A Roman Ransom Read online

  ‘Well, show him in then.’ Marcus looked at me. ‘It might be some news of Lallius at last. According to my page, a guard was posted in the street all day, keeping a discreet watch on his house. But Lallius has not been seen at all since his release.’

  Pulcrus was at the door again, accompanied by an imperial messenger, resplendent in his purple-edged cape and uniform. Even Pulcrus must have felt a little drab.

  The newcomer came to kneel at Marcus’s feet. He’d learned his speech by heart. ‘The commander tenders his respects to your most gracious Excellence and begs to offer his report.’ He glanced warily at me and Junio.

  ‘You may speak freely,’ Marcus said. ‘The residence of Lallius is still under constant watch?’

  ‘Indeed, Excellence. It is his father’s house, in fact – the coin inspector, old Numidius. Lallius did not return last night – it’s possible that he has fled the town – and we have seen no one come or go except the household slaves. However, a young woman was discovered shortly after dawn, loitering around the entrance to the house. She was dressed in servant’s clothing, but she is not part of the coin inspector’s household – we know all of them.’

  Marcus exchanged a look with me, then barked, ‘I trust that you arrested her at once? She may have information. Most probably she is a messenger.’

  ‘Naturally, Excellence!’ The man looked affronted that my patron should ask. ‘They took her to the cells and questioned her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she denies that she has ever met the family.’ The soldier permitted himself the suspicion of a smile. ‘But we know better. She was talking to a servant from the household in the street – one of our spies was watching all the time. And she was seen in the same area last night at dusk, as well. There was an older woman with her then. She won’t say who it was – or admit to anything. The commander was about to have her stripped and scourged, to find out what she knew, but suddenly she claimed your protection, Excellence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Claims that she was recently a servant to your wife, and says she would account for herself to you and you alone. Well, of course, when the commander heard that, he did not proceed. He said that you had asked to have all suspects brought to you, in any case, so he had her put in chains and he’ll be sending her to you as soon as an escort and transport cart can be arranged. That is what I am sent to report. In the name of his most serene and divine imperial majesty the Emp—’

  Marcus interrupted. ‘Never mind all that. You are dismissed. Pulcrus, bring him refreshment in the servants’ waiting room.’ The two went out and Marcus looked at me. ‘Myrna – do you think?’

  My thoughts had been following exactly the same track. ‘And her mother, by the sound of it. They went to Glevum yesterday. And if she’s been arrested, we know why she has not come here today.’

  ‘It seems she did have some connection with Lallius, then.’ Marcus was looking seriously upset that someone in his household might betray him in this way.

  It was my turn to comfort him. ‘Unless she was just calling at his house to bargain for your family’s release? She was fond of Marcellinus, I believe.’

  Marcus brightened for a moment and then shook his head. ‘If she was innocent she couldn’t know about the kidnappers’ demands. She wasn’t here. How could she have guessed that Lallius was involved? I have told nobody except yourselves – apart from the chief priest.’

  He had forgotten that the page had ears, I thought. It was likely that the whole household knew by now. But even that would not explain the facts. Pulcrus had not seen Myrna since the ransom note arrived.

  ‘So it seems that she knew Lallius after all,’ I said.

  ‘But how? How does a wet nurse meet a man like that? And how could she possibly have abducted Julia? Myrna was here inside the villa all along.’

  ‘She might have helped the kidnappers,’ I pointed out. ‘Or laid a trap for Julia, to entice her to go out of her own accord. She was the only servant near her at the time.’

  Marcus sighed. ‘Well, we have ways of finding out. Even if you don’t approve of them. And this time, Libertus, I shan’t hesitate to use them. The wretched girl will tell us everything she knows. To think we trusted her! Jove give me strength. The sooner they get her here the better, though it will take an hour or so. Then perhaps we’ll find out something significant at last. In the meantime, I suppose, we shall just have to beg for patience from the gods.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gods or not, I knew at once it was impossible for me to simply wait and see. I wanted to do something – anything! – which might help to resolve this mystery. Gwellia was gone! Marcus had been living with this sort of strain for days, and I began to see why he had been rushing to and fro, content to drive to Glevum twice in a single day. When you are consumed with worry, sitting still leaves too much time for thought. Action, of any sort, is comforting.

