Shadows in the Night (22 page)

“I’ll find an excuse to visit his shop soon, if I can. It needs checking. But I still find it a pretty unlikely thought.”

“As I’ve said before, there’s no such concept as ‘unlikely’ when you’re looking for traitors. Who else was at your meeting yesterday?” With everything that had happened since, I hadn’t had time to tell him.

“I’m under oath of secrecy,” I said. “Will you swear not to pass any of this on?”

“I swear.”

I tried to give him quick sketches of the five people: Silvanius the ambitious chief councillor, desperately worried about any threat to Roman people or property. Vedius the old soldier, organising night patrols even if he had to do it on crutches. Balbus the rich businessman, anxious about what would happen to trade. Felix the dandy, declaiming Virgil and lamenting the death of Nero. And of course Vitalis, envying his wild Brigantian relatives and yearning for the good old days. I told him as much as I could remember of the conversation, including my chat with Vitalis over dinner.

“An interesting group,” he remarked. “Leaving aside Vitalis, who wasn’t at the meeting, Silvanius presumably chose you all because you’re the most prominent Romans in Oak Bridges. You have most to lose if the Romans are expelled from this area, so you can be trusted to take strong measures.”

“That’s about it. He probably wouldn’t have included me in the group, but as the meeting was my idea, he couldn’t very well keep me out.”

“I imagine he didn’t dare try.” He smiled at me.

“Vitalis was the one person in the house who was openly anti-Roman. At the temple site he came fairly close to blasphemy, and then fairly close to treason over dinner.”

“And he spent the afternoon out riding. Had he come back by the time you left Silvanius’ villa?”

“He could have done. I don’t remember actually seeing him, but it’s a huge place.”

“You told me last night that the leader of the ambush party called you by name.”

I nodded. “But I didn’t recognise him.”

“It means the men were waiting for you, though, doesn’t it? Not just any unfortunate traveller. You personally. So who knew you were going to Silvanius’ house? Everyone at the Oak Tree?”

“Hardly anyone. Albia knew, and of course Titch and the two slaves who came with me. Nobody else. I come and go as I like here, and quite often drive into town, so it wouldn’t cause comment.”

“Did all the people at the meeting know beforehand you were going to be there?”

“Vedius certainly didn’t, and probably not Balbus either. Felix did, because he was there when Silvanius asked me.”

“But once you were there, they all knew, and all their servants did too. Did everyone leave for home at the same time?”

“No, Felix stayed on a while. Balbus and Vedius and I all left in a group. Balbus lives quite close to Silvanius. Vedius and I travelled through Oak Bridges together. The old fool offered to escort me all the way to the mansio. Gods, I wish I’d let him….”

“So do I. It was reckless of you to be out in the dark like that….”

“I know, I know. I don’t need a lecture. You’re saying that someone at the villa arranged to have me ambushed as I went home?”

“I don’t see how else it could have been done. Do you?”

“Then Vitalis must have been there, I suppose.”

Our pacing about had brought us round to the door into Quintus’ room, and we went in and sat down on the couch. “This Shadow of Death,” Quintus mused, “must be a master of disguise. It could be Vitalis, but any of the people at the house, especially the ones at the meeting, could be just as anti-Roman, only concealing it better. Look, there’s something I want to show you. If I do, can you promise to keep it just between the two of us?”

“Of course. Only, if I need to, can I tell Albia? You’re going to need her help as well as mine, if you’re here for long.”

“Well…I suppose as she’s your housekeeper….”

“She’s my sister, more to the point. We’re very close, which is why we make a good job of running this place.”

“Your sister? I thought she was just your assistant.”

“She’s both! Father used to say that I was a centurion, and Albia was my optio, my second-in-command. It’s not a bad description. She’s a brilliant organiser, and I’m afraid I take her for granted sometimes. And if we’re in for trouble, she must know everything there is to know.”

“Does she mind you being her centurion?” he asked, amused.

“No, she’s happy having someone else to make the big decisions. And she doesn’t see herself spending the rest of her life running a mansio. If you want to bet on whether she or I will be first to marry and start having babies, don’t bother wasting your money on me. She’ll win hands down.”

“Don’t you want to get married?”

“Perhaps, one day. But it’s Albia we’re talking about, not me. Take my word, she’s one of those people who’s a born second-in-command.”

“Whereas you’re a born dictator!” He smiled. “All right. You can tell Albia if necessary, but nobody else.”

“I promise.”

“Then could you fetch my money-belt from your strong box, please?”

I went to get it from my study, and I felt a thrill of excitement as I thought of its contents, especially the papyrus and its puzzling coded list. Now I was going to find out what it meant. But more important, at last, at
long
last, Quintus was taking me into his confidence.

Chapter XV

He held out the papyrus for me to see, and I gazed at its confusion of jumbled letters.

L’s list
PGATT
SSFCV
CVBFS

“L’s list,” I read. “Does L stand for my brother Lucius, by any chance? “

“It does.”

“But I can’t make anything of the rest. Is it in code?”

“Just sleight-of-hand really. Try reading the letters from top to bottom, not left to right.”

I spelled them out, mentally re-arranging them on the page. They still didn’t make words, just five groups of three letters.

PSC
GSV
AFB
TCF
TVS

Groups of three letters. What can you list using just three letters? Of course! “Initials!” I exclaimed. “Each group stands for someone’s full name. So it’s a list of five people.”

“Five suspects, yes. Your brother sent me the list when he heard I was coming up here. He said, if he was asked to put money on who would make a good rebel leader, these would be his choice.”

“So they’re people I know.” I looked at the first name. “PSC. Publius Silvanius Clarus?”

