A Roman Ransom (8 page)

Snakes, I thought, feeling an unpleasant little chill run down my back. Or some other animal. In fact, I was becoming sure of it. The whole thing was wiggling by now, and there was a sort of muted sound that might have been a hiss.

And then I lost my nerve. I did what anyone in their senses would have done before. I let out a roar. ‘Junio!’ I bellowed. ‘Philades! Somebody! Come here!’

But my cry must have disturbed the basket’s occupant. There was a last convulsive wiggle and the whole thing toppled on its side. Before any of my travelling companions could hurry to my aid, the lid fell off, the basket rolled, and I found myself staring with horrified fascination at what came half slithering and half crawling out of it.

It was not, after all, a snake – though it was almost as slippery as one. This was a child – a small, filthy and bedraggled child, coated from head to foot in grease. It was naked, apart from a piece of ragged cloth round its loins, and another stuffed into its mouth and tied securely round the lower face as if to prevent the infant from crying out – and the whole body, from the shoulders downwards, was covered in that shocking film of yellow grease, which gave off a strong and strangely pungent smell.

‘Who in the name of all the gods are you?’ I said aloud. I had heard of changelings – left among mortals by the gods – but I have never really believed in such things. Some pauper’s child, perhaps, thrown into the litter in the hope that someone would take pity on him and raise him as a household slave? Whoever he was, my heart went out to him. (It was a ‘him’, I saw. He was crawling rather listlessly about, and as he did so the tattered cloth round the lower limbs fell free, and put the matter of sex beyond doubt.)

Despite the stench which emanated from every part of him, I stretched forward to take him in my arms. My whole intention was to comfort him. I tried to free the bond round the face but to my alarm he tried to flinch away. His eyes grew wide. He stared at me, then all at once he screwed them up again. His face got very red and I guessed that without the cloth round his mouth, he would be screaming now.

All the same, I could not bear to see him gagged. I undid the tie as gently as I could and eased it from his mouth, but far from soothing him, my action seemed to enrage him even more. He took a shuddering long breath and let out a mighty howl.

‘Hush!’ I muttered, rather helplessly, holding him awkwardly and attempting to rock him in my arms. I was just wondering what on earth to do when the curtain of the litter was pulled aside and I saw the medicus looking in on me.

‘Libertus! I heard you call. What is it? Are you ill? I thought you were asleep . . .’ He stopped, staring at the little bundle in my arms. ‘What in Hermes’ name have you got there?’ He came and knelt down beside me, letting the leather curtain strips fall round us as a screen.

For answer, I handed him the infant, which promptly kicked, arched itself into a rigid line, and launched into another fit of screaming howls. I had never realised how lustily a small child can bawl.

Philades held the wriggling apparition at arms’ length. He looked at it a moment and then stared from it to me. ‘Dear Zeus, it’s Marcellinus! How did you manage this?’

I was so startled that I almost leaped upright. ‘Marcellinus? Surely not? The kidnappers have already arranged for his return, and for his mother’s too – tonight when the villa gates are to be left “open and unguarded”, wasn’t that the phrase? Anyway, this isn’t Marcus’s child. Remember, I have seen him, medicus, and you have not. This child is far too big.’ Admittedly small children look much the same to me, but there was nothing about this one that I recognised at all.

The doctor looked long and hard at me. ‘You have seen the boy, you say? And how long ago was that? Before you were taken ill? That must be a moon ago at least – and children of this age grow very fast. Come, pavement-maker, don’t play games with me. This is Marcellinus – and we both know it is. Look, there is the tell-tale birthmark on his leg.’

I gawped. I remembered, vaguely, that there had been talk of such a mark – shaped like an eagle, a symbol of good luck – but I had never seen it, since the babe was always swaddled when I looked at it. But on this child’s thigh, beyond a doubt, was a purple stain which might (with imagination) look something like a bird.

I shook my head again. There was no sign of a bulla – the lucky charm that every Roman child is given a few days after birth, and never leaves off again until he comes of age. ‘But he has no bulla. Marcellinus had a gold one round his neck. I was at the naming ceremony when it was put on him.’

