Louder and louder, until at last we reached a clearing in the trees. There was a shallow dip there, screened by low bushes from our vantage point, and on the other side of it I could see the animal, snuffling at something with an excited air. It looked up and howled at its mistress’s approach. She flapped a hand towards the hidden hollow place, but kept her head averted, as if she could not bear to look.
‘There!’ she muttered. I moved forward to look into the dip, and saw what she had seen.
It was Aulus – I knew at once although I could not see the face. That massive bear-like form would have been unmistakable, even if it had not been wearing the distinctive cloak and tunic of the villa guards. He was huddled face downward on the forest floor, pitched forward on his knees as though he had been overcome while kneeling down, and there were fresh bleeding scratches on his legs and thighs all the way from his tunic-hems to his huge sandalled feet. One hairy hand was still clutched to his throat, and there were traces of vomit all round where he lay. Perhaps it was that which had so aroused the dog, which even now was rushing to and fro, its muzzle to the ground, emitting intermittent yelps and growls.
‘I’m very sorry, husband.’ Morella’s mother sounded weak with shock. ‘I could not hold the animal. It got away from me.’ She held out her hands to show the welts the running rope had made. ‘Then, when we got here, it was even worse. It started standing over him and wouldn’t let me near.’
‘Huh!’ The man took a striding step towards the dog, caught the leash and yanked it backwards with considerable force. I felt a momentary sympathy for the unhappy brute as the pull jerked it savagely up on its hind legs, and almost toppled it on to its back. It snarled, snapped at its master, then regained its feet and, deprived of its interesting quarry, sat down on its haunches and gave a whining howl.
However, it was at least now under some control. I ventured past it rather nervously, and picking the cleanest bit of ground I could find I knelt by Aulus and tried to raise his head. His face was never an attractive one, but now – a livid colour, with his eyes rolled back and leaf mould sticking to vomit round his mouth – he was a dreadful sight. It did not need the shocking coldness and the weight to tell me he was dead.
I had never been especially fond of Aulus in his life, but suddenly I found a dreadful sympathy for him. I should miss his grasping avarice and his onion breath, and his massive brutal presence spying at the gate.
‘Is it serious?’ the woman ventured, as though Aulus might simply have knelt down for a rest. She edged a little closer. ‘It looks as though something he ate or drank has disagreed with him.’
‘That is an understatement, madam, but essentially the truth. Aulus has been poisoned, by the look of it,’ I said, ‘though it must have taken quite a dose to topple such a man.’
Even Farathetos was sobered by the sight. He tied the dog’s leash to a tree – which did not please the animal at all – and came to squat beside me in the dip.
‘This is not the dead body that you were talking of?’ He did not wait for me to answer, but did so for himself. ‘Can’t be. That was “murdered and horribly butchered”, you said. And this man could never have been fitted into Morella’s dress.’ He had lost his belligerence, and sounded merely shocked, and I noticed he was speaking instinctively in Celtic now. ‘This is another corpse!’
I sighed. ‘It seems so. This is my patron’s gatekeeper. The one my wife expected to find on duty when she came. He has been missing since early in the day and now, I think, we know the reason why. Somebody has poisoned him.’ I tried to turn the body over as I spoke, but it was difficult. Aulus was in any case a very heavy man, but he seemed to be twice as heavy dead. He was stiff and unresponsive and in the end I gave it up.
I turned to Farathetos, seeking help, but he was already getting to his feet, his sullen face creased in a doubtful frown. ‘Someone poisoned him? I don’t see how you can be so sure of that. Strikes me he might have taken the poison for himself. After all, he seems to have come into the forest on his own, rather than going into the villa to seek help.’ The idea seemed to cheer him up, if anything. ‘Guilt of that other murder, preying on his mind. You mark my words, citizen. Here’s the man who put that body in Morella’s dress. Afraid of someone finding out what he’d done, and handing him to the torturers to force him to confess.’
‘I do not think so,’ I said soberly, although I admit I did briefly consider the idea. But a moment’s reflection disposed of it at once. The murder had happened a day or two before, when Aulus had been on duty at the gate from dawn to dusk and – even if he had the opportunity to kill – would have had no chance at all of disposing of the corpse. Besides, he would hardly have hidden it in the ditch where it was found – he must have known that the land slaves were going to clear the land.
