The Fateful Day

TWO

I awoke even earlier than I’d intended to, though feeling less than rested after a night of troubled dreams in which I was being pursued by speeding chariots. Gwellia was still sleeping, though I could hear Kurso (our little kitchen slave) rattling the water-bucket as he came back from the spring. I shook myself awake and went out to speak to him.

He looked up from pouring water into the shallow irrigation channel that ran round my kitchen crops.’ ‘You’re up early, master.’ He stared at me, obviously surprised to find me standing there wearing just the tunic that I’d been sleeping in — though I had managed to strap my ancient sandals on my feet. Then he recalled himself. ‘Do you want a drink?’ He gestured to the little ewer beside him on the wall. ‘Filling the jug up was the next job on my list. I can do it now and get some more water later for the plants and animals.’

I shook my head and picked the ewer up. ‘I’ll go and get some from the spring myself, and breakfast on a little of Gwellia’s new bread,’ I said, causing him to look even more startled than before. ‘You make sure Arlina has been fed and watered while I’ve gone — I want to set off early to look in at my patron’s fields and perhaps call in at the villa afterwards if there is time enough. I saw a strange carriage outside there yesterday, and I’m curious to find out who the caller was and whether he managed to make contact with the household there.’ I smiled at Kurso’s earnest little face. ‘Tell the others that I’ll be coming back, ready to go back into town as usual — my errand shouldn’t take me very long.’

In fact, I was able to tell them for myself. By the time that I got back from the spring, the whole of my little household was awake and the slaves were clustering round to help me have my meal and pull my working tunic over what I wore. ‘And put a cloak on, husband, for Minerva’s sake!’ Gwellia said crossly, handing me the warmest one I had. ‘It will be a wonder if you haven’t caught a cold, walking round at dawn without one at this time of year! It’s a chilly morning.’

It was crisp, certainly — and I was grateful for the cloak. The ride out to the fields was quite a bracing one. But not a very useful one, it seemed.

‘Far too chilly to be planting vines,’ the chief land-slave told me, hastening over to meet me at the wall when he saw me arriving on my mule. ‘Too early in the season for this corner of the world. And I’d tell the master just the same if he was here. Them plants are tender. He’ll lose the lot of them, if you ask me.’

‘He told me he’d looked into it, and other people had achieved success with them,’ I said, by way of offering a half-rebuke.

The overseer laughed. ‘Looked into it? He’s bought an amanuensis-slave at great expense and had him in the villa scribbling away for half a moon, copying out some borrowed treatise on how to care for vines — and now of course, he thinks he knows exactly what to do. Never mind that the author is talking about areas around Rome! It’s nonsense trying to apply it here — although of course I’ll have to do as I’m told.’

‘And I would like to watch you for a bit.’

‘I’m sure you would, citizen. But-’ he gestured to the land-slaves in the field beyond, who, having selected shovels, rakes and hoes, were mostly leaning on their implements and watching us while they awaited their instructions for the day ‘-we won’t be starting yet! Not until the day’s warmed up as much as possible. It will be an hour or more before the sun is high enough — and I’m leaving the seedlings in the warmest barn till then. No point asking for disaster, is there, citizen? In the meantime we’ll just go on breaking up the soil. You want to wait and supervise till we start to plant?’ He beamed at me, the picture of innocence and helpfulness.

Of course the enquiry was barbed, but he had made his point. I am not a wealthy landowner like his owner is. I am a working man and have my own affairs to see to in the town. He knew quite well that his polite suggestion was impossible, and he no doubt resented being answerable to somebody like me.

I shook my head. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ I replied, as though I had considered his proposal and rejected it. ‘I’ll look in tonight and see how you are getting on.’ And, without so much as getting off my mule, I turned around and trotted off the way that I had come. But he was not deceived. I’m almost sure I heard derisive laughter behind me as I went.

So I was not in the best of tempers as I approached the villa gates. Having been so short a time out at the fields, I had decided that I did have time to call.

