A Roman Ransom (28 page)

Pulcrus looked from me to Marcus. He seemed to hesitate, as if waiting for permission to reply.

To my relief my patron’s irritation was directed at his slave. ‘Well? Answer the citizen,’ he said.

Pulcrus shrugged. It was not important to him to be polite to me. ‘I don’t know. I suppose she might have done. I was standing where you left me, just beside the door – and of course my horse was in the lane. All I know is that she didn’t come up the path at all – in fact she hurried off as fast as possible and never gave the house a second glance.’

‘So she slipped through our fingers once again.’ Marcus looked vexed. ‘I regard her as suspicious. She must at the very least have known that the house was ransacked when she spoke to us, because she’d just been round the back – and yet she didn’t say a word. I intended to have her brought in for questioning.’

Pulcrus, who had been looking apologetic until now, suddenly became unutterably smug. ‘I knew that, Excellence,’ he said. ‘I heard you say so when you were at the house. So – forgive me – I told the land slaves so, and Malodius has gone off with two of them to try to pick her up. I hope I did the right thing, Excellence.’

Marcus waved a vague hand. ‘Of course you did. Well done, Pulcrus. Remind me to give you a reward – an extra tip or something of the kind.’ The page began to preen until Marcus added, ‘Provided that the woman talks, of course. We can expect her shortly?’

The cocksure swaggering disappeared like smoke. ‘Of course I don’t know exactly where she lives. I pointed out to them the direction that she’d gone, and with all those children she won’t be hard to find. They were all carrying firewood, so they weren’t moving fast. I left Malodius to look for her and rode on ahead. I thought you would require my services.’

Marcus nodded. ‘Then you can wait outside.’

Pulcrus looked almost comically nonplussed. ‘Your pardon, Excellence,’ he stammered. ‘I have a message for you – from the gate-keeper.’ His owner looked like thunder, and he went on hastily, ‘I would have delivered it before: I was about to do it, but you asked me to report on Myrna’s house and obviously my first duty was to answer you.’

‘The message?’ Marcus did not look convinced. ‘I presume it was not urgent?’

‘I don’t think so, Excellence. There is a man to see you, that is all. Not a citizen or anything. A slave-trader by the look of it. He says that you invited him to come. The chief steward didn’t know what to do with him while you were occupied in here, so he’s put him in the atrium to wait. He’s left his cart of goods outside, with Aulus standing by to keep an eye on it. The chief steward says to ask you if he should provide some food and wine, or wasn’t this that kind of visitor?’

Marcus nodded. ‘I was expecting him. Tell the slaves to offer hospitality, but not the finest wine. A few dates perhaps and some of that watered Rhenish stuff I didn’t really like. But see that he is comfortable – he has come all the way from Rome, and he will have been travelling for days.’ He looked down at his amber robe and sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better go and change my clothes – I can’t conduct business in this informal dress. The trader will take it as a sign that I’m not serious, and either try to sell me inferior goods or charge me double for the girl I want. Minimus, go and tell them that I am on my way. Maximus, see that my second-best toga is prepared.’

The two redheads, who had been patiently standing by against the wall with that glazed immobility of all slaves everywhere, sprang instantly to action at his words. They put down the jug of watered wine they had been holding ready to fill their master’s glass again, gave him the linen napkin with which to wipe his lips, and hurried off to do as they were bid.

My patron turned to me with an air of deliberate formality. ‘Libertus, that concludes our interview, I think. You wanted me to bring Myrna’s family in for questioning, and I agree to do so. And I’ll question this other woman too. I would like you to be present when I speak to her. She is obviously more at home in Celtic, and I need your services as interpreter. I imagine that such an arrangement would meet with your approval, too?’

‘I am grateful, Excellence,’ I said with genuine feeling. He had found a clever way of permitting me to talk to the witnesses. Normally I could expect the rulling on my case to be the first thing he did in his role as magistrate. However, since I was to assist him – in an official capacity – with a questioning, any potential hearing against me could be properly deferred until I had discharged my duties. There were several legal precedents for that sort of amnesty, so even the medicus could not object.

However, Marcus’s next words rather modified my joy.

