A Coin for the Ferryman (10 page)

‘But the baggage wagons came from the villa, surely?’ I put in pointedly. ‘They weren’t just passing by?’

He shook his shaggy locks. ‘Well, neither were the others, if it comes to that. They were all coming to the villa or taking things away. “Unusual carts or other transport in the lane” was what you said. You didn’t say anything about passing by.’ He was affronted now, jutting his chin forward and glowering at me.

I hastened to placate him. ‘Perhaps I should have done. Though anything you’ve told me may be useful in the end. But – was there anything?’

He humphed. ‘There was that trapper from the forest with a wagonload of skins – I think that was the day – heading for the tanner’s by the look and smell of it. And a farmer from the hills who seems to go past every day, with a cart full of something for the market in the town. I think that’s all there was. All that I can remember, anyway, that could possibly have been carrying a corpse.’

I looked at Aulus, and caught him glancing maliciously at me. I was by no means certain that a silver coin would not have wrung a little more from him, but I had none to offer. ‘So nothing really unusual at all?’ I said. ‘Nothing that mightn’t have gone past on any day? Nobody you didn’t recognise by sight?’

‘I’m afraid not, citizen. I only wish I did have something more helpful to report. I’d be glad to have a little extra in my purse.’ He bestowed another whiff of onions on me, as he shoved his big face close to mine and gave me a gigantic, knowing wink. ‘You won’t forget to mention that I did my best?’

‘I shall tell my patron exactly what you said when I see him at the banquet later on. In the meantime, keep on the alert. If you see anything suspicious, or if you remember something that might have slipped your mind, make sure you let me know. Now, where’s that little slave of mine? It’s time for us to go.’

‘Here, m-m-master.’ Kurso was at the doorway, where he’d retreated, cowering. He looked at the brutish gatekeeper with uncertain eyes. I could understand his feelings, to a point. Aulus was so much bigger, he could have eaten him for lunch.

However, one cannot encourage timidity in a slave. ‘Come, Kurso,’ I said briskly. ‘Attend me down the lane.’ I gestured to Aulus, who was standing motionless. ‘And you, doorkeeper, may escort us through the gate. I have already taken leave of my patron and his wife.’

Aulus looked surly, but he undid the gate and ushered us outside.

I turned to him. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen the villa cart come back? Your mistress was promising us a lift if it was here. Though I suppose it would have gone round to the rear – it was bringing the entertainers for tonight.’

He shook his head. ‘I would have noticed it. I told you, I can see everything from my guardroom.’

‘Even if you were talking to someone at the time?’ Aulus had not had his eye to the spyhole while I was in the room.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Even Aulus could see the implication of my last remark. He wiped a fat hand across his massive face. ‘I would have heard it,’ he said defiantly. ‘Just as I would have heard anyone who drove past the other day, whatever you might think. Horses and wheels make a clatter in the lane, and that wagon, in particular, is a noisy one. I’ll bet a
quadrans
, citizen, that cart has not come back.’

In this, at least, he was demonstrably right, for even as he spoke the cart in question turned the corner of the lane and lumbered into view, with such a squeaking and clattering, such a thudding of hooves and juddering of wheels, that only a deaf man would not have noticed it.

Aulus flung me a triumphant glance. He didn’t say, ‘You see?’ but his smirk conveyed the message with perfect clarity. ‘You wish me to stop it, citizen, before it goes round to the back? So you and your slave can ride back to your house?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but set off down the lane, gesticulating at the driver as he went.

The wagon stopped, and there was a whispered consultation in the lane, with Aulus motioning towards me with his thumb, and the driver countering by gesturing at his human cargo with his whip. However, a decision was obviously reached, and in my favour too, because presently the passengers began to climb down from the cart.

They were a striking collection. Two handsome, muscular young men in leather skirts, who moved and looked like acrobats, and an ageing one who certainly did not; a pair of stunted men with exaggerated beards and straggling haircuts, who might have been a form of comic turn; and lastly a group of chattering young women – most genuinely Iberian from the look of them, with the typical striking red-blond colouring of Celts from that part of the Empire, though there were one or two with darker skin and hair. All of them were comely. Aulus was ogling them as they got down from the cart, and I found that I was staring at them too.

