The Vestal Vanishes (8 page)

‘I gather this happened at the public gate, where there would be dozens of people looking on. Possibly Publius hoped to be discreet.’ I wondered suddenly whose suggestion that had been.

‘Discreet! It could hardly have been less discreet, from what I hear of it. The raedarius was bellowing to everyone around, swearing by all the gods that he was innocent, and didn’t know that she was missing till he was at Glevum gates.’

I bit the grape I’d selected. It was particularly sour and I began to wish I had a little wine to gulp. ‘So how did the raedarius get here from the town? I presume he did not drive?’ I managed to say through teeth that had been set on edge.

She shook her head. ‘He came here in our gig. It was waiting at the gates to bring Lavinius home – he is too old to walk from Glevum now – and apparently Publius saw it and recognized the slave-boy who was driving it. He had already travelled in the gig the other evening when he came here to dine, and of course the gig-slave knew Publius by sight. So, when the patrician told him to tie the raedarius up and bring him here, the boy obeyed at once.’

‘Tie him up? With what?’

‘With his own tunic-belt, I understand. He had to gag the captive and bind his feet, he said, otherwise the fellow would have jumped out of the gig. But talk to the raedarius yourself. Modesta will take you when you have finished those.’ She gestured to the grapes.

I needed no encouragement to desist from eating more. I put down the remainder of the bunch and got quickly to my feet. ‘Madam, I will go to him at once, and not detain you further. You have been most helpful. Thank you for your patience – if you still intend to have a banquet here tonight you must have much to see to in the house.’

Cyra extended her ringed hand to me again. ‘Then I will leave you to your questioning, and see if there’s a message from my husband yet. I sent him a letter asking what I am to do about the preparations for the feast. I hope I get some sort of answer very soon. I’d better send the gig back to wait for him, I suppose.’ And still frowning, she stalked out of the room, with her personal attendant trailing after her. Fiscus, who was still positioned at the door, peered in to see if he was wanted now.

‘Come with me, citizen.’ Modesta beamed at me. She seemed to regard me as her personal charge. ‘I will attend you. Your servant can wait here. I’ll come back for the tray.’

I had no trouble in accepting that, and motioned to Fiscus to stay where he was, to his evident dismay. Meanwhile the slave-girl led the way across the atrium again; it was looking very handsome, now the garlands were in place and all the lamps were lit, though slaves were still burnishing the bronze statues as we passed. Watched by a dozen curious pairs of eyes, we went out to the courtyard, round the colonnaded walk and out through the back gate into the stable-yard.

When we were safely out of sight and sound of everyone, Modesta turned to me and whispered, confidentially, ‘I hope that fruit was not too horrible, I’m sure it tasted sharp, but the chief slave said the best was wanted for the feast.’

I was emboldened by the little confidence. I answered with a smile. ‘It is of no account. But there is one thing that slightly troubles me. If your master has a private gig to use, why did he hire a raeda to take his daughter yesterday? Would it not have been far safer to have used his own?’

She giggled, clapping a skinny hand across her mouth. ‘Oh, citizen, you haven’t seen the private gig. No more than an open carriage, with a single wooden seat – apart from the driver – and it has no roof. They could never have sent Lavinia all the way in that, much less expect a Vestal Virgin to ride home in it! Supposing it had rained? It would have made a public spectacle of her. In any case, there was too much luggage to get into the gig and – of course – there was Lavinia’s nursemaid travelling with her too.’

‘She did not have a manservant to guard her on her way?’

She grinned at me. ‘She will have one from tomorrow, when the pontifex arrives. As to yesterday, my master chose this carriage driver most especially, because he was particularly young and strong and could protect them if he needed to. Fierce-looking too – or so the mistress said. She didn’t like him from the start. She’s had him shut in there.’

She crossed to a long low building which was clearly the sleeping-quarters of the slaves. I half-expected her to go inside, but she passed the door and made for a smaller outbuilding nearby, with a row of stout doors along the length of it.

