A Coin for the Ferryman (9 page)

‘He also comes and goes with messages, I suppose?’ I said, suddenly wondering if Niveus’s inexperience had played a part in this affair. I knew that Marcus had used his former pages as constant couriers, sometimes with important documents under seal. A letter which had fallen into the wrong hands, perhaps? Some disappointed contact, desperate for news, attempting to reach Marcus in disguise? A dozen possibilities were coursing through my brain.

The maidservant dispelled them. ‘Not really, any more. Niveus can ride, of course. For his age, he’s quite impressive on a horse – it’s one of the things which recommended him – but even the master has reluctantly agreed that the boy is far too immature to send on the roads alone, with any message of importance, anyway.’

I could see the force of that. With his pale, blond looks and that red uniform, any forest bandit would see him coming half a mile away, and Niveus was built for decoration rather than self-defence. Even giving him a weapon would not have helped a lot – he was too small to wield a dagger to very much effect. I unwillingly abandoned my little theory.

The girl was still anxious to be helpful, though. ‘You could speak to Aulus, the front gatekeeper, perhaps. He’s a fairly horrid person, brutal as a bear, but he does see everything that’s passing in the lane, and he speaks to all the visitors, of course.’

‘Thank you. That’s a very good idea.’ I did not mention that I knew the gatekeeper of old. He had been a spy for Marcus once, before my patron bought this villa for himself, and I had already determined that I would speak to him. He still had the informer’s habit of noting everything, so I was prepared to brave the stinking breath, though it would cost me something if he had news to tell. Aulus also had an informer’s instinct for reward.

The slave girl smiled. ‘I’m glad to be of use. My name is Atalanta, by the way. If I do hear anything, I’ll try to let you know.’ She led the way towards the further gate, ready to usher me into the stable yard.

I paused before going through it. ‘And there isn’t any gossip in the house at all? None of the slaves has anything to say? No rumours about unusual incidents? No guesses about who the victim is?’ Usually, when there is a homicide like this, there are a hundred different theories in the servants’ hall – most of them completely impossible, of course, but occasionally there is something which can give a lead.

Atalanta shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know. It’s quite a mystery. Of course we took it for a peasant, till Stygius saw the hands – and even then we thought it was a girl. But now . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone seems completely baffled, even the senior slaves, who usually pretend that they know everything.’

I had to smile at this. I have spent long enough as a slave to recognise the type. I would have given her a coin, but I still didn’t have a purse – I had given mine to Lucius earlier – so she had to be content with a smile. ‘You have been very helpful. I shall remember that,’ I said, dismissing her, and went into the outer courtyard on my own.

Stygius had stationed himself in front of the building where the body lay, and I saw that he had armed himself with an ancient wooden hoe – though whether this was to ward off curious eyes, or to protect himself from phantoms, it was difficult to say. The door to the room had been left ajar again, and I could faintly see the flickering candles and the shrouded form.

When he saw me Stygius came lumbering across. ‘Ah, there you are, citizen. I thought you would come back.’ He looked at me with curiosity. ‘Have they decided what they’re going to do with that?’ He jerked a thumb towards the dead man as he spoke. ‘I thought yon Lucius would have persuaded them to light the pyre at once.’

‘I think they were waiting to see if there was any news.’ I left an opening for a comment, but he offered none. I prompted him again. ‘From those land slaves of yours who were sent out earlier, asking questions around the neighbourhood.’

Stygius looked mournful. ‘Most of them are back. But they’ve nothing to report – or nothing of any interest, anyway. They’ve been, between them, to all the major homesteads locally. Of course, they were asking the wrong questions – they were only enquiring about a missing girl – so perhaps it’s not surprising. And being only land slaves, and not proper messengers, they could only ask the servants and the doorkeepers in the main. You couldn’t expect rich people to invite them in.’

I nodded. ‘Well, they did their best and it was worth a try. Servants will often talk to other slaves much more freely than they’ll talk to an official visitor.’

He spat thoughtfully. ‘You might be right, at that. In fact, if there was a young man unaccounted for, perhaps my land slaves would have heard. They have come back with all sorts of stories about missing dogs and goats – to say nothing of someone’s ancient grandfather who keeps wandering off and has not been seen for days.’

This was delivered in so lugubrious a tone that I found myself smiling. ‘But no young people?’ I enquired.

