A Roman Ransom (24 page)

Modesty? Despite the desperate situation I was in, I almost smiled. Julia was a lot of things – beautiful, charming and intelligent – but modesty was not her greatest attribute. I forced my mind back to the question of the soup.

‘So your mistress wasn’t following anyone’s advice in asking for bland food that afternoon? She wasn’t adhering to Celsus’s famous scrolls?’ I pretended to lie back in the bed and close my eyes, but in fact I was watching her reaction carefully. I had been hoping to learn that the medicus had somehow been an influence in the house even before Julia disappeared. I was disappointed.

My poison-taster laughed. ‘We hadn’t heard about all that by then. Anyway, she wasn’t really ill. A little tired and headachy perhaps, but nothing more. She simply went and had a rest while Myrna fed the child, and after that she seemed to be all right. Certainly, it didn’t stop her coming out to the court and playing with the boy – and she would never take a risk where he’s concerned.’ She flashed another glance at Junio, and added in a soft, suggestive tone, ‘He was very precious to her, as you know.’

Junio flushed and turned to me at once, the embodiment of brisk efficency. ‘Would you like us to send for more soup, master?’ he enquired. ‘Otherwise . . .’ He put the empty bowl back on the tray, and held it out to her. As a clear hint that she could be dismissed.

But I was thinking about what she’d said. There was something – surely? – that was significant. I was certain of it, but in my current fuddled state I could not place it. ‘Just a minute,’ I said to Junio. ‘Before she goes, I’d like to hear a little more about her memories of what Julia did that day.’

The girl put on a long-suffering face. ‘Very well, citizen, since you ask me to I’ll say it all again. But really there is nothing new to tell. One minute she was sitting in the court, with Marcellinus crawling at her feet – I saw her there myself – and the next thing I knew, they’d gone. Just as though they had suddenly grown wings – like flying ants or something.’

‘I know all that,’ I said, trying not to imagine Julia’s face if someone compared her to a flying ant. ‘That isn’t what I meant. Junio was talking a little while ago about thinking logically. Start at the very beginning of the day.’

Porphyllia stole another look at Junio, as if commiserating with him for having a master who was obviously insane, and then said stolidly, ‘As you command. Where would you like me to begin?’

Junio returned her glance steadily. ‘There is a reason why my master asks you this. We have a theory that Myrna might have seen something – something she didn’t think about till afterwards, but which later led her to the kidnappers. And if she noticed it, you might have seen it too, even though you did not realise it. So tell us everything you can about that day – any little detail which occurs to you. Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem significant.’

Porphyllia looked first doubtful, and then terrified. ‘I suppose it’s possible. Poor Myrna . . .’ She broke off suddenly. ‘You think that might be why she met her death?’

‘We’re considering the possibility,’ I said. She hesitated still.

It was Junio who found the way to loosen her tongue. ‘So you see why it is important to tell us everything,’ he urged. ‘You may know something that is dangerous to you, without your knowing it! If you tell us you make it harder for the kidnapper. He’d have to silence all of us to make sure he was safe.’

This logic was too much for her – or, on second thoughts, perhaps it was not the logic after all. I suspect that she would have jumped off the Tarpeian rock if it was Junio who had suggested it. She looked into his eyes. ‘In that case . . .’ she began.

Porphyllia was not the most concise of narrators, but like Cilla she told a lively tale and I learned more than I wished to know about Julia’s toilette – not only the perfumed water with which she bathed her face (‘the chill taken off it, citizen, and fresh rose petals floating in the bowl’), but the ear-scoops, the pointed rod for loosening the wax and the tweezers for removing facial hair. I learned how Porphyllia herself had mixed the white lead and red ochre which gave Marcus’s wife her artless pink complexion, helped to pin the curled and braided wig exactly into place to give that effortless look of elegance, and fetched the kohl, the lamp-black and the ash that her mistress used to make her eyes look larger and her eyebrows lustrous. There were a good many diversions and embellishments in the telling, but I had asked for detail and I was getting it, until by the end of it I felt that I could have done the job myself.

Porphyllia broke off and looked earnestly at me. ‘Is this the sort of thing you want to know?’

