A Roman Ransom

Chapter Twenty-seven

Even then, it seemed to take for ever before we were on our way. As the steward had predicted, it took some time for the carriage to be readied for the trip. Marcus was back in the atrium by now, tapping his baton on his leg — a sure sign that he was getting restless — and attempting to explain to Gwellia why there was no room in the carriage for her to come with us.

‘But you will have to take attendants, surely, Excellence?’ Her tone was humble, and she looked demurely up at him from under downcast lids.

He looked at her impatiently, but she gave him her most appealing smile. ‘And supposing that you want to make arrests?’

Marcus was susceptible to female wiles, and she managed to persuade him, where I could never have. So when we set off down the lane at last, after the slave-trader and his lumbering wagon had been paid off and moved along, we were accompanied by Pulcrus and a contingent of the mounted guard and also, remarkably, by the military cart — with Gwellia, Cilla and Junio in the back of it. Malodius, having returned empty-handed from his search for Philades, watched us go, muttering discontentedly at being left behind, though he had been driving constantly since shortly after dawn and his horses were ready for a rest.

The journey was less jolting than it had seemed before. For one thing Gwellia had fussed over me with cushions for my back and a blanket to tuck round my knees, and for another I was feeling so relieved at my reprieve that I could have withstood far harsher journeys without too much complaint. Though there was an unpleasant moment as we passed the roundhouse, and I saw the soldier at the gate. He recognised the escort and raised his fist in a salute.

The driver took us to the Roman road, and we bowled along the wide paved thoroughfare which led all the way to the southern gate of town. It was not a route I very often used — it is a military highway and other travellers are forced to hug the muddy edges if a legion marches by, or an imperial messenger comes galloping along to bring sealed reports and orders from other garrisons. Today, however, we had military rights, and for once it was other people who had to huddle into ditches as our entourage swept through.

Marcus, though, was accustomed to such dignities, and was clearly getting restless and concerned. He pushed back the leather curtain, and demanded for the sixth or seventh time, ‘Where is this famous hiring-stables, then? We shall have arrived in Glevum very soon.’ Then, to the driver, ‘Faster! Or I shall have you whipped.’ It was not like my patron to be pointlessly unjust, but the danger to Julia weighed very hard on him.

‘There it is, patron.’ I was glad to see the sign. I gestured to the painted finger, but Marcus was already thumping on the roof, a signal to the driver that he wished to stop. Pulcrus cantered to the window space and Marcus relayed his orders through his page.

‘Tell the man to drive a little up the lane but stop the carriage just short of the inn. Libertus and I will walk the rest. You and Junio can follow us on foot, but the soldiers are to keep out of sight and to the rear, and guard the women till we give the sign. We don’t want to rouse suspicions. But tell the guards to keep their sword arms free and their blades unsheathed. We may need them to move up quickly in support. A whistle will be the signal to attack.’

Pulcrus nodded and moved away to pass the orders on, and a moment later we were jolting up the track. It was not very long, however, before we stopped and the driver came round to help us down.

‘Excellence, you are sure that you will be all right on foot from here? It is still raining and the lane is muddy.’

Marcus silenced him with one ferocious look. He stepped down, and stood waiting for me to do the same, tapping his baton on his hand this time. I clambered after him with as much haste as I could.’

‘Very well, Libertus, you can lead the way. This visit was your idea, I think.’

He spoke as if I had come for entertainment’s sake, but I knew him well enough to hold my tongue. This was my responsibility, he meant. I was not out of danger yet. However, I was content to lead the way — Marcus, with that patrician toga-band, did not look like a potential customer — unless some mishap had befallen his carriage wheels, perhaps? I was inventing some such story in my mind, to account for our appearance, when the owner of the hiring-stables hurried out and came towards us of his own accord.

He was an enormous, portly man, with a fringe of reddish hair and a look of greedy glee which told me that he had seen my patron’s purple stripe, and was already hearing the chink of silver coins in his mind. He rubbed his huge hands in his leather apron and addressed himself to me. ‘May I be of service, citizens?’

I was about to begin some tale about the carriage wheels when Marcus cut in with an abrupt, ‘You hire out carriages and drivers, I believe?’