Stygius looked surreptitiously towards the corpse, as though it might overhear him. ‘No one that could possibly be him. They found a Celtic freeman whose daughter ran away, but it turns out that he’s had a message since, saying that she’d met a man, and gone off with a troupe of travelling entertainers in a cart. And there was another household who had lost a kitchen girl. They were the only ones who asked the land slaves in. The owners wanted to make enquiries in case we’d heard of her.

‘They think she’s run away?’ I was surprised. This was a serious matter. The punishment for a captured runaway was death.

‘It seems she broke a lamp and was afraid of being flogged – she’s very young. Her owners have got the town guard on the watch for her. She’s been branded, and she’s got the usual slave disc on a chain round her neck saying who she belongs to, so she won’t get very far – it would take an ironsmith to strike that off. But the other servants say their mistress is unkind, and often had her beaten till she was black and blue, so she may have gone to throw herself on someone’s mercy in the town.’

‘Claiming protection?’ The law did make exceptions in a case like this, where an owner was unjustifiably cruel, provided that the fugitive put herself under the protection of another master straight away. ‘In that case her owner might certainly suspect she had come here – Marcus is famously kind to his slaves.’

He nodded. ‘But we hadn’t seen her – and it couldn’t be our corpse, even when we still thought it was a girl. Those hands did not belong to any kitchen slave, and anyway the missing girl was only eight years old.’

‘I see.’ I was sympathetic to the girl’s predicament, but Stygius was right. This didn’t help us with the case in hand. ‘But no young men at all?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, citizen,’ he murmured, as though it were somehow his fault that the enquiries had failed. ‘Though there is still a chance. There are one or two land slaves who haven’t yet come back – some of the neighbouring properties are miles away and of course they had to walk.’

I nodded. ‘Well, send for me if you hear anything at all. In the meantime, I’ll go and have a word with Aulus at the gate. It occurs to me that if anyone passed this way in a cart, Aulus would have seen them from his vantage point.’ Aulus had a cheerless little cell beside the gate, where he could sit and shelter, but still have a view of any traffic in the lane. ‘I imagine that whoever hid our victim in the ditch must have used some kind of transport to move the body – unless they somehow killed him on the spot. And there has been no sign of bloodstains there, as far as I’m aware.’

Stygius gave his slow, considered nod. ‘That’s true, when you come to think it out. It wouldn’t be easy to disguise a thing like that on the back of a donkey or a mule, and if it had been wrapped in something they’d have buried it like that. Or you would have thought so, anyway. And if it was a stranger, as you seem to think, he’d have had to take it steady down an unfamiliar lane. Aulus would have had a chance to get a look at him.’

I frowned. ‘I wonder what a stranger in a cart was doing in the lane. The only reason to come down this way is if you have business here. Most people would take the military road – it’s a great deal easier than these steep and winding lanes, even if you have to clear it when a messenger goes by, or there’s military traffic of some other kind. Wagons take a dreadful jolting where the roads are bad.’ I was remembering my own exacting journey here today, and others of a similarly bruising kind I’d made before.

Stygius was following my train of thought. ‘Perhaps that was the idea.’ He spat judiciously. ‘There aren’t so many people on the forest lanes. Maybe they started from the military road, and just drove down here to find a hiding place.’

‘In that case they won’t have come this far, so they won’t have passed Aulus and we won’t learn anything at all,’ I said briskly. ‘But it is the only enquiry I can think of to pursue. Unless another quick glance at the corpse gives me any fresh ideas at all.’

It didn’t. It seemed, if anything, more horrible this time, and I was very conscious of the stench of death. I was glad when Kurso trotted into sight and gave me the excuse to pull the covers up and turn away again.

‘Come then, Kurso.’ I strode out of the building, and leaving Stygius to stand guard over his grisly charge, we went round to the front to find the gatekeeper. We took the long way, round the side grounds of the house, passing the bath-house on the way.

I wondered if Junio was enjoying it.

Aulus was sitting glumly in his cell, gazing through the window-opening at the lane, the very picture of bored disgruntlement. At our approach, however, he lumbered to his feet.

