A Coin for the Ferryman (32 page)

There was the faint hint of what might have been a smile. ‘They don’t call her Grandma – they call her the Wardress. But otherwise you’re right. The girl came asking, and they showed her up, and the Wardress took her behind the curtain at the end – she does that sometimes to look at applicants. Wants to see their legs and figures, so she makes them strip.’

‘And that is what she did?’

‘I imagine so – though it was obvious there wasn’t any point. Certainly the girl took off her dress. I could hear her babbling. Full of hope she was – she’d heard some fellow talking in the town, about how anyone could get a place to entertain the court if they only had the money to bribe him for the chance. She thought perhaps the Wardress would agree to do the same, and let her join the dancers if she paid us well enough. Well, of course, the Wardress simply laughed at her. Said that she had legs like tree trunks, a bottom like a tub, and a face to frighten horses. It was horribly unkind. And when she’d done it she just went downstairs to see her precious dancers, and left the girl alone. In floods and floods of tears she was when I went in to her. I let her have the tunic to cheer her up a bit.’

‘You gave her a tunic? You had authority for that?’

She fiddled with her needle. ‘Well . . . not exactly gave it. I have to keep accounts. She had all this money . . .’ The flame of her cheeks was now much brighter than the silk. ‘She could afford it – and it helped us both. It gave her a bit of hope – the man had told her to come back when she’d found a proper outfit and a substantial bribe, which was probably sarcastic, but she took him at his word – and it helped me to put a bit aside towards my freedom price, though obviously I had to put a little in the kitty for the cloth. And the tunic wasn’t wanted – it was torn across the back. The Wardress had already said it was no use to us, and was talking about unpicking it and using it for trim.’

‘So you sold a torn tunic for an
aureus
?’ I said. ‘And you want me to believe that was a kindly act? Not taking advantage of a rather simple girl?’

She looked at me helplessly. ‘You know about the gold? Well, in that case you’ll realise that I did look after her. She was carrying it just tied up in her shawl-end – did you know? Five gold pieces and she carries it like that – simply asking to lose it or be set upon and robbed.’

‘So you showed her how to hide the money in her hem?’

She nodded, with a sigh. ‘Then she wouldn’t put the plaid dress on again, of course! Insisted on wearing the tunic right away, and going straight to the forum to try to find the man. I had to help her make a proper bundle out of it – gave her a piece of old sack from the pile.’ She raised her eyes to look sorrowfully at me. ‘But the coins were stolen, that’s what you’re telling me? So I’ll have to give it back? I suppose I’m not surprised – she said they were her uncle’s legacy, but I should have known they weren’t.’

‘There is more truth in her story than you might suppose. If the coins were stolen it was not by her. Though her family might have a case against you, I suppose, for charging her so highly for what were damaged goods. A bargain made by someone who can be proved to be a simpleton has no validity in law.’

She looked abashed. ‘It wasn’t only the tunic that I gave her. I felt a bit guilty about it afterwards, and when she came back, a little later on, I found her somewhere she could sleep and gave her food as well.’

‘She came back here again?’ This was important news. I had been wondering what had happened to the girl after she left here with her tunic, and before she was seen in the morning talking to Aulus at the gate. ‘Back here?’ I said again.

‘That’s right, citizen. She hadn’t found the man. He’d left when she got there and he wasn’t coming back – at least that’s what was being rumoured in the town. She was awfully disappointed. She’d even been trying to find out where he lived. I was here alone by that time – the troupe had gone out to perform at the vinters’ guild that night – so I looked after her. They’d left some bread and meat for me, and I gave her some of that. And I found a warm spot in the rehearsal barn for her – I knew that no one would go in there again that night.’

‘So she didn’t find him?’ An awful possibility had occurred to me – that Hirsius might have been the murderer. After all, the rumour was that she had gone away with an entertainment troupe – the sort of thing that Hirsius was signing up in town – and she had been actively looking for him earlier that day. But now it seemed that she had not caught up with him. ‘Not at all?’

