The Vestal Vanishes (19 page)

Trullius took one look at her and seized the empty jug, hugging it to him as he took the lamp again. ‘I’ll get some more of this. My wife could do with something, by the look of it, and – frankly – so could I, though, not being Roman citizens, we’re unaccustomed to drinking late at night. You, citizen, are welcome to have some if you wish. There won’t be any charge.’ He shambled off into the back part of the house.

I realized that Priscilla was looking desperately around. ‘Searching for something?’ I enquired.

She didn’t answer, merely seized the wooden tray, knocked on it three times and spat onto the floor. I realized that she had been seeking to ‘touch wood’ and keep ill-luck away. A Druid superstition if I recalled aright – though everyone seemed to have adopted it these days.

When she spoke her voice was tremulous. ‘The head chopped off and sprigs of mistletoe enclosed – it certainly sounds like Druid handiwork.’ She rallied as a sudden thought seemed to occur to her. ‘But if that’s true, no blame can fall on us. If they murdered her, it must have been in Glevum, citizen. They did not do it here, and they could not possibly have done it on the way. There would have been a dreadful skirmish: it would have rocked the coach, and someone would have noticed, the raedarius or the maid. To say nothing of the mess it must have made.’

I toyed with the remaining breadcrumbs on the board. ‘There wasn’t any mess. That is one of the most interesting aspects of the whole event. And she was not killed in Glevum, there are witnesses to that. The coach was under observation all the time.’

I saw the look of horror slowly dawning in her eyes. ‘So what are you suggesting? That she was dead and already in the box when she left here? Well, I can tell you certainly that she was not. With my own eyes I saw her get into the coach.’

‘And you could swear to that? Did she not have a veil?’

That took her aback. ‘Well, of course she did. So does any modest Roman matron, come to that. So did all the women, except the slaves, of course. But all the others were standing round while she got in, and they knew her well. They would have recognized her – from her voice, if nothing else – and realized if there was anything amiss. I was upstairs and looking down into the court and I heard her speak myself – and anyway, I would have known the cloak. Only a Vestal Virgin has a snow-white cape like that. In fact it had already attracted attention from the street – later I saw an ancient slave-woman still goggling at the gate. I actually had to wave at her to shoo her off.’

Something that she said had struck a chord with me. ‘So Audelia was not only veiled, she had a hooded cape?’ I frowned. Another mystery. There had been no cloak inside the raeda when we found the corpse.

Priscilla noticed my perplexity. ‘Well you did not expect her to get wringing wet? Not on her wedding day?’

‘Of course, it was raining! Ephibbius told me that!’ I was annoyed, but only with myself. Why had I not seen the significance of that fact before? ‘So not only did Audelia have a cloak and hood, the others had one too?’

Priscilla took my irritation for rebuke. ‘Well naturally, citizen. The women anyway. What else would you suppose?’ She got to her feet and started clearing the table noisily, banging the cup and plate onto the tray. ‘But if you’re suggesting what I think you are – that it might have been someone else who got into the coach – then, forgive me, citizen, but I think that you’re insane. I saw her do it. Ask my husband if you doubt my word for it. He was in the courtyard near the raeda when she got into it. Wouldn’t he have noticed if a stranger took her place?’

I had to admit that she had a valid point, but I was loath to abandon the only theory that I had. ‘Then is it possible that someone was already hiding in the coach? Someone concealed beneath the seat, perhaps? Or in the box itself? Suppose the Druids had got to hear there was a Vestal here – it is not impossible to break into the house. If Lavinia could get out of it so easily, then someone could get in, find the box and hide away in it.’ I was warming more and more to the idea.

She paused in her noisy clearing of the board. ‘But Audelia and her cousin shared a room last night. No one could possibly have hidden in the box without their noticing. Besides, Audelia had me bring a tray to her before she left – some washing water and a little bread and milk – and I saw her with my own eyes, collecting her possessions and refolding them. She’d unpacked everything the night before to hunt for wedding-shoes. So no one could have hidden in her box overnight and jumped out in the coach.’ She paused to look at me. ‘You keep looking for logic, citizen. If this is Druid magic, there may be none to find. It may be the work of spells and sorcery. They have their secret methods of bringing things about.’

