The Fateful Day

SIX

The chief land-slave saw us coming down the lane. He abandoned his view-point position on a high point of the field and called out in surprise, ‘Why citizen, I see you’re here again! But be assured, we’ve not been idle while you were away. We’ve started digging the trenches for the vines. I’ll show you, if you wish!’ The undertone of mocking half-contempt was, as usual, barely concealed by the outward courtesy. ‘Come down to the enclosure gate and I will let you in.’

I ignored this invitation. I dismounted where I was and went directly over to the boundary wall, leaving Minimus to tether up the mule. ‘Never mind the vines,’ I shouted back. ‘I’ve more important things than vineyards to discuss with you.’

He must have realised that something was afoot because the carefully adopted fake-attentive smile faded from his lean, tanned features instantly. He positively scurried across the field to meet me where I was and when he spoke his manner was quite different from before. ‘Why, whatever is it, citizen?’ For the first time in our acquaintance he looked straight into my eyes. ‘Has something happened to the master while he’s been overseas?’ He saw that I was beginning to shake my head, denying this, and before I could say anything, he’d made another guess. ‘Or has the mistress perished giving birth to the new child? It’s something serious, I can see that from your face.’

‘It’s not what happened to your owners, it’s what has happened here.’ I had to hold my hand up, even then, to silence him before he started to interrupt again. ‘But before you ask me questions, there’s one I have for you. Think carefully before you answer it — much may depend on what you tell me now. Did anything strike you as unusual last night when you went back home to the main estate again?’

He was frowning. ‘But we didn’t! Surely you must have been aware of that?’

‘Didn’t what?’ I was as perplexed as he appeared to be. He was still staring at me in bewilderment, so I said, to make it clearer, ‘What was it that you didn’t do?’

‘Go back to the main estate last night!’ he said, as if this were the strangest notion in the world. ‘Even since that message was delivered two days or more ago, none of us land-slaves has been back at all.’

‘Message? What message?’ I was beginning to sound like Echo in the myth. ‘I didn’t know there had been any message to the house.’

He gave me a sly grin. ‘Then you’re not as much in the master’s confidence as I supposed you were. Oh, indeed there was a message, citizen. A whole great scroll of it. We had strict instructions. There’s a disused farmhouse here and we were to sleep in that till they had finished in the villa — even the animals were moved down here meanwhile.’

I nodded. Obviously the cleaning operations had been Marcus’s idea — that was only what one might expect. But moving all the land-slaves out was rather radical, and had obviously led to the slaughter of the indoor staff. ‘So you aren’t even using the courtyard barns down there?’ I persisted. I was remembering the empty stalls and stock enclosures at the rear of the villa. I should have realised that it was unusual, but I had been too anxious about the missing slaves to really take in the significance.

‘Not at the moment, citizen.’

‘But why not? Isn’t that what you generally do? Even if this great cleaning spree is taking place, you wouldn’t hinder it. And the outbuildings at the villa are in much better repair.’

‘We weren’t wanted at the main estate, tending the creatures and getting in the way, and this arrangement made things more convenient. Or so the master thought, apparently — though, of course, in fact, it made a lot of extra work for us.’

I waved away this piece of grumbling. ‘Convenient for what?’

He was edging towards that former mocking air again. ‘For seeing to the animals, citizen, of course. Even during this season there is lots of work to do, especially when you’re caring for the new kids and lambs and calves.’ He gazed at me and seemed to realise that I really was bemused. ‘There are empty barns and stables here that are quite usable. Plus, there is a chicken coop or two, and quite a nice enclosure for the goats — the whole place was a working farm till recently. You’re right, of course. Several of the buildings were in a dreadful state. But I’ve had such labour as I could afford doing their best to mend them while we moved the stock — and I’m glad to say that everything’s a little better now.’ He stopped and looked at me triumphantly.

He was obviously seeking to be as helpful as possible, but I still had no idea what this was all about. However, a suspicion had begun to dawn on me. ‘Never mind the arrangements for the animals. Who was it decided that you should stay up here?’

He took a small step backwards in surprise. ‘It was the master’s orders. I thought I’d told you that.’ He had adopted a weary, patient tone, as if talking to a failing intellect. ‘He sent this message several days ago saying that on his travels he had found a house in Gaul and all the precious objects in the villa here were to be packed up and crated and sent over to him there.’

I boggled at him. ‘So he’s closing down the villa?’

‘Not immediately, citizen, I think. I understand he hopes to come here now and then, if only to see this vineyard that he wants so much. But in the end, perhaps. It would not affect his role as magistrate — he still has a smart apartment in the town.’

‘Of course,’ I murmured. ‘And a fine house in Corinium as well. But he’s devoted to this villa. And I know he planned to pass it to his son when he’s of age. Why would he part with it?’

He acknowledged this information with a little bow. ‘Perhaps he thinks that this new place he’s found would make a sort of halfway house where he can stay if he is travelling more frequently to and fro from Rome, and obviously that’s something that he intends to do.’ He gave me a knowing grin. ‘Not surprising now his friend’s the Emperor. But I thought you would have known all this in any case. Marcus always seems to tell you everything.’