‘So I am led to understand. But in the circumstances I would almost be surprised to find it, wouldn’t you? Any thief would be delighted by the opportunity. No doubt it has been removed and sold by now.’

I murmured doubtfully. Of course the medicus was right in principle, but it was hard to imagine even the most hardened kidnapper deliberately snatching such a precious object from a child. To lose a bulla was to invite appallingly bad luck – to a Roman it is almost like losing one’s contract with the gods – and it would require the most extensive sacrifice and ritual to expiate the loss and create another one. I began to argue the point, but then I trailed off. I had to admit that the medicus was right – I had been ill for many days and a bulla is easily removed.

I stared at the greasy little form again. It was hard to reconcile this ragged, smelly apparition with the cosseted, perfumed and pretty little boy who had so often been held up for my admiration in the past. Yet, the more I looked, the more I realised that it was genuinely possible. Indeed, now I began to admit it to myself, I could see that there was an undoubted resemblance to my patron in this child: the same nose, the same colouring, the same fair, curling hair – though that was new to me! When I’d last seen Marcellinus he had been nearly bald! And there was undoubtedly the birthmark. Even to my weary half-drugged mind, it was clear that this was indeed the missing boy.

But I was not too drowsy to have a sudden thought. I had not recognised the child, although I’d seen him several times before, so how had Philades, who by all accounts had never met the boy, worked out so quickly who it was?

I was too tired and sick to play at guessing games, and I confronted the physician openly. ‘I accept that you are right. It is the missing child. But tell me, Philades, how did you know? About the birthmark, in particular? Marcus didn’t mention it to people, generally, and I thought that you had never seen the child.’

The doctor gave me a grim little smile. ‘Did you think you were the only one who knew that little secret, pavement-maker? I’m sorry to disappoint you, in that case. Marcus has been describing it to everyone, so that they could identify the boy if he were found.’

Of course! I should have thought of that myself. I nodded. ‘And you are in his confidence, I know – in fact you have become a regular Thersis, haven’t you?’ It was an attempt at flippancy, I know, a joking reference to that affair in Rome – but levity was obviously not Philades’ style. There was not the vestige of a smile: in fact if anything he looked grimmer than before, and I rather wished I’d left the words unsaid. ‘Well, thank Jupiter the child has been returned to us,’ I said, in the hope of covering the moment’s frostiness. ‘Though Marcus will be furious when he sees what they have done.’

I meant it. What Marcus would say when he found that his precious son and heir had not only been stripped of his fine clothes and golden bulla, but smeared with stinking grease and shut up in the dark like an animal in that basket, I did not care to think. I even feared he’d vent his rage on me, for bringing the child back to him like this: my patron has always had a tendency to blame the messenger for unwelcome news.

The doctor said nothing, but the boy squirmed sideways and began to squeal again. Philades expertly scooped him up against his shoulder and began to pat him firmly on the back.

At least, I thought – watching this procedure helplessly – my worst fears had not been realised. We’d received no word of Julia, but at least the boy had been returned to us alive. I’d feared that they were both dead, but the boy seemed generally none the worse for his terrible ordeal. Indeed, the medicus had performed a sort of miracle. Marcellinus had been red-faced and fretting visibly, but now he stopped howling, burped once, and then relaxed. The sobs subsided first to gulping gasps, and then to contented little bubbling sounds. Though these were muffled against the toga cloth, I recognised the hissing noises which had alarmed me so. I felt a little stupid recalling my earlier fears.

‘You are skilled with children,’ I mumbled awkwardly. ‘Do they teach you that in Greece? Or did you learn it somewhere, afterwards?’ Most Roman-trained physicians I had met, including the state-licensed ones in town, had learned what they knew either from army doctors or from people trained by them, and were more comfortable with wounds and fevers than with children’s maladies.

If Philades heard this feeble flattery he ignored it utterly. ‘There!’ he said, with brisk efficiency. ‘That was the problem. Digestive vapours. He’s obviously more comfortable now, and fortunately he seems to be more or less unharmed.’ He flashed me a swift, appraising look. ‘I’ll hand it to you, pavement-maker – you may be sick, but you are still cleverer than I gave you credit for. How in the name of Jupiter did you bring this about?’

