The Vestal Vanishes (22 page)

She nodded to the window-space. The covers from the other bed had been deftly knotted into a sort of rope, secured firmly around the bed-frame at one end, the rest of it still snaking downward towards the inner court.

I walked across to get a better look. The knotted rope extended almost to the ground, but it was not strong enough to take a lot of weight. A supple climber, or a child, might manage to descend. I shook my head and glanced around the room. I wondered anyone would want to run away from here.

There was a handmade carpet on the floor and a wooden chair nearby, with a large pot under it, complete with lid and fresh water in a jug, Whatever the dining arrangements downstairs, this was luxury. No wonder that Cyra and Lavinius had thought it suitable.

Trullius had joined me at the window-space and seemed about to pull the rope inside, but the nursemaid stopped him. ‘Tie my feet again – do anything you like – but let me pull the rope in, so I can see the knots.’

He looked at me. I nodded and we two stepped aside. The slave-boy set the taper down and drew the knife again, cutting the rope-bonds which still bound her wrists. She flexed her hands a moment, and then came across and pulled in the twisted cloth, lingering over every knot as it appeared. As she undid the last of them she shook her head at me. ‘Nothing of interest in that, citizen. I’ll have to look elsewhere. But I’ll see better when the daylight comes.’ She turned to Trullius. ‘If I may use the far bed, you can tie my legs again and seal the shutters if you wish. Not that I could climb out of the window in the dark.’

‘I’ll tie you up all right!’ It was Trullius’s wife appearing in the doorway with the lighted lamp, a hunk of dry bread and a heavy length of chain. ‘You think I’m going to leave you virtually free, after what has happened in this house?’ She thumped the bread down on the chair-seat as she spoke. She turned towards the slave and motioned to the chain. ‘The nursemaid wears a slave-collar with her name on it. Attach this to the back of it and chain her to the bed. Make sure that the screw-link at the end is out of reach. Give her enough slack to reach the pot, of course – I don’t want staining on my mattresses – and she can eat and drink this if she can find it in the dark. If that arrangement meets with your approval, citizen?’ she added in my direction with a sneer.

It was hardly what I would have chosen, but I did not object. Far better to be chained up in a comfortable dry room, with food and drink – however minimal – than to spend a freezing night starving in a draughty ruined kiln. ‘I’ll come back in the morning, then,’ I murmured to the nurse. ‘And hope that you have something to report.’

The slave-woman, who was submitting to the chain, gave me a rueful smile. ‘If I have nothing to tell you in the morning, citizen, do as you wish with me. I will have nothing left to live for, anyway, if my darling’s lost. But I swear by all the gods that I’ll do all I can.’

I nodded. ‘Goodnight then.’ I followed Trullius. He led me into the other attic-room, as the stable-slave spread out his sleeping-mat outside the nursemaid’s door.

I looked around my attic. So this was where Secunda and her husband slept. Priscilla had said that this was her room as a rule, and certainly the accommodation was much less lavish than next door. There was no chair or table, no covering on the floor, and only a crude bolt to latch the door. The bed provided was far more primitive, simple wooden slats and a stuffed straw palliasse, but it was still much more luxurious than my pile of reeds at home. Besides, I was so tired I would have slept on cobblestones. I paused just long enough to unwind my travel-stained toga and pull my sandals off, then – without even waiting to crawl beneath the woven covers on the bed – I lay down on the pillows and was instantly asleep.

EIGHTEEN

I
woke from a confused dream in which a man in Druid robes was cooking headless corpses in a kiln, while a giant in yellow wedding slippers kicked the chimney down.

I forced my eyes open, uncertain for a moment as to where I was, and peered around until I recognized the room. Dawn light was streaming through the shuttered window-space, my shoes and toga were where I’d put them down and I was still lying on the covers. It was obvious that I had hardly stirred all night. But the noisy kicking of my nightmare seemed still to be going on.

I struggled to sit up but the banging didn’t stop. Sleepily I realized that it was not a dream at all, but somebody knocking loudly on the door. And the landlord’s voice was hollering my name. ‘Citizen Libertus, I can’t unlatch the door. Are you all right in there?’