The man looked shifty. ‘We do have a splendid carriage, citizens’ — he clearly did not want to risk offence by not according Marcus the correct title of respect, so he took refuge in addressing both of us — ‘and another, heavier vehicle which plies outside the town for trade. But both are out at present, I regret. I could offer you each a splendid mount, it that is any help. Or. .’ he glanced meaningfully at me, ‘one of you might prefer to ride a mule? Other than that we only have a donkey cart or two. Of course, if you don’t mind taking one of those. .’

‘Do I look like the kind of man who rides in a donkey cart?’ Marcus had no need to say the words aloud. The contempt on his face expressed them perfectly.

I hastened to cover the embarrassed pause. ‘I believe you had a recent passenger. A medicus who is a citizen. We are very anxious to have news of him.’

I had expected him to flinch, or to show some signs of guilt, but the man brightened, and his air of hopeful cupidity came back. ‘A private medicus? I shouldn’t be surprised. We have some most distinguished customers in town, members of the ordo and all sorts of wealthy men: some of them are quite regular customers of ours, the ones who don’t keep horses or transport of their own. I will consult our records. Come with me.’ He led the way into the stable opposite, where there were a number of crude columns scratched up on the wall. These were his ‘records’, clearly. ‘When did this doctor use our services?’ He spoke as if he were an advocate or medicus himself, instead of a tradesman hiring out his goods.

‘I think he hailed the carriage on the road,’ I said.

The fellow shook his head. ‘Those journeys are paid for by the mile,’ he said. ‘There’s a device between the wheels which keeps account. But everything that’s hired by the hour is noted up here on the wall — it tells us when things are due to be returned, and ensures that all the time is paid for properly.’

‘And you note if people arrange a hiring in advance, I suppose, so you don’t let it out to someone else?’

He took it as a compliment to his efficiency and turned his massive face towards me with a smile. ‘Exactly, citizen.’

‘Like when you used to go to Grappius’s house?’ I said. ‘And take a certain lady back to her country home?’

This time there was no doubt of the effect. The sickly smile faded and his face grew pale. All the same, he tried to bluff it out. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But his eyes were flickering to Marcus’s stripe, and it was clear that it was dawning on him who the wearer was. He gnawed his upper lip and swallowed hard.

‘I think you understand me very well,’ I said. ‘You sent a carriage round to Grappius’s house not seven days ago. It was a fixed arrangement. If you can’t find the record of the hiring on the wall, I’ve no doubt there is someone else who can. One of your drivers or stable boys perhaps. Though I suspect you drove that day yourself, since the lady and the child that you delivered at the end were not the ones you picked up at the start. It appears that they were kidnapped, and impostors took their place. And yet the coachman had nothing to report. Now how would you account for that?’

He was still looking desperately from Marcus to myself. ‘So you know all that?’ he muttered. ‘She was sure. .’ He trailed off, breathing heavily, and ran a tongue round his lips.

‘She?’ Marcus could contain himself no longer. He stepped forward, and his face was black with rage. ‘Do you mean that wretched wet nurse?’

The man was twice the size that he was but I think my patron might have tried to throttle him all the same, if I’d not intervened. ‘I think he means her mother,’ I observed. ‘His mother-in-law, if I understand aright.’

I had glanced towards Marcus as I spoke, so the violent lunge towards me took me by surprise. Strong hands pushed me fiercely in the chest and I found myself sprawling on the ground, narrowly avoiding taking Marcus with me as I fell. Fortunately he stepped aside in time. His fury if I’d knocked him over would have rivalled Nero’s own.

In the meantime, our man had got away. By the time we’d gathered our collective wits and I’d sat up again, he was already racing to the inn. Our slaves were rushing to our aid, but before anyone could stop him our quarry had run in and shut the door. As I scrambled to my feet, I heard the bolt slam to.

‘We were listening to all that,’ Junio panted. ‘What do we do now?’ But Pulcrus had already placed his fingers on his lips and was whistling between them: a single, long, high, piercing note. Almost before the sound had died out on the air, there was the clatter of hobnails storming up the lane, and six armoured soldiers were beside us with their daggers drawn.

