The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (62 page)

Fidelma raised an amused eyebrow.

“Surely, we of Éireann are also condemned by Rome for our churches, too, believe in the theology of Pelagius rather than the attitudes adopted by Augustine of Hippo?”

Lepidus smiled disarmingly.

“But we can always argue with you folk of Éireann whereas the Britons are proud people, inclined to test their belief at sword point.”

Fidelma was about to say “just like the Romans” but thought better of it.

“I know a little of the history and language of the Britons, but I am not an expert.” She glanced at the vellum again and smiled thinly. “Certainly there are many clues in this account.”

Deacon Lepidus leaned forwards eagerly.

“Enough to track down where this man Cingetorix came from?”

Fidelma tapped the manuscript with her forefinger.

“That is simple. See, the man has written down the exact location.”

The deacon frowned.

“Certainly he has. But he has written Darovernum. But where is that place? I have asked several people and none seem to know.”

Fidelma chuckled.

“It is a name recorded by the geographer Ptolemy about the time when the deeds mentioned in this story are said to have taken place.”

“What does it mean?”

“In the tongue of the Britons,
duro
means a fort and
verno
is an alder swamp. Therefore it is the fort by the alder swamp.”

Lepidus looked dismayed.

“That is a fine example of linguistics, Sister Fidelma, but where can we find the location of this place?”

Fidelma regarded him steadily.

“The Romans called the place Darovernum Cantiacorum – the Cantiaci fort by the alder swamp.”

“I am at a loss still,” Deacon Lepidus confessed.

“You are in the very town because the Cantiaci fort by the alder swamp is what the Jutes now call the
burg
of the Canteware.”

Deacon Lepidus’ features dissolved into an expression of amazement.

“Do you mean that the eagle might be hidden here? Here, in this very town?”

“All I mean, so far, is that the place mentioned in this document is this very town,” replied Fidelma solemnly.

“But this is incredible. Are you saying that this man, Cingetorix, the man who took the eagle from my ancestor, brought the eagle to this town? Is there anything else you can tell me?” Deacon Lepidus was clearly excited.

Fidelma pursued her lips thoughtfully.

“Since you have mentioned it, the name Cingetorix is a name that is also associated with the Cantiaci. Any student of Julius Caesar’s account of his landing here would recognize it. But it is a strange name for a lowly
mathematicus
in the employ of a legion to have – it means ‘king of heroes’. It was one of the names of the four kings of the Cantiaci who attacked Caesar’s coastal camp during his landings,” affirmed Fidelma.

Deacon Lepidus sat back with a sigh. After his moment of excitement, he suddenly appeared depressed. He thought for a while and then raised his arms in a hopeless gesture before letting them fall again.

“Then all we have to do is find the location of the house of this man, Cingetorix. After five hundred years, that is impossible.”

Fidelma shook her head with a sudden smile.

“The vellum gives us a little clue, doesn’t it?”

The deacon stared at her.

“A clue? What clue could it give to be able to trace this house? The Romans have gone, departing with the Britons, and the Jutes have come and settled. The town of
burg
of the Canteware has changed immeasurably. Much of the original buildings are old and decaying. When the Jutes broke out of the island of Tanatos and rose up against the Britons it took a generation to drive them out and for Aesc to make himself king of Jutish Kent. In that time much of this city was destroyed.”

“You appear to have learned much history in the short time you have been here, Deacon Lepidus,” she murmured. Fidelma rose with a whimsical expression crossing her features. She turned to a shelf behind her. “It is by good fortune that the librarian here has some old charts of the town. I was examining them only this morning.”

“But they do not date from the time of my ancestor. Of what use are they to us?”

Fidelma was spreading one before her on the table.

“The writing mentions that his house stands near a tower; tower eight. Also that the house is situated at the north east corner of a building which some Christians had erected in honour of one of their leaders, Martin of Gaul.”

Deacon Lepidus was perplexed.

“Does that help us? It is so many years ago.”

