The Ghosts of Glevum (23 page)

I had almost finished pulling off the load when the land slave reappeared, followed by Julia herself, with Cilla at her side. She was as beautiful as ever, though she did look drawn, and the strain of the last few days was evident. Even the soldier at the gate was looking at her appreciatively.

‘Lady!’ I murmured deprecatingly. It suddenly occurred to me how odd this must look, the mistress of the house appearing in honour of an itinerant beggar with a load of rotting rubbish from the streets.

Julia ignored me and walked on to the gate. The soldier straightened up perceptibly, and held himself peculiarly upright, as if he was sucking his stomach in and trying to force his chest-armour out. Julia had that effect on many men. She had chosen a sombre dark grey
stola
this afternoon, in deference to her husband’s plight, and had covered her hair and shoulders in a dun-coloured mantle too. It was almost funeral attire, and it made her look more than usually fragile and pale.

‘I am sending a messenger to Corinium again,’ she said, in a voice that was deliberately loud enough for me to hear. ‘Please see that he is permitted to leave without delay. I intend to remove there, as you know, if things do not go well at my husband’s trial, and obviously there is a great deal to be done if the house is to be prepared for me.’

The soldier shrugged, but his manner was respectful as he said, ‘Lady, that’s impossible. We’ve already been too lenient as it is, letting that messenger through yesterday.’

‘I had your centurion’s permission for that,’ she replied, with dignity. ‘Both to let him in and send him out again.’

‘I know that, lady, but of course when that was first agreed the villa was only under guard. We hadn’t had instructions then to seal it off. But now that your husband – begging your pardon, madam citizen – has been discovered in a plot, naturally the house is under scrutiny and private messengers are not allowed.’

‘Not even if I send it through the guard? If I could get a message to the commander of the garrison, surely he could see that it reached Corinium? There are always messengers riding to and fro – and he could ensure that there was nothing treasonable in what I wrote. When my messenger came back from Corinium he brought me word that I have a visitor – a lady and her slaves – and naturally I am concerned that she is properly received. Of course there are servants at the house, but it is hardly civilised to leave her there alone.’

So Gwellia and Junio were safe. It was clever of Julia, I thought, to find a way of making sure that I discovered that, without addressing a single word to me. It was a huge relief to know. Indeed, I was so busy thinking about that, I stopped unloading the muck.

The soldier spoke again. ‘Orders are orders, lady. It’s not in my hands – or even in our centurion’s any more. We’re only doing what we’re told.’ He gave her what was obviously his official smile. ‘Once the trial is over, you’ll be free to go. I’m sure your visitors will understand. Your usual hospitality is legendary. Look at that banquet you gave the other night.’

Julia gave a ladylike but contemptuous snort. ‘At which one of my two house-guests died – in the presence of the high priest of Jupiter as well – and the other was forced to leave the house and seek accommodation in an inn, because the household was put under guard?’

So Mellitus had been forced to put up at an inn? He would not have appreciated that. I chuckled inwardly. I had forgotten that he was a house-guest at the villa that night – and naturally he couldn’t decently remain alone with Julia and an infant child, once Marcus had been taken into custody. Still, it was interesting news. Perhaps Sosso and his men could find out which inn it was and see if anything was to be learned from there, although by this time the procurator would certainly have left. He would either have gone back to his home town or, more likely, have become the house-guest of some other councillor in Glevum. There must still be administrative matters to resolve. After all, that was what he’d come to the colonia for.

Something else had become clear to me as well. This total ban on communication with the villa was recently imposed. I had half deduced that for myself, from the freedom which Cilla had earlier enjoyed and the fact that Julia had been permitted to receive that letter from Marcus. Indeed, even after the new charges were first laid – Marcus had mentioned them in his note – it seemed she had still been permitted to send messengers to the Corinium house and receive replies. Something since then had clearly changed. It could only be the production of clear evidence – either a statement extorted from one of the tortured household slaves confirming that Marcus had mentioned Romnus’s name, or the production of the famous document. Or, more likely, both.

There was no time to think about that now. Julia was still talking to the guard, and it was evident that she intended me to hear.