But Farathetos was unwilling to abandon his idea. ‘Perhaps he was the one who robbed and murdered my Morella, too. In that case I shall make a claim against his owner for my loss. Important magistrate or not, I’ll take him to the courts – you see if I don’t. It’s a lot of money for a man like me to lose.’
‘Then don’t waste any more of it on useless claims,’ I said. ‘Let’s concentrate on finding out what happened, if we can.’ I turned to the woman, who was still standing further off. ‘Was there any sign of how the gatekeeper came here? Any tracks to show the way he’d come?’
She nodded. ‘Along that path beside the thicket over there, I think,’ she said, indicating a faint track which I could just perceive. ‘That’s where I was walking when the dog picked up the scent. It had been tracking something right along the trail and all at once it veered away and dragged me over here. You can see the bracken, where he pulled me. It’s all been trodden down.’
I got up to look more closely, leaving Aulus where he lay. Taking care not to disturb things more than I could help, I traced back along the trail – a zigzag route that led here from the path, getting more random as it came along – right through the bushes, in some places, rather than going round them as I had to do – as if the person walking had lost all sense of place and simply been reeling helplessly around till he fell. And that, I was quite certain, was what had happened here. I’d already noticed the telltale signs on Aulus’s legs, and as I looked carefully along the way he had come I found fresh blood visible on several jagged twigs, and broken branches where he had blundered through.
‘See, there is vomit in places along the path as well.’ I realised that the woman had followed at my heels. She gave me a conspiratorial smile. Out of her husband’s hearing, she had more confidence. ‘I had an awful time to keep the dog away, and once or twice he pulled so hard I almost trod in it.’ She glanced back to the clearing. ‘Was it something that the poor man ate that killed him, do you think?’
I smiled. ‘It’s possible.’ I recalled what Minimus had said about the time when Aulus had eaten flower bulbs instead of onions and been very ill. Was it possible he’d made the same mistake again? I shook my head. It would be too much of a coincidence, and anyway his previous misadventure had not laid him low for long. But Aulus had gone into the forest then, and was discovered vomiting. It was obvious why his instinct was to come this way if he was taken urgently unwell – the forest was much closer than the slaves’ latrine and much quicker to get to from his gatehouse cell.
The woman was looking at me enquiringly and for some reason I found myself explaining this last idea to her.
‘I see,’ she said, with that shy smile again. ‘I suppose I would not go back into the house of my master, either, if I wanted to be sick. But why keep moving, once he was under the cover of the trees? Or do you think he felt so ill, by then, that he didn’t really know what he was doing and just went on stumbling along until he fell?’
‘It must have been something of the kind,’ I said. ‘Someone must have given him a massive dose to be sure of killing an enormous person like him – enough to fell three ordinary men – and once it began to take effect it would very quickly show results. I expect he felt so dreadful that he could hardly stand, let alone decide which way to go.’
‘But how could he be poisoned, anyway?’ she said. ‘Surely his master would provide his food and drink?’
It was the very question that I was asking myself, and I was about to commend her for voicing it aloud when there was a shouting noise behind us, followed by a bark, and we turned to find Farathetos and his dog crashing towards us through the undergrowth.
The farmer was scowling by the time he got to us. ‘Going to leave me there all afternoon,’ he said, ‘while you stand here and chatter to my wife? Well, I’m sorry, citizen, but I’ve got other things to do – especially if that other matter is now with His Excellence. So if you have quite finished with us, we’ll be on our way. And if there is a reward for discovering the corpse, remember that it was my dog which led you to the place.’ He gave a tug to the rope leash as he spoke, and the creature bared its teeth.
I came to a decision. ‘In fact,’ I said, ‘I have a task for you. And for your dog as well. I want you to stay here and mount guard over the corpse, while I go back to the villa and fetch some help to carry it. They will want to cremate it as soon as possible, before the Roman Festival of the Dead, which starts in the middle of tomorrow night.’ I could see him looking doubtful, and I went on hastily. ‘No doubt my patron will be grateful for your services – and gravely displeased to learn that you’d declined to help.’