“The ten towers built by the Romans along the ancient walls of the town can still be recognized, although they are crumbling away. The Jutes do not like occupying the old buildings of the Britons or Romans and prefer to build their
own. However, there is still the chapel dedicated to Martin of Gaul, who is more popularly known as Martin of Tours. The chapel is still standing. People still go there to worship.”

A warm smile spread across the deacon’s face.

“By all that is a miracle! What the Venerable Gelasius said about you was an underestimate, Sister Fidelma. You have, in a few moments, cleared away the misty paths and pointed to . . .”

Fidelma held up a hand to silence him.

“Are you truly convinced that if we can locate the precise spot that you will find this eagle?”

“You have demonstrated that the writer of the vellum has provided clues enough that lead us not only to the town but the location of where his house might have stood.”

The corners of Fidelma’s mouth turned down momentarily. Then she exhaled slowly.

“Let us observe, then, where else the writer of the vellum will lead us.”

Deacon Lepidus rose to his feet with a smile that was almost a grin of triumph and clapped his hands together.

“Just so! Just so! Where shall we go?”

Fidelma tapped the map with a slim forefinger.

“First, let us see what these charts of the town tell us. To the east of the township we have the River Stur. Since you are interested in these old names, Deacon Lepidus, you might like to know that it is a name given by the Britons, which means a strong or powerful river. Now these buildings here are the main part of the old town. As you observe they stand beyond the west bank of the river and beyond the alder swamp. The walls were built by the Romans and then later fortified by the Britons, after the Roman withdrawal, to keep out the Angles, Saxons and Jutish raiders.”

Deacon Lepidus peered down and his excitement returned.

“I see. Around the walls are ten towers. Each tower is numbered on the chart.”

It was true that each tower had a Roman numeral, I, II, III, IV, V and among them was VIII on which Fidelma tapped lightly with her forefinger.

“And to the west, we have the church of Martin and buildings around it. What buildings would be at the north-west corner?”

“North east,” corrected the deacon hurriedly.

“Exactly so,” agreed Fidelma, unperturbed. “That’s what I meant.”

“Why,” cried the deacon, jabbing at the chart, “this building here is on the north east corner of the church. It is marked as some sort of villa.”

“So it is. But is it still standing after all those centuries?”

“Perhaps a building is standing there,” Deacon Lepidus replied enthusiastically. “Maybe the original foundations are still intact.”

“And would that help us?” queried Fidelma. Her voice was gently probing, like a teacher trying to help a pupil with a lesson.

“Surely,” the deacon said confidently. “Cingetorix wrote that he would hide the eagle in the hypocaust. If so, if the building was destroyed, whatever was hidden in the foundations, where the hypocaust is, might have survived. You see, a hypocaust is . . .”

“It is a system for heating rooms with warm air,” intervened Fidelma. “I am afraid that you Romans did not exactly invent the idea, although you claim as much. However, I have seen other ancient examples of the basic system. The floors are raised on pillars and the air underneath is heated by a furnace and piped through the flues.”

Deacon Lepidus’ face was a struggle to control a patriotic
irritation at Fidelma’s words. He finally produced a strained smile.

“I will not argue with you on who or what invented the
hypocaustrum
, which is a Latin word.”

“
Hypokauston
is a Greek word,” pointed out Fidelma calmly. “Clearly, we all borrow from one another and perhaps that is as it should be? Let us return to the problem in hand. We will have to walk to this spot and see what remains of any building. Only once we have surveyed this area will we see what our next step can be.”

Fidelma had only been in the town a week but it was so small that she had already explored the location around the abbey. It was sad that during the two centuries since the Britons had been driven from the city by Hengist and his son Aesc, the Jutes and their Frankish and Saxon comrades had let much of it fall into disuse and disrepair, preferring to build their own crude constructions of timber outside the old city walls. A few buildings had been erected in spaces where the older buildings had decayed. Only recently, since the coming of Augustine from Rome and his successors, had a new dynamism seized the city and buildings were being renovated and repaired. Even so, it was a haphazard process.

Fidelma led the way with confidence to the crumbling towers that had once guarded the partially destroyed city walls.