Their leader had already seized an unlit torch brand from its bracket on the wall. ‘Permission to set fire to the inn, Excellence? We are equipped with tinder and a flint. One flame against the thatch and it will all catch very fast. We’ll smoke them out; it won’t take very long. Or do you want us to kick down the door?’

Marcus nodded, and in no time at all three of the soldiers had formed into a line, and on the leader’s signal they rushed up to the door and thrust the weight of their mailed shoulders on to it, followed by three heavy hobnailed feet.

The door was old but massive and it held, but there was a dreadful creaking from the lock. The soldiers were making ready to have another try when suddenly the door was opened from within and a youngish woman stood there, with two small children at her heels. I noticed that she had a heavily bloodstained bandage round the fingers of one hand.

‘All right,’ she said, in a voice which trembled so that it was hard to hear the words. ‘Take me. But let the children go.’

The leader took her at her word. ‘Seize her!’ he called, and she was quickly bound with rope. The children looked on with terrified eyes, until Junio and Pulcrus took one each and led them off in the direction of the cart. The soldiers looked at Marcus.

‘Search the house,’ he ordered, and the three door-stormers disappeared inside. ‘We want the husband — and the mother too, or so Libertus says.’

The captive shook her head. ‘It is too late to do anything to her,’ she said. Her voice was shaking and expressionless, like someone drugged. ‘She’s dead. Took a rope and hanged herself a little while ago. We had to put her in the paupers’ pit. She couldn’t live with it, you see, that he could do such things.’

I looked at her. ‘Because of what he had done to Myrna — and to you?’

She nodded. ‘My finger was the final stone that broke the bridge.’ Her face was ashen. ‘I told her I’d done it with a knife, by accident — but she knew it was a lie. Up to then, I think, she’d tried to convince herself that he was not responsible for Myrna’s death, but in the end she had to face the truth. She felt that he’d betrayed her.’

‘After all that she had done for him, through all these years?’ I prompted.

Another nod. ‘Exactly.’ She was close to tears. ‘It’s destroyed the family, you know. She felt she’d brought this on us — and she did. We used to be so happy, just the three of us.’

‘Before you knew your half-brother was alive? And who and where he was?’

Beside me, I glimpsed Marcus’s puzzled frown, but she didn’t even look surprised that I had guessed. ‘We should have known, I suppose. Mother was always so anxious for gossip from the town. Anything concerning Numidius or Lallius at all. And she’d talk about the boy for hours, till we were tired of it: how he was faring at the school, and how the servants said how big he’d grown and how rich and famous he was going to be. Oh, we knew she’d been his nursemaid once, of course we did. We even knew she’d been the midwife who delivered him, but we thought she was attached to him because she’d wet-nursed him. He was a sickly baby and she suckled him to health. It never dawned on us to guess the truth.’

‘That when Lallia died in childbirth, her baby had died too — and your mother saw a chance to make a future for her son?’

Marcus pushed the guard aside and came to stare at me. ‘Her son? Nobody told us that she had a son. You mean that Lallius was illegitimate?’

‘Excellence, he was perfectly legitimate,’ I said. ‘But he was not Numidius’s son.’ I could see that he was going to question me again, and I was becoming unsteady on my feet. I said humbly. ‘Patron, I think I can explain it to you now. But perhaps, if I might crave permission to sit down while the guards complete their search?’

Marcus scowled, but he nodded and led the way inside. The inn was a long building, and the room that we went into took up almost all the lower floor. Like many small civilian inns it was an uninviting place: a dark, low-ceilinged area, thick with grime and dust, with battered jugs and tankards hung from hooks, and a shelf of ancient platters near the inner door. There were a pair of large bare tables, half a dozen stools — mere sawn-up tree trunks — and a sort of bench affair beside a huge and smoking fire. A huge amphora, presumably of wine, was set into the floor, and there was a battered cooking pot beside the fire. Aside from this, and the accumulated litter on the beaten earth of the floor, there was very little comfort to be had, although a steepish ladder led upstairs at the back to what was clearly an equally uninviting sleeping space above, from which a series of muffled thumps and oaths could now be heard.

Marcus took possession of the bench, while I sank thankfully on the most stable of the stools. The girl was pushed towards us, with the three remaining soldiers at her back and sides. ‘You were explaining about Lallius,’ Marcus said to me. ‘I hope that your account is plausible.’