I looked thoughtfully at him. In principle, the thing was not impossible. My patron was given to sudden whims like this, very often not thought through in any detail — as witness the very vineyards we were looking at, or his one-time enthusiasm for those neatly matching pairs of slaves. And it would certainly explain the missing items from the house. I could see why the overseer had not questioned it.

But it did not explain what had happened to the slaves. I shook my head. ‘You are right. I hadn’t heard,’ I told him, soberly. ‘And I’m not sure that I believe it now. You are quite sure that the message was from Marcus Septimus?’

He stared at me as though I were insane. ‘I’m absolutely certain, citizen. I saw the scroll myself.’

‘And you could read it?’ I enquired, genuinely impressed. One does not expect land-slaves, even senior ones like this, to be literate at all. Such skills are not required in the fields and few owners go to the expense of teaching them, though occasional bright individuals do contrive to teach themselves by studying known inscriptions on public monuments, learning to decipher the letters bit by bit.

But the overseer was not one of these exceptions, it appeared.

He looked at me, abashed. ‘Well, not exactly, citizen. I can make out a word or two of course, but it takes me quite a time. The steward read it to us and handed it around to let us look at it. It’s what he always does. He would not have made it up, I’m sure.’ He brightened. ‘Anyway, I recognised the seal. It was the master’s, I am positive of that. And the message even listed all the things that had to go … which stools and statues and which ornaments. Who else but His Excellence could know details like that …?’ He saw my face and trailed off in dismay. ‘Oh, I suppose the steward would. You really think the letter was a fake? So … there’s been some kind of robbery? Is that what you believe?’

I nodded. ‘Among several other crimes!’ I said. ‘And robbery is perhaps the least of them.’

He made a doubtful face. ‘Well, I can’t believe the steward was involved in it,’ he said. ‘Though I suppose that things look rather bad for him. But I’m sure the message said exactly what he claimed. He was as irritated as the rest of us at all the extra work that was required. And I can’t believe it was a forgery. The steward’s been with Marcus Septimus for years. How could he be deceived? Wouldn’t he know the handwriting and seal? But if you doubt him — and you obviously do — why don’t you go and ask him to produce the scroll?’

‘I’m very much afraid-’ I had begun to say, but he was rushing on.

‘That it will have been sent back with another message written crosswise — as a palimpsest? I know that sometimes happens, but not this time, I don’t think. I’m sure that he’s still got the scroll exactly as it came. He was using it as an inventory of items to be sent. And he can hardly refuse you if you ask for it — he’ll know you are in our master’s confidence — and then you can read and judge it for yourself.’ He stopped and gave me a sudden, startled look. ‘Oh, dear gods! He’s not gone missing too? Is that why you’ve come down here to ask me this? You said that much depended on what I had to say. You think he’s guilty of arranging this?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what to think. But the steward isn’t missing. He is there all right. And so are the others. Or what is left of them.’

‘What is left of them?’ All the swagger left him suddenly, and the swarthy face was white beneath the tan. ‘You can’t mean that they’re dead. The household slaves? Surely not all of them.’

‘I think so, though I don’t know exactly how many indoor slaves there were,’ I said. ‘But there were a dozen bodies in the orchard, by my reckoning.’

He did a calculation on his hands. ‘I make it fourteen with the gatekeepers,’ he said.

‘They were not included,’ I replied.

‘Then that would be the whole of the domestic staff.’ He gulped, seeming suddenly to realise the dreadful force of this. ‘All twelve of them? Dear Jupiter! What happened? Was there poison in something they ate? It must have been some kind of accident.’ He looked into my face again, saw the truth and said with disbelief, ‘Not intruders, surely? There are armed men always watching at the villa gates! No one could get in and simply murder everyone.’

There was no kind way to tell him, so I did not try to mask the brutal facts. ‘But someone did. This was no accident, I fear. All the heads were missing — hacked off the neck.’ I gestured to Minimus, who — having tethered up the mule — was now waiting patiently a little further on. ‘And these were certainly the bodies of the indoor staff. My own slave used to work at the villa and he recognised a few.’

The chief land-slave gawped at me. ‘So it was obviously murder?’

‘Of the most callous kind,’ I said. ‘Some of them were clearly stabbed as well — so they might have been dead or dying before the final blow.’

He had stopped talking now, and was digesting this. ‘And the gatekeepers weren’t with them? What does that suggest? I suppose they could be killers — they are strong enough, especially combined. Though I wouldn’t for a moment have thought that of them.’ He shook his head. ‘And I’m absolutely certain they could not have sent the scroll. Neither of them ever learned to read a single word, let alone write one, which is the harder skill.’

‘The guard from the front gate is accounted for!’ I said. ‘He wasn’t with the others. He was hanging in his cell. Not by his own hand, if I am any judge.’ I explained what I had seen. ‘And it’s possible we’ll find the body of the other one somewhere.’

My listener was as shaken as Minimus had been. ‘You think it’s an attack against the household then? And these …?’ He nodded towards his land-slaves, still working in the field, who were occasionally glancing towards us as they dug, but were oblivious — as yet — of what awaited them at home. ‘You think that they’ll be next?’

