-too-friendly expression on his face, and I was alarmed to see a huge staff in his hand, while the dog – which was now squatting at his heels – bared his teeth in a ferocious snarl. Hardly the welcoming reception I had hoped.
I was contemplating whether I should go over and speak to him myself, or whether I should send either of the slaves, when the fellow solved the problem by shouting out to us.
‘You again, goat-face? What do you want this time? And who is your fancy toga-wearing friend?’ He was bellowing in Celtic, probably in the belief that I would not understand.
Caper looked uncomfortable. ‘This is the Citizen Libertus,’ he called back in the same tongue. ‘The favoured client of my master, Marcus Septimus – you know, the magistrate. Libertus is here on his particular account, to ask the same questions that I asked you yesterday and probably some others of his own as well.’ Then, seeing that the farmer was about to speak again, he added hastily, ‘He’s a Roman citizen, but he speaks Celtic too.’
I could see that it was time for me to intervene. ‘Indeed I do. And I have a roundhouse, though not as grand as yours. Nor is my family quite as sizeable,’ I added, realising that there were several female heads watching us from the shelter of the roundhouse doors. The same heads heard me and instantly withdrew. ‘But it’s your eldest daughter that I want to talk about.’
The farmer threw me a furious glance. ‘And what is she to you? Come to tell me that she is found, have you, and want me to take her back? Well, I shall have to disappoint you, citizen. She ran away, and she can stay away, as far as I’m concerned. She has made a mockery of me and of my family’s good name!’
I took a pace towards him but was dissuaded by the dog, which snarled and barked and rushed fiercely at the fence. I stopped and shouted from the safety of the path. ‘A mockery?’ I echoed, trying to sound as sympathetic as I could.
He spat into the furze pile with ferocity. ‘How dare she run away when I have promised her, especially when I found her a decent widower like that. Cost me a pair of cows in dowry, and a lot of money too – and naturally he won’t agree to give them back.’ Another spit. ‘Course he was old and ugly, and inclined to smell of pigs, but a girl like that should be grateful to get any man at all. You tell her, citizen, if I lay hands on her, I’ll give her a leathering that she won’t forget.’
I was beginning to feel some sympathy for the young runaway. ‘You’d promised her in marriage?’ I took another step. The dog contented itself this time with an unpleasant growl.
The farmer hawked, and ran a hand and arm across his mouth. ‘Aren’t I just telling you I did?’ he said. He paused, then went on in an altered tone of voice. ‘But surely you must know that, if you’ve caught up with her. Morella is a bit simple, I grant you, but she wouldn’t tell a lie. Hasn’t got the wit to make things up at all. Too trusting, in a lot of ways, that’s been the trouble all her life.’ He cocked an eye at me. ‘I expect that’s what happened with this travelling act of hers. She found out what the fellow wanted, and didn’t care for it? Well, tell him I won’t take her – and that’s an end of that. I’m not obliged to, when she left here of her own accord. You tell her that as well.’
‘I can’t tell her anything,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where she is. I’ve come to ask you what she looked like, so I can search for her.’
‘Don’t bother. I don’t want her, and she sends word she’s happy where she is.’ Something seemed to strike him, and he glared at me. ‘Don’t tell me she’s already got herself in debt, and her creditors are searching for her? No doubt they’ll hold me liable, if they don’t find her soon, since she is my daughter, and a simple one at that. Oh, now it all makes sense! That’s why the magistrate has sent you, I suppose.’
I tried to deny it, but he paid no heed to me. He was still spitting at the ground and grumbling to himself. ‘Oh, dear gods of stone and tree, is there no end to this? I’ve done my best for her for years, and what’s the thanks I get? I’ve got other children to think about as well. Four more girls to make provision for. How am I to manage?’
I was still wondering what to say to that when he seized a piece of rope which was tied up to the fence, and used the looped end to secure the dog. ‘Well, I suppose in that case I’d better let you in.’ He came out to the gate and pushed it open, still grumbling. ‘What has she done this time? Taken things without permission from a shop?’