‘I believe so, Excellence. Remember that woman we were questioning? She told us that Myrna’s mother was widowed when she was very young and had been forced to work as a midwife and a wet nurse to survive, because her husband left her destitute. We should have seen the implications then — to be a wet nurse she must have had a child. No doubt it was small and sickly — as Secunda said just now — and since Numidius refused to see his son it was not difficult for her to make a swift exchange.’

Secunda could have kept silence, but she chose to help my case. ‘Pardon me, Excellence, but the citizen is right. Mother is dead, and there’s no need to protect her any more. And who was hurt by it? Lallia’s child was dead. It did outlive its mother by an hour or two, long enough for Mother to get it swaddled up — and since she had so lately given birth herself she made an honest effort to give the child the breast. But it was too weak to suckle and it died. She thought of her own child, frail and sick and forced to stay with strangers in a hovel at the gate, because she had no means to keep it otherwise. She put the baby in its cradle and went out then and there, apparently to “get some strengthening herbs” — she was famous for her remedies even then — placed her son in her basket underneath a cloth, smuggled him in and exchanged the dead child for the living one. No one asked what had happened to her infant, naturally — she just threw the little corpse into the river later on.’

Marcus looked startled. ‘And none of the attendants noticed anything?’

‘The other maids were busy with their mistress’s corpse: they paid very little heed to what she did. And Numidius was too upset to care.’ She looked at us, and suddenly tears were streaming down her face; but since her arms were bound she could not raise her hand to wipe them off. ‘Was it so very dreadful, gentlemen? She gave a grieving father the comfort of a child, and saved her own baby from a hungry death.’

I said softly, ‘For a time it must have seemed as if she’d found a perfect answer to her needs — she was caring for her child and being paid for it — but Numidius did not like to have reminders of his wife. He had her wean the child as fast as possible and then dismissed her from the house. It must have been an awful blow to her.’

The faintest smile illuminated Secunda’s strained face. ‘Fortunately she met my father while she was working there. He built a cart for someone who lived close nearby. He married her immediately she was dismissed — and she took in nurslings till she had children of her own. Myself and Myrna. She was very good to us. But still she went to Glevum every single week. She used to sell her herbs there and seek news of her son. And she called me Secunda, though I was the older one. I always wondered why.’

Marcus was looking totally appalled. He had just worked out one implication of all this. ‘So Lallius is not a citizen at all?’

Secunda said, ‘But of course he didn’t know that, Excellence. My mother kept her secret to herself. She didn’t even tell the family, until very recently, when she needed our help to get him out of jail — and then she swore us all to secrecy on the oath of Jove.’

‘Then how did Libertus come to know of it?’ He sounded quite aggrieved.

‘I didn’t know it, Excellence. I worked it out. It had to be something of the kind. Lallius could not have done the kidnapping himself or sent the ransom note, since he was under lock and key; and we know that no one in Numidius’s household did. And it couldn’t be his friend — he put him into jail. It seemed a mystery. But once we were convinced that Myrna was party to the plot, and how the deed was done, it was not hard to see who else might have been involved. So I asked myself, why would Myrna’s family take such awful risks? You gave me the answer, Excellence, when you said that families will do extraordinary things to help their own. When I put the parts together I began to see. And impersonating Julia was not so strange a plan — substituting one person for another as they did. It was a trick that Myrna’s mother had used successfully before. .’

I was interrupted by the arrival of the soldiers from upstairs. They had Secunda’s husband roped between them like a temple sacrifice and were prodding him forward with their dagger-points, one steep step at a time. He was looking bruised and shaken and it was obvious that he’d put up a fight. He was a strong man, but the guards were armed and fit, and there were three of them.

‘We found him in the sleeping space upstairs,’ the leader said. I noticed he was panting heavily. ‘I believe there was someone else as well — but he jumped out of the upper window space and ran away. Permission to go after him, Excellence?’

Marcus scowled impatiently. ‘Of course!’ he snapped, and the soldier departed at a run. ‘And you two,’ Marcus added, ‘take this fellow to the cart. Tie him to the rear frame and make sure he doesn’t get away.’

I saw the fellow flinch. Being dragged behind a cart was an appalling way to die — forced to run until your heart was fit to burst and when you stumbled — as you inevitably did — being slowly battered into pieces on the stony road.