‘I find it most informative,’ I said. I meant it, too. Julia was beautiful, there was no doubt of that, but I’d never look at her loveliness with quite the same eyes again. I had a sudden memory of my dear Gwellia, rinsing her face and hands in cold water from the stream and content with the natural beauty she was fortunate to have. My lovely wife. Where was she? And what was happening to her?

I was so immersed in my anxiety that I was almost surprised to hear Porphyllia again. ‘You want me to tell you any more?’

I had to force myself to concentrate. ‘Of course. Go on – so your mistress was washed and clean. What happened next?’

We heard, at length: how Julia had rejected various other gowns (‘too hot, too heavy or too short’) before she finally selected the lilac
stola
from which we’d seen the strip; how she’d chosen a dramatic blue overtunic to set it off; and how the girdle, which we’d found so tragically, had to be tied and retied a dozen times before the knot was right. Then there was the jewellery to be chosen for the day – a bracelet, necklets, hair ornaments and rings, selected from the boxes which the servants brought – and perfumed oil to be applied behind the ears and on the throat, until finally, with the addition of a pair of pretty leather slippers on the feet, the lady was prepared to face the day.

‘She chose her finest woollen
palla
– a pretty blue cloak that would fold to make a hood – and had it put aside for later when she wanted to go out . . .’ Porphyllia had just reached this enthralling stage in her narrative when there was a gentle tapping at the door, and a dishevelled Cilla sidled in. She had been given a clean tunic and her arms and legs were washed, but she was still bruised and battered, and my heart went out to her.

She crossed to my bedside and flung herself at my feet. ‘Master, forgive me if I did not help your case. I tried to do what my mistress instructed me to do – but I see that I did not assist you much. I seemed, if anything, to make it worse, although I told them nothing but the truth.’

I took her hand and motioned her to rise. ‘They struck the irons off?’

She nodded. ‘The medicus has given me some balm to rub into the place – apparently your patron ordered that he should. And they told me that I was to come and wait on you. Though I see that you already have a female slave at your command.’ She glanced towards Porphyllia, who dragged adoring eyes from Junio long enough to acknowledge this comment with a smirk.

‘This is one of Julia’s handmaidens,’ I explained. ‘She has been assigned to me as a poison-taster while her mistress is away, and she was telling us about what Julia did the day she disappeared.’

‘We thought it might be useful,’ Junio added, with a smile. He made an obvious attempt to look Cilla in the eyes, but she turned away from him and spoke to me.

‘Then I must not interrupt you, master,’ she observed. ‘Though of course I worked for Julia too, for years, before I was given to you. You never know, I may be able to assist.’

Porphyllia, listening, turned pink and scowled. I gave an inward sigh. Dealing with one infatuation was enough, but now there was clearly rivalry abroad. I longed to assure Cilla that Junio’s heart was safe, but of course I could do nothing of the kind. Instead, I motioned Cilla to the stool which Junio had left. She looked as if she needed to sit down.

‘Master, you are very good,’ she said, and sat.

I invited my little poison-taster to go on with her tale. ‘As you were saying . . .’

‘As I was saying,’ Porphyllia spoke rather more loudly than was strictly necessary, ‘Julia called for breakfast in her room.’

‘Bread and fruit and watered wine,’ Cilla supplied swiftly, from her perch. ‘That’s what she always had.’

Porphyllia was scowling, and I tried to mediate. Rivalry for Junio might have one good effect – the two girls were competing as to who could tell me more. ‘She ate that alone?’ I said, addressing my question to Porphyllia.

‘Apart from myself – because I brought it in – and the girl who had been watching Marcellinus through the night. But by the time she’d finished, Myrna had arrived, so that slave could be dismissed. Then the other girls came in, and we were all given our allocated tasks and sent away. And then . . .’ The dumpling stopped, and looked a little nonplussed. She thought for a while and then said in a rush, ‘I suppose that’s all I know. Later on the carriage came for her. I wasn’t the one summoned to help put on her cloak and veil, so I didn’t see her go, but I knew that she had gone out to visit friends.’

‘Taking Marcellinus with her?’ I asked.

An enthusiastic nod. ‘She was visiting the house where Myrna used to work, and she always took the boy when she went there.’ Porphyllia balanced the empty tray against her hip and tossed her head, as if to flaunt the fact that she was the proper centre of attention here. ‘And she wanted to buy some teething herbs for him as well.’