‘I have done my best to co-operate with you,’ she said, ‘letting you search my husband’s study, and take that document and things away. Surely you can co-operate with me, in such a simple matter as a messenger? An important man like you?’

I couldn’t see her face, but I knew that she had lowered her head and would be looking at him from under downcast lids. No wonder the commanding officer had listened to her pleas and reduced the guard in her wing of the house. It would not surprise me to learn that he now made a point of patrolling that area himself. Julia had no power at all in law, now that her husband-guardian was in jail – she would have been helpless to prevent the search and seizure of Marcus’s things – but she knew how to wield the other powers she had.

The guard looked self-important, and I thought for a moment that he might weaken and agree, but the younger soldier sauntered out of the gatekeeper’s room just then, and – thus observed – the senior took a different line.

‘Lady, I have told you several times. There is nothing that we soldiers can do. If you have a complaint to make, make it to the commander of the garrison.’

‘But how am I to contact him, since I cannot even send a messenger?’ Julia said plaintively.

The soldier clearly could not answer that, since it was impeccably logical, and looked around for someone on whom he could vent his embarrassment and so reassert his authority. He saw me loitering by the cart, and I was the obvious candidate.

He bawled at me. ‘You! Old man! Get a move on there – don’t stand there idling, just because you think that no one’s watching you. I know your type! You’ve got a job to do. Get on with it!’

‘Ah!’ Julia turned to me. ‘Indeed. The fertiliser for my flower beds. I suppose the man needs paying. Cilla, see to it. Four quadrantes, I think that was agreed?’

Cilla came over to me, and ostentatiously dropped four quadrantes in my hand. I stared at her. Surely Julia would give me more than this?

‘Say thank you, citizen, and try to look impressed,’ the slave-girl murmured, moving so that she stood between me and the guard. ‘My mistress has a plan. Beg for some clothes – it seems you need them, too. I wouldn’t have recognised you dressed like that. What happened to your toga?’ She glanced towards the cart.

She was right, of course. I don’t know why I hadn’t realised it before – the turmoil of the last few days seemed to have dulled my mind. But now I saw what Cilla had observed. The big sludge-coloured cloth that had been tucked around the cart had dropped to the ground and opened out. One long edge of it was visible, curved in the distinctive toga-shape. The truth was evident. This now-stinking piece of rag had been my proud mark of Roman status, until Junio had come home and hidden it in the dye.

I kicked the garment over with my foot, so that the shape of it was less conspicuous, and bowed my head obsequiously. ‘Thank you, miss,’ I said aloud, for the benefit of the soldiers, who still had their eyes on us. Behind them I saw Parva slip out of the gatehouse and away. I wheedled my voice into a pleading whine. ‘I think I was promised a few rags, as well? Something to keep out the winter cold?’

‘Ah, that slave’s tunic that got torn and stained with wine last Janus’s Feast! Of course. He’s quite right, Cilla – Marcus promised him. You’ll find it somewhere in the kitchen block, if someone hasn’t torn it up for rags. And there’s a loaf of bread that he can have, as well – left over from the banquet. People went home so suddenly that night, even the pigs can’t keep up with the scraps.’

I was puzzled. This, obviously, was part of Julia’s plan. A three-day-old loaf of bread was scarcely edible and besides – to my knowledge – the diners had all finished long before the unfortunate events that brought the banquet to a sudden close, and dined superbly too. Unless this somehow offered information as to the murderer, I could see no advantage in the gift. However, I clearly could say none of this aloud, so I cried, ‘Jove and all the deities bless you, lady!’ with what I hoped was an appropriately humble show of gratitude.

Julia acknowledged this with the curtest of short nods, as though I were the nobody I seemed. She turned back to the guards. ‘I don’t know what Governor Pertinax would say, if he knew how his personal representative was treated now he’s gone!’ she snapped, and went back through the inner door with Cilla at her side.

Her departure was followed by an awkward hush. The soldier was scowling at me again. There was nothing for it but to put down my coins and unload the last few stinking remnants of my load.

