A Coin for the Ferryman

Chapter Seven

Aulus was sitting glumly in his cell, gazing through the window-opening at the lane, the very picture of bored disgruntlement. At our approach, however, he lumbered to his feet.

‘Ah, citizen pavement-maker, I’ve been expecting you. One of the maidservants said that you were on your way.’ He did not look particularly enchanted to see me. His sweaty, swarthy face was creased into a frown and he was fondling his favourite cudgel as he spoke. Not that he intended any harm to us — Aulus would not dare to threaten Marcus’s guests — but he was put there to intimidate, and he was good at it.

Kurso looked terrified and sidled close to me.

Aulus ignored him. ‘What was it you wanted this time, citizen? You don’t expect me to help you in that business of the corpse? They didn’t bring it near this gate. It came in through the farm.’

So that was the reason for his unhappy scowl! The gatekeeper had nothing to report, for once, and was disappointed by the lack of opportunity to earn a coin or two. I tried a little flattery — it had paid off with him before.

‘It may be that you can give us some information all the same,’ I said. ‘I know your sharp eyes, Aulus. There isn’t very much that happens in the lane that escapes your notice. I’m interested in what went on before today. There may be something you saw which didn’t seem important at the time.’

It worked. Something that might have been a smile half spread across his face. It gave him the appearance of a crafty bear. Aulus had cunning, if not intelligence. ‘Well, tell me what you want to know. I’ll do my best.’ He leaned towards me, as if to listen hard, and the smell of stale onions took my breath away.

I took a step backwards to retreat from it, almost flattening Kurso, who had done the same. ‘I want to know how the body got to where it was. So, did you notice any unusual carts or other transport in the lane?’ I said, in my best official tone. ‘Two days ago in particular.’

Aulus thought a moment, screwing up his face. ‘As long ago as that? Don’t know if I can help you, citizen. There’s been a lot of extra traffic coming to and fro, especially with this important visitor from Rome. My memory isn’t always what it was.’ His tongue came out and flicked around his lips.

I knew that little nervous trick. It meant he scented money. I sighed. ‘I’m sure your master would agree to a reward,’ I said, ‘if there is anything really useful you can call to mind.’

‘Well, citizen, I’ll see what I can do.’ Aulus made a pretence at struggling to recall, which would not have fooled a baby. ‘Unusual vehicles?’ he said at last. ‘Depends what you mean by unusual, I suppose. That was the day the master had a banquet for his guest — no end of councillors and important people from the town, most in hired litters, but two of them had private carriages. Then there were the entertainers — they came in a cart — and there was the slave-trader who called and sold the master another page. He had a little cart with Niveus aboard. Is this the sort of thing you want to know?’

‘Exactly what I wanted!’ I summoned up a smile. The promise of money had revived his memory quite remarkably. I only prayed that Marcus would agree to pay the bribe. ‘Kurso, I hope you’re listening to this. I’ll have to remember all the details later on, so I can talk to the people who own the vehicles.’

Kurso flashed a frightened look at me. I could see that it was hopeless. Junio would have taken in the facts and helped me reconstruct the list when I got home, but poor little Kurso was so terrified, I doubted he would remember much more than his name.

But Aulus hadn’t finished. ‘And then there were the extra deliveries, of course — Marcus had ordered in some special wine from town, and all sorts of delicacies from the marketplace. There was a man with oysters and another with larks. Then there was a wagon of extra olive oil — not that the tradesmen came to the front gate, but I can see from here to where the back road branches off, so unless they come across the foot-tracks, the way they brought your corpse, I get to see almost everyone who ever comes and goes.’ With that wily expression in his close-set eyes, Aulus looked more than ever like a bear — if a bear could ever be said to look self-satisfied.

I nodded. ‘Very good,’ I said, although it wasn’t good at all. It could take weeks to check on all of this, and I didn’t have the time. It would be the Lemuria in less than three days. If I was to solve the problem of the dead boy’s identity, and soothe the vengeful spirits, I must do it very soon. I turned to the gatekeeper. ‘You’re sure that’s all the carts there were?’