  Yet what was there to do? I had planned to question Myrna, and that was not possible – not until she got here, anyway. I might have brought the other villa servants in and talked to them, perhaps, but it seemed that there was little they could add. Anyway, I was not convinced that I could concentrate.

  I needed to do something physical – to be out beyond the walls, looking for some trace of Gwellia. I was desperate to visit the empty roundhouse, too, in case there was something that the page had missed – anything at all that might bring me closer to finding my missing wife. Yet clearly I was in no state to walk anywhere at all. And then a stratagem occurred to me.

  ‘If Myrna has had dealings with Lallius before, it’s probable her family would know. I wonder, Excellence, if it would be wise to go down there and round up the sister and the child, so we can question them. If you would give me transport, I could go down myself.’ He looked a little doubtful, and I added hastily, ‘I could look in at the roundhouse on the way, as well, in case there’s anything the page has overlooked.’

  Marcus was still running his fingers through his hair. He looked at me sadly. ‘It might be useful to do as you suggest. I might come with you, too. Anything is better than simply waiting here.’

  ‘Then I may use the carriage, or a cart at least?’ I was glad of his suggestion that he’d accompany me. I am no rider, and I did not want a horse.

  I rather expected him to agree at once, but all he answered was, ‘We’ll see what the doctor has to say.’

  I thought I knew what Philades would say, and I was not mistaken. When he was summoned and his opinion asked, he was quick to declare that such an outing was not wise at all. ‘In the patient’s current state of health, it might even be dangerous,’ he finished, screwing his wrinkled face into a sneer.

  ‘Come now, medicus,’ I countered. ‘Only yesterday, as I understand, you were actually prescribing carriage rides. And it seems that you were right. That little journey in the cart has clearly done me good.’ In fact I was feeling as flimsy as a flower, but I was determined not to show it. I would investigate my wife’s disappearance if it took all the strength I had.

  Before he could say another word, I had risen unsteadily to my feet and taken a faltering step towards the door. (I had to flash a warning glance at Junio, otherwise I knew he’d try to help, but I wanted to make my point and stand unaided.) When I had reached the safety of the wall, and could lean on it for support, I turned back to Philades. ‘You see?’

  The doctor was still trying to frustrate my plan. ‘Libertus is still very weak,’ he said. ‘If he goes for a rocking trip, he should not go alone. I could accompany him, perhaps.’

  I could think of nothing I would welcome less, but I need not have worried. ‘I’ll go with him myself,’ my patron said. ‘If Myrna has dealings with the coin inspector’s son it’s possible she knew about the kidnapping.’

  ‘Libertus suggested that to you?’ The doctor gave me another poisonous look.

  Marcus ignored him. ‘It’s hard to credit it. We have been generous to that household. Apart fro
m paying Myrna a very handsome sum, Julia used to buy the mother’s teething remedies, and sometimes other things as well. We always gave an extra as or two. And whenever she used to come here, bringing that little girl up to be fed, we never sent her home without some food. Even the day Julia went, they turned up here a little later on – the old woman had a basket of herbs and things to sell – and the steward gave them something even then, although of course he had to send them home.’

  ‘Myrna still had milk enough for two?’ I said.

  ‘Just as the mother once did and the sister too. It’s one of the recommendations for the job. I’m very keen to talk to the family, in fact, since there is nothing else that I can usefully do here, at least until this escort party comes. We’ll take a cart and bring them back with us. It isn’t far to go. A mile or two towards the town, I understand. My page will know exactly where to find the house; he’s been there several times. He can accompany us and show us where it is.’

