A Coin for the Ferryman

Chapter Eight

We got back to the roundhouse to find signs that someone had been very busy while we were away. The earth path from the front gate had been swept clear of weeds and stones, all the way through the enclosure to the door, and fresh new piles of brushwood kindling were stacked neatly on each side. Even as I sat wondering at this proof of industry, Maximus and Minimus came running out and I was handed down from the cart with as much care as if I had been the Emperor himself, while Kurso scrambled down beside me and looked doubtfully around.

‘You see what we’ve been doing, master?’ Maximus began, and Minimus went on.

‘It was the mistress who suggested it. We brought some water from the stream for her. .’

‘. . and we were to brush the path and fetch some kindling while she went off to wash. .’

‘. . and then stand by to help you to get ready when you came.’

They were so enthusiastic that they made me smile. I had almost forgotten that I had this extra pair of slaves (at least until Marcus came back from Rome) and I had expected that they would find my household difficult at first. Their duties at the villa had been decorative ones, largely confined to fetching trays and announcing visitors (rather as Niveus was doing now). They were used to Roman comforts and convenience, not a smoky Celtic roundhouse with a central hearth. No fine mosaics and Roman plumbing here — every drop of water had to be brought up from the stream and all the cooking took place on the fire. Of course a slave must expect to do anything he’s asked, but these two were not accustomed to hard and heavy work.

‘Well’ — I turned to Kurso — ‘it appears the mistress has two pairs of willing hands, so she won’t need your help for the time being. You can go back to the garden and leave these boys to do the other work — obviously they’re very good at it.’

I had intended this as praise for them, but Kurso was as pleased as anyone. He flashed me a delighted smile, and set off for his beloved plants and animals. I saw him disappearing into the enclosure at the back, where immediately a cluster of hungry chickens started pecking at his heels. As I watched he picked up the waiting bowl of kitchen scraps and scattered that, while the goat came over to butt him in the back and claim a share. He looked back and grinned at me, the very embodiment of a happy man.

I turned to the redheads. ‘You two have settled in?’

For answer they led me to the servants’ sleeping room — an extra building which we’d added recently, between the dye-hut and the front door of the house. It was small and snug, with walls of woven osiers daubed with mud and clay, and a neat thatched roof to keep the weather out — a sort of miniature roundhouse in itself — but I wondered how a pair of Marcus’s slaves would take to it.

However, when I peered inside, I saw that they had made themselves at home. Taking their cue from what the other slaves had done, they had selected a vacant piece of floor, piled it with fresh reeds to make a sort of bed, and spread their woollen cloaks on top of it to create a covering. On the floor was a set of ‘finger-stones’ — five knucklebones which must have come from the villa kitchen at some time and were probably their only possessions, apart from what they wore — with which they clearly had been playing when the cart arrived.

They saw the direction of my glance, and flushed.

‘We had a minute, master. .’ Maximus began.

‘. . just before you came.’ Minimus darted forward to put the bones away. ‘This is not a sign of idleness.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll go and see your mistress. You finish off your game, but be sure you’re listening to hear me when I call. I shall need you in a little while.’

I left them to their knucklebones and went into the roundhouse proper on my own, blinking against the smoky darkness of the room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I looked around, revelling in the dear, familiar attributes of home: Gwellia’s weaving loom set up against the wall, its stone weights pulling the fabric into shape; the stools set cosily round the fire, and the sides of meat that I had hung last autumn on the beams above, so that the swirling smoke would cure and preserve them for our winter food.

Gwellia was standing with Cilla on the far side of the room, facing away from me. She was clearly unaware that I had arrived, largely because her face and shoulders were muffled in a dress which the maidservant was in the act of pulling over them. Her bare legs were visible right up to the thighs — still very shapely for a woman of her age.

My guess about her preparations for the banquet had been right: there was evidence that she had stripped herself and washed from head to toe. A shallow basin of water was still set beside the hearth, and the robe which Cilla was now tugging down into place was a fine new stola from the marketplace. Normally Gwellia wore clothes made from the Celtic plaid she wove herself, but today was a special occasion and she was dressing for the banquet like the Roman citizen that she had become.