‘Of course, I shall want the medicus to attend me too,’ he said. ‘I will meet you in the atrium as soon as Malodius gets back and I have finished with the slave-trader. I will send for you. Meanwhile, I have important purchases to make. Pulcrus, when we go from here, get the chief steward to summon Philades. I want him to look over this wet nurse with me. And while we are doing that’ – here he turned to me – ‘perhaps it would be wise for you to go back and rest a little while. So, if you will excuse me, citizen.’

And accompanied by his page, he swept out of the room, leaving me and Junio staring after him.

Junio turned towards me with a grin and offered me his arm. ‘Well, master, it seems I should assist you to your room.’

I grunted. Marcus had not actually ordered me to bed, but he had made his wishes clear, and really I did not have a lot of choice. ‘Oh, very well,’ I said. ‘But you can take me for a short walk round the courtyard first. I want to see exactly where one would have to stand to see the other courtyard from this part of the house.’

‘Then put your hood up, master, or you’ll catch a chill.’ I was still wearing the cloak which Junio had brought me, and he arranged it over my head and shoulders as he spoke. ‘It is actually raining now and you’ll get wet otherwise, even if you stay underneath the colonnade.’

I submitted to his ministrations and we hobbled round the court, but I found there was little more to learn. It was clear that Porphyllia’s description was correct and that the only clear sight of the place where the supposed Julia had sat was from the passageway which led into the private wing.

I walked as far as the storage cupboard Porphyllia had told me about. It was a large walk-in affair and I peeped inside, but there was nothing to be seen but neat piles of linen and baskets of supplies.

I would have liked to go through to the inner court and investigate the path that led out to the orchard and the gate. I was about to do so, when the door of one of the apartments opened from within, and a pair of handmaidens came bustling out with bowls of water and a linen cloth, obviously attending Marcellinus in some way, so I stepped quickly back. I did not want to be observed myself.

I was thinking of all the questions which I ought to ask Myrna’s sister, if I got the chance. How long, for instance, did it take a woman to change her clothes? Gwellia could have advised me, perhaps, if she had been here. Where was she? Still at Numidius’s house? Thank all the gods that Marcus still had it under guard – at least Lallius was unlikely to return there for a time. In fact, I had been hourly expecting the arrival of soldiers bringing Gwellia back to us in chains. If only they would do so! Though, I reminded myself, in my present situation it was dangerous for her here. She might well be imprisoned as my conspirator. The sooner I could solve this business, the better for us both. I turned my mind back to Myrna’s sister and the cloak.

I decided to try a small experiment. I said to Junio, ‘I wonder if you could arrange to bring me another cup of mead?’

He looked surprised, and then a slow grin crossed his face. ‘I see. You want to see how long an errand of that kind would take. Well, if you are sure that you can manage from here on your own?’

‘Of course I can. It’s no more than a step or two at most, and Cilla is waiting in the room. She will assist me if I need any help. Anyway, I really want the drink. I’m chilly and the warmth would do me good. I’m sure it would improve my health more than any of the doctor’s wretched medicines.’ I waved him off, and watched him scuttle over to the kitchen block, which was in a separate building at the far end of the court that we were in. Just time, I thought, for Myrna’s sister to slip out of her room, dressed in a servant’s tunic and cloak, drop Julia’s cloak in the courtyard where it would be seen, and be in the orchard with the pile of washing and the child before Myrna came back with the fruit and raised a well-feigned alarm. A voice rang out behind me.

‘You there! Aulus! What are you doing there? Why aren’t you on duty at the gate? Who gave you permission to come and get your cloak? You ugly whoring son of a she-bear, I’ll have you whipped for this. Just wait until I tell your master that I found you here.’

It took me a moment to realise that this was meant for me, but eventually I whirled round – or as near a whirl as I could manage in my current state of health. The voice belonged to Marcus’s chief steward and the man himself was hastening towards me with his baton raised, his plump face puce with fury and his hobnailed sandals ringing on the ground. As I turned to face him, his expression changed. He turned from angry purple to an embarrassed white, his blue eyes almost popping from his head

‘Oh, a thousand pardons, citizen! I did not realise that it was you. Only I knew that Aulus didn’t have his cloak and I thought for a moment. . .’ He tailed off in confusion

‘You mean, you didn’t think at all,’ I said.

