‘Well?’ he was demanding of his captive now. ‘What do you have to say?’
The raeda-driver raised a weary head and seemed about to speak, but at that moment Ascus cantered back, scattering the people as he’d done before. ‘I’ve found your carriage. I recognized the horses, they were stabled beside my own in Corinium last night. That flabby fellow over there was guarding it just now.’ He made a gesture with his massive hand to where a pudgy slave in temple livery was hastening through the gate. ‘I’ve sent him to his masters, to his great relief. The raeda is all right. The shutters are still up, but I have looked inside and there’s a box.’ He grinned at the raedarius. ‘You are fortunate. On a feast day like today, when the town is full of rogues, it would not have been surprising if it had disappeared. Let’s get the gig over there, and get it loaded on.’
‘When we’ve released the prisoner’s arms,’ I said.
The horseman grinned again. He reached into the lining of his riding-coat and produced a wicked-looking knife.
‘I thought you said you weren’t permitted . . .’ I began.
‘This is for dining purposes, if anybody asks.’ He flashed his gaps at me. ‘But I dare say it will serve for other purposes.’ He leaned into the carriage as he spoke, and sliced the bond in two, as effortlessly as though it were another piece of bread.
The raedarius stiffly moved his arms round to the front and eased his aching shoulders with an attempted shrug. A new bloodstain instantly appeared on his tunic, as though the movement of his back had opened up the wound. I was stiff from jolting, and I ached in every limb and it was difficult for me to climb unaided from the gig, still clutching my precious letter in my hand.
But he managed a wan smile as he joined me on the ground. ‘It is as well the horseman is so big,’ he said to me, in our own tongue again. ‘We could never have moved the box out of the raeda otherwise. That’s it over there.’
He walked so painfully and stiffly that people turned to stare, but he seemed oblivious of the attention paid to him. It was not until we reached the raeda that I understood. He did not stop to look inside at all. He made for the two horses and began to coo to them, whispering and stroking their dark flanks, almost lover-like. ‘Have you had food and drink my lovelies?’ They whinnied up to him.
Ascus was watching all this with a frown. ‘What did he stand accused of?’ he said privately to me.
‘Failing to take care of Audelia and her maid,’ I answered. ‘And failing to account for any kidnappers, or give any other explanation as to where she’d gone.’
Ascus looked thoughtful. ‘She must have been coerced. The last time that I saw her she was happy as could be – thoroughly delighted to be a bride at last.’
‘That is why I wished to look inside the raeda,’ I agreed. ‘To see if there were any signs of force – scratches, or damage, or any sign of blood.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll move that box for you. What’s happened to that gig?’ He gestured to the gig-slave. ‘Get that over here. And be quick about it. We haven’t got all day. This citizen wants to look inside the coach.’
The gig-slave, who’d clearly thought he had a friend, looked mystified at this but brought the carriage up. He leapt down from the driving-seat and gazed inside the coach. ‘That’s an enormous box.’ He put a hand to it. ‘And very heavy too.’
Ascus had dismounted. ‘I’ll put it on the gig.’ He took for granted he could handle it, and doubtless he was right. But I prevented him.
There was something about the nature of the box and its excessive weight that made me say, ‘Before you move it, let’s have a look inside. There might be something of importance there.’
The top had been secured with a heavy lock, but that did not stop Ascus. He used the knife again, this time as a lever, and pushed the lid ajar. But even before he’d fully opened it, the smell had reached me and I knew what we would find.
There was a body in it. A headless body, by the look of it. Ascus did not wait for a command, but reached into the box and pulled it out.
The corpse had been a woman, that was clear at once. Her arms, which had been forced behind her back, proved to finish in mere bloodied stumps where both of the hands had been brutally removed. A woman dressed in a distinctive garb.
Ascus looked at me. ‘Seems as your journey will not be needed now. We seem to have found the missing Vestal after all,’ he said.
ELEVEN
I
stared at the poor, mutilated, lifeless thing which dangled from his hands like some grotesque stuffed doll. Hard to believe that it had once been a living woman, with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Clearly an attractive woman, too. If this had indeed been Audelia, I thought, she did not share the angularity of her aunt.
