A Roman Ransom

Chapter Twenty-one

The interview with Marcus did not seem quite such a wonderful idea when I awoke, but naturally by then it had been arranged. He had decreed a time, about mid-afternoon, and on this occasion he expected me to come to him. Junio explained this rather diffidently to me as he roused me and helped me with my shoes.

‘I’m sorry that I had to wake you, master, but you see how it is,’ he said, latching up my second sandal and assisting me to rise. ‘He isn’t coming to your room to visit you, the way he did before. I expect he feels that you are much improved — you managed very well this morning, after all.’ He rearranged my tunic, which I’d been sleeping in, into a semblance of acceptable attire.

But I understood the message. With a serious accusation still dangling over me I was firmly in disgrace — especially after the doctor had produced that damning piece of so-called ‘evidence’. Marcus had stretched his goodwill to the limits as it was, by allowing me two days to try to come up with some defence, and — what is more — to stay here in comfort while I did so, instead of languishing in misery inside Glevum jail. My patron had done everything he could, and I could look for no more friendly concessions from now on.

Junio was still fussing over me. ‘I’ve borrowed this cloak for you from the servants’ hall. It’s Aulus’s. It’s rather on the large side, I’m afraid, but it’s a very heavy one and it will protect your legs from the cold. Of course we’ll be walking beneath the colonnade, but it looks like rain this afternoon and you mustn’t catch a chill. Here, let me help you put it on. It must be time to go.’ He draped the garment round me as he spoke. Junio was right: it was far too big for me — so much so that it almost brushed the ground — but it was welcome for all that. The courtyard felt extremely cold after the warm snugness of my sleeping room.

‘No time to linger, master. There isn’t any sun this afternoon, so it is hard to judge the hour, and we must not be late. Marcus was extremely crisp with me. He isn’t very pleased with our household as it is.’

I gave an inward groan. I had been hoping to come up with some extra element of proof which would persuade my patron that my theory had some weight. If I was to clear my name, I desperately needed him to be sufficiently convinced to round up Myrna’s family and bring them in — I had been forbidden to go out and look for them for myself. Nor did I expect that they’d be easy to find. If they had the ransom money, or any part of it, I reasoned that they would be miles away by now.

Still, I would face those problems when I came to them. My first task was to persuade my patron to accept my views at all. ‘Lead the way,’ I said to Junio.

Marcus was waiting for us in the winter dining room. He was stretched out on one of his dining couches with a goblet in one hand, languidly picking at a bowl of sugared figs. He had dressed for the occasion in an amber-coloured robe, with a matching over-drape, a sort of synthesis — rather like the fashionable combination toga-and-tunic which he wore to entertain. But he was no less intimidating for that.

I knew my patron well. There was no need for him to have changed his clothes, and the fact that he had done so was quite deliberate. He was clearly signalling to me, not merely that he was now a private citizen relaxing at his home and that this meeting was therefore an enormous privilege, but that he had deliberately set aside his civic and imperial offices. His patrician toga was a symbol of his rank, and his consequent position as senior magistrate to which Philades had formally appealed. Marcus was reminding me — as if I could forget — that he was condescending to this private interview because next time I met him in his official role he would be obliged to find that there was a case for me to answer and hand me over to the courts.

He scarcely raised his eyes when I limped in and made a deep obeisance at his feet. I didn’t even stop to give Junio my cloak — a slave’s garment made me look decently humble, I thought.

‘Very well,’ my patron said, and motioned me to rise. ‘Junio says you wish to speak to me?’ His tone was cool and quite impersonal and I realised that he had not extended his ring for me to kiss, as he would normally have done. More signals. That salute was the expected greeting between a patron and his loyal client — and Marcus was pointedly not affording me that status now.

‘Excellence!’ I murmured, almost in despair. ‘Please believe that I had no part in this affair — despite everything the doctor claims. By diverting your attention to arresting me you only give the real culprits more chances to escape. After all, they have your money now. And remember that they still have Julia.’

‘Do you imagine that I’d forgotten that? I have thought of nothing else for days and nights.’

I nodded. I knew exactly how he felt. Even now I was worried about where Gwellia was, and I wasn’t getting ransom notes from ruthless kidnappers.

He took another fig and held his goblet out for Minimus to fill. Roman custom would usually demand that he should get the slaves to offer me the plate and fetch a drinking cup to pour some wine for me, but of course he did nothing of the kind. He was avoiding even glancing at my face. ‘And Philades thinks you are responsible.’

I swallowed. ‘The reason that I asked to see you this afternoon is that I have a theory about how it was done.’

‘Let’s hear it, then,’ he said, biting the sugared fruit. ‘But don’t be long about it. I have a slave-trader coming here a little later on. He’s bringing a girl for me to look at.’

I was startled for a moment. This seemed a strange time to be buying slaves. But then I understood. ‘A new wet nurse for Marcellinus?’