No one had offered me a spade at any point, but now that the cart was empty the kitchen slave came over with the broom and began ostentatiously to sweep around the pile, as if to tidy it as much as possible. I picked up my ex-toga – fwhaw, how it stank! – and wiped my hands on it, then bundled it back on to the cart, artlessly folded with the curved edge innermost. I tied my pitiful payment into the corner of my makeshift garment, as I have seen beggars do.

Cilla came back with an old blue tunic on her arm, and a loaf of bread which was as hard as bricks. She tossed them on the cart without a word and disappeared and I was left to wheel it away: past the gatehouse, down the farm track – unmolested – and out on to the lane.

I found that I was sweating with relief, despite the cold. The cart was much easier to manage, now that it was empty, and I made good speed back to the spot where I had last seen Sosso and his men, although it was beginning to get dark by now. Molendinarius was there in the deepening gloom, gathering fallen branches into piles, and collecting twigs as though for kindling. When he saw me, his face twisted into its customary scowl, but he straightened up and came to me at once. It was clear that he had been sent to wait for me.

‘Well,’ he demanded. ‘You got what you went for, I presume? Now have you finished with my cart, or has a poor man got to go on lugging his means of livelihood around with him by hand?’

I scooped up my loaf and tunic (the toga stank so much that I abandoned it) and left the cart exactly where it stood. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be paid,’ I said, thinking of those four quadrantes in my hem. How Sosso would be paid was something else, but I had confidence in Julia. I was looking forward to examining my gifts in detail – it would not have surprised me to find a message scratched into the bottom of the loaf, or cleverly concealed in the tunic-folds.

The firewood-seller sneered unpleasantly at me. ‘Of course I shall be paid,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have lent it to you otherwise.’ He bent and began to load his brushwood on to the cart. ‘You’d better go on up towards the hut. The others are waiting for you there – trying to decide what’s to be done with you.’ He spat. ‘More trouble than you’re worth, it seems to me.’

Once I would have felt sympathy for him, struggling to eke out a living with one damaged hand, but he was so unpleasant I was fleetingly tempted to regret my generosity in buying unwanted kindling from him in the past. Then I recalled that without his grudging hospitality, and his wife’s care in particular, I would have been either dead or captured by this time. I nodded and went up towards the hut.

Even in the dusk it was possible to see that the area had been painstakingly cleared and swept, and everything restored to order once again. A warm glow emanated from within, and an enticing smell was beginning to emerge. Another of my chickens, I presumed. The woman was squatting near the hut, sifting a pile of herbs, and as I approached she looked at me, and smiled her toothless smile. ‘Were you successful, citizen? Did you get the money from your patron’s wife?’

I avoided the question. ‘Not directly,’ I admitted. ‘I got this, though.’ I had examined the bread from every angle as I walked, but in this light I could see no sign of messages on it. I had even tapped to see if it was hollow, but it was denser than a piece of stone. I gave it to her now.

Her face fell. ‘Great Minerva! What’s the use of that? You couldn’t eat it if you soaked it for a week. What’s in it, anyway? A lump of iron?’

And then, of course, I understood. ‘I’ll investigate,’ I said, carefully removing the item from her grasp. I took it up, and slammed it with all my force on to a jagged piece of stone beside the path. The loaf cracked, and I saw that I was right. It was not ordinary dough but hard and powdery, like mortar, and the edge of a coin was clearly visible. A silver denarius, by the look of it, and there were clearly others in the loaf. What a cunning and resourceful woman Julia was!

‘I shall need my axe or something to get into this,’ I said, trying to keep emotion from my voice. No need to advertise my sudden wealth. Although Sosso and his men had proved themselves willing to help for a price, they were still beggars, vagabonds and thieves, and Molendinarius had looted my roundhouse, after all. I turned the loaf so that the coin was out of sight. ‘Or perhaps that stone you use for grinding herbs.’

The woman nodded and I moved towards the hut. Sosso and Cornovacus were there, deep in conversation by the fire. They were squatting on the floor – which was devoid of bedding, I observed. The two of them looked up as I came in.

‘I’ve got the money – or the means of getting it,’ I said quickly, before Sosso could ask. ‘And a lot of useful information too.’