The form, or what one could perceive of it beneath the Vestal robes, was slim and shapely still, and the bare legs and ankles (though mottled purple with pooled blood where they had been pressed against the box), were well-formed, shaved and slightly muscular.
I wondered at that for a moment, but then remembered what I’d been told when I was in Londinium – that Vestal Virgins sometimes walked for miles to gather the spring water that featured in the shrine. I had not seen it for myself, of course, but I had heard of it: flowing incessantly into a bowl which, in turn, spilled out into a pool to be siphoned back again, so that a priestess or worshipper who washed her hands, in accordance with the ritual, washed them in pure running water every time. To let the water fail was to infringe the vows, so the reservoir was reverently topped up every day. No wonder that this Vestal – if that was what she was – showed signs of constant gentle exercise.
But . . . ‘Why cut off her hands and head?’ I said the words aloud. ‘Unless the intention was to disguise the identity of the corpse?’
The gig-man, who had been standing goggling at my side, looked pityingly at me. ‘And leave the rest of her in that distinctive dress? What sense is there in that? More likely it was to make the body fit into the space. Must have been a fairly tight squeeze as it was.’
Ascus looked surprised. He hoisted the corpse above the open box, and gauged the volume by dipping it inside and pushing down. He turned to me. ‘I believe he might be right. There’s not a lot of room – and if the head was on, you couldn’t close the lid.’
I had to admit there was some force in that. ‘But why remove the hands?’ I persisted. ‘That would hardly help to get the body in the box.’ I was about to press my theory of disguised identity, when I realized the fundamental flaw. That could hardly be the explanation here – one wealthy woman’s hands look much like the next. Unless this was some arthritic ancient crone, or hard-working toil-worn slave (which clearly it was not, the rest of the body was too well-fed for that) the hands were surely quite irrelevant. It was not as though you could classify people by their finger-shapes, and we didn’t know what Audelia’s looked like anyway. ‘So what could anyone hope to gain by doing that?’ I said aloud.
It was the raedarius who answered. ‘After her jewellery, citizen, I shouldn’t be surprised. Whenever this was done they must have wanted speed, or they might have been discovered. Easier to hack the finger off than struggle with a ring.’
The gig-driver rounded on him instantly. ‘So you know all about it? And you had this box riding with you all the way?’ He smiled, unpleasantly. ‘I knew that we should not have set you free.’
‘Of course I did not touch the Vestal,’ the raedarius protested. ‘I place far too much value on my life! Anyway, I’d no idea that she was in the box. It’s just that I’ve come across the same thing once before – two unhappy corpses, that I found in a ditch, who had been stripped and robbed by highway thieves. They’d also had their hands and feet removed to steal the golden toe and finger-ornaments.’
‘And you were there that time as well!’ The gig-man sneered. ‘Is that a coincidence? I wonder if the master will think so when he hears? I have my own ideas – and I’d like to know where you’ve hidden the jewels you cut from her.’ He glanced at Ascus, certain of support. ‘Will you seize him, horseman, or should I call the guard? I daren’t lay hands on him this time – he is a freeman and I am just a slave and I have no authority from my master or Publius to take him prisoner again. And . . .’ He looked contemptuously at me. ‘It’s clear this citizen will take no steps at all.’
Ascus surprised me. He put down the headless corpse, letting it collapse into a heap upon the street, then turned towards Lavinius’s slave and stood towering over him. He was twice as big as the gig-boy, and looked as if he could swallow him for lunch so I was not surprised to see the young man flinch.
The ex-cavalry-man put a giant hand under the gig-slave’s chin and forced the young slave to look up at him. ‘Listen here, young man! Take care whom you accuse. You think you’re very clever, but you know nothing of the world. Any man can murder, for profit, for revenge – that much I will grant you. But to take a knife to some helpless female and cut bits off her – that takes a special kind of ruthlessness. And I will tell you this – the raedarius clearly is not that kind of man. You saw what happened when I cut him free – he was more concerned about his animals than anything else. If he had known what was hidden in the box, would he have ignored it and been so happy to let me open it? Besides, a man who cares that much about a horse is not likely to cut women into pieces, in my view.’
The gig-slave was attempting in vain to get away. ‘But you heard what he said about the hands . . .’
