The Vestal Vanishes

EIGHTEEN

I woke from a confused dream in which a man in Druid robes was cooking headless corpses in a kiln, while a giant in yellow wedding slippers kicked the chimney down.

I forced my eyes open, uncertain for a moment as to where I was, and peered around until I recognized the room. Dawn light was streaming through the shuttered window-space, my shoes and toga were where I’d put them down and I was still lying on the covers. It was obvious that I had hardly stirred all night. But the noisy kicking of my nightmare seemed still to be going on.

I struggled to sit up but the banging didn’t stop. Sleepily I realized that it was not a dream at all, but somebody knocking loudly on the door. And the landlord’s voice was hollering my name. ‘Citizen Libertus, I can’t unlatch the door. Are you all right in there?’

I swung my feet down, shambled to the door and pulled back the bolt. I had scarcely time to do so before Trullius burst in. He was still in his under-tunic, without even a blanket to hide his ruined arm, but he made no excuse. ‘Oh, citizen! Thank Mars you are all right. I had begun to worry when you didn’t answer me. I suppose you were asleep. I’m sorry to wake you but you’d better come at once.’

I grovelled for my sandals, but he shook his head.

‘There isn’t time to dress. I don’t know what to do. My wife went in there when she first got up and…’ He shook his head. ‘You’d better come and see.’ He was already hustling out of the door again.

I followed stupidly, still more than half-asleep. What was the panic? Surely Lavinia had not unexpectedly returned? I shook my head. That was unlikely. If that had happened Trullius would have told me so at once. More probable that the nursemaid had found her promised secret sign. I was encouraged in this hope when I saw where Trullius was leading me.

He kicked aside the sleeping-mat which still lay outside the nursemaid’s door, though there was no sign of the servant who’d been left on guard, and motioned me to go inside the room. ‘There!’ he said, and gestured.

The slave-woman was slumped half-lying on the floor, held to the bed-frame only by the chain — in a way which would have choked her if she had not already been so evidently dead. She had arched against her collar in some final spasm: there were cruel marks visible on her neck and chin even from this distance, and her bloodless face was tinged with purpish-blue as though she had found it difficult to breath. Death had not been painless. I prayed it had been quick.

‘That’s how we found her,’ Trullius went on. He would have wrung his hands if he’d been able to. ‘It must have been those dreadful Druids at their work again. Though how they got in unobserved I cannot think. My wife is right, it must be sorcery. Oh, dear Mercury, what will Lavinius say?’ He shook his head, from side to side, like a wet dog in despair.

I could think of nothing intelligent to say, so I simply moved past him to look more closely at the corpse. She had not been dead for long. The body had not begun to stiffen very much. There was no wound or sign of other damage to the corpse, except the bruising round her neck and that — though quite extensive — seemed more the result of violent movement than the cause of death: there was none of the protruding tongue that is produced by strangling. This looked more like a poisoning to me.

But what had done it? There was no cup or phial in evidence. I glanced around the room. The dried morsel of loaf had not been touched at all, but some of the water in the jug had disappeared. Could that have been the source? I dipped a little finger into the liquid in the jug and — daringly but idiotically — placed it on my tongue. To my relief there was none of the burning or numbness which I half-feared to feel, only the faint stale taste of water from a city well. (My wife Gwellia was furious with me later, when she learned of this, and I admit that she was right. It was a particularly foolish thing to do — perhaps the product of not being properly awake — but I reasoned that my tiny sample was too small to cause me harm.)

So, if it was not the water, what had killed the nurse? Was it possible that, despite the guard, someone had come in during the night and forced some potion down her throat? I am not generally a believer in sorcery, but even I was beginning to wonder if there was something supernatural and sinister afoot.

Trullius had more practical concerns and was wittering in distress. ‘We shall be ruined, citizen. Who else will come here now? Even supposing that Lavinius does not have us dragged before the courts and sent into exile with nothing to our names.’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘My wife has taken the stable-slave and locked him in the kiln. He swears that he heard nothing except a muffled thud. But something must have happened. You think he was the one who was working with the Druids? Perhaps he heard us talking yesterday and — once he heard that Lavinia might have left a sign — he feared the nurse was going to discover that he was involved.’

‘And so he killed her, having fortuitously brought some poison with him when you roused him from his sleep?’ I shook my head. ‘I doubt it very much. But just in case Lavinia did contrive to leave a sign, I’ll have a look myself — although I’ve no idea what I am looking for.’

