A Roman Ransom

Chapter Twenty

‘Master?’ Junio was looking concerned and mystified, as though he were afraid that I was feverish again.

I shook my head, unwilling to commit myself any more as yet.

I turned towards Porphyllia, who was still standing with her tray, trying to look at once flirtatious and demure — neither of which were natural attributes of hers. ‘Now, listen carefully,’ I said. ‘You say that you saw Marcellinus take an airing in the court. But are you sure of that? It seems to me that what you saw was just a muffled child. Were you close enough to see his face?’

The girl looked from me to Junio, as if alarmed that I had suddenly gone mad and she might need protection. ‘But, citizen, of course it was Marcellinus I saw. Who else could it possibly have been?’ She drew her breath in sharply and her eyes got very wide. ‘You aren’t suggesting that the gods sent some sort of changeling in his place? I’ve heard about that kind of thing, of course, but I never thought I would live to see. .’

‘Not exactly that,’ I interrupted soberly. ‘But something not so very different, perhaps. So I’m asking you again. Were you close enough to recognise his face?’ I could see that she was ready to burst into speech again, but I prevented her by holding up my hand. ‘Think carefully before you answer me. It is very easy to see what you expect.’

I had the satisfaction of seeing her reflect, and the dumpling face furrow into a troubled frown. ‘Well, I’m almost sure. . though, now you come to mention it, I couldn’t swear before the gods that it wasn’t possibly a changeling that I saw. It certainly looked like Marcellinus, though — that’s all I can say. And surely his mother would have noticed it — after all, she was right there at his side.’

I glanced at Junio, and saw that he was following my thoughts, with a look of dawning understanding on his face. He nodded at me, mouth agape, and turned away to add some more fuel to the brazier which was burning down to chilly embers now.

I turned to Porphyllia again. ‘And that’s another thing,’ I said. ‘Did you see Julia, or just a woman in a cloak? If it was as chilly as you say, presumably she was wrapped up too?’

Porphyllia stared at me. ‘Well, I suppose she had her hood pulled up. But, citizen, I would know the mistress anywhere. It isn’t like a baby — the gods don’t steal adults for sport. Anyway, she is conspicuous; you would know her in a crowd. From her hair if nothing else — even with her hood on you can always see a little of her hair, and there is no one else I know who has blond hair like that. And I remember distinctly seeing it that day.’

‘But it’s a wig,’ I said. ‘You told us that yourself.’

She looked abashed. ‘I can’t believe that it was anybody else. It was her cloak and stola, I am sure of that. I remember thinking that I’d have to clean them afterwards, if she let her hems drag in the mud. The fuller’s boy had been the day before, and I didn’t fancy taking them myself. It’s a long walk at this time of year, when it is cold and windy on the road.’

‘But don’t I remember you remarking that, while she was in the court, she accidentally let her ankles show? A bad omen, you called it at the time.’

‘It wasn’t Julia, then! My former mistress was very careful about things like that,’ Cilla burst in unexpectedly. ‘I remember how she would rehearse the things she had to do each day — clamber into a carriage for example, or climb public stairs — and reject a stola as unsuitable if she thought it might reveal immodest glimpses of her feet. We slaves would grumble and make jokes behind her back. Sometimes it would take her ages to decide.’

‘And she is no different now — as Porphyllia told us a short time ago.’ I felt as if someone had lit a candle in my brain — suddenly the mists had departed from my mind and I could see things clearly as I used to do. ‘We know that Julia rejected at least one stola on that day because it was too short. And yet when she was in the court, her dress allows a piece of leg to show sufficiently for her maids to notice it. That suggests to me that Cilla may be right, and the second time it wasn’t Julia at all.’

Junio had worked out the implications of all this. ‘You mean, the kidnapping didn’t happen that afternoon at all?’ He was standing near the brazier with a piece of wood, ready to put it on the fire, but he was frozen into immobility.

I nodded slowly. ‘I think it may have happened earlier, while Julia was out. That’s much more likely, isn’t it, in every way? Someone stopped her carriage, perhaps, and forced her out of it. And when it returned here, it brought back, not Julia, as everyone supposed, but somebody dressed up to take her place.’

Prophyllia put the tray down on the table with a clang. ‘But that’s preposterous. A thousand pardons, citizen — I mean. . impossible. How could an impostor get in past the gate?’

‘It seems at first sight to be an enormous risk, I know,’ I said. ‘But I think it might be possible if it was planned with enough care. Julia was going out for a visit in the morning to see friends. She wore a veil, you say?’

Porphyllia seemed inclined to take this as a personal affront. ‘She’s done so off and on the whole time I’ve been here,’ she said, in a defensive tone. ‘Depended who she was visiting, I think, and where. Though Cilla here will tell you different, I expect.’