I swung my feet down, shambled to the door and pulled back the bolt. I had scarcely time to do so before Trullius burst in. He was still in his under-tunic, without even a blanket to hide his ruined arm, but he made no excuse. ‘Oh, citizen! Thank Mars you are all right. I had begun to worry when you didn’t answer me. I suppose you were asleep. I’m sorry to wake you but you’d better come at once.’

I grovelled for my sandals, but he shook his head.

‘There isn’t time to dress. I don’t know what to do. My wife went in there when she first got up and . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You’d better come and see.’ He was already hustling out of the door again.

I followed stupidly, still more than half-asleep. What was the panic? Surely Lavinia had not unexpectedly returned? I shook my head. That was unlikely. If that had happened Trullius would have told me so at once. More probable that the nursemaid had found her promised secret sign. I was encouraged in this hope when I saw where Trullius was leading me.

He kicked aside the sleeping-mat which still lay outside the nursemaid’s door, though there was no sign of the servant who’d been left on guard, and motioned me to go inside the room. ‘There!’ he said, and gestured.

The slave-woman was slumped half-lying on the floor, held to the bed-frame only by the chain – in a way which would have choked her if she had not already been so evidently dead. She had arched against her collar in some final spasm: there were cruel marks visible on her neck and chin even from this distance, and her bloodless face was tinged with purpish-blue as though she had found it difficult to breath. Death had not been painless. I prayed it had been quick.

‘That’s how we found her,’ Trullius went on. He would have wrung his hands if he’d been able to. ‘It must have been those dreadful Druids at their work again. Though how they got in unobserved I cannot think. My wife is right, it must be sorcery. Oh, dear Mercury, what will Lavinius say?’ He shook his head, from side to side, like a wet dog in despair.

I could think of nothing intelligent to say, so I simply moved past him to look more closely at the corpse. She had not been dead for long. The body had not begun to stiffen very much. There was no wound or sign of other damage to the corpse, except the bruising round her neck and that – though quite extensive – seemed more the result of violent movement than the cause of death: there was none of the protruding tongue that is produced by strangling. This looked more like a poisoning to me.

But what had done it? There was no cup or phial in evidence. I glanced around the room. The dried morsel of loaf had not been touched at all, but some of the water in the jug had disappeared. Could that have been the source? I dipped a little finger into the liquid in the jug and – daringly but idiotically – placed it on my tongue. To my relief there was none of the burning or numbness which I half-feared to feel, only the faint stale taste of water from a city well. (My wife Gwellia was furious with me later, when she learned of this, and I admit that she was right. It was a particularly foolish thing to do – perhaps the product of not being properly awake – but I reasoned that my tiny sample was too small to cause me harm.)

So, if it was not the water, what had killed the nurse? Was it possible that, despite the guard, someone had come in during the night and forced some potion down her throat? I am not generally a believer in sorcery, but even I was beginning to wonder if there was something supernatural and sinister afoot.

Trullius had more practical concerns and was wittering in distress. ‘We shall be ruined, citizen. Who else will come here now? Even supposing that Lavinius does not have us dragged before the courts and sent into exile with nothing to our names.’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘My wife has taken the stable-slave and locked him in the kiln. He swears that he heard nothing except a muffled thud. But something must have happened. You think he was the one who was working with the Druids? Perhaps he heard us talking yesterday and – once he heard that Lavinia might have left a sign – he feared the nurse was going to discover that he was involved.’

‘And so he killed her, having fortuitously brought some poison with him when you roused him from his sleep?’ I shook my head. ‘I doubt it very much. But just in case Lavinia did contrive to leave a sign, I’ll have a look myself – although I’ve no idea what I am looking for.’

There was nothing at all of interest in the luggage-box, except a wisp or two of long red curly hair, which – from the description that I had received – were presumably Lavinia’s own, so I moved to examine the pile of clothes, still on the other bed. They were no longer piled into a human shape, but scattered as though the nurse – as she promised – had made a search of them. But if there was a signal, I could not fathom it. There seemed to be nothing of much consequence, at a casual glance – mostly girlish stoles and tunics such as you would expect Lavinia to have.