There was nothing at all of interest in the luggage-box, except a wisp or two of long red curly hair, which — from the description that I had received — were presumably Lavinia’s own, so I moved to examine the pile of clothes, still on the other bed. They were no longer piled into a human shape, but scattered as though the nurse — as she promised — had made a search of them. But if there was a signal, I could not fathom it. There seemed to be nothing of much consequence, at a casual glance — mostly girlish stoles and tunics such as you would expect Lavinia to have.

Except…? If a girl was on her way to join the Vestal house, why would she take with her all the clothes that she possessed? She was never going to wear them any more. Even the youngest novices at the shrine are given special robes as soon as they arrive — just as a boy puts off his toga praetexta when he becomes a man, or a bride abandons her childish garments when she weds. Besides, not all of these garments were Lavinia’s, when I looked more closely at the pile.

There was an adult’s cloak, for instance, made of woven plaid: and when I rummaged further, I found a woman’s pale-brown tunic which had been much repaired and a well-worn drawstring purse of the same coarse material. Who did these belong to? Not the nursemaid, most assuredly — one glance at the body was enough to tell you that. These peasant clothes were much too big for her, and clearly far too large to fit a six-year-old. Besides, they were of inferior quality, thick cloth and roughly sewn — not the sort of thing Lavinius would have permitted in his house. So where had they come from? Was this somehow the sign the nursemaid had been looking for?

I picked up the empty purse. It was a useless thing (only the poorest do not have a leather money-pouch) and this one was stained yellowish and had a hole in it, so that any small coin would have instantly gone through. It smelt of carrots, too. I put it down again. Who would want to hoard a purse like that, which was no use at all except to hold a…

‘Wait just a heartbeat!’ I exclaimed aloud. Yellowish stains and carrots? I knelt down and began to scrabble on the floor beneath the bed, but there was nothing there except dust and a few cobwebs where the broom-bunch had not reached.

Trullius came over and stood staring down at me. ‘Shouldn’t we go down now and question the slave-boy, citizen? What are you searching for?’

‘Something that isn’t here!’ I looked up to answer and saw him silhouetted against the open window-space. I clambered to my feet. ‘The window-space, of course! Let me get my shoes on and I’ll come downstairs with you. We’ll decide what to do with this body afterwards.’

He looked completely mystified as I rushed into my own room and pulled my sandals on, but he didn’t question me and when I clattered down the dimly lit staircase he followed close behind. His wife was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, still dressed in an under-tunic as though she’d just got out of bed — with her legs exposed and only a cloak around her top for dignity.

‘Jove save us, citizen,’ she wailed. ‘Another death. This is some Druid curse and we shall all be murd-’

I cut off her lamentations without courtesy. ‘Which way to the courtyard?’ I demanded. She must have judged my mood of urgency, because she stood back without protest and indicated the direction I should take, though she joined in the procession as soon as I had passed.

‘I’ve locked the stable slave-boy in the kiln,’ she was saying, at my heels. ‘I’ll take you to h-’

But I brushed all this aside. ‘Stay where you are. Don’t step on anything. I’m sure there’s something here. It is already broken, almost certainly, and may be hard to find. One misplaced foot, and if it’s made of glass the whole thing will be crushed beyond all hope of learning anything. I trust I’m not too late.’ I began to pace the courtyard, searching every inch.

She hovered at the doorway, with Trullius at her back. ‘Tell us what it is you’re looking for. We’ll help you search for it.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure myself.’

‘You’re worse than that nursemaid,’ the wife said in disgust. ‘Dead bodies everywhere and people keep searching for things they won’t describe! I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ve got real jobs to do, if others haven’t.’ And she turned away, muttering as she did so, just loud enough to hear. ‘Watch him, Trullius. I know he says he had a letter from Audelia’s bridegroom, but I’m not sure that I’m convinced. He might be the one who is working with the Druids.’

Trullius shuffled forward. ‘I’m sorry, citizen. She has no right to speak like that. She’s worried, that is all, and perhaps that’s no surprise. She forgets that you’re a citizen, deserving of respect, even without your toga. I’ll go and tell the slaves they’re not to come out here until you’ve finished searching underfoot. And I’ll make sure that I don’t stand on anything myself.’

I did not stop to answer, just continued with my systematic search. It was not an easy one. No doubt the courtyard was occasionally swept, but between the cobbles there were oddments and fragments of all kinds — scraps of wood and old material, wisps of hay and rusty nails — as well as mud and tufts of grass and the inevitable evidence that horses walked that way. In one corner by the kiln, I found a pile of greening, dusty, broken pots, presumably a remnant of the previous business here. But nothing that matched what I was looking for. I had worked my way right to the inner wall before Trullius returned.

