Dark Omens (15 page)

There was no servant at the enclosure gate and we walked in unchallenged past the mules, and into the area where the farm buildings were: mostly store houses, circular, decaying and roughly thatched with reeds. A group of charred remains showed where the barns had been – I remembered that my neighbour had spoken of a fire.

A mangy dog, tied up against a post, gave a half-hearted growl as we approached and strained against his rope, but we were in no danger of it reaching us and that was the only animal in sight. No pigs or piglets wallowing in the sty, no geese or chickens clucking in the mud. A thin trail of bedraggled rain-soaked wisps of hay and a pitiful lowing from a half-ruined shed nearby suggested the presence of a few sheep perhaps – but the sound was so weak that it was heartrending and a glance into the granary pit showed little sign of feed. It was clear at once that the whole farm was in decline – there was not even smoke ascending from the roundhouse roof, whose thatch was in any case in great need of repair. I could see why Cantalarius believed that he was cursed.

‘Not even a fire,’ I said to Minimus. ‘And I don’t believe that there is anybody in.’

My servant shook his head at me and gestured to the barn. I glanced around and realized that we were not, in fact, alone. A skinny child in ragged slave’s attire – who looked no older than five or six, but was so undernourished he might have been far more – had sidled from the doorway of the shed and was watching us suspiciously with bright mistrustful eyes.

‘I am a neighbour from the roundhouse down the lane,’ I told him, hoping that this explanation would allay his obvious fears. ‘You belong to Cantalarius, I suppose?’

A sullen nod was all the answer I received.

‘I’m looking for your master,’ I prompted, hopefully.

The boy made no response to this at all, so after a moment I added, ‘Is he not at home? Can you tell me where I could look for him?’ I took a step towards him.

The effect was startling and immediate. The boy began to gibber something, though to me – at least – it made no sense at all. It was not another language, either, as far as I could judge – just a rush of guttural noises while he waved his arms about and backed away as far as he could go, against the wall.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ I implored him. ‘I intend no harm. I have come about …’ But I got no further. The boy had slithered past me, made a sudden dart for it and was running as fast as his skinny legs would carry him away from the farmyard to the hill beyond.

I stared at Junio. ‘If that’s the only servant Cantalarius has left, no wonder his wife believes that the household has been cursed. Let’s hope this morning’s ritual went off well and has helped to change their luck.’

Minimus, behind me, had hastened to the house. ‘Well, the priest has clearly been here. The offering has been made.’ He gestured to a little garden shrine beside the door – built in the Roman fashion and looking out of place inside this sorry Celtic farm. There was a plinth behind it – no doubt intended for that hideous statue that I’d seen – but now containing only a small bronze figurine, a portable image of the household Lars. However, the altar had clearly been in use: a pile of half-burnt feathers on the top and a pool of fast-congealing blood around the base, suggested a very recent sacrifice.

‘Probably that ram that he was promising,’ I said.

Minimus nodded. ‘And not very long ago. I can still smell the smoke. Of course the celebrants can eat it afterwards. Do you suppose the priest may still be here?’

I shook my head. ‘That isn’t burning pigeon or sheep that you can smell. That is something else.’ I glanced around, trying to locate the direction of the faint but pungent odour in the air. It was strangely familiar, though I couldn’t for a moment work out what it was.

Minimus was wandering here and there around the court, but suddenly he stopped and beckoned me. ‘You’re quite right, Master! There is a fire on the hill. Look, you can see from over here.’ He gestured past the shed towards the slope behind the house. ‘Up there, where that peculiar slave boy went – that must have been what he was running to.’

I walked across and saw what he was pointing at. From somewhere just behind the summit of the hill, a dense black smoke was curling slowly up and – though the winter air was very crisp and still – the distinctive aroma was getting stronger all the time. Now there was no mistaking that remembered smell.

‘A funeral pyre!’ I said. ‘Oh, dear gods! Poor old Cantalarius, the curse has struck again. He told me that his last remaining land slave had been taken ill with that fever that killed the other slaves. It doesn’t seem as if the sacrifice has helped. Poor souls. I suppose now that poor gibbering slave boy is all that they’ve got left – and what use will he be, if it comes to working fields?’ I turned towards my own slave with a rueful smile.