I had my methods too, and I was reluctant to abandon them. As with the street-magicians in Glevum earlier, I was sure that there was some logical explanation of the trick – even if the Druids had a hand in it. But how had it been done? Something, somewhere was not as it appeared. I mentally rehearsed the details of what I had been told. ‘About those wedding slippers . . . ?’

Priscilla looked surprised. ‘I suppose the horseman told you about that? He was sent to find them – I don’t know if he did.’ She had finished clearing up the remnants of my meal, and she rubbed down the tabletop with one sweep of her sleeve. ‘Audelia was angry when they could not be found – quite unlike herself.’

‘So angry that she wouldn’t have her slave-girl sleeping in the room?’

Priscilla almost smiled through her nervousness. ‘There was hardly room for that in any case, with her box and Lavinia taking up the floor. Generally we provide a sleeping mat and have the servant’s bed down just outside the bedroom door. And that’s exactly what happened yesterday. The nursemaid and Audelia’s maid were both on guard up there, and – before you ask – the horseman and the raeda-driver slept beside the coach, so I don’t see how anybody could have got in there unobserved.’

I shook my head. Another theory ruined.

She saw the gesture. ‘I told you, citizen. This is Druid sorcery at work.’

I met her eyes. ‘But how would Druids know there was a Vestal here? Her presence was not publicly announced, though you said that you had boasted about it to your acquaintances. Are there Druid followers among the people that you told?’

She hesitated. Not for very long, but before she found her tongue her husband had already spoken from the darkness of the door.

‘None that we know of, citizen. Although, of course – as I said before – since membership of the sect is officially a crime, nobody is likely to admit to it.’ His tone was so open and hearty, suddenly, that I was convinced that he was attempting to hide something from me. He came in and slapped the jug down on the board, together with two extra cups that he’d been carrying crooked into the elbow of his damaged arm. ‘Here is the wine. Enough of your prattling, wife.’ He poured a little into the smaller cup and pushed it towards her. ‘Have a draught of this . . .’ He paused. ‘Before the Druids come for you as well.’

That seemed to silence her. She took the cup and had a small obedient sip. ‘The citizen thinks there was a substitution made – that it was not Audelia that got into the coach,’ she said, slowly. ‘I have told him otherwise.’

He poured himself some wine, and – as an afterthought – poured out some more for me. ‘For once, citizen, the woman’s talking sense. I saw the Vestal climb into the seat myself. I helped the raedarius hand her up the steps.’

‘You heard her voice?’ I said, remembering the veil.

He took a long and savouring sip of wine, and licked his lips. ‘I did. She even spoke to me. Thanked me for my help, and slipped me a small coin – I forgot to tell you, wife. Then I went and found the stable-slaves to carry down the box, and supervised them while they put it in the coach. There was no chance of a substitution, citizen. Everyone was clustered round her making their farewells. Secunda was very nearly in the coach herself, helping Audelia to put the shutters up. And when it left here she was terribly upset – smothering her hands with kisses and blowing them towards the coach. You’d never think the family had insulted them, by refusing to invite them to the wedding feast.’

Priscilla nodded. ‘Not that the poor thing was really well enough to go. She walks so badly and is generally so frail, she was leaning on her husband all the time that she was here. And so quiet and timid all the while. I don’t believe I heard her speak above a word – except to say goodbye and thank you as they left.’

‘Was that long after Audelia had gone?’ I asked.

‘They did not finally depart for at least another hour, but they did go into town immediately she’d left. That had always been the plan. The slave-market opens shortly after dawn, and they wanted to be there as soon as possible – before the best were gone. There was one in particular that they had heard about – a female slave who had been injured in the throat and afterwards had lost the power of speech, and was no doubt offered at a bargain price. Damaged goods, of course. Who’d want a slave like that?’ She seemed to be aiming this at Trullius, as if to point out that he was damaged too.

He said, with a certain patient dignity, ‘They wanted to buy her for their daughter, I believe, thinking that another mute would make a bond with her and might even help her to understand the world. No doubt the slave was cheap, but I believe Paulinus would have paid any price at all, if he thought it would help his precious child in some way.’