He paused in mid-nibble to say, ‘Of course. I need one as soon as possible, and I heard from the pontifex that he’s got one for sale.’ He took another bite and went on reflectively, ‘I shall buy her, almost certainly, if she looks suitable and clean — she is supposed to have good teeth and no disease. I’m going to get the medicus to examine her for me, but she should be all right. This trader is a specialist — expensive, but he buys all his stock in Rome and only has the best. He deals with the wealthiest families in the capital. I’ve bought from him before. He sometimes has other commodities as well.’

He seemed to realise that he was chatting to me in the old familiar way. He stopped at once and cleared his throat. ‘What is your theory, then?’

I spelt it out to him, exactly as I had thought it through myself — citing the clothes, the supposed strangers in the lane, and all the other suggestive details. My patron seemed surprisingly unmoved, I thought, so I urged the case with extra eloquence.

‘So, Excellence,’ I finished, ‘it seems to me that the kidnapping took place, not from the villa, as we’d been led to think, but while Julia was out in the carriage earlier. That means that the wet nurse was party to the plot, and I think it was her sister who dressed up as Julia and Myrna’s child who was playing in the court.’ I outlined the theory as to how they got out again. ‘Perhaps we should check with your gate-keepers once more.’

He nodded vaguely. I took this as encouragement, although he was still concentrating mostly on his fig.

I took a deep breath. ‘So, with your permission, Excellence, I think that we should try to talk to Myrna’s family. You may have to institute a search for them. There was no one at the house when we called there earlier, and I suspect they may have fled. It may be difficult to track them down, but it’s likely that if we find them we’ll find Julia as well.’

I half expected him to disagree with me, and swear that my theory was impossible. I was already marshalling my arguments to reply.

But all he said as he picked out another fruit was, ‘It still sounds implausible to me, but I’m reluctantly compelled to think you may be right. You realise that I’ve heard all this before?’

I gaped at him. ‘Excellence? You mean that Junio. .?’

He waved that suggestion loftily aside. ‘Philades! He was arguing the same thing earlier, when he came to tell me it was definitely Myrna he saw talking to your Cilla yesterday. And then that little freckled girl came in, and he was sure she’d overheard and would report to you. He predicted that you would come and see me and confess the truth — or at least a part of it — pretending that the theory had just occurred to you.’

‘Confess, Excellence?’ I almost squeaked the word.

‘That was his expression for it,’ my patron said. ‘And here you are, exactly as he said.’

There was no possible reply to that, and I made none.

Marcus was deliberating on the choice of figs, as if this were a matter of imperial concern, and still refusing to look in my direction as he spoke. ‘And Philades pointed out some other things as well, which you might find significant. Things that unfortunately aren’t explained in your account at all.’

‘Such as, Excellence?’ I could scarcely breathe the words.

‘He says that after the initial kidnapping something seems to have gone seriously awry. The kidnappers, for instance, had a sudden change of plan. You recall that they abruptly altered the arrangements for the hostages’ return?’

I could only nod.

‘And if Myrna was really a conspirator — and since you and Philades both think so, I am prepared to accept that she very probably was — then something had obviously gone very wrong indeed, because we found her murdered body in the barn. I don’t suppose that even you could disagree with that?’

I said carefully, ‘It does seem that something happened to disrupt their plans.’

He abandoned the fruit and took another sip of wine. ‘So what could it have been? What change had occurred between the two events? Only one thing that I can think of — though it took the medicus to point it out to me. You left your roundhouse unexpectedly and came here to stay instead. Can you deny that he is right?’

I was so thunderstruck by this association of ideas that I could make no reply.

He met my glance, at last, and I realised that he had been drinking rather hard. His eyes, which had been red-rimmed with lack of sleep, were glassy now and bleared with wine. Marcus did not often drink too much, he was too mindful of his status and dignity, and that made it the more dreadful when he did.

Even as I looked at him he drained his globlet and held it out again for Minimus to fill.

‘Your coming here was all arranged so suddenly. There would have been no time to let anybody know. And — as Philades observed — after that the kidnapping took on a different tone. Almost as if the mastermind was suddenly removed. .’ He trailed off, and gulped the contents of the replenished goblet down without a pause for breath.

‘Excellence,’ I pleaded. ‘I was ill. I had only recently come back to consciousness. You know that yourself. How could I possibly have planned all this?’

He raised his wine-bleared eyes to mine again. ‘Perhaps you should be explaining that to me, Libertus! You cannot possibly deny that your roundhouse was involved. Myrna, the ransom bag, the clothes — it all points to one conclusion, doesn’t it? You don’t expect me to believe it was coincidence and that some passer-by just happened to select your fence to hide those things in? As the medicus pointed out to me, there must be a thousand better hiding places in the forest round about.’