‘She must have taken an attendant,’ Cilla said. ‘The mistress wouldn’t travel anywhere without a slave.’

‘Of course she did. She took the wet nurse with her – as she always did, especially when she went to Grappius’s villa. I know some people think she did it purposely, to demonstrate that she had Myrna now, but I don’t think she meant to be unkind. She liked to show Marcellinus off, that’s all. He was always pretty forward for his age – he could do all the things that Myrna’s daughter does and he’s younger than her by a moon or more. And if the boy went, Myrna would go too. She was the obvious companion for the mistress then – whatever the other handmaidens may say.’

So Myrna was resented by the other maids, I thought – including, no doubt, Porphyllia herself. I noticed how adeptly the little dumpling had conveyed that impression while carefully distancing herself from any criticism implied. I understood. It is not wise for slaves to court the charge of speaking out against their mistresses.

I nodded. ‘So you did not see Julia again till she came back?’

‘Not really even then. I just glimpsed them coming in across the court.’

Cilla sniffed. ‘Surely there was someone standing by, in case she wanted help with her cloak. In my time there would have been a frightful fuss if there was nobody waiting to attend on her.’

The other girl flushed. ‘Well, of course we were ready to attend to her, but she just went straight over to her room.’

‘And didn’t she want someone on call outside the door? She always used to,’ Cilla said.

The younger girl took umbrage at this implied rebuke. ‘Two of the girls went over to report, but they were shooed away. The mistress had a headache and she wanted to lie down. She sent a message she was not to be disturbed. The boy was fast asleep in any case and she’d apparently decided that she would rest until he woke to take his feed, and call us later when she wanted us. And that was all. It was not unusual.’

Cilla laughed. ‘Leaving you idle for the afternoon?’

‘We all had jobs to do.’

I intervened again. ‘But did you see Julia and the child again? Yourself?’

Porphyllia frowned with concentration. ‘I’m sure I did. A little while after Myrna came over for the soup. I saw them playing in the court.’

‘The court?’ A thought had just occurred to me. I gestured to the door. ‘Could you show Junio and Cilla exactly where they were?’

‘But, master . . .’ Junio had backed away towards the door, but now he stepped forward in alarm. I thought he was protesting at the idea of being paired off with his plump admirer in that way, but his next words came as a surprise. ‘They wouldn’t have been over here, would they? It would be the new courtyard, surely, in the private wing – where Marcus and the family have their rooms?’

Porphyllia and Cilla were both nodding now, in a moment of unexpected unanimity. ‘That’s where she always gave the child his airing after lunch,’ the dumpling said. ‘It’s much more sheltered than the courtyard over here, and they aren’t likely to be embarrassed or disturbed by any of the master’s official visitors.’

Cilla was not to be outdone. ‘Master, that’s the very reason why Marcus had the new wing built – to have more privacy. He even had the summer dining room put over there as well, when Julia was expecting Marcellinus and could not generally been seen in company.’

I frowned. I should have thought of that before. Of course, there were now two courtyards in the house. Perhaps it was an indication that my brain was still not working perfectly, but somehow I’d assumed all along that it was the central court from which they’d disappeared. Yet I had been told repeatedly that Julia had just come from her room, and I should have known where that was nowadays. After all, I was enjoying the luxury of her former bedchamber myself! And it did make perfect sense. Julia would obviously prefer to sit out over there, I thought, remembering the pretty little garden, with its arbour and its shrine, sheltered on all sides by walls and full of fragrant plants and scented herbs.

Junio crossed anxiously to stand beside the bed. ‘Does that make a difference to your thinking about the kidnapping, master? I should have thought it was more difficult than ever to abduct them from there.’

Porphyllia was still gazing adoringly at him, as though he were the Delphic oracle. She tore her eyes away to say to me, ‘That’s right. You can only get there from the passageway that leads through from the main part of the house.’ Then she clamped her gaze on him again.

Cilla said sharply, ‘But surely there’s a back way out of there? There is a little gateway, isn’t there, leading to the orchard and across the open fields? The path was there before the wing was even built. It’s pretty difficult and unfrequented, certainly – it goes across ploughed fields and through the tangled woods – but it is possible to go that way.’ She turned to me and grinned. ‘Master, I seem to remember that you used it once yourself. Isn’t that right, Junio?’