Outside the last door she stopped and looked at me. ‘He’s in here, citizen. I’ll undo the bolt.’

SIX

T
he room revealed was a sort of storage area, with not even a window-space of any kind – nothing but bare walls, rows of heaped-up bulging sacks, and a floor of trodden earth from where a youngish man was blinking up at me, clearly blinded by the sudden light. He was lying rather awkwardly on his left-hand side, on a narrow strip of floor between the nearest piles of sacks. His hands were tied behind him and his feet were fettered to a stout iron loop that was set into the wall.

I took a step towards him and he tried to lift his head, but fell back with a groan. I saw that the rope which bound his arms was also tethered to the ankle-chain, so that he could not move or ease a single limb without experiencing agony. The shoulders of his tunic were stained with stripes of blood. Someone had whipped him savagely, by the look of it.

‘What do you want? And what are you doing here? You’re not Lavinius.’ His voice was weak with pain, but he was sullen too. ‘Have you come to torment me a bit more?’

I was aware of Modesta, behind me, craning to look in. I gestured her to stand a little further off and moved to squat down on a lumpy sack where he could see my face. Inside, the room was dank and smelt strongly of something old and vegetal: overripe turnips or damp nuts, perhaps.

‘I’ve come to ask about your missing passenger. She was a Vestal Virgin, as of course you know, and a most important person. Far more important than either you or me – you cannot expect her relatives to simply let it pass.’

With a painful effort he turned his head away (almost the only part of his body that he could move at all) and maintained a stubborn silence. It was a foolish gesture, in the circumstance – anyone from the household would have had him flogged for it – but I could not fault his spirit or his bravery.

I tried again, though I was talking to his averted cheek. ‘You were responsible for delivering her safely to her bridegroom, and in that you failed. You can hardly be surprised if they have locked you up.’

In fact I felt some sympathy with the prisoner. This was a miserable place to be chained up but, judging by the hoop to which the ankle-chains were fixed and the expert way that his bonds had been arranged, he was not the first to be incarcerated here. This was clearly where errant household slaves were held while they were awaiting serious punishment. Most large establishments have some provision of the kind – though in general offenders do not have to share their prison with stores of vegetables.

The captive muttered sullenly, ‘I’ve already told them everything I know. I saw the wretched woman get into the seat and put the shutters up – that was the last I saw of her.’

‘And you drove straight to Glevum after that?’

No answer.

A sudden inspiration came to me. This man was almost certainly a Celt – as I was myself – but here was I approaching him in formal Roman dress. I could not tell for certain what his clan might be, because he wore the now-ubiquitous short brown Roman tunic instead of traditional Celtic breeches made of tribal plaid, but he was fairish and I guessed that he came from the local Dubunni. I, of course, had been captured further south and dragged to Glevum by a slave trader, so our respective dialects were no doubt different, but I was fairly sure that he would understand me if I used my native tongue and I hoped he might be more inclined to answer if I did.

But first I had to win his confidence. ‘Modesta,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Fetch the chief slave and tell him to come here, and bring a knife to free these bonds a bit. I cannot usefully question a man who is in too much pain to speak.’

The girl looked startled but she scuttled off.

I squatted on the sack beside the man again and said softly, in Celtic, ‘Raedarius, I too have been given an unwelcome task. The bridegroom and my patron – who are hugely rich, important men – have charged me with finding out what happened to the bride. If she didn’t come to Glevum, she must be somewhere else, and if I can find her (which I am very doubtful of) it might be possible to get you out of here.’

A moment’s silence, before he answered in the same tongue. ‘You would do that, citizen?’

‘For a fellow Celt. Especially if we prove you had no part in it. But I can’t do anything if you will not assist. So I ask a second time – did you come straight to Glevum, when she’d got into the coach?’