‘Not that night anyway. She was quite upset, but very grateful that I didn’t let her down. She was terrified that somebody was going to send her home. She was black and blue with bruises – I saw them before she put on the tunic. She said her father beat her, and it looked as though he had – that’s why she was so keen to find the man she was looking for. He was staying at some villa, I don’t know where it was – somewhere on the western side of town, I think. Anyway, the girl had found out where it was. She was going to go and find him first thing the next day – and I suppose she did, because when I came down after dawn I found that she had gone.’

‘Wait a minute!’ There was one detail of this story which I found startling. ‘Did you say the western side of town? Out across the river? You are sure of that?’ Marcus’s villa was firmly to the south, and a little east of here, if anything.

She made a face. ‘I don’t know for myself. I met a street musician the next day who told me that – I asked him if he had heard about the fellow taking bribes, because I was concerned about the girl. I knew that lots of street performers had been paying him, so I thought there was a fair chance that he’d know.’

‘And did he?’

A rueful smile. ‘It seems that he had given the man a hefty bribe himself, but it had got him nowhere. All the local acts were up in arms, he said, and were thinking of going out to the villa to confront him face to face, but by that time the fellow had moved on in any case. He’d been seen at the west gate, riding into town, to catch up with the party that had already gone – the acts that
were
selected, and a sort of luggage cart. They’d gone round the outside of the town, of course, being wheeled transport, but he’d ridden through, and several people had shouted after him.’

The west gate, I was thinking. The gate that led in from the Isca road. The very place where Morella’s body had been found. So Hirsius would have had the opportunity to put it there! Indeed, he was the only one who might have had the chance, it seemed. But why should he kill Morella? It made no sense at all. Not for the money – she would have given it willingly for the chance to go with him. And he’d hardly spoken to her, by all accounts – Morella had been beaten savagely for ‘talking to a man’ without consent, so it was hardly something which had happened every day. ‘I don’t understand it,’ I said aloud.

The slave girl misunderstood me. ‘They were angry, I suppose, that he hadn’t taken a single entertainer from this area. But of course there was nothing that anyone could do. It was the master’s decision, after all, what acts he chose to take and it was someone else’s villa that he was staying in, so even then he might not have had the final say on who performed. But people hope, don’t they, even though the slave had only promised to put in a word for them. I know the Wardress wondered about bribing him herself – and we’re considered the finest dancers in all Britannia.’

I was still considering the force of what she’d said. ‘Wait a minute!’ I spoke aloud again. ‘Hirsius left the morning of the civic feast. And took the snake man with him! That makes sense – Aulus told me that Lucius had sent one act ahead. But there should have been another one as well – a comic actor – Julia talked about him, at the feast, and you have just talked about the “acts” that were on the cart that day! So where was the other performer when the transport left? Walking across the farm paths with his parcels to the lane – the way that Aulus told me he could not see? Atalanta even told me that she had seen him there, carrying a bag of costumes in his hand! Great Jupiter! I wonder if that woman from the stall was telling us the truth!’ I turned to the sewing girl, who was looking mystified. I realised that I had been talking to myself. ‘It’s time I got back to the villa – as soon as possible! Thank you for your assistance. You’ve been a lot of help.’

‘You’re not arresting me? For taking the gold piece?’

‘Not at the moment. Thank the Fates for that. But I may require you to repeat what you have said before the senior magistrate. You understand?’

She nodded, terrified.

‘Very well. Go down and find the . . . innkeeper and ask him to fetch a lighted torch for me. I must get back to town as quickly as I can, and it is getting dark. Well?’ I added, as she scuttled to the stairs and hesitated for a moment at the top. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘The woman will want money, citizen. As payment for the torch.’

Dis take it! And I didn’t have a purse. ‘I think it has been paid already? Wouldn’t you agree? Or do you wish me to explain that you have got the necessary gold?’

It was unkind, but effective. She bolted down the stairs, and I had hardly reached the courtyard when she came running back, with a lighted pitch-torch in her hand. ‘Here you are, citizen. And if you wish to go back to Glevum as fast as possible, the innkeeper is this minute on his way there in his cart to pick up something from a trader by the gates. I have arranged that he will take you, if you like.’ She gave me a conspiratorial smile. ‘I’ll take care of it, if he wants to make a charge.’