Minimus, however, looked ashen-faced. ‘So perhaps it’s not the moment to ask to hire the mule? Don’t you think we ought to leave our errand for today?’ He was already backing up the path.

I’d forgotten that my little red-haired slave (who had been raised in Roman households till he came to me) was likely to have this superstitious attitude. It was not the proximity of the corpse which worried him, of course – one often comes across dead bodies on the road and public cremations take place every day – I knew it was the mention of a curse, and the possibility of our offending the angry underworld.

I gave him my best reassuring smile. ‘On the contrary,’ I told him cheerfully. ‘There could not be a better moment to propose this deal. The blood of sacrifice is hardly dry and someone has come to offer a good price to hire a mule! Cantalarius will be sure the gods are giving him a sign. In his position, would you not feel the same?’

Minimus nodded rather doubtfully. ‘I suppose you’re right, Master. Do you want me to go up there and let them know we’re here?’

I shook my head. ‘I think the slave has managed to convey the fact, somehow. That looks like Cantalarius climbing back across the hill – wearing his toga too. Obviously he’s been officiating at the rites.’ I said this in some surprise. He didn’t have to do that for a simple slave, or indeed provide a proper funeral at all – he must have taken the death of this one very hard indeed.

‘And there’s a woman with him,’ Minimus agreed. ‘That must be his wife. It seems they’ve finished the important rites and left that peculiar servant behind to tend the pyre.’

I watched the pair with interest as they walked back down the hill. I hadn’t met the lady – only heard of her – but even from this distance I could see that she was young. She wore a long belted tunic, in the Celtic style, with a plaid cloak over it, a dark veil draped across her upper face and hair, and she walked soberly enough – but the ankles were shapely and the waist was trim. She was strikingly tall and athletic as she moved – in contrast to her husband’s squat, misshapen form – all of which was rather a surprise.

I knew from Cantalarius that he’d married recently but I’d not expected his wife to look like this: men of his appearance were lucky to find a bride at all. No wonder he was so much in her thrall. Of course, it was possible she had an ugly face, or had survived some youthful scandal, or possessed a biting tongue. The latter, probably, I decided with a grin: remembering that the ill-fated Janus sacrifice had been at her demand.

Yet one had to have a certain sympathy for her, I thought, surveying the decaying remnants of the farm and the crooked ugly husband by her side. Who could blame her for believing in a curse? What a marriage she must feel that she had made! I was glad that I was bringing happier news. ‘Cantalarius!’ I raised my voice and waved.

He peered towards me, shading his eyes against the winter sun. ‘Citizen Libertus? Is that really you?’ He began to hurry down towards me, slithering from time to time on the uneven slope. ‘What brings you to my farmstead?’

I smiled and patted my purse to indicate the reason for my call.

He reached me, breathing rather heavily – probably from the exertion of his abrupt descent – and stood staring disbelievingly at me. ‘Surely you haven’t come all this way, simply to pay me what you owe?’

I nodded. ‘I knew that you would be in want of it. But I confess that there is another reason, too. Something has arisen and I have to go to town with some despatch.’ I had adopted my best official tone. I was not about to tell him about Genialis and the search – the more he knew about my needs, the more he was like to charge me for the mule – when it occurred to me that he might already know. In fact it was more than probable. Cantalarius had been to town the day before and had presumably received a visit from the priest today – and news of the disappearance would be common knowledge now.

So I said to my neighbour with a smile, ‘You were expecting a visitor from Glevum this morning, I believe? So I suppose you’ve heard the news?’

Cantalarius gave a sharp intake of breath, and a look of horror spread across his face. ‘What news would that be, citizen?’

S
o, apparently he hadn’t heard at all. Perhaps the rumour-mongers were not interested in an incomer from Dorn. ‘An important Roman has gone missing in the snow,’ I told him.

He gulped. ‘Somebody of consequence, I suppose?’

‘Considerable consequence, in his own mind at least.’ I grinned. ‘I think you’ve heard of him. The man who wanted to offer the Janus sacrifice this year, and was so discomfited when you produced the ram. Perhaps it would have been luckier – for everyone – if he had contrived to make the offering.’