Secunda looked at the huge figure with affection in her eyes, and flung herself at once upon her knees. ‘Don’t be too harsh with him,’ she begged. ‘It was we women who carried out the plan. I’ll tell you everything. Myrna had pressed her mistress to buy a teething potion for the child, and so persuaded her to come into our house. She’d been there several times before, in fact. She liked to buy a potion that my mother made, a secret recipe to help her keep her youth, and she didn’t want her husband to suspect — forgive me, Excellence.’

Marcus made a strange hurrumphing sound. ‘So she had the potion?’

‘But this time we slipped in a sleeping draught. It was a very strong one, and while she was asleep we slipped off her wig and palla and I went in her place. In fact, I had to take her stola too, though we had not intended that at first — her cloak was so short that it showed my legs. The infant was no problem. Marcellinus thought it was a splendid joke to take off all his clothes — but none of my niece’s things would fit him properly. My mother had to grease him thoroughly to ensure he didn’t take a chill. And then we wrote the note out on that piece of bark, and one of my children dropped it at your door. We even used a piece of Julia’s dress to tie it up and put in a little snippet of their hair, to make it look as threatening as possible — though of course we never meant them any harm. But it was all our doing, Excellence. My husband really had no part in it. He only drove the carriage. Brought Julia and her baby and my sister to the house — and didn’t look too hard at who came out of it.’

‘And he dropped those logs across the lane,’ I said. ‘I recognise him now.’

She nodded. ‘He had a load of timber to deliver at the time, and he was close nearby. I couldn’t think how else to block the road.’ She glanced towards her husband. ‘But he didn’t want to do it. I had to weep and beg.’

‘Waste of a good load of wood,’ her husband grumbled. ‘I had to leave it there, and they took it into the villa later on. I had to stand by and watch them bear it off. Cost me a whole day’s work and more. And the hire of the cart as well. I’m lucky no one caught me in the act. I’d just managed to unload the logs when your litter came in sight.’

‘So you stood by with your cart and cursed at the delay? And even helped the litter-bearers move the logs away? I should have asked questions at the time — loads of wood don’t just appear from nowhere, and when there is an empty cart nearby. .’

Secunda still had her arms bound tight behind her back, but she tried to turn to me. ‘We had to do something, don’t you see. Our plans had gone awry. We meant to keep them just a day or two at most — just long enough to frighten everyone — and then, when Lallius was free, we’d let them go. We knew we’d have to flee, of course, but we had the carriages and we could have made a living somewhere else. And it meant so much to Mother. She even foolishly supposed that Lallius might give us a reward — that’s why she went to tell him what we’d done. And then it all went wrong. Myrna was desperate to save the child, at least. She even talked to Julia, through the window space. It was Julia who suggested that we came to you. Myrna would have let Julia go as well, by then, but she didn’t have the key to let her out. Julia passed the child out through the window.

‘And she came out to my roundhouse to try to talk to me?’

She nodded. ‘But they wouldn’t let her in, so we tried to think of some way she could get the child to you. I was holding Marcellinus in the basket close nearby — we didn’t dare let anybody see him in our care. Your maid said you were being carried to the villa later on — so we stopped the litter and I pushed him in. It was the best that we could do. We hadn’t got much time.’ Tears were shining in her eyes again. ‘Myrna paid dearly for that act of kindness — with her life.’

That hit its mark with Marcus. He cleared his throat, and said, a little more kindly than he had so far, ‘Nonetheless you kidnapped them. You confess to that. Now, get up to your feet, and if you hope that I will spare your life — and that of your wretched husband over there — you’ll answer this. What have you done with Julia? And where is the money you extorted yesterday?’

She shook her head and began to weep, helplessly this time, in great gulping sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Excellence, I swear I do not know. I don’t know what is happening any more — and Mother didn’t either in the end. He just took over and altered everything, and all our plans went hopelessly astray.’

‘Who took over? I don’t know what you mean.’ Marcus was instantly severe.

This was my moment and I seized it gleefully. ‘I think I can explain it, Excellence,’ I said, trying to keep the triumph from my voice. ‘This is where the medicus comes into the affair.’