A Roman Ransom

Chapter Fourteen

Gods or not, I knew at once it was impossible for me to simply wait and see. I wanted to do something — anything! — which might help to resolve this mystery. Gwellia was gone! Marcus had been living with this sort of strain for days, and I began to see why he had been rushing to and fro, content to drive to Glevum twice in a single day. When you are consumed with worry, sitting still leaves too much time for thought. Action, of any sort, is comforting.

Yet what was there to do? I had planned to question Myrna, and that was not possible — not until she got here, anyway. I might have brought the other villa servants in and talked to them, perhaps, but it seemed that there was little they could add. Anyway, I was not convinced that I could concentrate.

I needed to do something physical — to be out beyond the walls, looking for some trace of Gwellia. I was desperate to visit the empty roundhouse, too, in case there was something that the page had missed — anything at all that might bring me closer to finding my missing wife. Yet clearly I was in no state to walk anywhere at all. And then a stratagem occurred to me.

‘If Myrna has had dealings with Lallius before, it’s probable her family would know. I wonder, Excellence, if it would be wise to go down there and round up the sister and the child, so we can question them. If you would give me transport, I could go down myself.’ He looked a little doubtful, and I added hastily, ‘I could look in at the roundhouse on the way, as well, in case there’s anything the page has overlooked.’

Marcus was still running his fingers through his hair. He looked at me sadly. ‘It might be useful to do as you suggest. I might come with you, too. Anything is better than simply waiting here.’

‘Then I may use the carriage, or a cart at least?’ I was glad of his suggestion that he’d accompany me. I am no rider, and I did not want a horse.

I rather expected him to agree at once, but all he answered was, ‘We’ll see what the doctor has to say.’

I thought I knew what Philades would say, and I was not mistaken. When he was summoned and his opinion asked, he was quick to declare that such an outing was not wise at all. ‘In the patient’s current state of health, it might even be dangerous,’ he finished, screwing his wrinkled face into a sneer.

‘Come now, medicus,’ I countered. ‘Only yesterday, as I understand, you were actually prescribing carriage rides. And it seems that you were right. That little journey in the cart has clearly done me good.’ In fact I was feeling as flimsy as a flower, but I was determined not to show it. I would investigate my wife’s disappearance if it took all the strength I had.

Before he could say another word, I had risen unsteadily to my feet and taken a faltering step towards the door. (I had to flash a warning glance at Junio, otherwise I knew he’d try to help, but I wanted to make my point and stand unaided.) When I had reached the safety of the wall, and could lean on it for support, I turned back to Philades. ‘You see?’

The doctor was still trying to frustrate my plan. ‘Libertus is still very weak,’ he said. ‘If he goes for a rocking trip, he should not go alone. I could accompany him, perhaps.’

I could think of nothing I would welcome less, but I need not have worried. ‘I’ll go with him myself,’ my patron said. ‘If Myrna has dealings with the coin inspector’s son it’s possible she knew about the kidnapping.’

‘Libertus suggested that to you?’ The doctor gave me another poisonous look.

Marcus ignored him. ‘It’s hard to credit it. We have been generous to that household. Apart from paying Myrna a very handsome sum, Julia used to buy the mother’s teething remedies, and sometimes other things as well. We always gave an extra as or two. And whenever she used to come here, bringing that little girl up to be fed, we never sent her home without some food. Even the day Julia went, they turned up here a little later on — the old woman had a basket of herbs and things to sell — and the steward gave them something even then, although of course he had to send them home.’

‘Myrna still had milk enough for two?’ I said.

‘Just as the mother once did and the sister too. It’s one of the recommendations for the job. I’m very keen to talk to the family, in fact, since there is nothing else that I can usefully do here, at least until this escort party comes. We’ll take a cart and bring them back with us. It isn’t far to go. A mile or two towards the town, I understand. My page will know exactly where to find the house; he’s been there several times. He can accompany us and show us where it is.’

‘And Junio?’ I ventured. The page would ride beside us, but Junio was on foot.

My patron almost smiled. ‘And Junio, of course, since you wish it. He can travel on the cart. It will save him squatting on the carriage floor, though Julia and I have often travelled with a slave like that.’

I saw Philades frown. I think he had been planning to invite himself along, but not at the price of riding on a cart.

