The Fateful Day (3 page)

I
was further encouraged, when I reached the villa door, to find that it was bolted on the inner side – as one might expect if there were no slaves on duty in the interior. If it too had pushed open at my touch, I think I would have fled, but when my gentle tapping brought no response at all, I convinced myself that my theory had been right and that I would find the servants gathered at the outbuildings beyond, making preparations for their colleague’s funeral. The slaves had their sleeping quarters in a separate barn-like building at the rear, so if that was really where they were, of course they could not hear a caller thumping at the door.

My next thought was to go round and find out. There was another entrance to the villa from the back – in fact, off the farm track that ran through the estate. There was even another gatehouse with its own man on guard. However, that was a considerable distance, even on a mule, because the road wound all the way round the estate. Perhaps I’d take Arlina and ride there, all the same. It wasn’t easy to reach the slave-barn otherwise from here because the entrance court was screened off from the remainder of the grounds, partly by the villa building itself, and then by a high wall which ran all the way across from either wing to meet up with the garden and orchard walls each side. This arrangement was intended to offer some privacy by providing a framing feature for the gardens at the front while cutting off the inner courts from casual visitors.

However, just as I was about to go out and clamber on my mule, I remembered that there was one unobtrusive gateway at the left-hand end – screened from view and very small indeed – so that the gatekeeper could go and visit the latrine, and the slaves who stoked the hypocaust could carry through the fuel without needing either to walk the long way round or to traipse through the villa every time. When it was not in use this gate was generally bolted from within (as part of Marcus’s insistence on security) so it was likely that I’d find that it was barred today. But it was probably worth the short stroll over to find out.

In fact, I found it had been left upon the latch, so I pushed it open and walked through, calling as I did so, ‘Is anybody there?’ There was no reply. I was in an inner courtyard used for storage purposes, a place that I had been in only once before. I was alongside the long, blank side wall of the villa here, right outside of the handsome guest quarters, but none of them had window-spaces looking out this way: they were all designed to command a view of the pleasant inner garden court, not this unprepossessing area, which was reserved for tradesmen and slaves.

I picked my way across the little court with care, skirting around the heaps of stockpiled wood, and taking care not to step in any of the huge amphorae in the ground. This was where the household generally kept its stock of oil and grain. There was a heavy outdoor hand-quern for grinding any home-grown corn and rye to household flour, and the subterranean storage pots not only kept these staples dry but also safe from rats and other thieving animals. However, with the owner and his wife away, several amphorae were clearly not in use. They were empty and currently without their fitted lids, making them open to the sky and therefore traps for the unwary passer-by. Presumably they were in the process of being cleaned and aired.

But there was no one cleaning anything today. I left the court and made my way out through the further arch towards the kitchen block. This small stone building was set back on its own a little way apart from the remainder of the house – as these things always are in case there is a fire – and with its own convenient access to the storage area. I was vainly hoping that there, at least, I might find slaves at work – the kitchen is always a very busy place – but that too was as empty as the court had been.

I stuck my head around the kitchen door. There were signs of recent activity in here: bunches of cut herbs were standing on the bench, together with a half-empty barrel of dried beans and a basket full of leeks. A single crust of bread and a small end of cheese suggested that these items had been the ingredients of a meal not long ago. A mortar and pestle had clearly been in use – some half-ground substance was still lying in the bowl – and someone had evidently been shelling nuts as well. Apart from that, there was no sign of life. The usual array of pots and implements were neatly stacked for use and half a pig had been suspended to smoke above the cooking-fire – though it wasn’t doing so. The flames had been permitted to go out. Some time ago, as far as I could judge.

This was extremely odd. No one permits the cooking-fire to die. I picked up a handful of ashes from the grate, and ran them through my fingers – which only confirmed what I already knew. They were completely cold. I lifted a cloth from a baking iron nearby, and found unleavened bread dough neatly shaped into a loaf but it had not been set to cook. In fact the handsome domed ‘clay’ bread-oven on the farther wall – an unusual luxury for a private house – had not yet been swept out and relaid with fresh twigs. The bake-stone on the bottom wasn’t even warm. (It was called a ‘clay oven’, as Marcus’s chief cook had once explained to me, because once it was hot and the fire inside was raked away, whatever was baking was inserted in the space and the opening sealed with clay to maximise the heat.) But there was no heat today.