  ‘And Junio?’ I ventured. The page would ride beside us, but Junio was on foot.

  My patron almost smiled. ‘And Junio, of course, since you wish it. He can travel on the cart. It will save him squatting on the carriage floor, though Julia and I have often travelled with a slave like that.’

  I saw Philades frown. I think he had been planning to invite himself along, but not at the price of riding on a cart.

  Marcus in any case had other plans for him. ‘Philades, I’m leaving you in charge, in case the kidnappers attempt to be in touch again. If there is any message, you know where I have gone. Send one of the servants after me at once. I don’t expect the party from Glevum will arrive before we’re back, but if they do, see that the girl is securely locked up. There’s a room upstairs we sometimes use for slaves who are awaiting punishment. Put her in there, and put a guard on her, but make sure she doesn’t speak to any of the staff. I don’t want her concocting any further lies with them.’

  It was almost comical to see the doctor’s face. He clearly wanted to come out with us, but he could hardly turn down Marcus’s request. ‘I am honoured, Excellence,’ he managed finally.

  Once the decision had been made, our preparations did not take long. The carriage – as Malodius had said yesterday – was polished and ready, and only required a horse between the shafts. In no time at all it was waiting in the lane with Malodius grumbling in his cart behind.

  With Junio’s help I struggled out, and was duly ensconced with pillows and a rug, though it cost me more effort than I wanted to admit.

  I don’t know if rocking therapy is genuinely beneficial, but the motion of the carriage was not disagreeable. Marcus had pulled the leather curtain aside, and I leaned back on my cushions and looked out at the lane. There was not much to see. Damp trees, ragged with winter. A wretched, wandering dog. A peasant bent double under a pile of sticks. An arrogant young horseman who stopped to watch us pass. No sign of Gwellia, however hard I looked.

  ‘Nothing to see here, my old friend,’ my patron said. ‘It was a vain hope anyway.’ He looked pale and tense, and after that he said nothing more at all until we reached the enclosure where my roundhouse was.

  Junio was already off the cart and opening the gate. He came to help me down, and at Marcus’s suggestion the page accompanied us. My heart was thumping as we went into the house – I was still hoping against hope that Gwellia might be there, or at least have left some message that only I would recognise. But there was nothing of the kind. Everything was exactly as the page had said – neat, tidied, empty, with the fire damped and cold. That was somehow more troubling than a fight-scene might have been: the embers are never usually permitted to go out. It is a tedious matter to make fire, and without it the house seemed dark, impersonal and chill. In any case I was half numb with grief.

  I sent Junio on a scouting mission, but he soon returned. Nothing in the dye house either, or in the servants’ new sleeping room next door. Nothing in the well or in the food storage pits. (That was a small comfort, anway. We’d once discovered a dismembered corpse in there.) No one with the animals in the shelter at the back – all clamouring as if they had been shut up for the night. I instructed the two boys to take them food, but not to let them out.

  I sat on my own stool and looked helplessly around. My wife had not taken any clothes with her, as far as I could see, or anything else except an ancient leather bag which was missing from its usual hook beside the door. Where was she? I dared not allow myself to think of what might be happening to her at this very hour. I would have done anything at all to bring her back, but I was powerless. I felt very old and lost. However, there was clearly nothing to be gained from sitting here, so when Junio and the page came back they helped me out to the carriage once again.

  Marcus was not accustomed to being made to wait. He was peculiarly unsmiling and abrupt when we returned and I could see he was impatient to be off. ‘We must be on our way to Myrna’s if we’re going to go at all. I want to be back at the villa before the escort party comes. Very well, Pulcrus – ride on and lead the way.’

  This time our progress was slower, though considerably more jolting and uncomfortable. We were no longer on the wide gravelled lane that leads to Marcus’s villa from the military road, but on the ancient, narrow, muddy track which is the old way into town. It is a shorter route, used by pedestrians and mules, but it was not designed for carriage wheels. It is narrow, full of rocks and roots, with muddy corners and vertiginous descents, and only negotiable by carriages with care. However, it was soon clear why we had come this way. The road wound past several isolated farms and little homesteads nestling by the lane. One of these was Myrna’s, by the look of it.