Caper was looking doubtful and so was Minimus, but I led the way into the enclosure and they had no option but to follow me – taking care to keep well out of range of the snarling canine which was straining at its leash. The farmer turned without another word and led the way into the largest building on the site – a communal roundhouse, complete with central fire, and tools and bedding ranged around the walls on the far side. The nearer section, however, was expensively furnished in the Roman style with a proper couch and tables, a handsome woven mat, and an ornate brass oil lamp burning on a stand. Morella’s father was clearly a successful man, as peasant farmers go.
He gestured to the couch, and I sat down on it while he took up a position on a wooden stool nearby. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘What is that she’s done?’
‘I am not sure that she’s done anything,’ I said. ‘And if Morella is the girl I am looking for, it seems unlikely that she was in debt. She had some money with her, quite a lot of it.’
He did not react to this with anger, as I’d expected he would do. He looked a little puzzled, if anything. ‘Well, I don’t know where it came from, then. I didn’t give it to her.’ He folded his arms aggressively across his chest. ‘So if isn’t money, what is it that you want?’
I glanced at Caper for support – after all he had interviewed the man before – but he evaded my eyes and stood staring at the floor. I took a deep breath. ‘We know of a peasant girl who may have come to harm. I hope it’s not Morella, but it is possible.’
I expected some response from him at this – even some expression of concern – but all that happened was a lengthy pause during which we could hear the dog still barking noisily outside.
Eventually I said, ‘I need to trace her movements for the last few days, to be completely sure. In order to do that there are obviously some questions I must ask.’
Another pause. The farmer still said nothing, so I pressed on anyway. ‘Did your Morella have long lime-bleached hair? And what was she wearing when she left the house?’
I was still expecting the farmer to exhibit some concern, or at least to ask some pretty pointed questions of his own – after all I had told him bluntly that I feared his eldest daughter might have come to harm – but he did nothing of the kind. Instead, he pursed his lips and scowled as though I had insulted him.
‘I blame her mother for all that,’ he burst out angrily. ‘Showed her the way her grandfather mixed lime to bleach his hair, like all the other elders of the tribe.’ He ran a proud hand down each end of his magnificent moustache, which had itself been lightly bleached. ‘You do hear of women who have limed hair these days – no respect for masculine tradition and the way things should be done. Of course, she wanted to try it for herself. Someone had told her that blonde girls are prettier and how they sometimes shave their heads and sell their hair for wigs, and after that there was no stopping her. As if she could ever be a beauty! Girl looked like a pig.’ He spat again, this time into the fire.
‘So she did bleach her hair?’ I said, returning to the point.
‘Bleached it! She nearly turned it green, and damaged it so much that half of it broke off the first time she put a bone comb into it. Her mother had a struggle to plait it afterwards – but the stupid girl was thrilled to bits with the effect. Just before her husband-to-be was going to visit, too! I was tempted to hack it all off with the shears and leave her like a sheep, but her mother persuaded me against that in the end. Said Morella would look even worse if she was bald – said it didn’t look too bad when it was braided up, and perhaps the colour would grow out again in time!’ He aimed another gob into the centre of the fire. ‘I should have given both of them a thrashing there and then. I’m too soft with my womenfolk, that’s the truth of it.’
I had to look away as he said this, and I caught Minimus’s eye – he was standing at my elbow all this time. His expression was carefully impassive, as Junio’s would not have been, and he did not return my glance, but I was convinced that he had understood our Celtic speech – with that red hair he was probably Silerian by birth. I was about to ask him to repeat what he had told me about the tunic and the boots when the farmer abruptly got to his feet.
‘About the clothes – I’ll have her mother in and you can talk to her yourself. She’ll know what the girl was wearing – I couldn’t tell you that. I never take an interest in such female details.’ He strode over to the doorway and clapped his hands three times. ‘Wife! I want you! Come to us at once.’