He came across to me. ‘I see you’ve not succeeded in your search. What did you hope to find?’

‘This!’ I swooped on something which I’d just spotted on the ground. I picked it up and held it triumphantly aloft.

It was a little silver bottle, smaller than my hand, bruised and badly dented where it had hit the ground and bounced — indeed, one side was split — but, being metal, otherwise intact. It was shaped like an amphora (or it had been once) with a handsome corkwood stopper still attached by a length of woven cord around the damaged neck. It was quite empty now, but clearly fashioned to hold medicine of some kind. Threaded through the handles was a slender chain, of the kind which — on little potion-flasks like this — holds a little silver disc on which a reminder of the contents and dosage can be etched. This one had obviously been designed to hold a sleeping draught: the label had been most delicately and expertly inscribed, though the disc was no bigger than my thumbnail and had been bent against the body of the flagon in the fall.

‘There you are! A pretty object and no doubt a costly one, clearly made by a master-craftsman for a woman of some rank,’ I said to Trullius. ‘And there’s the proof.’ As I turned the stopper over I could see that the silver top was marked with a device etched into it — a device I recognized. It was the same pattern as the seal-stamp I’d seen on Cyra’s desk. ‘In fact it carries Lavinia’s family seal,’ I said to Trullius.

He nodded. ‘No doubt it was given to the nurse. She mentioned to Secunda that she had a sleeping draught. Offered it to her in case she found it hard to sleep.’ He stretched out his one good hand to take the flask, and I was about to pass it up to him, when I noticed something else which made me hold it back.

The corkwood stopper had a slightly yellow tinge — very much the colour of the stain I’d noticed on the drawstring bag upstairs. I raised the stopper to my nose. It smelt faintly of carrots, as I feared it would. ‘Someone clearly has tampered with it since,’ I said, wondering who was responsible for this. ‘Poison hemlock, by the look of it.’ I handed him the flask.

Trullius took it from me and moved away into the centre of the courtyard where there was stronger light, and he carefully examined the wording on the disc. ‘Poison hemlock, clearly. You are quite right, citizen. You think it was the Druids?’

I was about to tell him about my theory — that the poison had been brought here in the drawstring purse and decanted later to the flask, from a different phial which was doubtless somewhere in a rubbish-heap by now — when an uncomfortable suspicion flashed into my head. There was something odd about the way that Trullius had made a point of taking the label to the light. He’d done the same with Publius’s letter when I gave that to him. Yet both things were clearly written and Trullius showed no other symptoms of short-sightedness. A wild hypothesis was forming in my mind.

I gestured to the label. ‘I wonder if we’re right. Have a look again. The third word, Trullius. Can you make it out?’

He looked disconcerted but he lifted up the flask and repeated the performance of examining the words. I watched him as he frowned at the inscription for a time, balancing the jug against his withered arm and holding the chained label close up to his eyes. After a long pause he turned to me again. I was still crouching on the cobbles by the wall. ‘Oh hemlock, hemlock. It’s hard to make it out, but I am quite sure you’re right.’

I took the flagon from him and laid it on the ground. ‘Trullius,’ I said gently. ‘The inscription’s very clear. It says “Poppy-juice for sleeping — take no more than half a phial”. It doesn’t mention hemlock anywhere. You can’t read it, can you? Are you having some sort of problem with your eyes?’

A silence, and then he shook his head at me and muttered sheepishly, ‘The truth is, citizen, I never learned to read. There’s a few words I recognize. I can read my name. And I can tell all the numbers, for the bills and things.’

The enormity of this revelation had just begun to dawn. ‘But you said Audelia wrote to you, asking if Paulinus and his wife could have a room. How did you know that, if you couldn’t read the words?’

No answer.

‘Your wife, perhaps?’ I asked.

He shook his head again. ‘Priscilla can’t read either. Not as much as me. When we were dealing with the pots, it didn’t matter much. Mostly people came and simply picked one out. And even now it doesn’t often create a hindrance. Most people send a slave to see the place — just as Cyra and Lavinius did — or if they’ve stayed before, they send a messenger to book a bed with us, usually with a down-payment to secure the room. So almost all the arrangements are made verbally.’

‘But if you do get a letter, as you sometimes must?’

He shrugged. ‘The same as we have always done. We take it to an amanuensis in the forum, and have it read to us. If it needs a written answer, he’ll do that for us as well. He makes a charge, of course, but if it means another client it is well worth the expense.’