I tied Arlina to a tree nearby and knocked on the gate, but I was not prepared for the reception I received. Or rather, lack of it. My continued rapping brought no response at all. There was no sign of the usual burly gatekeeper, not even his enquiring eye at the peephole of his cell beside the gates. Even my tapping directly on his wall produced not the slightest movement from within. Either the fellow was asleep, or he’d slipped off for a meal. Or possibly a morning visit to the slaves’ latrine! But meanwhile the gate was unattended. That wasn’t good enough, I thought grimly. Marcus would hear of it, when I next sent word to him!

I knocked again, a good deal louder now, shouting as I did so — strongly enough for my voice to carry to anyone on duty in the front court of the house — ‘Greetings of the morning. Open up the gate. It is Libertus here. I’m on my patron’s business and I have some information to impart.’

Still there was no answer. That was curious. I got down from Arlina and thundered on the gate. ‘I tell you, it’s Libertus. The gatekeeper’s not here. Somebody come out and let me …’ I broke off as the gates creaked open at my touch — almost as though they’d not been fastened properly: latched, perhaps, but certainly not bolted as they should have been — especially if there was nobody on watch. Even more curious! Ever since Marcus’s child was kidnapped and held to ransom years ago, he had been fanatical about security. I pushed the gates again. They opened slightly wider and I slid a cautious head into the gap and looked around.

At first sight everything appeared to be exactly as it should — the villa looked quite peaceful in the morning light, standing at the far end of the entrance court, with its new wing and private gardens to the left and the walled storage yards and orchards to the right. Too peaceful, perhaps. There did not seem to be a single slave about. I knew that Marcus had left only a very few of his household servants — as distinct from the land-slaves who tended the estate. And he wouldn’t have people keeping the hypocaust alight, so there would be none of the usual slaves scuttling around with fuel from the orchards to stoke the fires for that, but surely there would be someone working at this hour — sweeping the steps, or taking shutters down, or raking leaves from round the entrance court? It had not been done today. There were a lot of leaves — a brisk little breeze was blowing them in spirals as I watched. But there was no sign of human movement anywhere.

And it was oddly silent, too. I called again and listened carefully. No distant answering voices. No hurrying footsteps coming from within. No clatter from the store-yard behind the inner wall. A faint, insistent tapping was the only sound — and even that, on consideration, was not coming from the house. It seemed to emanate from somewhere at my side — apparently from the little cell beside the gate, where the absent gatekeeper had his sleeping-bench and stool. I frowned. Where could everyone have gone, and what could the gate guard have left behind that made that knocking sound — irregular but repeated and scarcely audible?

I was increasingly uneasy, but extremely curious by now and, though the door to the keeper’s porch was closed, I pushed it gently open. And was appalled and horrified by what I found.

The tapping sound was caused by the inhabitant himself. He was suspended by his own belt from a ceiling hook. The stool on which he had been standing had been kicked away and he was swinging gently in the draught which blew in through the stone bars of the window-space. He was extremely dead. At first I was inclined to guess at suicide but I quickly realised that it was nothing of the sort. As he rotated slowly in the air, his hands came into view — firmly secured behind his back with a short length of chain.

I sat down on the sleeping bench and tried to take this in. There could be no mistake — it was the gatekeeper all right. I’d have known him anywhere, even without the uniform tunic — a great bear of a fellow with a mane of tawny hair and the muscles of an ox. He’d been a wrestler in a travelling show when Marcus purchased him. It must have taken someone of enormous strength to subdue a man like that, overcome his struggles and hoist him up on the hook. Or, more likely, several someones working as a team.

He had never been a handsome man in life, but in death he was entirely hideous. His face was purple and contorted horribly, his tongue protruding like that of an ox-head on a plate, while his bulging, bloodshot eyes stared sightlessly at me. The air was foetid with a smell like a latrine, and I could see what caused the tapping: one sandal seemed to have dislodged itself (during his final struggles, probably) and now dangled from its straps, just low enough to lightly touch the corner of the table as he swayed.