I meant to be ironic, but it was lost on Aulus. ‘Well — there was the hired baggage wagon and another cart that Lucius had engaged. He is going to travel with Marcus and Julia when they go, but he has sent a lot of his luggage on ahead, with his chief slave riding with it to make sure it arrives — though Lucius kept fussing round it, giving different orders right up to the end. Marcus and Julia decided to take advantage of the cart and send off some of their belongings too — things the family will need when they’re in Rome. It’ll speed up the journey when they leave, I suppose, not having to slow the carriage to let the heavy goods catch up — though I expect they’ll take a wagonful of slaves with them anyway.’

‘But the baggage wagons came from the villa, surely?’ I put in pointedly. ‘They weren’t just passing by?’

He shook his shaggy locks. ‘Well, neither were the others, if it comes to that. They were all coming to the villa or taking things away. “Unusual carts or other transport in the lane” was what you said. You didn’t say anything about passing by.’ He was affronted now, jutting his chin forward and glowering at me.

I hastened to placate him. ‘Perhaps I should have done. Though anything you’ve told me may be useful in the end. But — was there anything?’

He humphed. ‘There was that trapper from the forest with a wagonload of skins — I think that was the day — heading for the tanner’s by the look and smell of it. And a farmer from the hills who seems to go past every day, with a cart full of something for the market in the town. I think that’s all there was. All that I can remember, anyway, that could possibly have been carrying a corpse.’

I looked at Aulus, and caught him glancing maliciously at me. I was by no means certain that a silver coin would not have wrung a little more from him, but I had none to offer. ‘So nothing really unusual at all?’ I said. ‘Nothing that mightn’t have gone past on any day? Nobody you didn’t recognise by sight?’

‘I’m afraid not, citizen. I only wish I did have something more helpful to report. I’d be glad to have a little extra in my purse.’ He bestowed another whiff of onions on me, as he shoved his big face close to mine and gave me a gigantic, knowing wink. ‘You won’t forget to mention that I did my best?’

‘I shall tell my patron exactly what you said when I see him at the banquet later on. In the meantime, keep on the alert. If you see anything suspicious, or if you remember something that might have slipped your mind, make sure you let me know. Now, where’s that little slave of mine? It’s time for us to go.’

‘Here, m-m-master.’ Kurso was at the doorway, where he’d retreated, cowering. He looked at the brutish gatekeeper with uncertain eyes. I could understand his feelings, to a point. Aulus was so much bigger, he could have eaten him for lunch.

However, one cannot encourage timidity in a slave. ‘Come, Kurso,’ I said briskly. ‘Attend me down the lane.’ I gestured to Aulus, who was standing motionless. ‘And you, doorkeeper, may escort us through the gate. I have already taken leave of my patron and his wife.’

Aulus looked surly, but he undid the gate and ushered us outside.

I turned to him. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen the villa cart come back? Your mistress was promising us a lift if it was here. Though I suppose it would have gone round to the rear — it was bringing the entertainers for tonight.’

He shook his head. ‘I would have noticed it. I told you, I can see everything from my guardroom.’

‘Even if you were talking to someone at the time?’ Aulus had not had his eye to the spyhole while I was in the room.

He didn’t answer for a moment. Even Aulus could see the implication of my last remark. He wiped a fat hand across his massive face. ‘I would have heard it,’ he said defiantly. ‘Just as I would have heard anyone who drove past the other day, whatever you might think. Horses and wheels make a clatter in the lane, and that wagon, in particular, is a noisy one. I’ll bet a quadrans, citizen, that cart has not come back.’

In this, at least, he was demonstrably right, for even as he spoke the cart in question turned the corner of the lane and lumbered into view, with such a squeaking and clattering, such a thudding of hooves and juddering of wheels, that only a deaf man would not have noticed it.

Aulus flung me a triumphant glance. He didn’t say, ‘You see?’ but his smirk conveyed the message with perfect clarity. ‘You wish me to stop it, citizen, before it goes round to the back? So you and your slave can ride back to your house?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but set off down the lane, gesticulating at the driver as he went.

The wagon stopped, and there was a whispered consultation in the lane, with Aulus motioning towards me with his thumb, and the driver countering by gesturing at his human cargo with his whip. However, a decision was obviously reached, and in my favour too, because presently the passengers began to climb down from the cart.