‘So how do you keep a record of who is coming when?’ I was trying to imagine running a lodging-house without the written word.

I think it was the first time I saw Trullius smile. ‘My wife worked out a system,’ he said. ‘She’s good at things like that. I’ve got a special board that shows the phases of the moon, and we mark it so that we can see what day our guests are coming and how many to expect. I can manage numbers, as I said before. I’ll show you if you like.’ He gestured to the house. ‘It works out very well. Though we don’t tell the customers — there’s no need for them to know, and when they are coming to a private place like this, people like to think they have an educated host.’

I scrambled to my feet, narrowly avoiding treading on the flask. ‘Trullius,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see the implications of what you’re telling me? You say you took Audelia’s letter to the town to have it read aloud. So whoever read it knew, not only that she would come herself, but also that she had asked you for a second room for her humble relatives as well.’

Trullius looked flustered ‘Well, now you mention it, I suppose that’s true. It was a new amanuensis, too, not the one I’ve used before. You mean he might have given information to the Druids?’

‘Worse than that,’ I said. ‘He might be one himself. Or anyone in the forum might have overheard. Think, Trullius, when he’d written out the answer saying they could come, how did you send it to Paulinus and his wife? Did you use the same messenger who brought Audelia’s note to you?’

He shook his head. ‘He had already gone. He’d told us that Audelia was expecting a reply as to whether or not we could make the arrangements she required, and Priscilla — like an idiot — assured him that we could, and that he could take that verbal message back to her at once.’

‘Though you didn’t at that stage know what you’d agreed to do?’

He shrugged. ‘We thought it would be something about arrangements for her stay — fresh water or special food or something of that kind: she was a retiring Vestal Virgin after all and priestesses are liable to have peculiar needs. But we would have provided anything she wished. It was good for business to have her here — or so my wife believed.’

‘Of course it was good business,’ a sharp voice put in, and I turned to see Priscilla standing by the door. She was dressed in a full-length day-tunic by now, and holding an empty cooking-vessel in her hand, but she made no move towards the kitchen-block or the store-jars next to it. I wondered how long she had been standing there behind us listening in. ‘What have you told him, Trullius? I warned you to beware.’

Her husband rounded on her. ‘I haven’t told him anything. He’s worked it out himself. And don’t start imagining that he’s involved with Druids. That nursemaid was poisoned in her sleeping draught. He’s found the little flask, it must have been thrown down through the window-space, I suppose.’ He gestured to where it had been lying on the ground.

I frowned at him. Once again there was something in his words I couldn’t place — some deduction that I knew I should have made, and which had escaped me. I must be getting old.

Trullius had misinterpreted my frown. ‘I’m afraid he’s also worked out that we cannot read, and now he is worried about Audelia’s note: whether someone in the forum might have overheard, and learned that there was likely to be a Vestal Virgin here.’

‘Do you still have that letter, by the way?’ I said. ‘I’d like to look at it, if only to make sure it did say what the amanuensis said it did.’

‘Of course we haven’t got it!’ The woman gave me a look, quite as poisonous as the sleeping draught had been. ‘It was Audelia’s writing-block. We gave it back to her while she was here.’ She crossed to one of the amphorae set into the ground, raised the lid and began to ladle olive oil into the cooking-bowl. ‘Anyway,’ she added, straightening up again, ‘it didn’t have her message on it any more. We let the amanuensis scratch it out and use the wax again, to write the letter to Paulinus — who of course returned it when he confirmed that he would come. So we gave it to its owner when we had the chance. What else would you expect?’ She moved as if to go back into the dwelling-rooms.

I stood between her and the doorway so that she couldn’t pass. She had come back of her own volition, but now that she was here I wanted her to help. ‘So how was it delivered to Paulinus and his wife? If you didn’t use Audelia’s mounted messenger?’

Priscilla shrugged. ‘A boy with a donkey in the forum who was looking for a job. We had the directions to the house, Audelia gave us those…’

‘Or rather, the amanuensis told you that she had?’ I corrected.

She ignored the interruption. ‘And the boy rode out with it. What else could we do? We don’t have a private messenger, and with such important people coming there was no house-slave to spare. Anyway, what difference did it make? Paulinus obviously got it — since he not only replied, but came the day that we had settled on.’

I looked at her steadily. ‘Are you quite sure of that?’