I shook my head. Even a depleted staff would have to eat and – by tradition – cook-slaves do not attend the dead for fear that ill luck might attach to them and somehow be passed on in what they served. So where was everyone?

The slave quarters perhaps? That had been my guess at first. The building was just a little further to the rear and I hurried over there, though my hopes of finding anybody there were dwindling rapidly, especially as I heard no noise as I approached. No whisper of voices, no sound of a lament. It was fairly evident that there was no one there.

The door was slightly open – as it generally was – and I stooped down and went inside. I’d been before and knew what I would find: a long, low building, divided into two – one half for females and the other for males – with the chief steward’s private curtained sleeping-room positioned in between, beside the door. The lesser slaves had only a small sleeping-space apiece, marked by a straw mattress, each with a blanket over it and a little chest beside it for a change of clothes and anything else they happened to possess. I tried the lid of one at random. It wasn’t locked – few slaves have anything that’s actually their own, and if they get tips they tend to hide them somewhere else – and I found only a neatly folded tunic and a hoarded piece of twine.

The room was clean and ordered, too, with everything in place. There was no sign of any struggle, nothing overturned – none of the elements which might suggest a panic or a raid. Certainly no sign of any funeral. Or of any servants, come to that. I shivered.

With that in mind I went out to the gatehouse at the rear, fearing that I’d find a replica of what was in the front, but the place was empty and the gate was duly barred. The whole back courtyard was as silent as a ghost.

No sooner had I thought of ghosts than I wished that I had not. The spirits of murdered are said to walk abroad and haunt the area where they were killed, putting a curse on everything until they are avenged. There is a villa near Glevum where a killing once took place, and which has been famously ill-omened ever since. The family that owned it all met dreadful fates: one brother had been forced to flee abroad, a second to sell himself to slavery, while the third one hanged himself. Such is the power of a vengeful ghost, they say. I only hoped that the gatekeeper’s spirit was not lurking here!

I listened. The sound of my own footsteps seemed unnaturally loud and when I heard a sudden creaking of a gate I felt the few hairs on my neck stand up and bristle like so many hedgehog spines.

I retraced my steps, but it was only the gateway to the inner court, which was open and swinging in a little gust of wind. It was unusual for that gate to be unlatched. It led into the garden courtyard and the house itself. My mouth was dry, but having come this far I controlled my fears and forced myself to go inside to check.

Once again, there was nothing obvious amiss. The peristyle garden looked as pleasant as it always did. The central fountain was not playing, which was unusual, but not all that surprising since the owner was away. Otherwise everything looked much as when I saw it last: the garden quartered by four little walkways meeting at the fount, each section with its own array of flowers, bushes and sweet-smelling herbs, and interspersed with arbours and little statues of the gods.

There was a covered walkway round the whole perimeter, of course – a sort of outdoor corridor connecting all the rooms – with the atrium and other public reception areas at the further end and various bedrooms, guest accommodation and the like, stretching back towards me on either side. There was no sign of human movement – which, paradoxically, encouraged me this time. A single walk around, I told myself. Most of the rooms had windows made of horn, so it was impossible to look inside them from the court, but I would quickly reconnoitre and see what I could see.

Not that I expected to discover anything. By this time I was reconciled to finding the place deserted, and I was already planning the message I would send to Marcus later on. The first thing I’d do when I got into town was go and see the garrison commander and arrange a courier.

I walked along the covered path, my footsteps scrunching on the gravelled ground. I did not want to venture into my patron’s room, but I did try a door to what I knew was a sleeping-room for guests – indeed I had stayed there once myself when I was ill. I pushed the door, which opened at my touch – and there was the neat bedroom complete with bed and stool, just as it had been when I was sleeping there.

I tiptoed out again and went on with my patrol. Over to the corner of the court, through the side entrance, and so into the main reception rooms – the atrium, the study, the
triclinium
. They were all strangely empty – Marcus had clearly sent away most of his better furniture and expensive ornaments – but they were clean and ordered. Everywhere, the outer shutters had been taken down and the rooms were light enough for me to need no lamps. The floors were swept, and nearby in the servants’ waiting room someone had placed the usual scatter of clean rushes on the floor so that hurried footsteps did not ring so much. But there was no one, dead or living, to be seen. It was as though some magician had come and put a strong enchantment on everybody here, causing them to simply fade away like smoke.