He sounded so concerned about his men that I was rather touched. I wanted to reassure him a little, if I could. I shook my head. ‘I doubt it very much,’ I said, although in fact I wasn’t sure of this at all. ‘Someone’s taken trouble to have you moved away.’

He nodded. ‘Probably because we’re generally fit and muscular. Working outside on the land all day every day for years, does build you up a bit.’ He said it with some pride. ‘We’d be a great deal more difficult to overcome than that soft-handed lot who only work indoors, to say nothing of the fact that there are far more of us. Especially at the moment, with the master gone away. It does not take many to look after the house, but — as I said before — this is a very busy season on the farm. The crops and animals need tending just the same and there are almost as many land-slaves as there ever were. Marcus had more sense than to dispose of most of us.’

I looked around the field. There must have been thirty or forty men at work. ‘So this is all of them?’

‘Dear gods! Of course it’s not!’ He looked at me appalled. ‘I’d forgotten that. I have sent another half a dozen up there to the estate.’ He raised an apologetic brow at me. ‘I know that my instructions did not allow for that, but I had to do something useful with them and I thought there’d be no harm. Just some of the youngest and the oldest who couldn’t dig all day. I sent them to do slightly lighter jobs — pruning, mending hedges and that sort of thing — though they’re not working near the villa, I made sure of that.’ He gazed into my face. ‘You think that something awful might have befallen them, as well?’

‘I doubt it,’ I told him. ‘I think all this happened yesterday. But perhaps we should go up there and see, in any case.’ He was looking so stricken that I was moved to add, ‘If they were working nearer to the villa at the time, it is possible that they have useful information to impart — for instance, if any tradesmen or visitors arrived, at the back gate in particular. As it happened, I saw somebody myself, some sort of patrician in a travelling coach. But I think the slaughter had already taken place, because I know the caller got no answer at the gate.’

My efforts to divert his thoughts had been successful, it appeared. He frowned. ‘Who was that, I wonder. Someone from abroad? All Marcus’s acquaintances know that he’s away.’ He raised a brow at me. ‘Maybe the owner of that house in Gaul?’

‘If indeed the house in Gaul exists,’ I murmured inwardly. Aloud I said, ‘That is certainly a possibility. In any case I must discover who that caller was, and exactly what happened when his slave knocked at the gate. If the answer is nothing, then at least we’d have a time before which all this horror must have taken place.’

He looked at me keenly. ‘I think you’re right. I’d better come and take a look myself. I could tell you, at least, if all the household is accounted for. And I’d be glad to know if I’ve lost any of my land-slaves in this dreadful incident.’

‘But you saw them all this morning and they were accounted for.’

‘You are assuming, citizen, that these murderous men have not come back. It may be that we land-slaves are scheduled to be next.’ He gestured at the labourers still digging in the field. ‘Would it be acceptable to leave this lot, do you think? I know that Marcus forbids it generally, but in the circumstances …’

I nodded. ‘I think he would agree. Are you going to tell them what happened at the house?’

He screwed his face into a horrible grimace. ‘I don’t think so, citizen. Or at least, not yet. They can have a little longer to enjoy their ignorance. I’ll wait until I’ve seen these horrors for myself before I tell them what has happened to their fellow slaves. Time enough to give them nightmares then. In the meantime, I’ll just tell them that you’ve come to call for me, and we can leave your own slave here to keep an eye on things.’

I looked at little Minimus. ‘And that would be enough?’

‘They wouldn’t question it, if I instructed them — though it might occasion giggles, I’m afraid. But they know the boy is acting as your eyes and ears, and that’s sufficient to ensure that they keep working while we are away.’

‘But I’m just a humble tradesman!’ I protested with a smile. ‘My rank would hardly count for anything.’

He shrugged. A little uncomfortably, I thought. ‘You have a sort of reputation as a spy, snooping round for Marcus while he is away, and determined to find something to report.’ He gave me a sheepish smile. ‘My fault, citizen. I fear I haven’t talked of you with very much respect.’

I looked him in the eye. ‘And I, in turn, have underestimated you. You’ve shown a real concern about your men which I applaud. I was once a slave myself. So shall we, like warring generals with a common enemy, forget our differences and declare a kind of truce?’

He looked away. I saw him hesitate. ‘You? A slave? I’d not imagined that!’

I nodded. ‘Seized by pirates and sold into slavery. My master bequeathed me freedom when he died, together with the rank of citizen. That, after all, is how I gained my name: Libertus, “the freed one”, as no doubt you know. You may call me that in future, when we two are alone.’ I grasped his forearm and shook it heartily, as the Romans do. ‘And you must tell me what they call you, too.’

‘I would not dare be so familiar as to call you by your name,’ he protested, colouring, and extracting himself from the handshake with embarrassment. ‘But I am Georgicus. You can imagine why.’

I could. The word means ‘agricultural’, and it rather suited him. I noted, though, that he had not responded well to my suggestion that we might forget our differences. ‘Well, Georgicus,’ I said, trying to pretend that I did not feel rebuffed, ‘give your slaves their orders and I’ll do the same with mine, and we’ll go down to the villa and decide what’s to be done.’