She still had not seen what I was driving at. ‘Of course he came here — I don’t know what you mean. Now if you’ll excuse-’

I cut her off again. ‘But how can you be certain it was him at all? Suppose your letter was delivered somewhere else — for example to the rebels in the wood — you would not know the difference. You can’t even be certain what message it contained. The amanuensis might have written anything he liked, and addressed it to anyone at all — saying, for instance, that the Vestal’s relatives were due to stay with you and inviting the rebels to come and take their place. Had either of you ever seen Paulinus in your life before?’

Trullius shook his head, quite stupefied at this. ‘Of course we hadn’t, citizen.’

‘But Audelia had,’ his wife put in, triumphantly. ‘Paulinus and his wife had visited the shrine to pray about their child. I told you that, before.’

Even then I had to spell it out to them. ‘Supposing that it was really Audelia who arrived? Who in this household would have known her face? You and your wife had not set eyes on her before, neither had Lavinia or her nurse, or even the raedarius who was to drive her back.’

Priscilla had suddenly seen the force of this and had turned deathly pale. ‘So she might have been an impostor too?’ She put her cooking-bowl down on a stool beside the door. ‘But what about the driver of the temple-coach in which she came to us? He would have known her, wouldn’t he?’

It was Trullius himself who saw the flaw in that. ‘That might depend on when he saw her last. Obviously the true Audelia set off from the shrine, but she wore a cape and veil when she was travelling and I presume he always did as he did here — drop her where she was staying, together with her guard, and go to the temple to find a bed for himself. So if a false Audelia got into the coach one day, he might not notice until she spoke to him — and from what we witnessed she did not generally do that. The changeover might easily have taken place somewhere.’

‘But surely…’ his wife began.

He shook his head. ‘Provided the substitute was roughly the same build, the coach-driver would see what he expected to, and what he had seen every other day. Why should he start to doubt? All you would need is a second set of robes — or something sufficiently similar to pass a casual glance. That would not be impossible to arrange. No one is going to go up close and start to scrutinize a Vestal Virgin’s clothes.’

‘You mean the murder might have taken place before they got to us at all?’ All at once the woman’s voice was bright with hope. ‘And the real Audelia’s headless body was already in the box?’ Her face fell suddenly. ‘But what about that giant horseman who was riding guard? He would have noticed if someone took her place. He’d been with her from the outset and he is not a fool.’

‘But he didn’t see Audelia after they got here!’ Trullius sounded quite excited now. ‘She was veiled when she arrived and didn’t stop to speak to anyone. You showed her to her room. He went off to the stable, just as he did tonight — and when she found the shoes were missing, she did not come down herself to tell him to go and find them the next day. She sent a message down, by that maidservant of hers.’

‘That’s right! The maidservant! What’s become of her? The one who overlooked the slippers when she packed the box? Puella, was she called?’ The landlady looked at me enquiringly. ‘She had been with Audelia all the way. She would have known if someone was impersonating her.’

I had to confess how Puella had mysteriously disappeared, and had last been seen riding in a farmer’s cart towards Corinium — and that I had chosen not to search for her. A farmer, I thought, rather guiltily. Paulinus was supposed to have a farm not very far from here. Was that significant?

Priscilla was not concerned with that. Her face was quite aglow. ‘You see? That maidservant was obviously a party to the plot. She left the wedding-shoes behind deliberately — on purpose so that the rider could be sent for them. And of course she made quite certain that he set off at first light, before the imitation Vestal had come down herself. So when the impostor got into the coach he wasn’t there, and… Dear Mars and Venus! We brought it down ourselves! The real Audelia was already murdered and headless in the box that you, husband, packed in next to her.’

Trullius was frowning. ‘Another of your theories! What was the impostor going to do? Jump out of the raeda when it was going along?’

Priscilla looked snubbed, but she said, with dignity, ‘Perhaps the first intention was that she should ride all the way and make her disappearance when they got to Glevum gate, but the citizen has just told us that the raeda stopped outside that basket-stall to let the troops go past — it’s obvious she seized the opportunity to slip out and escape.’

‘Dressed as a Vestal?’ Trullius put in.

She was not deflected from her argument. ‘If she took off that long white cloak, she needn’t have been wearing Vestal garments underneath. Especially if she had a wig with her, to hide the bridal plaits — false hair would draw no attention, even out of town. Wigs are becoming very fashionable these days: even poor Secunda had one, if I am any judge. Or perhaps the Vestal hairdo was a clever wig itself! Either way the impostor could quickly change her looks. There would be other people waiting to let the soldiers pass. She could simply have disappeared unnoticed into the crowd and made her way back to the rebels in the wood.’ She turned to me. ‘You’ve solved it, citizen.’