Marcus in any case had other plans for him. ‘Philades, I’m leaving you in charge, in case the kidnappers attempt to be in touch again. If there is any message, you know where I have gone. Send one of the servants after me at once. I don’t expect the party from Glevum will arrive before we’re back, but if they do, see that the girl is securely locked up. There’s a room upstairs we sometimes use for slaves who are awaiting punishment. Put her in there, and put a guard on her, but make sure she doesn’t speak to any of the staff. I don’t want her concocting any further lies with them.’

It was almost comical to see the doctor’s face. He clearly wanted to come out with us, but he could hardly turn down Marcus’s request. ‘I am honoured, Excellence,’ he managed finally.

Once the decision had been made, our preparations did not take long. The carriage — as Malodius had said yesterday — was polished and ready, and only required a horse between the shafts. In no time at all it was waiting in the lane with Malodius grumbling in his cart behind.

With Junio’s help I struggled out, and was duly ensconced with pillows and a rug, though it cost me more effort than I wanted to admit.

I don’t know if rocking therapy is genuinely beneficial, but the motion of the carriage was not disagreeable. Marcus had pulled the leather curtain aside, and I leaned back on my cushions and looked out at the lane. There was not much to see. Damp trees, ragged with winter. A wretched, wandering dog. A peasant bent double under a pile of sticks. An arrogant young horseman who stopped to watch us pass. No sign of Gwellia, however hard I looked.

‘Nothing to see here, my old friend,’ my patron said. ‘It was a vain hope anyway.’ He looked pale and tense, and after that he said nothing more at all until we reached the enclosure where my roundhouse was.

Junio was already off the cart and opening the gate. He came to help me down, and at Marcus’s suggestion the page accompanied us. My heart was thumping as we went into the house — I was still hoping against hope that Gwellia might be there, or at least have left some message that only I would recognise. But there was nothing of the kind. Everything was exactly as the page had said — neat, tidied, empty, with the fire damped and cold. That was somehow more troubling than a fight-scene might have been: the embers are never usually permitted to go out. It is a tedious matter to make fire, and without it the house seemed dark, impersonal and chill. In any case I was half numb with grief.

I sent Junio on a scouting mission, but he soon returned. Nothing in the dye house either, or in the servants’ new sleeping room next door. Nothing in the well or in the food storage pits. (That was a small comfort, anway. We’d once discovered a dismembered corpse in there.) No one with the animals in the shelter at the back — all clamouring as if they had been shut up for the night. I instructed the two boys to take them food, but not to let them out.

I sat on my own stool and looked helplessly around. My wife had not taken any clothes with her, as far as I could see, or anything else except an ancient leather bag which was missing from its usual hook beside the door. Where was she? I dared not allow myself to think of what might be happening to her at this very hour. I would have done anything at all to bring her back, but I was powerless. I felt very old and lost. However, there was clearly nothing to be gained from sitting here, so when Junio and the page came back they helped me out to the carriage once again.

Marcus was not accustomed to being made to wait. He was peculiarly unsmiling and abrupt when we returned and I could see he was impatient to be off. ‘We must be on our way to Myrna’s if we’re going to go at all. I want to be back at the villa before the escort party comes. Very well, Pulcrus — ride on and lead the way.’

This time our progress was slower, though considerably more jolting and uncomfortable. We were no longer on the wide gravelled lane that leads to Marcus’s villa from the military road, but on the ancient, narrow, muddy track which is the old way into town. It is a shorter route, used by pedestrians and mules, but it was not designed for carriage wheels. It is narrow, full of rocks and roots, with muddy corners and vertiginous descents, and only negotiable by carriages with care. However, it was soon clear why we had come this way. The road wound past several isolated farms and little homesteads nestling by the lane. One of these was Myrna’s, by the look of it.

The building was rather a surprise. It was made of stone and square-built, like a Roman house, though it was low and squat and rather rambling. It was set back a little from the road, and as we came closer I could see that one end of it was sorely in decay. Part of the roof had fallen in, and grass and weeds were growing through the walls of what had obviously once been a stable.

Marcus looked at me and raised his brows. ‘Not the sort of place I expected at all,’ he said. It was the first thing he had said since I got back in the carriage. ‘Quite a substantial dwelling, in its day.’ He nodded to the page. ‘Well, go and fetch them out.’

