A Roman Ransom (36 page)

‘Well?’ One of the soldiers pressed his sword-point under Lallius’s throat, forcing him to stretch his neck till he could hardly breathe. ‘Are you going to tell us? Or shall I have a little accident?’

Lallius’s eyes were bulging from his head. ‘She’s . . . at his villa . . . at the back . . . in the . . . disused pig-house . . . on the farm.’ He was terrified to speak the words and more afraid to stop. ‘It’s . . . just outside . . . the city gates . . . the west side . . .’ He stammered the directions one by one.

Marcus nodded, and the soldier took the sword away. ‘Very well, take him into the cart. Tell the commander he’s my prisoner and I want him questioned till he squeaks. And if he attempts to run away again, you have my permission to kill him there and then, though a clean death is probably too good for him. I’d prefer to see him given to the beasts.’ He spoke brutally, but I could see relief and hope already lifting the worry from his face.

As the soldiers dragged Lallius away, Secunda gave a cry of anguish. ‘Excellence, my husband! They have tied him to the cart. I beg you . . .’

Gwellia had the children, one under either arm, like a mother hen protecting chickens with her wing. ‘Excellence,’ she murmured, ‘let me add my plea to hers. For the children’s sake. She did her best for your son, after all.’

I would not have dared to utter such a thing, but she was clearly moved and Marcus seemed to be considering her words. There was a long moment, and then he gave a sigh.

‘Gwellia, what you say is true.’ He turned to Secunda. ‘Very well, woman, for my son’s sake I consent to spare his life – at least for now. I am going to send this villain on his way to the Glevum garrison and drive across myself to find my wife. Libertus and my page will come with me. Your husband can provide a carriage to take Gwellia and her slaves to the guard-house at the south gate of the town. They can await us there. But I shall send tomorrow, and if we find you here, you and your whole family will be sold as slaves, and your property forfeit to the state.’

Secunda looked dumbstruck, but this was merciful – and not entirely without precedent. Citizens are often sentenced to something similar – banished, interdicted from fire and water (which means that nobody can harbour them), and given a day to make good their escape, after which they may be killed if they are found. The difference here was that this was not a court, and Secunda was not a citizen.

When she said, ‘Thank you, Excellence,’ she meant it from her heart.

It was all over fairly quickly after that. Lallius’s directions were accurate, and we found Cassius and his villa without difficulty. For a moment the gate-keeper refused to let us in, but one glimpse of Marcus’s seal ring and he quickly changed his mind.

Cassius came out to meet us. He was not as I expected. He was tall and thin, and nervous-looking, and he stuttered when he spoke. It was clear that even now he was more afraid of Lallius than of us: the very mention of his name made the stammer worse.

‘I d-d-d-don’t know what you’re w-w-w-wanting, citizens. You’d b-b-b-best ask L-L-L-Lallius himself. I’m exp-p-p-pecting him in just a little while.’

‘Then you will wait for him in vain,’ my patron said. ‘He’s on his way to jail – and you will be joining him quite soon. In the meantime I have come here to collect my wife – I believe that you have locked her in the sty.’

I have never seen anyone collapse as Cassius did. He wept, he grovelled, and he wrung his hands and had to be half carried out towards the farm, and the ancient pig-house at the back of it. But the knowledge that Lallius was safely under guard had made him almost eager to comply.

Even then he dithered with the key, and it was Pulcrus in the end who picked it up, and turned it with difficulty in the lock. It was a larger building than I had rather feared, more like a little barn in size, but stone-built, cold and draughty and smelling dreadfully of pigs. We stood there, blinking in the gloom. For a moment it seemed that there was no one there. Then there was a muffled whimper from the other side, and what had looked like just a pile of filthy straw proved to be a sort of makeshift bed, with something long and struggling in the midst of it.

It was Julia, of course, though she was gagged and bound, and dressed in a wretched tunic like a slave. Her hair was lank and dark and straggling – her own hair, since she had lost her wig – and her face and arms were smeared with mud, or worse. I had to look more than once before I was sure that it was really Marcus’s wife.

My patron had no doubts. He was already at her side, and tugging off the gag, and pulling out his dagger to cut away her bonds.

‘Husband!’ I heard her whisper, and he said ‘Julia!’