Noticing the sandals drew attention to the feet. They — and the lower legs — seemed blotched with pooling blood. That was so astonishing I took a closer look — indeed, my first impression was correct. This was not bruising, it was simply that the blood had gathered there. I shook my head, bewildered. I’d seen enough of bodies to be fairly sure that such a thing took quite a time to manifest itself — which suggested that the man had been here many hours. Could this be connected in some way with that carriage I had seen?

But that could not be right. Marcus’s land-slaves must have been here at the villa overnight. Surely they would have known if somebody had killed the gatekeeper — and I couldn’t believe that it would occasion no remark. Wouldn’t that be the first thing that the overseer said to me, instead of calmly discussing the proper time of day for planting vines?

Perhaps I was wrong in my estimation of the time of death. I reached out a reluctant hand and touched the lifeless thigh. It was cold — which in itself was not a proof of anything, since the body had been hanging in a very chilly draught. But it was also stiff — so stiff that when I tried to move the knee, it would not budge at all. I would have needed to apply such force I would have snapped the joint. That kind of rigid stiffness did not occur for many hours — another indication that the victim had been dead since yesterday.

My mind went back again to the florid visitor of the night before. It was tempting to suppose that he was guilty of this death. But I shook my head. From what I’d seen of that aggressive citizen, he was middle-aged and over-fed and not especially fit. He would be no match for this burly gatekeeper (who — it occurred to me — was generally armed, though there was now no sign of his cudgel anywhere). And the driver of the carriage could not have done this, I was sure. He was thin and wiry, but he was very slight. He would have lasted no longer than an instant in a struggle with this strong, athletic guard, never mind managing to hang him from the hook. One might as well suggest that a cat could kill and lift a bull.

In fact, the more I thought about events, the more it seemed to me that the likely explanation was the very opposite: that the carriage I’d seen was standing idling in the lane precisely because the occupants (like me) had not succeeded in getting a response — which suggested that the gatekeeper was already dead by then. It was not what I secretly wanted to suppose, but it made sense of things — including the citizen’s furious response that he’d had a wasted journey, his angry departure, and even his willingness to take my word that Marcus wasn’t there. It also fitted well enough with my observations of the corpse.

But in that case, what about the other servants in the house? Had they not realised there was something wrong? Even if someone (or those several someones) had got in through the gates — perhaps admitted by the gatekeeper himself — and murdered him without raising the alarm, surely the other servants in the house would finally have come out here to look for him, if only to bring him something for a meal? I thought back to the silence I had noted in the court.

I glanced up at the dead man, still swinging from his noose, and decided that I wanted witnesses. In any case he was too high and heavy to manage on my own. If I could find the servants, they could come and help. If not …? I didn’t know exactly what I would do, in that case.

But there must be servants, surely? The land-slaves had been here until shortly after dawn, and did not seem to have noticed anything amiss. Perhaps the indoor staff had only found this body later on, when someone came to call him to break his morning fast. I shook my head. If so, would they not have checked the gates and raised some sort of immediate alarm — by sending to my roundhouse, for instance? It was not far away and Marcus’s servants all knew where I lived.

Or was it possible that they — or some of them, at least — had strung him up themselves? That would explain why nobody had told the land-slaves anything. And it was vaguely plausible. The man had been chosen for his brute strength and bullying qualities — once, when he thought that he was unobserved, I’d seen him bullying a page. No doubt he had made other enemies among the staff, especially now that his owner was away.

So, suppose that they had killed him, carefully leaving the outer gate unlocked to suggest that this was the work of an intruder? There were certain to be callers — like myself — who could ‘discover’ this and be relied upon as impartial witnesses. I brightened. Perhaps the remaining servants were all busy, even now, sending for the slaves’ guild to provide the funeral and collecting wood to build a pyre on the estate.

That was a possible explanation and once I’d thought of it, I felt a good deal better about going in search of them.

Assuming that there was anybody to be found. Otherwise …?

I shook my head. That was something I would face if I was forced to it.

I left the body swaying there, and — with some trepidation — set off for the house.