She smiled, contemptuously. ‘That is exactly the point I made to you before – yet you think my arguments are foolish ones. Of course he’ll pay too much. He’s already spent a fortune, which he could ill afford, on charms and cures for her – not that they have done any good at all. And of course, they’d lost the nursery-maid she was familiar with—’

‘Enough of your gossip, woman,’ Trullius broke in. ‘Drink your wine and get yourself to bed, and I will assist this citizen to his.’ He put his cup and jug down on the tray, which he deftly scooped up and balanced as before. He turned to me. ‘You don’t require a servant sleeping at your door? I could fetch the horseman and provide a sleeping-mat. Or put a stable-slave on duty for you, if you wish. I’ll light another taper and accompany you upstairs.’

I did not need a candle to see what was afoot. A blind man might have seen. All this solicitation was a desperate attempt – and a clumsy one at that – to shut the woman up and hustle me away.

SIXTEEN

I
was tired and shaken from my journey and would have gladly gone to bed, but it was so evident that there was something here Trullius was trying to hide, that I took a deliberate sip of my not-much-watered wine and slowly shook my head.

‘In a little while, Trullius. I have not finished here.’ The drink was sour and unpleasant – clearly inferior to the vintage they’d offered me before. I put the goblet down. ‘There are some further questions I would like to ask your wife, since it seems you are not willing to tell me everything yourself.’

He was about to bluster, but I cut him off.

‘What is it about Paulinus that you don’t want me to hear?’ I made a guess – it wasn’t difficult. ‘This is something connected with the Druids, isn’t it?’

Priscilla put down her cup and took the tray from Trullius’s hand. ‘You tell him, husband, or I’ll do it myself. And don’t look at me like that. You were the one who insisted we should tell him everything, because he was sent here by Lavinia’s family. Well, from what he’s told us, this concerns Lavinia as well. You can’t go on supposing – now – that she simply ran away?’

He said nothing.

‘Oh, by all the gods! Audelia has been murdered and her hands and head cut off. Do you want the same thing happening to that little girl? Vain and self-important as she might have been, she was just a child. Spoiled by her parents and her nursemaid – that was obvious – but nothing to deserve a dreadful fate like that.’ She slammed the tray down on the table. ‘Tell him, Trullius! You can’t escape it now. This household is already implicated in this mystery. It’s obvious that the family will blame us when they know – and it won’t help you to start concealing things.’

Trullius reached out and poured himself another cupful from the jug. His one good hand was trembling as he raised it to his mouth but he wiped his lips against his sleeve and said, with violence, ‘Oh great Mars, woman, why did I listen to your pleas? Why did we ever have these people here? Of course we had no intimation at the time . . .’ He took another gulp. ‘It’s like this, citizen. My wife is quite convinced – though it is only hearsay and supposition on her part . . .’

‘Oh, get on with it,’ the woman said. ‘It’s Paulinus and Secunda, citizen. Their servant was a Druid. And there’s no supposition. They told me so themselves – although they claim they didn’t know she was a member of the sect until she came to trial.’

I stared at her. ‘
She?
It was a maidservant?’

Priscilla pursed her lips. ‘Well, not exactly that. They don’t have what you and I would call a proper set of slaves. One or two labourers to run the farm, and some old crone who cleans the house for them, but otherwise they seem to do everything themselves, like common peasants. This was an outside wet nurse whom Paulinus employed.’

Trullius agreed. ‘Used her to suckle that afflicted girl of his – because the mother was so frail she could not feed the child herself. This woman seemed ideal – she was healthy, clean and strong, lived not far away, and had just finished suckling children of her own. She took the foster-infant in to live with her, for a while at least.’

I nodded. This was not an unusual arrangement in a Roman family. Many Roman mothers farm their children out to some healthy female who has ample milk to spare, in return for a small income and the certainty of good nutritious food – which of course the parents are anxious to provide, since their own offspring will benefit from it. Only the wealthy have a slave-nurse come to live with them, as Lavinia’s family had evidently done. ‘But this wet nurse proved to be a follower of the Druids?’