At first I didn’t understand what he was driving at. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The boy’s return. I presume you did arrange it, somehow, with the kidnappers?’

I stared at him. If he had suggested that I’d had dealings with Hercules himself, I could scarcely have been more taken aback. I shook my head. ‘He was pushed into the litter in that container there. It was a surprise to me.’

‘But you must know who brought him here?’ He was watchful and suspicious, suddenly. ‘You saw the man?’

‘I don’t know any more than you do. Someone pushed him in against my back, and ran away into the woods. Or I presume he did. Odd, since there was already an arrangement for the child’s safe return. But that’s all I can tell you. I swear on the gods.’

Philades paused in the act of patting Marcellinus, as if some passing deity had turned him into stone. ‘Surely you must have caught a glimpse, at least? Since you were unaccountably awake?’ He was avoiding my eyes, I realised.

‘I saw nobody,’ I said. ‘I was lying on my side and looking out the other way. By the time I’d turned round it was too late.’

He was still gazing elsewhere with exaggerated care. ‘So you couldn’t identify the person even from the back? That’s most unfortunate.’

‘I was watching you dealing with the logs,’ I said. All this emotion was exhausting me. ‘You know I was. Besides, I’m ill. I don’t know why you – of all people – should expect me to be alert. It’s only chance I wasn’t fast asleep.’

He grunted. ‘If you say so, citizen.’ This time he sounded frankly sceptical. Did he suppose that I had chosen not to look, because I was sick, exhausted and preferred not to incur the troubles that witnesses invite?

‘I’m sure the litter slaves would bear me out on this,’ I went on grumpily. ‘They must have seen me leaning out to look.’

‘I doubt it, citizen. I instructed them to keep their attention on the task. We heard your cry, of course – but we all assumed that you were just shouting in your sleep again.’

I frowned. ‘But you came back?’

‘Of course. I was about to wake you from your troubled dreams and give you something to ensure that you relaxed. I have some dried herbs, ready mixed, here in my pouch.’ He gave me that appraising look again. ‘Which, after all this shock, you should have in any case.’

So he had genuinely expected me to be asleep, I thought. Or drugged into unconsciousness, perhaps. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a strong desire to avoid his sleeping mixtures at all costs.

I changed the subject with forced cheerfulness. ‘Why don’t we tell the bearers that the boy is found?’ I said. ‘They are still working on the logs, and we are inside the curtain, so they won’t have seen – they must be wondering why you have been so long.’

He wouldn’t look at me. Instead he examined the now-sleeping child with care: moving the limbs, and opening the eyes and mouth and staring into them. ‘Leave that to me. I’ll tell them presently. If I announce it to the servants now, they will come rushing back, and that will lead to even more delays. If you are right, the kidnappers must be still nearby in the woods. They may have other plans to slow us down.’

‘Other plans?’ I echoed, stupidly.

‘Of course. Who do you suppose arranged this blockage in the road? It must have been to ensure that they could hand him back.’

I was feeling worn and wretched, but I could see that he was right. If someone wanted to stop a conveyance which was on its way to the villa, this was the perfect method. A roadblock made a litter, in particular, extremely easy to approach. Any other sort of carriage would require some kind of constant attendance by a slave, if only to stand by and hold the horse, but litter-bearers would put their burden down and go to clear the road. So the kidnappers could put the basket in unobserved . . .

Unobserved? I brought myself up short. Only if the occupant was more or less asleep! Most litter-riders would be wide awake while travelling – only an ill man would doze, as I had done. And in that case – I felt a little prickle of unease run down my spine – it was likely that the kidnappers knew exactly who I was, when I was coming, and what means were being used to convey me here.

And then it dawned on me. I must have been affected by those sleeping drugs or surely the idea would have come to me before.

Who had known that I was coming here this afternoon – and insisted on a litter as the vehicle? Who had decided to accompany me himself, and made no secret of the fact that he would give me a draught to make me sleep? Who – when the litter halted at the logs – was perfectly placed to push the basket in, while everyone’s attention was on something else? The answer was Philades, in every case! A newcomer to the household, skilled with herbs and drugs, who had turned up – as if by accident – immediately after the child and its mother had disappeared.