Second Act

Prologue

Autumn had transformed the Alban Hills into a patchwork of colour ranging from dull rusts to flame, sulphur yellows to amber.

The air was warm.

Humid, even.

But the air was misleading.

Soon, frosts would arrive to desiccate the woodlands and kill off the food supply. The creatures of the forest had to move fast. Squirrels busily hoarded their caches of acorns and seeds. Dormice, fat as barrels on hazelnuts, ferried grass to their winter nests and badgers, having gorged on elderberries, concentrated on building up their body fat with plump, juicy earthworms. The woods were virtually silent. Birds were using every ounce of energy to feed, not to sing, and the only sound which echoed across the valley was the measured dig-dig-dig of a spade as it turned over the heavy, black soil.

Stripped to the waist, the Digger leaned on the shovel to mop up the sweat with a piece of coarse woollen cloth. A pheasant clucked in the distance and a viper slithered through the leaf litter, tasting with its tongue air rank with the urine of rutting fallow bucks. The Digger unstoppered the goatskin and drank deeply, watching a proliferation of painted lady butterflies on their colourful migration south. There was no wine in the skin. That had been emptied out, to be refilled with water from the little stream that babbled close by. The water was cool. Refreshing the Digger before the blade once more sliced through the soil.

Gradually, the black, aromatic earth piled up. From time to time, there would come the faint clop of ox hooves, the slow and steady rumble of wagon wheels, the whinny of a mule. Reminders that the highway ran by less than a hundred paces up the bank and that Frascati itself lay only half a dozen miles to the west. Lying at the crossroads of three main routes out of Rome, and with its wealth of patrician villas, post houses and taverns, the little town made for a popular stopover.

Finally, back aching, head pounding, the Digger tossed the spade to one side. Enough, the humid air decreed. Enough, enough, enough.

With the gentlest of nudges, the naked corpse rolled tidily into the hole.

As graves go, it was shallow in the extreme. But the Digger was unused to manual labour, and the leaves would fall soon, then the snow. It was unlikely the body would be found before spring. By then, it wouldn’t matter.

The Digger’s gaze ranged over the cadaver’s belongings. Heaven knows, there wasn’t much. A couple of tunics which had seen better days, a few personal items such as comb, faded cloak, the wineskin which the Digger had emptied. But there, at the bottom of the pack and carefully wrapped between layers of brown felt, nestled a trio of theatrical masks.

All three had been delicately carved of wood and had a wig attached. One mask had its gaping mouth curved upwards in an exaggerated smile, for comic parts. The mouth of the second was turned down for tragedy. The third, painted white and with its fair hair curled into ringlets and pinned, was for when the actor played female roles. Admiring the workmanship, the elaborate brush strokes, the sturdy ribbons by which the masks fastened behind the actor’s ears, the Digger prepared to toss them in after the corpse.

No, wait.

Back in Frascati, a company of strolling players had been hiring. Convinced they could do better alone, certain members of the troupe had broken away to form a rival splinter group, leaving the original company in the lurch. With Saturnalia but two months away, a lucrative time for strolling players, the diehards of the original group were desperate to take on new artists and train any amateurs willing to roll up their sleeves and pitch in.

Why not, the Digger wondered.

It wasn ’ t as though it was such a transition.

Aren’t all killers actors at heart-?