That flustered him. ‘Of course, I should have looked again before I spoke. I thought you . . . he . . . didn’t look quite the same as usual.’

‘A Greek understatement, if I ever heard one,’ I replied. It was true. I did not look anything like the gate-keeper, even from the back. Aulus was noted for his size and strength and, granted that the cloak perhaps disguised my lack of width and thinning hair, nothing could alter the fact that I was a good hand shorter than him. Besides, I have thin bony ankles. Aulus was stouter and hairier than a bear.

The steward was still burbling. ‘Forgive me, citizen. Those things I said to you – the insults – it was unforgivable. Please, if there is anything at all that I can do . . .’

I found that I was grinning for the first time that day. ‘I have been tempted to call Aulus a few names myself. You have already been more help than you realise,’ I said. ‘You have just proved that it is possible to see what you expect and jump to the wrong conclusions about who you are looking at. Are you prepared to tell your master that?’ Marcus seemed ready to believe me anyway, but I felt that this testimony would improve my case.

‘Of course, citizen, if you insist.’ The steward looked chagrined and alarmed. ‘I suppose that will be strictly necessary? I am afraid His Excellence will not be pleased with me. I have already earned his displeasure once today, by giving that slave-trader the wrong wine to drink, and to make matters worse he’s had another of those wretched ransom notes. And now I have another message which he won’t want to hear. He’s asking for the medicus to attend him in the atrium and examine the wet nurse that he wants to buy. But I’ve looked right through the villa and I can’t find him anywhere.’

I found that I was frowning. ‘The medicus has gone?’

The steward ran a hand across his hair. ‘Well, I suppose he can’t have disappeared. At least not very far. He was in this very courtyard not long ago, when I was bringing the slave-trader into the atrium. I saw him through the open doorway. I thought he’d join us then, but he just waved a hand and went on walking towards the private wing. Of course the master was still occupied with you, so there was no point in intercepting Philades, if he had a job to do. I supposed he was going over to look at the boy again – I know he supervised the feeding earlier.’

‘I’ve just come from that direction,’ I observed. ‘There are a couple of girls over there, attending to Marcellinus by the look of it. But I didn’t see the doctor – though that doesn’t prove he wasn’t there. He might have gone inside the room, perhaps, to advise the maidservants on what to do?’

The steward shook his head. ‘Naturally that was the first place I looked, but the slave-girls hadn’t seen him over there. Not since this morning early – though he did say then that he was coming back.’ He frowned. ‘I thought he might have gone back to his room – to consult those famous scrolls of his perhaps – but I can’t find any sign of him at all. That’s when I began to be alarmed.’

I was beginning to be more than a little curious myself. ‘He hasn’t come past me. Have you searched the outer grounds?’ I said. ‘Up by the
nymphaeum
, possibly?’ There was a pleasant walk within the outer walls, up to the little spring and temple in the grounds, much of which was hidden from the house. ‘Or even the latrine.’

The steward shook his head. ‘I’ve had two people searching everywhere.’ He waved a hand, as if to indicate the wideness of the search. ‘They’ve been right through the house and outbuildings. Even the slaves’ sleeping quarters and the winter woodpiles in the storage yard, but there’s still no sign of him.’ He gave a nervous laugh. ‘Unless he’s in the cesspit or the well, I can’t think where he can possibly have gone.’

‘Have you asked the gate-keepers, in case he’s left the house?’ I was all attention, suddenly. Whatever was the doctor up to now? Of course there was no legal reason why he shouldn’t leave the premises, if he decided to – unlike me he was not under arrest – but he must have known that Marcus wanted him. Even if something urgent had cropped up while Marcus had been occupied with me, it took a brave man to leave my patron in the lurch. ‘And what was that about a ransom note?’

‘I believe it was the slave-trader who brought it in,’ he said. ‘I don’t know any details at all. His Excellence is saying nothing, except “Where’s the medicus?” I was on my way to ask them at the gate. Perhaps that why I called out to you like that. I was thinking about Aulus, anyway.’

‘Thinking that if there was no keeper at the gate, the doctor might have slipped out unobserved?’