I was standing, thoughtful, in the small reception room, gazing in the direction of the entrance court. The windows in these public rooms were made of stylish glass rather than being simply shuttered spaces like my own. This let a lot of light in, and kept out the cold and draughts but it did make it quite difficult to see the world outside. Could one make out the gatehouse through the blue distortion of the pane? Could someone standing here have witnessed what occurred?

My thoughts were interrupted by a movement in the court – a shadow so swift and immediately gone that I was almost doubtful of my eyes. And there it was again. I cursed the glass that turned it to a blur. But I had seen something, and I was almost certain what it was: a person, or people, moving swiftly in the court – not walking boldly to the entrance as one might expect an honest visitor to do, but skulking like shadows, unwilling to be seen.

Moments before, I had been looking for signs of human life, but now that I had glimpsed them, I was petrified. I stood stock-still – I don’t believe I could have moved a muscle if I tried – and listened carefully, but for several moments I could near no sound at all.

Then it began. A creak – that inner gate again. A footstep on the gravel of the path, so soft I would have missed it if I hadn’t strained my ears. Another. And another. Getting closer now. Then the sound of muffled sandals in the corridor outside. By this time my heart was beating so hard against my chest that it was almost all that I was conscious of. I braced myself, unable even to turn round to face the door, fearful of making the slightest scuffling. No one could have known that I was here, I told myself. No one could have seen me through the window glass. So it wasn’t me that they were looking for. If I could hold my breath – which I was doing anyway – so they couldn’t even hear me breathe, perhaps they’d go away and wouldn’t know that I was here.

It was a faint hope, as I was all too well aware. The footsteps had paused outside this very room. I kept on holding my breath, concentrating hard, but suddenly the door flew open and before I’d even had the time to whirl around, a hand fell on my shoulder and a voice said loudly, ‘There you are, at last. I wondered where you’d got to! What are you doing here?’

A
lmost faint with apprehension and alarm, I forced myself to turn and face this newcomer, only to find that I was staring at my own adopted son. Relief undid me. My old knees crumpled and I sat down heavily on the mosaic floor, my legs deprived abruptly of the strength to hold me up.

‘Father!’ Junio had come and was bending over me. His face was all concern. ‘Are you all right?’

I nodded, reaching out a hand for him to help me to my feet. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack, that’s all. What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for you,’ he said, ignoring my hands and coming round behind me to lift me by the elbows and haul me to my feet. ‘We got concerned when you were gone so long, and set off for the prospective vineyard field to search for you.’

With his help I found myself unsteadily upright. ‘And they told you that they’d seen me, I suppose?’

He was still holding both my arms to support me, but he said, ‘We never got that far. When we reached the villa we saw the mule outside and guessed that you had come here. We didn’t realise there was no one else about. We hammered at the gate, but it was open anyway and when no one answered we decided to come in.’ He looked around. ‘What’s happened, by the way? Has there been some sort of change of plan? Where have the servants gone?’

‘You didn’t look inside the gatehouse, then?’ I said, freeing myself and readjusting my tunic round my knees.

He shook his head. ‘When there was no answer, there did not seem to be much point. As I said, the gate was open so we didn’t really need the man to let us in. We assumed that he was busy bringing you inside …’ He broke off, looking anxiously at me. ‘Why, Father? What made you ask that question? Don’t shake your head like that. What happened at the gatehouse? Something did! I see it in your face.’

‘The gatekeeper!’ I muttered, still too shaken to give a full account. ‘I looked in and found him …’

‘If that brute treated you disrespectfully, just let us know!’ he said. ‘We’ll go and talk to him. He may be big but there are two of us. He won’t try that again!’

‘Two of you?’ I murmured stupidly, though of course he had been talking in the plural all the time. I should have worked out that he hadn’t come alone.

‘Minimus came with me, naturally,’ he said. ‘You might have needed help – if you had fallen off the mule or something of the kind. In fact, you look as if you need some help right now. You’re still looking shaken. I think we should find somewhere for you to sit down.’

I shook my head. ‘Marcus seems to have put most of his furniture in store. We’ll probably find it stacked up in a barn, unless he’s sent it over to Corinium for his wife. But I’ll be all right now, the more so since you and Minimus are here.’