The wife in question must have been waiting close outside, because almost at once she came hurrying in. She was a little wizened woman, with an anxious stoop and a lined and worried weather-beaten face. She could never have been pretty – her nose was far too long – and age had not been very kind to her. Her neck was scrawny and wrinkled and her hair was thin and grey, though she still wore it in a long, brave braid; and her hands – though strong and brown – had ugly livid spots. I noticed that she had expensive sandals and toe-rings on her feet and, remembering the boots that my slave boy had described, I wondered if I’d come here on a fool’s errand after all. If the wife wore proper shoes, I told myself, wasn’t it likely that her daughter did so too?
But then my mosaic-maker’s eye fell on the pattern of the homespun plaid robe she wore, and I knew at once that it was one I’d seen before. Most Celtic families weave a special pattern of their own, and this was identical to the one the corpse had worn. That dress had belonged to a member of this tribe – if not the woman’s daughter, then another relative – and since that person, almost certainly, was dead, I felt a sudden surge of sympathy. But I could not spare her the grief that was in store. I looked at her sadly.
She was smiling a little nervously, showing a row of broken teeth. ‘You called me, husband? I was waiting for your summons. I am sorry that I took so long to answer it.’ Her voice was soft and squeaky, with an apologetic tone, although it seemed to me that she had come the moment she was called. ‘You want me to bring refreshments for your guest?’ she added, gesturing to me, since obviously the slave boys didn’t count. ‘Your’ guest, not ‘our’, I noticed. Clearly, in this household, the farmer’s word was law. Another thing he’d borrowed from the Roman way of life – in many Celtic households the woman has a say, and often is as educated as the menfolk are. ‘A drop of fresh milk and an oatcake, perhaps?’
It sounded quite delicious but the farmer shook his head. ‘No need for that. The citizen will not be staying long. He has a question for you, then he’ll be on his way. Tell him what he wants to know, and get back to your work.’
She turned towards me, her grey eyes wary. ‘Well, citizen, what is it that you want to know? Something about bees or dyeing wool, perhaps? I am not well informed on many things.’
‘Something about your eldest daughter,’ I said quietly.
I saw the flame of hope spring up in her. ‘You have some news of her? Oh, thank all the gods. I thought that I should never hear of her again.’
‘Be silent, woman,’ her husband said, much as he would have quieted the dog. ‘Listen to what the citizen has to say.’
I broke the news to her as gently as I could. We had found a plaid garment in suspicious circumstances, I explained, and we feared that it might once have been Morella’s – though I didn’t say anything about the money in the hem. Then I outlined the description which the dancing woman gave. ‘So, knowing that your daughter had run away, and gone to join an entertainment group,’ I finished, ‘I wanted to check if this dress could possibly be hers. It sounds as if it might. I understand from your husband that she’d lime-bleached her hair in a way that made her stand out from the general crowd.’
The woman shot an anxious look towards her man. ‘Morella didn’t mean any disrespect by that,’ she said. ‘She’s a bit slow of understanding, that’s the only thing. She thought that it looked pretty when she saw my father’s hair, and when I showed her how he did it, she tried it for herself.’ She ignored the furious scowl that her words produced and seemed to stand a little taller as she added, ‘My father is an elder of the tribe, you see, and he still keeps up the ancient warrior traditions in that way. Spikes his hair and wears a long moustache – and insists that members of his family do the same.’ The faintest ghost of a tired smile flitted on her lips. ‘Even sons-in-law,’ she added.
Suddenly I understood why the farmer, who clearly favoured Roman ways, stuck to the old traditions in his style of dress. ‘Yours is an ancient family?’ I hazarded.
She nodded, and was about to speak again when her husband interrupted with a sneer. ‘Ancient and feeble-minded, half of them, and all as proud as gods, though they don’t have much land or money since the occupation. Still, folks still look up to them. Why do you think I married her? It sure as Pluto wasn’t for her wealth and you can see it wasn’t for her looks.’