They invited stares. Their skin was powdered almost white, and they were wearing so much lamp-black round their eyes and wine lees rubbed into their lips and cheeks that I could see it even where I stood. They wore their hair luxuriously long, hanging free around their shoulders in a way no self-respecting Roman maiden would consider (although the effect was very pleasing, in an erotic sort of way). Their costume, too, was not of a modest nature, not only because of the boldness of the dyes – I noted reds and orange, yellow, pinks and greens – but because it was of a daring cut as well, with little tunic-skirts that barely reached their thighs and necklines that almost reached their waists. The floating scarves of different colours suspended from their belts gave only the illusion of covering their legs: at the slightest movement it did nothing of the sort.

They were moving a great deal as they climbed down from the cart, and Aulus was almost salivating at the sight. However, as each one reached the ground, an older woman, who seemed to be in charge, handed her an ankle-length brown cloak, and when all had descended she hustled them off towards the back gate of the house. Even then they walked with a kind of conscious, swaying gait that made the long, drab cloaks look sensual.

Aulus watched them go, lust and disappointment written on his face, and it was a long moment before he walked back to me. ‘The driver will turn the cart round and then he’ll take you home. And your little kitchen slave as well – supposing that he ever shuts his mouth again, that is.’

I turned to Kurso. I had forgotten him. He too was staring after the departing girls. He caught my eye and closed his jaw, which had dropped in what I thought was admiration for their looks.

I was wrong. ‘All those p-p-proper dancing girls?’ He sounded awed. He saw my face, and hastened to explain. ‘My former m-m-master had a s-s-single dancer at a b-b-banquet once, and said she c-c-cost too much to use again. And your p-p-patron . . .’ He coloured and tailed off.

It was surprising, when you thought of it. Marcus was famously careful with his wealth. The entertainment at his feasts was more likely to be a local poet, or a group of tumbling dwarves, than any sophisticated group like this. These were expensive dancers, you could tell that at a glance: their dyer’s bill alone would have kept our household for a year.

I laughed. ‘Attempting to impress his cousin Lucius, I expect. I hear that they have entertainments between every course at court, and presumably the rest of Rome follows suit. In the best households, anyway. Obviously Marcus wants to prove that he can do the same, and for once he doesn’t care about the cost.’

Aulus gave me a sideways look. ‘It’s more than that. It’s rumoured that Lucius is on the lookout for unusual acts that he can take back to amuse the Emperor. He has already sent one act on its way to Rome with his chief slave and baggage. Apparently there is a lack of novelty at court. Commodus is tired of his freaks and naked dancing girls, and bored with people fighting to the death for him, so providing something different is a route to quick reward. They’ve had entertainments here every night since Lucius arrived.’

I frowned. ‘There’s nothing very different about tonight’s performers, though. High-class and expensive, but not unusual. If the Emperor’s been used to nude extravaganzas, this will seem very tame. There must be dozens of Iberian dancing girls in Rome.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Aulus spat noisily into the dust. ‘I just know there were some performers here the other night, and Lucius offered them a chance to go to Rome. And after that, of course, every entertainer in Britannia wants to come, in case they catch his eye. The master could have had his pick of the best acts in the province and paid them only an
as
or two apiece. He knows a bargain when he sees one – I expect that’s what he’s done.’ He glanced towards the back lane to the villa, where the dancing girls had disappeared from view, and bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin. ‘Not that I shall see them. You will be the one to benefit, at the feast tonight.’ He leaned forward and the smell of bad teeth came wafting over me. ‘You’ll tell me afterwards if they were any good?’

I nodded nervously and edged away. Aulus’s cudgel was not the only thing about him that could knock a man sideways. ‘Of course,’ I promised weakly, hoping that he would not want too many salacious details. ‘But now I see the driver has turned the cart round, and it is time I went home, or I shan’t be ready in time to come back later on. Come, Kurso!’

‘And you won’t forget to tell the master . . .?’ the gatekeeper began, but I left him to it, and drove home to Gwellia.