He grinned. ‘Maximus was disappointed to be left behind. We three had all been waiting to accompany you to town, but Mother insisted that one of us should stay, just in case you came home by some different route. You might have ridden back across the fields, she thought, if the land-slaves were not working where you thought they were. Then you’d have wanted someone to come and fetch us back. But you’d been so long that we were quite alarmed for you.’ He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘And something’s shaken you. Was it something to do with this gatekeeper of yours? Where is he, if he isn’t at his post? Should I go and talk to him?’

‘It would do no good,’ I told him. ‘He couldn’t answer you. Someone has strung him from the ceiling by his belt and he is very dead.’

‘Dead?’ Horror and disbelief were dawning in his face.

I nodded. ‘It’s not a pleasant sight. Let’s just hope that Minimus does not stumble on it unprepared. Where is he anyway?’

‘He went to the back courtyard looking for the slaves – we couldn’t see any.’

‘I don’t think there are any others here to find, alive or dead.’

He wrinkled his nose in mock perplexity. ‘So what’s happened, do you think? Has Marcus left for good and put them up for auction at the nearest sale?’

I shook my head. ‘I know no more than you. It’s a mystery to me. I should have thought that if he’d done that he would have let me know. And if he had decided to sell them on a whim, wouldn’t he have sent his land-slaves to the market, too? But they are out there working in the fields and do not seem to be aware that anything is wrong! I spoke to them this morning.’

Junio frowned. ‘Minimus had the feeling that something was amiss, ever since the moment that we found the gate ajar. He swore that when he worked here Marcus would never have permitted that. He thought it was just slackness by the staff because their owner was away – but it made him very nervous all the same. He was quite concerned at coming to the house at all.’

‘But came in any case.’

He gave me a wry grin. ‘We were fairly sure that you were in the house, and it was you we’d come to find.’ This brave concern for my welfare was rather humbling, but before I could say anything my son was rushing on. ‘Of course, we went to the front door first, but nobody was there either. However, Minimus knew about a servant’s side-gate in the wall, so we hurried round that way, trying not to make ourselves conspicu-ous. He thought there might be trouble if someone spotted us. He had no right these days to be going that way at all – and nor had I, of course, though as a citizen I might have got away with it.’

‘You need not have worried,’ I put in. ‘There was nobody about. Though I suppose you didn’t know that.’

‘We were soon aware of it. In fact, we could not find a trace of any living soul until I spotted fresh footsteps on the gravel near the gate. So I went in that direction, and there you were, indeed!’

‘Though you almost made me die of shock,’ I said. ‘I was sure that a murderer was bursting in on me.’

‘I was a bit alarmed about what I might find, myself,’ he said. ‘That’s why I sent young Minimus the other way, in the direction of the servants’ block. He used to know most of the slave-force in the household here, so they are likely to be friendly to him if he does find anyone. They might even talk to him and explain to us why everybody else has disappeared.’ He looked around again. ‘It is odd, isn’t it? The place is positively eerie.’

‘I might have believed your theory about the slave-market,’ I said, ‘if it wasn’t for the presence of that grisly corpse.’

‘Dear gods!’ Junio exclaimed. ‘The gatekeeper! I have just realised the force of what you said. “Someone” strung him up, you said – presumably meaning that he didn’t do it himself? I was somehow supposing that he’d taken his own life – perhaps out of despair or something because the household was being broken up. But you don’t think so?’

‘Nor would you, if you had seen him,’ I replied. ‘His hands are chained behind his back. He could not have arranged the noose around his neck.’

Junio was goggling at me. ‘No wonder you were talking about murderers,’ he said. ‘That does seem proof that something criminal’s afoot. Yet the land-slaves have gone off to work as usual, apparently thinking that it was an ordinary day?’

I nodded. ‘I don’t imagine that they knew there’d been a murder here – and that is something which I can’t understand. I know they don’t all sleep in the same slave quarters as the domestic staff. There are so many of them now that Marcus has converted a barn on the estate for them just opposite the rear entrance to the house. But the overseer comes in, and still they get food from the kitchens and all that sort of thing. So how could this have happened without their knowing it?’