He had a point, of course, but I had no solution to advance. Unless someone wanted to implicate me, and had arranged everything to that end — in which case I could suggest one obvious candidate. But unsubstantiated counter-claims would do more harm than good. ‘Excellence, all that I can say is that it wasn’t me.’

‘I would like to believe that, Libertus, more than I can express.’ He put the goblet down. With great deliberation he picked up a fig and tore it delicately in two. ‘There is one other possibility, I suppose, though I have not said this to the medicus. Could it have been one of your household, do you think? Cilla, perhaps — she had connections here? Or. .’ here he raised his eyes and looked me in the face, ‘are you quite sure it wasn’t Gwellia?’

‘Gwellia!’ Even as I exclaimed the word, I heard Junio beside me make a swift, incredulous drawing-in of breath. ‘Excellence, that’s quite impossible!’

Junio gasped again — on my account this time. I was so outraged by the suggestion that I had contradicted Marcus outright.

He did not reprove me. He looked rather sad. ‘Libertus, how can you be sure it wasn’t her? You were parted from the woman for twenty years or so, and only found her again quite recently. What do you know about those missing years? I’m not suggesting that she would do this willingly — she is not a wicked woman, quite the contrary. But is it not possible, for instance, that someone forced her into it — someone who had some ancient hold on her?’

I wanted to protest that it could not be true — that I knew everything there was to know about my wife — but I could not force the words to pass my lips. Marcus was quite right. There was much about Gwellia’s past that was a mystery to me. I had gained some glimpses of her former lifetime as a slave, of course, but there were many hurts and horrors that she’d never talked about and I had never pressed her on the subject, though her occasional nightmares gave me clues. A female slave is just her owner’s chattel, to use as he thinks fit — and Gwellia had been very beautiful. Clearly there were things she wanted to forget. Better, I’d always thought, to let her do so if she could, though they sometimes lay between us still, like phantoms in our bed.

So all I could say to Marcus now was, ‘I cannot believe that Gwellia would stoop to being involved in anything like that — whatever the pressures or promises might be.’

‘Not even to protect you?’ Marcus said. ‘Women will do amazing things to save their families.’

That idea disturbed me, but I shook my head. ‘I have done many things in my life, Excellence, and doubtless I’ve made some enemies along the way, but I don’t know of anyone who has information that could really threaten me.’ I gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Apart from your medicus, of course. For some reason he seems intent on causing as much trouble for me as he can. I think he would like to destroy me if he could.’

‘He saved your life. You should be grateful to him,’ Marcus said.

‘Grateful? He hates me!’

‘He doesn’t seem to like you, certainly. Or doesn’t trust you, anyway. He keeps warning me that fevers are known to turn the brain and that you may have evil humours which have changed your mind and heart, however loyal you used to be before.’ He sighed. ‘And he may be right. He sent the soldiers to your roundhouse and they found that bag.’

‘Well, perhaps he knew that it was there for them to find!’ I retorted.

‘How could he know anything of the kind? He never left the house. There are lots of witnesses to that. These two, for instance.’ With a half-eaten fig, he gestured towards Maximus and Minimus who were standing by.

‘May I ask them something, Excellence?’

‘Certainly.’

I turned to Maximus. ‘It isn’t possible the doctor put the bag there himself? Or sent another slave to hide it earlier?’

The boy looked quite upset. He shook his head. ‘I would like to be able to say so, citizen. You have been kind to us. But I’m afraid it simply isn’t possible. The doctor never left the house at all. .’

‘And nobody came here, except the guards. .’ Minimus chimed in, as usual.

‘He sent them to your roundhouse to see what they could find. .’

‘And he was gleeful when they came back with the bag. .’

‘Of course they didn’t realise what it was. They didn’t know it was the bag that had the ransom money in. It was just a bag of baby clothes to them, but because it was hidden in the fence they brought it anyway,’ Maximus concluded, in a breathless rush.

‘But the doctor knew exactly what it was,’ I muttered bitterly. ‘Of course.’

‘I’m sure he saw the implications instantly,’ my patron agreed. ‘He has a clever mind. The cleverest man I know, aside from you. He knows about diseases. And he says you may be ill — suffering from bad humours that change your character. Who else but you, he says, could dream up such a plan? You see why I have a problem knowing what to think?’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps I should have him trepan you after all. I know he wanted to. He says that it would solve the problem instantly.’

I could well believe it! Instantly and permanently, too. Trepanning is a well-respected cure, and it was just possible that Marcus might be persuaded to agree. The idea of the medicus boring holes into my skull — even in order to let supposed humours out — was not one that I could bear to contemplate. I could quite see what Philades would do to me, if Marcus was persuaded to give him the glimmer of a chance — and there would not even be suspicion afterwards. There are always as many accidents as there are cures with a trepan.

‘Believe me, there is no question of evil humours, Excellence. I am entirely in my proper senses. .’ I began — but we were interrupted by the arrival of someone at the door.