It was a threat, of course, and an effective one. Farathetos could no more have refused than he could have brought the corpse of Aulus back to life again. The farmer gave me a slow, unwilling glance and forced himself to smile. ‘At your command then, citizen – of course.’
‘Very well. Be sure you are here when I get back, and don’t let anyone go near the corpse. Or that dog either, if you know what’s good for you.’
And with that I turned back down the path, in the general direction of the villa and the gates, while Farathetos set off the other way, accompanied by his dog and his unhappy wife. I could hear them both snarling at her, in their different ways, as they went back towards the clearing where the body was.
I came to a decision. I turned and called to them. ‘On second thoughts the woman had better come with me. I shall be required in the house and someone will have to show the bier-carriers the way.’
She flashed me a grateful look and came hurrying after me. ‘Do you think this is related to Morella’s fate?’ she said, as soon as she caught up with me again.
I looked at her sadly. ‘I’d been hoping he could help me in my search for her.’ That was an understatement. I had been relying on Aulus, as my only lead. ‘This is the man she was speaking to the last time she was seen alive. Now we shall never know for sure what she was asking him.’
‘You are sure that she is dead then, citizen? Even though the body’s not been found?’
‘It is what I am afraid of, more than ever now.’ I tried to avoid the look of anguish in her eyes, and shook my head. ‘But there is no time to linger. We must get back to the house. My patron will be waiting, and so will my wife, and besides there are a great many preparations to be made if Aulus is to be disposed of decently before the Lemuria begins.’ I turned and led the way briskly back along the path, not wishing to discuss the matter any more.
When I reached the villa, it was to find Junio at the gate with Niveus, both of them peering anxiously up and down the lane. I had forgotten that they would be waiting to escort me home and, further, that with his new status as a citizen my son was likely to come looking for me here, instead of waiting meekly in the servants’ room.
He turned to say something to the duty gatekeeper, and as he did so he caught sight of me. ‘Father!’ He sounded not a little startled to see me emerging from the woods with a woman.
‘Stand here,’ I muttered to her, and I hurried over to my adopted son. ‘That is Morella’s mother,’ I explained. ‘She and her husband came here seeking me.’
Junio’s expression was inscrutable. ‘Mother told us that you were talking to the girl’s parents at the gate, but when you did not return we began to be concerned. More so when we came out here and found you’d disappeared, and the gatekeeper did not seem to know where you had gone. There have been too many mysteries at this villa as it is, what with Aulus vanishing and the corpse and all the rest.’ It was as near to a rebuke as he would ever dare to offer me.
‘Well, one of those mysteries is solved at any rate, at least in part,’ I said. ‘We have just found Aulus’s body in the woods – or rather it was sniffed out by a dog. He has been poisoned, by the look of it.’ I saw the shock reflected on his face, and added, more gently, ‘I was going to go round straight away and ask Stygius to send some hefty land slaves out to bring him home. The slaves will need something to carry him back on, I suspect – a wooden shutter or a sledge or something of the kind. The woman will lead them to where the body is.’
Junio was suddenly all brisk efficiency. ‘Don’t worry about looking for Stygius yourself. Niveus or I can see to that for you. Do you need to ask your patron for permission for the slaves?’
‘I don’t think so, in the circumstances,’ I said. ‘It would just cause more delay. There have already been orders to all the villa staff to look for Aulus and use any means to bring him home. The sooner the body is brought back here, the sooner funeral preparations can begin – there is no time to be lost if he is to be decently cremated before the Festival of the Dead begins. That’s midnight tomorrow, as I’m sure you know.’
‘I will go and talk to Stygius,’ Junio said. ‘You had better go inside. Your presence has been missed. My mother is concerned for you, and your patron has been demanding to know where you went. Even Lucius has roused himself to send his bodyguard down to your roundhouse to see if you were there.’
This was alarming – it was not wise to be elsewhere when Marcus wanted me. ‘Very well. You make the arrangement with the land slaves, and I’ll go in and tell Marcus what is happening,’ I said. ‘I should have to report to him in any case, if only to tell him that Aulus has been found.’