  The building was rather a surprise. It was made of stone and square-built, like a Roman house, though it was low and squat and rather rambling. It was set back a little from the road, and as we came closer I could see that one end of it was sorely in decay. Part of the roof had fallen in, and grass and weeds were growing through the walls of what had obviously once been a stable.

  Marcus looked at me and raised his brows. ‘Not the sort of place I expected at all,’ he said. It was the first thing he had said since I got back in the carriage. ‘Quite a substantial dwelling, in its day.’ He nodded to the page. ‘Well, go and fetch them out.’

  The page swung obediently from his horse, gave Malodius the reins, and swaggered up the path towards the door. He peered inside, then raised his hand to knock. ‘Is anybody there?’ we heard him call.

  As if in answer a ragged woman appeared from round the side. She trailed one grimy infant by the hand, and carried a second on her hip, while another was clearly on the way. She was thin, and had that worn and haggard look that many peasant mothers have. She stopped to speak to Pulcrus, and we heard her murmuring, and then he escorted her to us.

  She sketched a clumsy bob, and launched into speech at once. Her Latin was fluent, if ungrammatical. ‘Pardon me, your mightiness, but I’ve been saying to your page it’s no good him hollering ’cause there’s no one there. I can’t account for it. Promised she’d have a remedy for me today, she did, for little Aldo here.’ She indicated the infant at her side. ‘See how his nose is running?’

  Indeed it would have been difficult to miss. There was a slick of mucus extending to his chin and dribbling down on to his tunic-front. The child put his grimy thumb into his mouth and went on gazing solemnly at us.

  Marcus dragged his eyes away from this wretched spectacle. ‘You don’t know where they’ve gone?’

  ‘I don’t know no more than you do. She said that she’d be here. Walked miles to get here, I have, and all to find her gone. Now what am I to do? I’ll have all five of them with snivels next, and I’ve got no clean tunics for them as it is.’

  The idea of another three at home was frightening. ‘You could rub some hog’s grease on his chest,’ I ventured, remembering what the medicus had said.

  Her look was pitying. ‘I might do if I had a hog,’ she said. ‘But where am I to
find that sort of thing? I was hoping that the woman here might give me some – she’s not cheap, but she’ll help you now and then if you’re really short of money.’ She seemed to realise that this was hardly a concern to wealthy men like Marcus, and she added hastily, ‘Begging your pardon, mightiness, that is.’

  However, her little outburst had given me a thought. I leaned as close to Marcus as I could and murmured in his ear, ‘You might offer her a few sesterces, Excellence, if she can tell us anything of use. I can speak to her in Celtic if you wish?’

  Not soft enough! She heard me. ‘That would be much easier for me,’ she said, lapsing into the local dialect. It was not identical to mine, but I could understand it well enough. ‘Of course, I’ll tell you anything I can. What do you want to know?’

  I passed this on to Marcus, who took out a silver coin and held it up between his finger and thumb so that she could see it. ‘About this family . . .?’ he said, keeping his Latin very slow and clear. ‘A mother and two daughters, I believe?’

  She nodded. ‘And the little granddaughters, of course. Myrna’s got one and Secunda has the twins – I don’t know how they manage to limit it to that. Perhaps it’s being a wet nurse does it, like they used to say.’

  This rather puzzled me, and I asked her to explain, though when she did I rather wished that I had held my tongue.

  ‘Feeding a child is supposed to prevent you falling for another one – I thought everyone knew that – though Jove knows it didn’t work for me. Course, Myrna hasn’t got a husband now – he drowned down at the ford, poor thing, before the child was born.’

  ‘Myrna had a husband?’ I exclaimed. Of course, I should have thought of it before – where there are children there must have been a man – but all the same it came as a surprise.