‘Exactly!’ Ascus said. ‘And what he says is true – I’ve seen it happen on the battlefield, myself. People are always plundering the dead. And not just cutting off their rings and amulets – but whole torcs and helmets, and even pairs of boots.’ He let go of the boy, who stumbled back and rubbed his face. Ascus turned to me. ‘So I find the explanation very probable. And Audelia did have finger-rings, I told you earlier. She promised one to me.’
I nodded. ‘Though that was in her jewel-box, I believe you said? She wasn’t wearing it?’
Ascus looked shifty. ‘That’s true. And the jewel-box isn’t here. Though there is something in here, now I come to look. I don’t suppose . . .’ He leaned across the corpse – paying no more attention than if it were a dog – and plunged one massive hand into the box. ‘Nothing significant. It is only cloth.’ He drew out a folded piece of delicate material dyed a saffron hue. ‘This was underneath the body. I did not see it before.’
‘That must be Audelia’s marriage-veil,’ I said.
He flipped it by two corners so that it half-opened out. It was beautifully embroidered with gold and silver thread – butterflies and flowers, as if to match the shoes. ‘It answers the description that I heard of it,’ he agreed.
‘I’ll give you two
sesterces
for it,’ said a cheeky voice. ‘Cursed by being with a corpse or not.’
I turned around. I had been so transfixed by our discovery that I had not realized it, but we had attracted quite a little crowd of curious spectators, many of them slightly the worse for drinking wine.
‘Make it three sesterces,’ the speaker said again – a fat, florid tradesman with a pockmarked face. ‘It’s a handsome offer. You won’t get more than that. Come on, citizen, she won’t be needing it. And I won’t sell it locally – I’ll take it somewhere else. I know a bride-to-be who will be pleased to have the veil – she doesn’t need to know that it belonged to someone dead.’ It was clear that he’d decided that I must be in charge – I was wearing the toga after all – and he pushed his face towards me, reeking of cheap wine. ‘You can’t tell me that you want to put it on the pyre. All that work, it would be such a waste. It’s not even damaged, she’s hardly bled on it.’
There was an outbreak of ragged cheers at that and cries of: ‘Go on, citizen.’ But I hardly noticed them. I was staring at the speaker. ‘What did you just say?’
He sighed theatrically and spread his hands apart. ‘Three sesterces and one denarius. That’s my final offer, citizen. I can’t make a profit if I give you more – even on stitching of pure gold and silver thread.’
But I wasn’t listening. ‘She hasn’t bled on it,’ I echoed, stupidly. ‘Of course she hasn’t! Or on her vestments either!’ I turned to Ascus. ‘You see what that implies? Someone cut her hands and head off after she was dead. Quite a while afterwards – or there’d be bloodstains everywhere.’
He stared at me. ‘I do believe you’re right. I should have thought of that.’ He opened out the veil to examine it. ‘This was underneath her all the time, but there’s hardly a sign of a bloodstain anywhere.’ But even as he spoke, something brownish-green fell out and fluttered to the ground. He bent to peer at it, pushed it with his foot, then said dismissively, ‘That isn’t anything. Just a piece of leafy twig. Caught in the hemming by the look of it.’
‘That might be important, all the same,’ I said reprovingly. ‘For instance, it might give us a clue as to where the girl was killed – or put into the box. Could you get it, gig-boy, and save my poor old back?’ I placed Publius’s precious letter in my toga-folds, where it would be supported by my belt, and held out my hand.
‘If you insist, citizen.’ The gig-boy gestured the trader to stand back, and bending down, picked up the piece of twig. But instead of handing it to me, he took one look at it and dropped it instantly as if it burnt his skin. All the colour had drained out of his face.
‘Well?’ I held my hand out more insistently.
He shook his head and went on shaking it. ‘I’m not touching that. Where’s that lucky charm I saw tied on the coach? It’s not a proper deity, but it’ll have to do.’ There was a crude wooden trinket-doll tied to the raeda – the sort of talisman that travellers sometimes use to ward off evil spirits on the road. The gig-boy scooped it up and pressed his lips to it and I saw him mouthing some kind of hasty prayer. Then he let the charm go and said shakily, ‘That’s the only good-luck incantation that I know. I hope it is enough.’