I half expected that my neighbour would have been amused, but he simply muttered, ‘Of course it would have been. As things were, it could hardly have been worse.’ He met my eyes briefly, then turned his glance away. ‘You say that he’s still missing? You mean, he’s not been found?’

I shook my head. ‘It seems he set out in the snow, some little time ago, and no one’s seen him since. There are people searching for him even as we speak. And that’s where you come in. Is it possible you have a mule – one which could carry a second person, perhaps, if he was small and didn’t weigh too much?’ I realized that Cantalarius was looking more and more appalled, so I added hastily, ‘I don’t mean all the way to town, of course, only a mile or two in an emergency? I’m sorry to ask that, but I promised that I would.’ By this time he was looking so dismayed that I heartily wished that I’d ignored my wife’s request and hadn’t promised her to ask anything of the sort.

My neighbour didn’t answer: he simply stared at me, as though Jove had struck him with a thunderbolt – until his young wife, having completed her scramble down the hill, came hurrying across to join us in the court, snatching off her mourning veil to get a better view.

One look at his expression was enough to make her say, ‘What is it, husband? Not more trouble, by the gods? Tell me it isn’t a message from the temple?’ Her voice was shrill and anxious and she sounded close to angry tears. She must have been attractive at one time, I suppose, but her face was getting lined with too much care and hunger, and her eyes were wild and tear-filled as she looked at him. ‘I told you it would happen. I knew you shouldn’t have tried to offer that abomination to the gods!’ She glanced towards the altar plinth, now empty apart from the statue of the Lars.

Her husband simply shook his ugly head. ‘This is no messenger from the temple, wife. This is our neighbour, from the roundhouse down the track. He’s come here asking me about a mule.’ He turned to me and added doubtfully, ‘Though I am still not sure I understand exactly what he wants.’

I gave them what I hoped was an encouraging smile. ‘I know you keep a mule – or two of them in fact – and I know that money has been very short. I thought you might be grateful if I came to you. I am prepared to pay, of course, provided that we can agree a reasonable sum, and if I am successful in my enquiries, I’ll mention your cooperation to Marcus Septimus.’ I smiled at the woman. ‘That may do more to change your evil luck, even than offering the gods your ancient friend.’ I gestured to the plinth.

I rather expected to be rewarded with at least a smile. The promise of a personal commendation of that kind – especially when Marcus lived so close nearby – was usually more effective than a bribe, but to my surprise the woman gave an anguished cry and clutched her husband’s arm. ‘Didn’t I tell you, husband? Now look what you’ve done!’

Cantalarius ignored her and went on looking grim. ‘You spoke of enquiries, citizen? What enquiries are these?’

‘I thought I’d made it plain,’ I answered patiently. ‘In this cold weather it’s almost certain that the missing man is dead and since there are questions concerning his estate, my patron has asked me to investigate. I am sorry to disturb you at your funeral – and of your last remaining land slave too – but if I’m to join the search, I shall need an animal. Without one I can hardly walk the roads to Glevum in this chill, let alone go searching for a corpse.’

The woman was no longer listening. She was still tugging at her husband’s toga folds. ‘You shouldn’t have done it – this is all because of you.’

I looked at her in some perplexity, but Cantalarius seemed suddenly to have recalled himself.

‘You want the mule to join the search for him?’ He raised his brows at me, then disengaged his garment from the clutching hands. ‘Woman, you are overwrought,’ he said, with a firmness that I’d never heard in him before. ‘This is not what you suppose. Go away into the house and let me handle this.’ He spoke with such authority that, to my surprise, she let go meekly and did as she was told. Her husband watched her out of sight and then turned back to me.

‘You must forgive my Gitta,’ he said, in something like his normal tone of voice. ‘You can see she’s not herself. It has been a dreadful day …’ He motioned to the smoke which was still rising on the hill.

I nodded. ‘The death of that last land slave must have been a bitter blow,’ I said, then added in an attempt at sympathy, ‘But perhaps this morning’s sacrifice will serve to change your luck.’ I gestured to the altar. ‘You used your original ram, I suppose? And I see you offered a bird or two as well. Well, perhaps it’s done the trick. You must agree the auguries look good. After all, the blood is hardly dry and here I am offering to hire your mule from you.’