The page swung obediently from his horse, gave Malodius the reins, and swaggered up the path towards the door. He peered inside, then raised his hand to knock. ‘Is anybody there?’ we heard him call.

As if in answer a ragged woman appeared from round the side. She trailed one grimy infant by the hand, and carried a second on her hip, while another was clearly on the way. She was thin, and had that worn and haggard look that many peasant mothers have. She stopped to speak to Pulcrus, and we heard her murmuring, and then he escorted her to us.

She sketched a clumsy bob, and launched into speech at once. Her Latin was fluent, if ungrammatical. ‘Pardon me, your mightiness, but I’ve been saying to your page it’s no good him hollering ’cause there’s no one there. I can’t account for it. Promised she’d have a remedy for me today, she did, for little Aldo here.’ She indicated the infant at her side. ‘See how his nose is running?’

Indeed it would have been difficult to miss. There was a slick of mucus extending to his chin and dribbling down on to his tunic-front. The child put his grimy thumb into his mouth and went on gazing solemnly at us.

Marcus dragged his eyes away from this wretched spectacle. ‘You don’t know where they’ve gone?’

‘I don’t know no more than you do. She said that she’d be here. Walked miles to get here, I have, and all to find her gone. Now what am I to do? I’ll have all five of them with snivels next, and I’ve got no clean tunics for them as it is.’

The idea of another three at home was frightening. ‘You could rub some hog’s grease on his chest,’ I ventured, remembering what the medicus had said.

Her look was pitying. ‘I might do if I had a hog,’ she said. ‘But where am I to find that sort of thing? I was hoping that the woman here might give me some — she’s not cheap, but she’ll help you now and then if you’re really short of money.’ She seemed to realise that this was hardly a concern to wealthy men like Marcus, and she added hastily, ‘Begging your pardon, mightiness, that is.’

However, her little outburst had given me a thought. I leaned as close to Marcus as I could and murmured in his ear, ‘You might offer her a few sesterces, Excellence, if she can tell us anything of use. I can speak to her in Celtic if you wish?’

Not soft enough! She heard me. ‘That would be much easier for me,’ she said, lapsing into the local dialect. It was not identical to mine, but I could understand it well enough. ‘Of course, I’ll tell you anything I can. What do you want to know?’

I passed this on to Marcus, who took out a silver coin and held it up between his finger and thumb so that she could see it. ‘About this family. .?’ he said, keeping his Latin very slow and clear. ‘A mother and two daughters, I believe?’

She nodded. ‘And the little granddaughters, of course. Myrna’s got one and Secunda has the twins — I don’t know how they manage to limit it to that. Perhaps it’s being a wet nurse does it, like they used to say.’

This rather puzzled me, and I asked her to explain, though when she did I rather wished that I had held my tongue.

‘Feeding a child is supposed to prevent you falling for another one — I thought everyone knew that — though Jove knows it didn’t work for me. Course, Myrna hasn’t got a husband now — he drowned down at the ford, poor thing, before the child was born.’

‘Myrna had a husband?’ I exclaimed. Of course, I should have thought of it before — where there are children there must have been a man — but all the same it came as a surprise.

She gave me a pitying look. ‘Well, naturally she did — those two girls may not be citizens, but they’re respectable. Their mother saw to that. Not that she had an easy time herself. Widowed twice, poor woman, but she managed to survive. Of course she was always handy with herbs, and she used to help women when they came to birth — I believe her mother used to do the same. First husband was a proper brute, from what I hear of him, but he fell down a well one night and left her penniless. But she wouldn’t be defeated — went as midwife to a family in the town, and when the mother died in childbirth she stayed on as wet nurse to the babe. They didn’t pay her much, I understand, but at least it kept a roof over her head.’

‘Quite a substantial roof, by the look of it.’ I gestured to the house.

‘Oh, that was her second husband. He was a cart-maker, and pretty well-to-do — you can tell that from the house — but then he cut his hand. Got poison in it, and wouldn’t heal. He was doing less and less, but it killed him in the end and after that she was on her own. Brought up the two girls, though — and taught them a trade. Said the world would always be in want of nurses.’

Marcus was looking enquiringly at me, so I gave him the gist of it. He frowned and said in Latin, ‘I thought that she took nurslings in?’