‘Unless the killer is a member of the household, possibly? Took the food across to them and managed to convince them that things were just as usual. In that case, is it possible he’s still somewhere about?’ He glanced uncomfortably round the room. ‘I don’t like this, Father. Let’s get out of here ourselv—’ He broke off suddenly and looked into my eyes. ‘Dear gods!’ I saw the horror dawning on his face, just as I felt it rising in my own. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Minimus!’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I have sent him off searching the back court on his own! Come on!’ He was already leading the way towards the door. ‘We’d better go and find him before someone else does.’

I hastened after Junio as fast as my old legs would carry me – through the vestibule, into the peristyle garden and out towards the back. This time we did not stop to skirt the rooms but hurried directly down the central path.

Past the fountain, through the inner gate and out into the courtyard where the slave quarters stood. I led the way inside and looked around. ‘Minimus?’ I shouted.

But it was already clear that nobody was here.

The room was exactly as I’d seen it earlier – neat and ordered and empty as the skies. I glanced at Junio, who was staring at the rows of tidy sleeping-spaces on the floor – obviously surprised to find the place so undisturbed. ‘No one left here in hurry,’ he observed. ‘But there’s no sign of Minimus.’

‘Perhaps he’s in the courtyard – in one of the other outbuildings, maybe?’

We hurried out again, scouring the empty stables, the barns, the storage sheds, and still calling Minimus at every step. I even went back into the inner yard and checked the open amphorae in the ground. But there was no sign of him and no answer to our shouts. The echoes mocked us, bouncing off the walls.

I was about to suggest to Junio that we go back into the house, in case the boy had followed him inside and we had somehow missed him as we left, but I was suddenly conscious of a distant sound behind the right-hand boundary wall. I glanced at Junio and raised a warning finger to my lips. It was ridiculous. A moment earlier we had been shouting loudly for a slave! But it suddenly seemed vital that we did not make a noise.

There was a little gateway that led out of the court into the orchard which adjoined the house. When I looked at that gate earlier the bolt had been secured, but I could see from where I stood that it had been opened since. I gestured to Junio, who followed the direction of my pointing finger with his eyes.

He saw the bolt and nodded. He repeated my finger-to-the-lips routine, held up a hand to indicate I should stay where I was and started to inch silently towards the gate. He had been born to servitude and had acquired the knack – which as a slave myself I’d never quite achieved – of moving absolutely silently. I could only watch him and admire his stealth, though my heart was in my mouth as he placed one noiseless hand upon the latch and the other on the gatepost. Then with a sudden motion he released the catch, pushed the gate wide open and burst into the orchard in a single lunge.

Nothing happened. No one set upon him. No one cried out in surprise. From where I was standing I saw him hesitate and crane his neck in all directions to look around the field. I was about to go and join him but he shook his head at me.

‘I think there’s something moving over there,’ he mouthed, pointing with a tapping motion at the farther wall. He peered a little longer and then came back to me and murmured, too softly to be overheard by listeners-in, ‘There’s certainly something, though I can’t see what it is. You stay here. I’ll go and have a look.’

I was about to protest but he shook his head again. ‘One of us had better stay here in case Minimus turns up,’ he insisted with a firmness that wasn’t usual for him. ‘Besides I’m better at moving quietly – and if there is any problem and I don’t come back, it’s better if one of us can go and call for help. Stay where you are, and make sure you are out of sight behind the wall.’ And before I could reply he was through the gate again and had disappeared from view among the orchard trees.

I’m not accustomed to my former slave dictating what I do and I was inclined to bridle inwardly – but I did as I was bid. I knew that his assertiveness was born of care for me, and it had to be admitted that he was no doubt right: I am not as young and agile as I used to be. If there was any danger he was better placed to flee, or even to put up a struggle and defend himself. But I did not enjoy the moments that I spent listening to the silence, cowering by the wall and wondering what Junio was doing on the other side of it.

After several moments there was another rustling – this time coming very close to me – and I could hear someone breathing heavily. I was half inclined to make a lumbering run for it and try to get into the slave quarters and hide, when Junio came bursting through the gate again.

‘That’s the second time today that you’ve half frightened me to death …’ I was beginning, with a chuckle of relief. Then I saw the expression on his face.

‘You’ve found something! Tell me it isn’t Minimus!’

He shook his head as if attempting to dispel a dreadful dream. ‘Oh, I’ve found Minimus all right and he is still alive – but I couldn’t bring him back. He wasn’t well enough. There’s something in the orchard. You’d better come and see.’