He nodded.

“That’s why you were so insistent that Silvanius could be the Shadow of Death—because Lucius put him top of the list.”

“And I haven’t changed my mind. I still think he’s ideally placed. He has money, power, easy access to Roman government circles, and yet good contacts with the natives.”

“But his foreman was killed yesterday,” I objected. “Would he kill the man he was relying on to get the temple finished for the inauguration ceremony? It’s only four days away now. Without Casticus, there must be a risk it won’t be ready in time.”

“Suppose Casticus found out somehow what Silvanius is up to? But let’s go through the whole list first. You’ll agree with the second name, I think.”

“GSV, Gnaeus Silvanius Vitalis. Oh yes, I do. The only problem is that Vitalis is so open about his anti-Roman feelings. From what you’ve said already, I expected someone more devious.”

He laughed. “Spoken like a true investigator!”

“Number three,” I said, “is AFB—Aulus Fannius Balbus. This business of the green paint—but he’s no fool. He wouldn’t use a colour that everyone knows he possesses.”

“Not even as a sort of double bluff?” Quintus smiled. “Or would you consider that theory too devious even for me?”

“I don’t think there’s anything that’s too devious for you. But more likely one of his household might have used it from sheer thoughtlessness. Or as Titch suggested, somebody could be trying to incriminate him.”

“And he certainly has the wealth, and the good contacts everywhere.”

“Who’s the fourth name? TCF. Well, that must be Titus Cornelius Felix. Can you see Felix master-minding a gang of murderers?”

“Stranger things have happened. He’s not rich, and maybe that’s why the first rebel ambushes weren’t aimed at individuals, but at the pay convoys. He travels a lot, going to theatres all over the place.”

“He has access to influential Romans too, through Silvanius,” I agreed. “And there was that sad story he told me earlier today about being misunderstood by all true Romans because of treading the boards with Nero. All the same, Felix is one of the most truly Roman people in this town!”

“He
appears
to be. But he’s admitted to being an actor.”

“Well, yes….” I tried my best to picture Felix as the Shadow of Death. I couldn’t, so I considered the final suspect.

“TVS. Tiberius Vedius Severus? I wonder why Lucius included him? An old soldier, with a string of military decorations as long as your arm, and living a life of old-fashioned Roman virtue that would have impressed the elder Cato!”

“He’s got first-class military training,” Quintus said, “and good contacts at Eburacum. Of the five of them, he’d be the most likely to be able to organise the ambush of the pay convoys. But he’s there because of his murky past, of course.”

“Gods, I can’t imagine Vedius ever doing anything even slightly murky. Wait though…I do remember some bar-room talk about his first wife being murdered, and someone wondering if he’d had a hand in it. People love to make malicious rumours up in a situation like that. And it was a long time ago, before he moved here….He served in the Twentieth Legion, I think. And won some sort of bravery award when they put down Queen Boudicca’s rebellion thirty years ago.”

“That’s right. By then he was a centurion, and a good one apparently, with just a year to go till he got his discharge. The general respected him, and his men would do anything for him. He had a woman and children, and was all set to marry when he left the army. He must have been looking forward to retiring and living a prosperous life as a respectable hero.”

“He sounds like my own father. What happened?”

“His woman fell in love with someone else—one of the young military tribunes. It wasn’t just a discreet flirtation either, it was a full-blown public romance. She abandoned Vedius, which was bad enough, and humiliated him in front of his men, flaunting herself with her new protector. Vedius was devastated, but he couldn’t persuade her to come back to him, and after a month everyone thought he’d accepted it. Then one morning the tribune was found in the woman’s house, which was outside the fort of course. He’d been murdered in the night.”

“By Vedius?”

“Everyone assumed so, but it was impossible to prove. His woman had run away, and his two best friends swore he’d been with them all night long, getting roaring drunk in a bar.”

“Perhaps he had, and then killed the tribune in a drunken rage.”

“That’s what most people thought at the time. And the tribune wasn’t popular, he was an arrogant little show-off, and everyone felt he’d been asking for trouble, and took Vedius’ side.”

“So they hushed it all up.”

Quintus nodded. “He asked for a transfer to another legion, which would have been the sensible solution, as he only had a year to go. But unluckily for him, the tribune had powerful relatives, some of them at Nero’s court, and they wanted Vedius out of the army. So he was discharged a year early, ‘on medical grounds,’ which was a complete invention, and everybody knew it. There was no official stain on his character, but he hated having to slink away under a cloud of suspicion, when he should have been marching out in a blaze of honour.”

“Yes, he’d have felt the disgrace.” As a centurion’s daughter, I could imagine it only too well.

“He moved to Oak Bridges, where nobody knew him, so he could start afresh as a retired hero who’d lost his wife in a tragic accident. He built a house, married a local girl, became popular with the settlers…and now he’s an aedile.”

“How did you find all this out? Did Lucius tell you?”

“He warned me about the rumour that Vedius might be hiding some kind of ancient scandal. I made contact with some of his former comrades from the Twentieth, and got the full story. After all this time, they’re still saying Vedius was badly treated.”

“And he could be bearing a grudge against the army, and helping the rebels as a kind of revenge?”

“Lucius thinks it’s possible, though not very likely. That’s why he’s at the bottom of the list. But you see what I mean, it could be him. It could be any of them.”

“That’s an awful thought….” I trailed off unhappily. I was realising fully what life would be like now, if I had to go around suspecting everyone—every native and every Roman settler, including my friends. But the alternative, doing nothing and letting the Shadow-men continue their savage campaign, was even worse. Because in that case I might be their next victim.