It wasn’t an arrangement I was likely to refuse, and I found myself a little later sitting on the cart, bouncing up to Glevum with a pitch-torch in my hand.

‘Here you are, citizen. This where you want to be?’ The innkeeper had slowed up a short way from the gates. ‘There is the lad I am looking for.’

He waved towards a tattered figure waiting on the roadside with a handcart piled high. I recognised the urchin that I’d noticed earlier. ‘It’s the boy who collects the manure and ordure from the streets!’

‘Not very pleasant cargo, I agree, but I have to make a living, citizen. Now that we don’t keep many horses any more – on account of those dancing girls filling all the space – I have to come for extra now and then to fertilise the field, or I couldn’t grow the turnips to keep the inn supplied.’ He had reined his bony animal to a stop, and was already preparing to jump down from the cart.

I followed, more discreetly. It is difficult to dismount with dignity when carrying a burning torch, but I did my best. I was likely to be under scrutiny, I told myself, as I looked round for the promised carriage and the councillor.

There was no sign of either. The night traffic had disappeared into the town by now, and the crowds long since dispersed. The area outside the gates was shadowy and dark, almost deserted except for the two carts and the figures who were shovelling the stinking load between the two. Almost deserted – there was someone in the gloom, cloaked and hooded and skulking near the arch. There were unlikely to be brigands this close to the guard, but I felt an uncomfortable stirring of alarm.

I had held up my torch to get a better look – I was grateful for its light, though it was burning down – when there was a noise behind me and a hand fell on my arm.

‘Citizen Libertus?’ I whirled round at once. The fat guard was grinning at my discomfiture. ‘I have to ask you to accompany me again – the commander is waiting to have another word with you.’

He had done it on purpose, I was sure of that. And he had succeeded. I was trembling. So much so that I couldn’t find the voice to form a word, and I followed him in silence through the gate to the guardhouse, leaving the innkeeper and the dung-boy staring after me.

It was the same man that I had seen before and he’d been courteous then, but he seemed a good deal mellower in his manner now. Perhaps it was the effect of watered army wine, or the cheerful brazier that now burned beside his desk, but he was almost fulsome as he greeted me – and from the warmth with which he invited me to sit, I might have been my patron His Excellence himself.

‘My dear citizen, it’s most unfortunate!’ Despite the smile, the words were not encouraging. ‘The guard has told you what the problem is?’

I managed to murmur that I’d heard nothing yet.

The officer looked uneasy, but he forced another smile. ‘A clear misunderstanding. I must apologise.’

So whatever the trouble, it was their mistake, not mine! That was a relief. ‘In that case . . .’ I tried to sound as gracious as I could. ‘Perhaps we could discuss this at another time. I am expected at my patron’s and I’m already late. I believe a senior councillor is waiting for me.’

The garrison commander ran a hand across his brow. ‘That is just the problem, citizen. The message wasn’t passed on. It was not until your pageboy came and asked if you were here, and whether I had found a councillor to take you home again, that I realised the mistake. Not the boy we spoke to earlier – the other little chap.’

Niveus! I might have guessed. I gave an inward groan. ‘He did not deliver Marcus’s note to you, requesting transport for my journey home?’

‘Well, he brought it – but together with another note, you see, and a direction which asked me to forward the accompanying correspondence, under seal, to the home of the commander of the British fleet, by the first available imperial courier. It was very urgent, the covering letter said – and since it was under your patron’s private seal, naturally I complied at once. I saw that the other message – the one that you tell me was about your transport home – was addressed to “The Commanding Officer”, but I did not realise it meant me. I thought it related to the naval man, of course, so naturally I forwarded that to Londinium as well.’

I was holding my head between both hands by now. I raised it long enough to say despondently, ‘And Niveus didn’t tell you? The little page, that is?’

The officer was looking quite embarrassed now. ‘He did say there were instructions, but he seemed hesitant. I told him everything was written down, and I knew what to do. And both the letters were so magnificently sealed – it did not occur to me to question it. And he did not insist.’