We got back to the roundhouse to find signs that someone had been very busy while we were away. The earth path from the front gate had been swept clear of weeds and stones, all the way through the enclosure to the door, and fresh new piles of brushwood kindling were stacked neatly on each side. Even as I sat wondering at this proof of industry, Maximus and Minimus came running out and I was handed down from the cart with as much care as if I had been the Emperor himself, while Kurso scrambled down beside me and looked doubtfully around.

‘You see what we’ve been doing, master?’ Maximus began, and Minimus went on.

‘It was the mistress who suggested it. We brought some water from the stream for her . . .’

‘. . . and we were to brush the path and fetch some kindling while she went off to wash . . .’

‘. . . and then stand by to help you to get ready when you came.’

They were so enthusiastic that they made me smile. I had almost forgotten that I had this extra pair of slaves (at least until Marcus came back from Rome) and I had expected that they would find my household difficult at first. Their duties at the villa had been decorative ones, largely confined to fetching trays and announcing visitors (rather as Niveus was doing now). They were used to Roman comforts and convenience, not a smoky Celtic roundhouse with a central hearth. No fine mosaics and Roman plumbing here – every drop of water had to be brought up from the stream and all the cooking took place on the fire. Of course a slave must expect to do anything he’s asked, but these two were not accustomed to hard and heavy work.

‘Well’ – I turned to Kurso – ‘it appears the mistress has two pairs of willing hands, so she won’t need your help for the time being. You can go back to the garden and leave these boys to do the other work – obviously they’re very good at it.’

I had intended this as praise for them, but Kurso was as pleased as anyone. He flashed me a delighted smile, and set off for his beloved plants and animals. I saw him disappearing into the enclosure at the back, where immediately a cluster of hungry chickens started pecking at his heels. As I watched he picked up the waiting bowl of kitchen scraps and scattered that, while the goat came over to butt him in the back and claim a share. He looked back and grinned at me, the very embodiment of a happy man.

I turned to the redheads. ‘You two have settled in?’

For answer they led me to the servants’ sleeping room – an extra building which we’d added recently, between the dye-hut and the front door of the house. It was small and snug, with walls of woven osiers daubed with mud and clay, and a neat thatched roof to keep the weather out – a sort of miniature roundhouse in itself – but I wondered how a pair of Marcus’s slaves would take to it.

However, when I peered inside, I saw that they had made themselves at home. Taking their cue from what the other slaves had done, they had selected a vacant piece of floor, piled it with fresh reeds to make a sort of bed, and spread their woollen cloaks on top of it to create a covering. On the floor was a set of ‘finger-stones’ – five knucklebones which must have come from the villa kitchen at some time and were probably their only possessions, apart from what they wore – with which they clearly had been playing when the cart arrived.

They saw the direction of my glance, and flushed.

‘We had a minute, master . . .’ Maximus began.

‘. . . just before you came.’ Minimus darted forward to put the bones away. ‘This is not a sign of idleness.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll go and see your mistress. You finish off your game, but be sure you’re listening to hear me when I call. I shall need you in a little while.’

I left them to their knucklebones and went into the roundhouse proper on my own, blinking against the smoky darkness of the room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I looked around, revelling in the dear, familiar attributes of home: Gwellia’s weaving loom set up against the wall, its stone weights pulling the fabric into shape; the stools set cosily round the fire, and the sides of meat that I had hung last autumn on the beams above, so that the swirling smoke would cure and preserve them for our winter food.

Gwellia was standing with Cilla on the far side of the room, facing away from me. She was clearly unaware that I had arrived, largely because her face and shoulders were muffled in a dress which the maidservant was in the act of pulling over them. Her bare legs were visible right up to the thighs – still very shapely for a woman of her age.

My guess about her preparations for the banquet had been right: there was evidence that she had stripped herself and washed from head to toe. A shallow basin of water was still set beside the hearth, and the robe which Cilla was now tugging down into place was a fine new
stola
from the marketplace. Normally Gwellia wore clothes made from the Celtic plaid she wove herself, but today was a special occasion and she was dressing for the banquet like the Roman citizen that she had become.