“That is Tower Eight,” she said, pointing to what had once been a square tower now standing no more than a single storey high.

“How do you know? Just from the map?” demanded the deacon.

She shook her head irritably.

“It bears the number of the lintel above the door.”

She pointed to where “VIII” could clearly be seen before turning to survey the piles of stone and brickwork that lay about. Her eyes widened suddenly.

“That wooden granary and its outbuilding appear to stand in the position that is indicted. See, there is the church dedicated to the Blessed Martin of Tours. Curious. They are the only buildings near here as well.”

Deacon Lepidus followed her gaze and nodded.

“God is smiling on us.”

Fidelma was already making her way towards the buildings.

“There are two possibilities,” she mused. “The granary has been built over the villa so that the hypocaust is under there. Or, that smaller stone building next to the granary may have been part of the original villa and we will find the hypocaust there.” She hesitated a moment. “Let us try the stone building first. It is clearly older than the granary.”

While they were standing there, a thick-set man, dressed in Saxon workman’s clothing, stepped out of the shadow of the granary.

“Good day, reverend sir. Good day, lady. What do you seek here?”

He smiled too easily for Fidelma’s taste, giving him the impression of a fox assessing his prey. His accent was hard to understand although he was speaking in a low Latin. It was the deacon who explained their purpose, playing down the value of the eagle but offering a silver coin if the man could help them locate what they were looking for.

“This is my granary. I built it.” The man replied. “My name is Wulfred.”

“If you built it, did you observe whether it had holes in the ground or tunnels underneath it?” Fidelma inquired.

The man rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

“There were places we had to fill in with rubble to give us a foundation.”

Deacon Lepidus’ face fell.

“The hypocaust was filled in?”

Wulfred shrugged. “I can show you the type of holes we filled in, if you are interested. The little stone building has such holes under the floor. Come, I have a lantern. I’ll show you.”

They were following the man through the doorway when Fidelma suddenly caught sight of something scratched on one of the side pillars supporting the frame of the door. She called Deacon Lepidus’ attention to it, simply pointing. It was a scratch mark. It looked like an “IX”. There was something before it, which neither of them could make out.

“Nine?” whispered Lepidus, with sudden excitement. “The ninth legion?”

Fidelma made no reply.

It was cold and dirty inside. Dirt covered the floor. Wulfred held his polished horn lantern high. It revealed a room of about four metres square. It was totally empty. In one corner was a hole in the floor.

“Down there is where you can see the tunnels under the floor,” volunteered Wulfred.

Fidelma went across and knelt down. The smell of decay was quite prevalent. She asked for the lantern and peered down. A space of about seventy millimetres lay underneath the floor. Little brick piers supported the timbers at intervals of a metre from one another, forming little squares.

“A hypocaust,” she said, raising herself and handing the lantern back. “But now what?”

Deacon Lepidus made no reply.

“Perhaps some sign was left . . .?” he ventured.

Fidelma glanced on the floor. What she saw made her frown and begin to scrape at the floor with the point of her shoe. The earth came away to reveal a tiny patch of mosaic. These were the type of floors that she had seen in Rome. She asked Wulfred if he had a broom of twigs. It took half an
hour to clear a section of the floor. The mosaic revealed a figure clad in a Roman senatorial toga, one hand was held up with a finger extended. Fidelma frowned. Something made her follow the pointing figure. She suddenly noticed a scratch mark on the wall. There was no doubt about it this time. The figure IX had been scratched into the stone work and a tiny arrow pointed downwards beneath it.

“We’ll break into the hypocaust here,” she announced. “With the permission of Wulfred, of course,” she added.

Wulfred readily agreed when Deacon Lepidus held out another coin.

Lepidus himself took charge of making the hole. It was the work of another half an hour to create a space through which a small person could pass into the hypocaust below. Fidelma volunteered. Her face was screwed into an expression of distaste as she squeezed into the confined darkness, having to lie full length on her stomach. It was not merely damp but the walls below were bathed in water. It was musty and reminded Fidelma of a cemetery vault. She ran her hand in darkness over the wet brickwork.