They were a striking collection. Two handsome, muscular young men in leather skirts, who moved and looked like acrobats, and an ageing one who certainly did not; a pair of stunted men with exaggerated beards and straggling haircuts, who might have been a form of comic turn; and lastly a group of chattering young women — most genuinely Iberian from the look of them, with the typical striking red-blond colouring of Celts from that part of the Empire, though there were one or two with darker skin and hair. All of them were comely. Aulus was ogling them as they got down from the cart, and I found that I was staring at them too.

They invited stares. Their skin was powdered almost white, and they were wearing so much lamp-black round their eyes and wine lees rubbed into their lips and cheeks that I could see it even where I stood. They wore their hair luxuriously long, hanging free around their shoulders in a way no self-respecting Roman maiden would consider (although the effect was very pleasing, in an erotic sort of way). Their costume, too, was not of a modest nature, not only because of the boldness of the dyes — I noted reds and orange, yellow, pinks and greens — but because it was of a daring cut as well, with little tunic-skirts that barely reached their thighs and necklines that almost reached their waists. The floating scarves of different colours suspended from their belts gave only the illusion of covering their legs: at the slightest movement it did nothing of the sort.

They were moving a great deal as they climbed down from the cart, and Aulus was almost salivating at the sight. However, as each one reached the ground, an older woman, who seemed to be in charge, handed her an ankle-length brown cloak, and when all had descended she hustled them off towards the back gate of the house. Even then they walked with a kind of conscious, swaying gait that made the long, drab cloaks look sensual.

Aulus watched them go, lust and disappointment written on his face, and it was a long moment before he walked back to me. ‘The driver will turn the cart round and then he’ll take you home. And your little kitchen slave as well — supposing that he ever shuts his mouth again, that is.’

I turned to Kurso. I had forgotten him. He too was staring after the departing girls. He caught my eye and closed his jaw, which had dropped in what I thought was admiration for their looks.

I was wrong. ‘All those p-p-proper dancing girls?’ He sounded awed. He saw my face, and hastened to explain. ‘My former m-m-master had a s-s-single dancer at a b-b-banquet once, and said she c-c-cost too much to use again. And your p-p-patron. .’ He coloured and tailed off.

It was surprising, when you thought of it. Marcus was famously careful with his wealth. The entertainment at his feasts was more likely to be a local poet, or a group of tumbling dwarves, than any sophisticated group like this. These were expensive dancers, you could tell that at a glance: their dyer’s bill alone would have kept our household for a year.

I laughed. ‘Attempting to impress his cousin Lucius, I expect. I hear that they have entertainments between every course at court, and presumably the rest of Rome follows suit. In the best households, anyway. Obviously Marcus wants to prove that he can do the same, and for once he doesn’t care about the cost.’

Aulus gave me a sideways look. ‘It’s more than that. It’s rumoured that Lucius is on the lookout for unusual acts that he can take back to amuse the Emperor. He has already sent one act on its way to Rome with his chief slave and baggage. Apparently there is a lack of novelty at court. Commodus is tired of his freaks and naked dancing girls, and bored with people fighting to the death for him, so providing something different is a route to quick reward. They’ve had entertainments here every night since Lucius arrived.’

I frowned. ‘There’s nothing very different about tonight’s performers, though. High-class and expensive, but not unusual. If the Emperor’s been used to nude extravaganzas, this will seem very tame. There must be dozens of Iberian dancing girls in Rome.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Aulus spat noisily into the dust. ‘I just know there were some performers here the other night, and Lucius offered them a chance to go to Rome. And after that, of course, every entertainer in Britannia wants to come, in case they catch his eye. The master could have had his pick of the best acts in the province and paid them only an as or two apiece. He knows a bargain when he sees one — I expect that’s what he’s done.’ He glanced towards the back lane to the villa, where the dancing girls had disappeared from view, and bared his teeth in an unpleasant grin. ‘Not that I shall see them. You will be the one to benefit, at the feast tonight.’ He leaned forward and the smell of bad teeth came wafting over me. ‘You’ll tell me afterwards if they were any good?’

I nodded nervously and edged away. Aulus’s cudgel was not the only thing about him that could knock a man sideways. ‘Of course,’ I promised weakly, hoping that he would not want too many salacious details. ‘But now I see the driver has turned the cart round, and it is time I went home, or I shan’t be ready in time to come back later on. Come, Kurso!’

‘And you won’t forget to tell the master. .?’ the gatekeeper began, but I left him to it, and drove home to Gwellia.