The woman understood him, and turned back to me. ‘Oh, that was later, when the girls were growing up. She did try taking passing travellers in — the house was big enough — but it wasn’t very safe with only women in the house, so she started taking children in instead. Paid a farmer’s wife to wet-nurse them till Secunda was old enough to wed — since then of course they’ve done it all themselves. Mind you,’ she added, looking at the coin, ‘I’m only telling you what people say. I’ve only known her for the last few years.’

‘And how exactly did you come to meet her?’ I enquired.

She gave me that pitying look again. ‘She still helps at birthings, and she helped at mine. My eldest would have killed me else, I think, and it looks as if I’ll need her help again.’ She hitched up the squirming child at her hip and looked despairingly at her bulging waist. ‘And I buy her remedies. Magical, they are. Croup, colic, teething pains, you name it, she’s got a cure for it. And she’s reliable.’ She looked behind her at the empty house. ‘Usually she is, at any rate. But this morning, it seems, she isn’t here. It’s very strange. There’s usually somebody about — if only the elder sister and her two little ones, come to mind the baby. But I can’t wait any longer; I shall have to go. I’ve left the other four youngsters in the roundhouse on their own and I’m afraid that they’ll fall into the fire.’

I relayed all this to Marcus, who held up the coin again, saying as he did so, ‘You’ve looked round the back?’

This time she seemed uneasy, but she answered him direct. ‘There’s nobody about. There is a little courtyard behind the house. I heard a noise and thought they might be there, but there was no one to be seen. I was just giving up and deciding that I’d go home again when you came. That’s all I know, I swear by all the gods. I didn’t go inside.’ She tugged at her son, who was pulling at her skirts, ‘Don’t fidget, Aldo. We’ll be going home soon.’

She reached for the sestertius, but I prevented her. ‘A noise? What sort of noise?’ I said, using Latin too so that my patron understood.

She looked away and shrugged. ‘A sort of squeak,’ she said. ‘Rats, probably. Most likely from the stable end they never use. I didn’t go to look. Obviously they wouldn’t be in there. The place is dangerous. The son-in-law has taken all the carts — they were given as a dowry when Secunda wed, because her husband’s got a little business on this side of town. Then there was a storm and half the roof fell down. They keep odd sacks of corn and things in there, but otherwise they haven’t used the place for years.’

I was thinking furiously. It occurred to me that a space like that would make a splendid prison, if it could be secured. I could think of no reason why the missing women should be here, but I could not overlook the possibility. I turned to Marcus.

‘All the same,’ I said, ‘I think it would be worth our while to look. It’s possible there might be something there.’

I didn’t say that it might be our wives, but perhaps he had worked out something of the kind himself, because he said very quickly, ‘Junio, go and search. You too, Pulcrus. And Malodius — you go the other way. If anyone is there you can cut off their escape.’

Malodius got down, glowering, from his perch, and went to guard the path on which the woman had appeared. Junio went round the other way towards the ruined block, while Pulcrus — at my suggestion — went into the house.

‘See if there’s another exit to the rear,’ I said. ‘We don’t want anyone escaping by that route.’ Then I got down from the carriage and painfully took up a position at the gate: I was a deterrent there, I told myself, although I should have been little use if anyone had actually tried to vie with me. The woman glanced nervously at me.

Aldo was snivelling again. ‘Saving your presence, mightiness,’ the mother said, addressing herself to Marcus and ignoring me, ‘if you have no further use for me, can I take the children home? Aldo’s getting fretful and the baby needs a feed, and there are the others to think about as well. You can find me at my roundhouse if you want me any more.’

Marcus nodded, and tossed the sestertius to the ground. Aldo was on it like a flash, and she was obliged to prise it from his hand. ‘We’re grateful, mightiness,’ she said, dropping it into a patently light purse. ‘Aldo, say thank you to the gentlemen.’

The suggestion sent him huddling to her skirts, but at least it stopped his tears, and with hasty apologies she led him off and we saw them disappearing through the trees.

They were hardly out of sight, however, before Junio came running back to us. His face was ashen and he was breathing hard.

‘Excellence! Master!’ His shout brought Pulcrus rushing from the house. ‘There’s someone here all right. She. . they. .’ He shook his head. ‘I think perhaps you’d better come and see.’