He made a huge effort and turned his face to me again. When he spoke, his voice was tight with pain. ‘I’d like to say so, citizen, but it is not quite true. I’ve thought about it half a dozen times. She was sitting in the raeda, I assisted her myself, but then I had to go upstairs and get her other box. It was a large one, very heavy – full of gifts she had been given, I believe – and she wanted it to ride inside the coach with her. She already had her jewel box in there for security.’

I nodded. Carrying valuable goods inside was not unusual – most travellers did it if they could as it helped discourage thieves. ‘So you went up for the box?’

‘Exactly, citizen. And that was the last time I can absolutely swear to seeing her, because the box was so heavy that I could not manage it. I had to send for two of the house-slaves to bring it down for me. Her handmaiden watched them put it in the coach while I saw to the horse.’

I interrupted him. ‘Ah, the maidservant, who disappeared as well? So she was with Audelia in Corinium? You can vouch for that?’

‘Of course she had a maid there,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘An important lady like that would not travel far alone. Indeed, for several days – apparently – she had a mounted guard as well.’

‘So what became of him?’

‘He left this morning – going the other way, I understand. She had left some things behind the day before and the rider was sent back to recover them.’

I felt at once this was significant. ‘It must have been something of great importance!’ I exclaimed.

Despite his discomfort he managed a wry smile. ‘She seemed to think so, citizen. She was quite distraught. A pair of special wedding slippers, I believe it was. She did not discover the loss till after we arrived last night, I understand, when she went to show them to Lavinia and found they were not there.’

Wedding slippers! I had not expected that, I had been imagining the loss of jewels or gold. But this was a more endearing picture of Audelia. Although she was marrying so late, she would be a virgin still – Vestals who infringed their vows in that respect faced an appalling death – and like any first-time bride, naturally she’d want the special trappings of the day. The shoes would be especially important to a Vestal, too, since most of her other clothes looked like a bride’s in any case.

I remembered the only time that I had seen a Vestal was when I was in Londinium once. I had actually commented that she looked dressed for marriage, then: the same special hairstyle divided into six, the light-coloured stola and the carefully knotted band around the waist which can only be untied for a husband – or a deity. It was explained to me that these were all adopted when the priestess joined the hearth as a sign of her being spiritually wedded to the shrine. So only the distinctive saffron-colour of the bridal veil and shoes, instead of the white versions which she usually wore, would mark Audelia’s marriage-day. ‘No wonder the poor woman was distressed at leaving them behind,’ I said.

‘It was the maidservant who was to blame for it, of course,’ the driver said, moving his shoulders slightly as if to ease the ache. ‘The Vestal was so proud of them, and so excited that she was at last to be a bride, the girl was sent to get them from the box at every stop they made, to show them off. Only this time, it seems she forgot to put them back.’

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘Puella, the maidservant, told me so herself.’

‘You talked to her?’

He made a woeful face. ‘That box took up so much room there was no space for her inside – there was less room in my carriage than the one they’d had before – so she had to come and ride with me on the bench-seat in front.’ I realized that, although speech was agony, he was now keen to help me if he could. ‘Of course, she swore that it was not her fault – she’d put the shoes back as she always did – and someone must have moved them afterwards.’ He caught his breath in pain. ‘But of course she couldn’t have. Took them out to look at them herself, I rather think. They were finest leather and quite exquisite, she said, a parting present from a grateful, barren wife for whom the Vestal had once offered sacrifice – and who had then gone on to bear a son. Audelia was heartbroken to find that they had gone.’

‘Had Puella been guilty of such a lapse before? Indeed, had she been with the Vestal very long?’ I was suddenly suspicious. It occurred to me that attendant servants at a shrine are usually slaves of the temple as a whole, and not owned by any individual. I wondered how much Audelia knew about her careless maid.

‘Acquired for the journey, as I understand. A gift from another grateful supplicant, which only made the situation worse. Puella was a pretty little thing, but you could see that she was terrified. She’d been promised freedom when she got here, I believe, and obviously she feared that she had lost her chance and that a fearful beating was awaiting her instead. I think she was quite glad of the excuse to ride outside with me, despite the fact that it was raining heavily.’