‘Marcellinus?’

‘He’s safe.’ Marcus clasped her to him, and she began to sob.

So, thinking that discretion was the better part of sense, I motioned to the slaves and Cassius, and we tiptoed out and left them together for a while.

When they emerged a little afterwards, it was all activity. Cassius, who kept swearing by all the gods there were that ‘I d-d-d-didn’t know she was a s-s-s-citzen. I th-th-thought she was a s-s-slave-girl he wanted to s-sell on’, was concerned to offer us every luxury – as though that might somehow limit his guilt in this affair. The discovery of a sum of money hidden in the straw – almost but not quite the amount which had been put into the ransom bag – and a pile of Myrna’s treasures in a trough, did suggest that Lallius had not kept him fully informed.

‘He said he’d b-b-break my arms for m-m-me, if I refused to help,’ Cassius pleaded, producing his own cloak to wrap Julia in, after the slaves had brought fresh water, sweet oils and linen cloths for her to clean herself. He had offered figs and dates and almond cakes as well, but all she wanted was a sip of wine. ‘Honestly, Excellence, I had n-n-no idea.’

‘Well, you can tell that to the courts.’ Marcus was abrupt. ‘In the meantime, have your servants go and fetch a litter here to take us home. My wife is obviously not well enough to face a carriage drive. If only I still had the medicus. I wonder where he’s gone.’

The medicus! I had forgotten him, and his sudden disappearance – was it just hours ago? ‘I think he’s gone to Glevum,’ I supplied. ‘Gwellia heard him tell the carriage-driver to take him to the gates.’

Marcus turned sharply. ‘Could you find him, do you think, and bring him back to me? I know that he went off without a word, but I’m prepared to overlook that if he’ll care for Julia. Here.’ He stripped off his ring and handed it to me. ‘Take this seal as my authority. You can have the carriage – I’ll stay with Julia. When you get to the city, tell the carriage-driver to meet you at the guard-house where Gwellia and her slaves are waiting. He can bring you home when you are ready.’

I nodded. ‘I will try to find him, Excellence. I would like to see him, on my own account. From something Lallius said, I have a notion where to look.’

I was right in my surmise. I found him on a ship in Glevum dock. It was a scruffy wool-ship bound for Gaul, and clearly almost ready to be off. The captain was a surly fellow, and refused at first to let me board at all, but a glimpse of Marcus’s seal soon changed his mind on that.

‘I’m just an honest trader, citizen,’ he whined. ‘If someone asks me for a passage – and a citizen at that – am I to refuse him, when he pays me handsomely? Not my business to ask him why he wants to go. If he’s offended someone in high places, it’s no affair of mine.’ He let me up the gangplank – a wobbly piece of wood – but he didn’t offer to accompany me.

I hate being on the water – even a ferry on the river makes me sweat. Those few days aboard the slave-ship had seen to that. The boat was shifting on the river, and lurched beneath my feet, and I clutched desperately at the cargo to keep myself upright. The smell of wool and skins was overpowering, and it was already very warm and stuffy in the hold. But there was an unexpected space along the side and I forced myself to inch along it to the front.

The medicus was cowering in a space up at the prow. He had made a sort of nest among the sheepskins for his body and his scrolls and there was a flask of something at his side and a chunk of bread as well. All the same he looked as wretched as I would have been myself, and I felt an unexpected sympathy.

He had pulled his toga up around his head to form a hood, and closed his eyes as if to shut out the sight of wool. He did not seem to notice my approach.

‘Thersis?’ I murmured, and he answered to his name. He shot upright at once.

He looked at me, and groaned. ‘The pavement-maker. I might have known. I suppose there’s no point in a struggle. You’ll have guards outside – and they will arrest me anyway. Well, you’ll have your wish. They’ll take me back to Rome and into slavery again. No doubt my owner will brand me and keep me all my life in chains – if they do not execute me first. I almost wish they would. But he’s offered such a huge reward for my return that I expect they’ll be intent on claiming that. No doubt you’ll get a handsome share of it.’

I said nothing. He looked very old and sad, but he had lost his lofty manner and was speaking man to man. I liked him much the better, suddenly.