‘Ah, citizen pavement-maker, I’ve been expecting you. One of the maidservants said that you were on your way.’ He did not look particularly enchanted to see me. His sweaty, swarthy face was creased into a frown and he was fondling his favourite cudgel as he spoke. Not that he intended any harm to us – Aulus would not dare to threaten Marcus’s guests – but he was put there to intimidate, and he was good at it.

Kurso looked terrified and sidled close to me.

Aulus ignored him. ‘What was it you wanted this time, citizen? You don’t expect me to help you in that business of the corpse? They didn’t bring it near this gate. It came in through the farm.’

So that was the reason for his unhappy scowl! The gatekeeper had nothing to report, for once, and was disappointed by the lack of opportunity to earn a coin or two. I tried a little flattery – it had paid off with him before.

‘It may be that you can give us some information all the same,’ I said. ‘I know your sharp eyes, Aulus. There isn’t very much that happens in the lane that escapes your notice. I’m interested in what went on before today. There may be something you saw which didn’t seem important at the time.’

It worked. Something that might have been a smile half spread across his face. It gave him the appearance of a crafty bear. Aulus had cunning, if not intelligence. ‘Well, tell me what you want to know. I’ll do my best.’ He leaned towards me, as if to listen hard, and the smell of stale onions took my breath away.

I took a step backwards to retreat from it, almost flattening Kurso, who had done the same. ‘I want to know how the body got to where it was. So, did you notice any unusual carts or other transport in the lane?’ I said, in my best official tone. ‘Two days ago in particular.’

Aulus thought a moment, screwing up his face. ‘As long ago as that? Don’t know if I can help you, citizen. There’s been a lot of extra traffic coming to and fro, especially with this important visitor from Rome. My memory isn’t always what it was.’ His tongue came out and flicked around his lips.

I knew that little nervous trick. It meant he scented money. I sighed. ‘I’m sure your master would agree to a reward,’ I said, ‘if there is anything really useful you can call to mind.’

‘Well, citizen, I’ll see what I can do.’ Aulus made a pretence at struggling to recall, which would not have fooled a baby. ‘Unusual vehicles?’ he said at last. ‘Depends what you mean by unusual, I suppose. That was the day the master had a banquet for his guest – no end of councillors and important people from the town, most in hired litters, but two of them had private carriages. Then there were the entertainers – they came in a cart – and there was the slave-trader who called and sold the master another page. He had a little cart with Niveus aboard. Is this the sort of thing you want to know?’

‘Exactly what I wanted!’ I summoned up a smile. The promise of money had revived his memory quite remarkably. I only prayed that Marcus would agree to pay the bribe. ‘Kurso, I hope you’re listening to this. I’ll have to remember all the details later on, so I can talk to the people who own the vehicles.’

Kurso flashed a frightened look at me. I could see that it was hopeless. Junio would have taken in the facts and helped me reconstruct the list when I got home, but poor little Kurso was so terrified, I doubted he would remember much more than his name.

But Aulus hadn’t finished. ‘And then there were the extra deliveries, of course – Marcus had ordered in some special wine from town, and all sorts of delicacies from the marketplace. There was a man with oysters and another with larks. Then there was a wagon of extra olive oil – not that the tradesmen came to the front gate, but I can see from here to where the back road branches off, so unless they come across the foot-tracks, the way they brought your corpse, I get to see almost everyone who ever comes and goes.’ With that wily expression in his close-set eyes, Aulus looked more than ever like a bear – if a bear could ever be said to look self-satisfied.

I nodded. ‘Very good,’ I said, although it wasn’t good at all. It could take weeks to check on all of this, and I didn’t have the time. It would be the Lemuria in less than three days. If I was to solve the problem of the dead boy’s identity, and soothe the vengeful spirits, I must do it very soon. I turned to the gatekeeper. ‘You’re sure that’s all the carts there were?’

I meant to be ironic, but it was lost on Aulus. ‘Well – there was the hired baggage wagon and another cart that Lucius had engaged. He is going to travel with Marcus and Julia when they go, but he has sent a lot of his luggage on ahead, with his chief slave riding with it to make sure it arrives – though Lucius kept fussing round it, giving different orders right up to the end. Marcus and Julia decided to take advantage of the cart and send off some of their belongings too – things the family will need when they’re in Rome. It’ll speed up the journey when they leave, I suppose, not having to slow the carriage to let the heavy goods catch up – though I expect they’ll take a wagonful of slaves with them anyway.’