The new robe suited her. It was of a pale rose-madder pink, which showed off the natural darkness of her hair and eyes. She looked magnificent.

‘Gwellia?’

She looked round. I had half expected a rebuke for being at the villa for so long, but she was smiling as she turned about, and twirled to show her stola to best effect.

‘You like it? You don’t think the colour is too strong?’

I thought of the painted dancing girls and smiled. ‘It is beautiful. And so are you.’

She looked away and picked up a silver pendant that I had given her, and made as if to fasten it round her neck. ‘There was trouble at the villa? You were away such a time. I was beginning to get concerned for you. It is not so long since you were very ill.’ It was her way of offering a mild reproof.

I sat down on the three-legged stool beside the fire, and began to unlace my sandal straps. ‘It’s quite a story,’ I said. I told her briefly what had happened at the house.

She listened, the pendant still dangling from her hands. ‘A murdered man? Just where the new house was going to be? Poor Junio! And. .’ She stopped, shaking her head and looking seriously at me.

I put my feet into the bowl. The water was cold and not especially clean but it was very soothing. ‘Poor Julia, as well. She is convinced it is an omen for their journey overseas.’ I wriggled my toes to rinse the dust from them. ‘She even asked Marcus if they really had to go.’

Gwellia made no direct response to this. She motioned towards Cilla with a warning frown. It was meant for me, but the girl took it as a signal to do the pendant up: she stood on tiptoe and reached to fasten it, but it took her several tries to fix the clasp, even though my wife leaned forward to make it easier. I saw that the poor girl’s hands were trembling.

I realised then what Gwellia had been signalling to me. ‘I’m sorry, Cilla. Of course the new roundhouse is to be your home as well.’

She glanced at me and I saw that her eyes were wet with tears. ‘Oh, master,’ she burst out. ‘This corpse. They’ll be sure and bury it before Lamuria, won’t they? Even if they don’t know who it is?’

Gwellia raised her eyebrows and looked across at me. ‘I expect they’re hoping that they’ll discover very soon. I’m sure they want your master to find that out for them and that is what has kept him all this while?’ It was only half a question.

I nodded and she sighed.

‘I wish they would not go on making these demands on you,’ she said. ‘It is not good for your health. But, I suppose, since it is Marcus who is asking you. .’

Refusal would be even more injurious to my health, is what she meant.

‘I would want to do it in any case, for Junio’s sake,’ I said. ‘And Cilla’s too, of course.’

The slave girl did not meet my eyes. She looked down at the floor, where she was drawing circles on the earth-dust with her toe. At last she said, ‘I don’t want to push myself forward, master, but you’ve used my help before. If I can do anything to assist you this time, let me know. Slave or not, I’ll do whatever I can.’

I was about to ask her gently what she thought she could do, but she was too quick for me. ‘You are always saying that there are things that servants can find out that aren’t so easy for a citizen. I could ask questions in the villa, while I’m there.’ She sounded eager. ‘There’s one of the kitchen slaves in particular I used to know well. .’

‘Cilla,’ I said gently, ‘tonight you will be freed. You are invited to the banquet to signify the fact. After that you won’t be a servant any more. You’ll be a free woman, betrothed to a free man — to a citizen, indeed.’

‘You mean my friend isn’t likely to confide in me again?’ Cilla sounded shocked, as if this aspect of her new existence had not previously occurred to her. ‘She’ll think that I’ve joined the owner class and treat me differently?’

It was almost exactly what I’d meant, but I said, ‘You can hardly go wandering into the villa kitchens unaccompanied, in any case. It isn’t the sort of thing an invited visitor can do. And you will be a guest tonight and not a slave — a special guest, in fact.’ I scooped some water up into my hands and rinsed my lower legs.

Cilla’s usually cheerful, plump young face creased in an unhappy frown. Then all at once it cleared. ‘But I’m not invited till the final course,’ she said. ‘I’m still a slave till then, so I could talk to her. I could even go and show my tunic off. It’s a nice one that my former mistress Julia sent for me — a lady’s tunic, all the way down to the ground instead of stopping at the knees the way servants’ tunics do. My friend would like to see it. When I was working at the villa we always talked about the things we would wear and the colours we would choose, if we could buy our freedom and have any clothes we liked. “Anything but this old greeny-brown,” she used to say. .’