He began to struggle to his feet and pick up his belongings one by one. ‘Well, come on. You have been very clever, citizen. I really thought that I was safe this time. You can’t imagine what it’s like, you know – being for ever on the run. Every time I think that I have found myself a niche, someone turns up who knew me once in Rome and I’m obliged to run away again – move on and start another life elsewhere.’

‘It was the slave-trader that frightened you?’ I ventured.

‘Of course. He knew who I was. He supplied me to my owner at the start – I went to him because he had a reputation for dealing in the best. I thought he would find me the best price for myself and I could afford the Celsus scrolls – I’d always wanted them. I paid him a good commission too. It proved a big mistake. Not only did he sell me to an owner who refused to let me go, but he has dealings with people throughout the Empire. It’s not the first time I’ve come close to running into him, and naturally he’d know my face at once. So every time he’s forced me to move on. Fortunately, I have managed up till now. I have talents, as you know. I made a living everywhere I went. I might have done again, if it were not for you. No use to remind you that I saved your life.’

It wasn’t self-conceit: it was the truth. ‘I owe you an apology,’ I said. ‘I really thought you’d planned the kidnapping.’

He paused in the act of picking up a scroll which had escaped its ties and half unrolled itself. ‘And how could I do that? I wasn’t even there when Julia disappeared. And what possible advantage would it be to me? I was looking for a quiet place away from town where I could earn an honest coin and not be recognised. I really thought I’d found it – I told Aulus so, though of course I didn’t tell him why I needed it. Anyway,’ he had retrieved his scroll by now and was busy tucking it beneath his arm, ‘you must have known I had no part in it. You were surely involved in it yourself – the maid, the bag, the infant’s clothes, the cleverness – everything pointed to the fact that it was you. I thought you were trying to raise questions about me in order to divert attention from yourself.’

I found that I was smiling. ‘And I thought the same of you. It was Myrna and her family all along, as you deduced, but there was a brother she didn’t know she had.’ I gave him a brief outline of the Lallius affair.

He was so astonished he let slip his scrolls again. ‘Great Hermes! Well, I must admit it, pavement-maker, you are most astute. It seems you worked it out. With the assistance of your wife and slave of course – and my little contribution with the cloak. Doubtless His Excellence will reward you handsomely.’

I didn’t argue. Julia would be grateful, and that was good enough. I did not even bother to point out that I had come to my conclusions about the cloak without his help.

He took my silence as assent. ‘Well, I’d better gather up my books. Though whether I shall ever have need of them again is quite another thing.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll hand it to you, pavement-maker, you have bested me. But there is one thing that still puzzles me – if you had worked out who I was, why did you not denounce me to your patron earlier? You had chance enough – although I tried to come between you and make sure that you did not. Because you were not certain – was that it – until you spoke to the slave-trader today?’

I shook my head. ‘It did not occur to me to wonder who you were. I did try to make enquiries about your background at one time, but only because I thought you’d planned the ransom notes and I was doubtful about taking any of your cures. And when I could learn nothing, of course that made it worse. I had no notion that you were Thersis, and therefore no longer a citizen at all.’

He glanced down at his toga. It was a capital offence, of course, to impersonate a citizen when you were not entitled to the role. ‘As no doubt you’ve pointed out to them,’ he said, with bitterness. ‘And of course you had worked out who I was. You mentioned it the day the baby was returned, and when you came here you called me by my name.’

‘I swear that it did not occur to me until today,’ I said. ‘But when I discovered that you were not part of the plot, I asked myself why you would run away. I thought it was the ransom note, but when it wasn’t that, it had to be the slave-trader himself, or possibly the wet nurse that he’d brought with him. Then I remembered that the trader came from Rome and the likely explanation came to me. A doctor who refuses to be subservient, has enormous talents, has disappeared and would be about your age by now? You have become famous throughout the Empire, you know. And I remembered how you reacted when I mentioned the affair.’

He bent, as though to pick up the flask and bread, and then seemed to think better of the plan. ‘Well,’ he said again, ‘it seems you’ve caught me now. If you had not caught me dozing, I might have slipped from you yet. But I must not make the guards impatient. They will be harsh enough with me when they discover that I am – legally – just a slave.’

I shook my head. ‘There are no guards outside,’ I said.