Except . . . ? If a girl was on her way to join the Vestal house, why would she take with her all the clothes that she possessed? She was never going to wear them any more. Even the youngest novices at the shrine are given special robes as soon as they arrive – just as a boy puts off his
toga praetexta
when he becomes a man, or a bride abandons her childish garments when she weds. Besides, not all of these garments were Lavinia’s, when I looked more closely at the pile.

There was an adult’s cloak, for instance, made of woven plaid: and when I rummaged further, I found a woman’s pale-brown tunic which had been much repaired and a well-worn drawstring purse of the same coarse material. Who did these belong to? Not the nursemaid, most assuredly – one glance at the body was enough to tell you that. These peasant clothes were much too big for her, and clearly far too large to fit a six-year-old. Besides, they were of inferior quality, thick cloth and roughly sewn – not the sort of thing Lavinius would have permitted in his house. So where had they come from? Was this somehow the sign the nursemaid had been looking for?

I picked up the empty purse. It was a useless thing (only the poorest do not have a leather money-pouch) and this one was stained yellowish and had a hole in it, so that any small coin would have instantly gone through. It smelt of carrots, too. I put it down again. Who would want to hoard a purse like that, which was no use at all except to hold a . . .

‘Wait just a heartbeat!’ I exclaimed aloud. Yellowish stains and carrots? I knelt down and began to scrabble on the floor beneath the bed, but there was nothing there except dust and a few cobwebs where the broom-bunch had not reached.

Trullius came over and stood staring down at me. ‘Shouldn’t we go down now and question the slave-boy, citizen? What are you searching for?’

‘Something that isn’t here!’ I looked up to answer and saw him silhouetted against the open window-space. I clambered to my feet. ‘The window-space, of course! Let me get my shoes on and I’ll come downstairs with you. We’ll decide what to do with this body afterwards.’

He looked completely mystified as I rushed into my own room and pulled my sandals on, but he didn’t question me and when I clattered down the dimly lit staircase he followed close behind. His wife was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, still dressed in an under-tunic as though she’d just got out of bed – with her legs exposed and only a cloak around her top for dignity.

‘Jove save us, citizen,’ she wailed. ‘Another death. This is some Druid curse and we shall all be murd—’

I cut off her lamentations without courtesy. ‘Which way to the courtyard?’ I demanded. She must have judged my mood of urgency, because she stood back without protest and indicated the direction I should take, though she joined in the procession as soon as I had passed.

‘I’ve locked the stable slave-boy in the kiln,’ she was saying, at my heels. ‘I’ll take you to h—’

But I brushed all this aside. ‘Stay where you are. Don’t step on anything. I’m sure there’s something here. It is already broken, almost certainly, and may be hard to find. One misplaced foot, and if it’s made of glass the whole thing will be crushed beyond all hope of learning anything. I trust I’m not too late.’ I began to pace the courtyard, searching every inch.

She hovered at the doorway, with Trullius at her back. ‘Tell us what it is you’re looking for. We’ll help you search for it.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure myself.’

‘You’re worse than that nursemaid,’ the wife said in disgust. ‘Dead bodies everywhere and people keep searching for things they won’t describe! I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ve got real jobs to do, if others haven’t.’ And she turned away, muttering as she did so, just loud enough to hear. ‘Watch him, Trullius. I know he says he had a letter from Audelia’s bridegroom, but I’m not sure that I’m convinced. He might be the one who is working with the Druids.’

Trullius shuffled forward. ‘I’m sorry, citizen. She has no right to speak like that. She’s worried, that is all, and perhaps that’s no surprise. She forgets that you’re a citizen, deserving of respect, even without your toga. I’ll go and tell the slaves they’re not to come out here until you’ve finished searching underfoot. And I’ll make sure that I don’t stand on anything myself.’

I did not stop to answer, just continued with my systematic search. It was not an easy one. No doubt the courtyard was occasionally swept, but between the cobbles there were oddments and fragments of all kinds – scraps of wood and old material, wisps of hay and rusty nails – as well as mud and tufts of grass and the inevitable evidence that horses walked that way. In one corner by the kiln, I found a pile of greening, dusty, broken pots, presumably a remnant of the previous business here. But nothing that matched what I was looking for. I had worked my way right to the inner wall before Trullius returned.