Cilla shook her head. ‘I have known her wear one, in winter especially. She used to say cold weather chapped her cheeks. Or when she was visiting a Roman home where there was an older woman in the house. It’s what the older ones expect, when you are a matron with a child. Julia wouldn’t cause gossip in the town — it might reflect on Marcus. Though she resented it. “What’s the point of taking pains with how you look if no one’s going to see you anyway?” she’d say. But it didn’t totally conceal her face, as soon as you got close enough to see.’

‘Which explains why Aulus was distracted from his post when the carriage came back through the gate,’ I said — and then remembered that Cilla didn’t know the tale. ‘He was told that there were strangers hiding in the bushes up the lane so naturally he went along to look, while Julia and the carriage came inside — to safety, as he thought. Of course, no one paid much attention at the time, but in the light of what happened afterwards it seemed that there might really have been someone lurking there. But suppose it was a fiction, entirely designed to draw him for a moment from his post? It would allow the still-veiled “Julia” to alight and go inside while his attention was on something else.’

‘But wasn’t it Julia herself who claimed to see. .?’ Junio began, and then he worked it out. ‘But of course, she would not get down herself and ask Aulus to investigate. She would send the nurse. And, while he was looking down the lane, the impostor could alight and walk inside.’ He put the wood into the brazier and stirred the fire, and the room was filled with the sweet smell of burning applewood. He dusted off his hands and turned to me. ‘But master, what on earth would be the point of it? It’s taking such a risk. There would still be lots of household servants to avoid and if Julia was to be captured anyway, why pretend that it was done at another time?’ He paused, and put down the iron bar he’d used to poke the fire. ‘Oh, I see. To do exactly what it did, in fact: to cause alarm and draw attention from the truth, and from the obvious conspirator.’

I nodded my approval. ‘And that was. .’ I prompted.

‘Well, Myrna, clearly,’ Junio replied.

‘Myrna!’ Porphyllia exclaimed. ‘But she’s been murdered by the kidnapper — everybody in the household is aware of that. And the master is arranging a funeral for her. You can’t mean that she was part of this all along?’

‘If we have hit on the truth, then she had to be,’ I said bleakly, recalling that Myrna had visited my house — and brought many of my present troubles on my head. That, and the memory of that distressing corpse, was enough to sap my feverish energy. I had been buoyed up by the excitement of my own deductions for a time, but suddenly I was weary to my bones. I shut my eyes. ‘Junio can explain it to you, I expect.’

I heard his exasperated little gasp, and realised what I had done. I had intended it as simply flattery, but I’d given her the opportunity to make eyes at him again.

‘Oh, would you, Junio,’ she breathed, and Cilla coughed.

I heard him poke the fire savagely again. ‘My master’s right,’ he muttered. ‘The risk was not so great. Once the gate-keeper’s attention is engaged elsewhere, Myrna escorts the so-called Julia to her room — that was the most dangerous moment, I suppose. After that, who sees her close again? Two maidservants report a little afterwards, you tell us, but they are sent away because their mistress has a headache and wants to lie down.’

Cilla’s voice — still sharp with jealousy. ‘I imagine that if we enquire, we shall discover that it was Myrna who came to Julia’s door and delivered that message to the slaves.’

‘Well, of course she did,’ Porphyllia replied. ‘There was nothing new in that. No one would expect the mistress to get up herself.’

‘Exactly!’ Junio must have forgotten his embarrassment in the joy of pursuing an idea. He was speaking with real enthusiasm now. ‘No one would think of questioning her word. And she made a point of being with the child when it was fed and was jealous of others being with him. That is the point, of course: once she and the wet nurse were safely in the room, there was no risk from anyone outside.’

Porphyllia looked grudging. ‘So why go into the court?’

‘Because it was part of the routine — and it was important to the plan that they were seen, so that the alarm was raised in the wrong time and place. And who brings that about? Who attends the child and woman in the court, fetches soup, and sees that all the other slaves have orders to be somewhere else? Who conveniently comes to get the cooked fruit just at the moment when the other two disappear? And, in fact, who raises the alarm? Myrna, Myrna, Myrna every time!’

He was so animated and triumphant that he grinned at dumpling-face, who flushed beneath her freckles and gave him an adoring smile for his pains.

He turned bright red himself, and turned to speak to me. ‘So we must have been mistaken, master, when we thought that she had come to you for help. She was conspiring with the kidnappers all along. She must have been — if our theory is true. And it is the only explanation which makes any sense. Julia and Marcellinus didn’t disappear — they weren’t there in the first place.’

Cilla frowned. ‘But it does not solve the mystery, all the same. Suppose that somebody did take their place. What happened to them then? It would be just as impossible for them to disappear as it would be for Julia and the child. More so, perhaps, because they would have to pass the gate-keepers, who would certainly notice if there were strangers in the house. And above all, if Myrna was conspiring with the kidnappers, who killed her, and why?’