‘Very well, Cilla,’ my wife interrupted. Cilla had a tendency to enliven her reports by imitating the voices of the people she described — she’d captured the adenoidal tones of her friend the kitchen maid quite comically, I thought, but Gwellia, for once, did not seem inclined to smile. ‘You obviously have an interest in the matter,’ she said seriously, ‘and if you can help your master to clear it up, I should be very pleased, for his sake as well as yours. What do you say, husband?’

It was clearly not a moment for levity. I turned to Cilla and tried to look properly severe. ‘You may question the servants at the villa, if you have the chance. But you are not to go anywhere unaccompanied, or make yourself a nuisance in any way at all.’

She looked chastened. ‘Very well, master. I won’t let you down,’ she said, and Gwellia rewarded me with an approving nod.

Great gods, I was in danger of being ruled by women here! I felt the need to assert authority. I clapped my hands and raised my voice a notch. ‘Maximus! Minimus! I need a drying cloth!’

The result was very soothing. I had hardly got the words out before the boys were at the door, though Cilla had to point out where the clean rags were kept, hanging in a bag beside the wall. Each boy selected a likely piece of cloth, and then came across to kneel beside me, one on either side.

‘You should have called us earlier, master. .’ Minimus began

‘. . we would have washed your feet.’ And as if to prove it they each seized one of my legs, and attempted to outdo each other as they rubbed them dry. I feared they would upset me from my stool, such was their eagerness to prove themselves of use.

I held up a staying hand. ‘You first, Maximus!’ Deliberately, I presented my right leg to him, and indicated that he should pat that very gently dry, before I permitted his companion to do the other one. Minimus added a light massage to his ministrations. I have never felt so foolish, or so cosseted.

‘Will you be changing for the banquet, master?’ Maximus enquired.

I was just about to shake my head — I was wearing my best toga already — but Gwellia was far too quick for me.

‘He will change his under-tunic. I have had his white one cleaned. So you can help him strip and wash from head to toe. Empty the bowl, and he can stand in it. There is a jug of fresh water by the door that you can pour over him.’ She saw my look of slight unwillingness — Junio had washed me just the day before — and as they hastened outside with the bowl she turned smilingly to me. ‘Marcus is bestowing a compliment on this house — on Junio and Cilla in particular, of course, but on us as well. Any Roman would have bathed and changed and you must do the same. And, Cilla, your master has said that you may ask the servants questions if you like, but even if you learn something of interest, you’ll wait till afterwards to tell him what it is, and not interrupt the banquet. Ah, husband, here’s your wash.’

I stood up and rather reluctantly took my tunic off and stepped into the empty bowl the boys placed at my feet. I mustered what dignity I could — a naked man is always at a disadvantage in a situation of this kind.

‘Remember, Cilla, it is vital that this evening goes off without a hitch,’ I said, addressing the girl over Minimus’s head, as he clambered on the stool with the big jug in his hand and formed a sort of human screen between us. ‘Any breaking of the rules and the ritual will be spoiled. You might not get your freedom after all. It might be regarded as another bad omen, too. So don’t get so interested in your quest that you fail to join us at the proper — aargh! — time.’ The water was extremely cold.

Cilla nodded. ‘I’ll be very careful.’ She turned her attention to her mistress’s hair.

‘In any case there probably isn’t very much to learn,’ I said, the words coming in little jerks as Maximus rubbed my back with energy. ‘If there were rumours at the villa I’d have heard when I was there, but there were none at all, not even when they thought the body was a simple peasant girl. One of Julia’s servants said as much to me.’ I seized the cloth that Maximus held out and wrapped it round my vitals as I spoke, waiting for lanky Minimus to climb down from his perch and rub the rest of me.

However, the expected pleasant friction did not come. I looked round. Both the boys were gazing at me in astonishment.

Minimus, as usual, was the first to speak. ‘You’re talking of rumours at our villa, master?’ He clambered off his stool.

The older boy added, incredulously, ‘A body, did you say?’