I hung my head. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I thought of that myself. But all the same, I am convinced that in principle we’re right. The child would pose no problem, if there was someone in the lane. If you went into the orchard you could pass it over the wall. And as for the woman, if she took off the cloak and stola, and was wearing a servant’s uniform underneath, she could probably walk straight out of the gate, especially if she used the orchard path and seemed to have a proper errand to fulfil. Don’t I remember hearing that there was a slave taking laundry to the fuller that afternoon? I wouldn’t be surprised it that was it. That stola got out of the villa somehow — they tore a strip off it — and in a household of this size there must always be a few tunics wanting laundering, even if the fuller’s boy has collected a load the day before, as Porphyllia says. Who would ever give a slave carrying such a bundle a second glance — especially if the whole household is busily engaged on a very active search for someone else?’

Porphyllia picked up her tray again. ‘Well, I still can’t believe it. Someone coming into the house and passing herself off as Julia? Who could it possibly have been, in any case?’

Junio met my eye and we replied as one. ‘Myrna had a sister, didn’t she?’

‘It would fit,’ I said, finding the strength to struggle up again, now that progress seemed to be in view. ‘Marcus told us that she was the taller of the two. Taller than Julia, I think he said. That would explain why the stola was too short.’

‘And she did come to the villa often, so she’d know her way about,’ Junio said.

‘And wasn’t Myrna’s little girl brought up to the villa just later on?’ I said. ‘She would be the obvious candidate to be the subsitute Marcellinus. She’s only a little older than he is, and not a strapping child, apparently, so presumably they’re much the same in size. Suppose her grandmother was waiting, outside in the lane. The child is stripped of Marcellinus’s clothes — down to an undertunic, anyway — and handed out over the wall. It would be a simple matter then to wrap it up in something else, and come straight to the gates. Clever too, since it would divert attention from the family.’

‘The grandmother came up with a herb basket, we heard that too. She could have concealed some clothing for the child in that, until the moment came. And the boy’s finery would be carried out of the villa in the fuller’s pile.’ Junio was grinning with delight. ‘It must be the solution, mustn’t it? Will you explain to Marcus, master? He could send those guards out to arrest the girl, and then perhaps we’d learn the rest of it.’

I nodded. ‘Unless the soldiers have already gone away.’

Surprisingly, it was Porphyllia who spoke. ‘They are still here, citizen. They were given some refreshment in the servants’ room — and if they’d left we would have heard them go. So they could go and arrest this sister if you wish — if you can persuade the master that there’s any sense in it. Personally I don’t believe there is. Though there might have been a changeling, I can see.’

‘Thank you, Porphyllia,’ I said. ‘That will be all. You may take the tray back to the kitchens now. And Junio, get a message to my patron if you can. Tell him I have a theory about what happened but need his help to bring some suspects in. Ask if he will accord me a private interview.’

My slave-boy nodded and disappeared at once, whereupon Porphyllia, who up to now had been standing aimlessly with her tray, suddenly sprang into action and bustled out as well.

Cilla stood up from the stool and came to stand beside the bed. ‘I could be your poison-taster, master, if you would prefer,’ she murmured shyly. ‘Now that I am here in any case.’

I smiled. ‘Better to use the one I’ve got,’ I said gently. ‘Any would-be poisoner will be more deterred by the thought of harming one of Marcus’s slaves. Anyway, I am glad to have her here, because she knows about the household and its ways. Besides, I’m hoping your mistress is coming very soon, and you will be wanted to attend to her.’ I didn’t add that I was longing for that hour.

‘As you command, master, though I could do that too,’ Cilla said, and I could hear the disappointment in her voice. ‘Doubtless Junio wants that girl to be here, anyway.’

This time I laughed aloud. ‘I don’t think Junio would thank me in the least,’ I said. ‘But she did know Myrna, and she was here that day — and thanks to her we’ve made such progress as we have.’

‘So, you really feel you’ve found the answer, master? Or a part of it?’

‘I have the glimmering of an idea, at least.’ I looked at her. ‘You don’t seem much convinced.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s just that. . with the greatest of respect. . what has Myrna to do with Lallius? A young man from the city — a spendthrift gambling lout with scarcely any friends, from what the servants say of him — and a wet nurse from the country, who rarely goes to town except to help her mother selling herbs. It seems most unlikely they have even met.’

I had to concede that she was right, of course, but I was too pleased with my reasoning to admit that there were flaws. ‘Who knows?’ I murmured sleepily. ‘Myrna did work near Glevum for a time. Perhaps the two were lovers. There have been stranger things. Or perhaps she owed him money. I don’t know. I can’t be expected to work everything out at once.’ I gave my pillow a disgruntled thump. ‘Now,’ I murmured, settling myself back on it and closing my eyelids for the second time, ‘you take Junio’s place till he comes back. Sit there quietly and keep watch and let me have some sleep.’