The Ghosts of Glevum

XXII

It was getting really dark by now, though there was a misty moon, and we slunk along the margins of the lane, taking to the trees again whenever there was movement on the path. We kept well out of sight and saw no guards (although we heard them once or twice), just a tired donkey-cart or two and a drunken traveller reeling to an inn. We took care that none of them saw us.

We reached the bottom of the hill but then, instead of following the road towards the town, Tullio turned on to a less frequented route, a small rutted track that had once led to some forgotten farm. Then even that trail petered out and we seemed to walk for miles along neglected paths, now barely discernible and full of sharp stones and unexpected holes, while creatures rustled past us in the dark. The coin in my sandal rubbed my heel, and soon I was limping as badly as ever. And still we walked.

Suddenly Tullio stopped and placed a finger to his lips. ‘Listen!’ he said. I listened. Far away a lone wolf howled, but apart from that the night seemed empty, cold and still. I shivered. And then I did hear. Water, lapping at the banks.

He turned to me, and I could tell by his voice that he was smiling. ‘The river. Can you hear it? We’re nearly there.’

The last half-mile was marshy, difficult and slow, but at last we turned a corner and there, undoubtedly, was a house — a little roundhouse not dissimilar to mine, except that this one was so low and small it scarcely stood above the level of the reeds. Already I could smell the smoke that rose up from the fire, and see the occasional spark against the dark. Tullio gave a piercing whistle to warn of his approach, and then led the way, picking his way across the reedy marsh, into a fenced enclosure made of plaited osiers, and so into the house.

It was even smaller and lower than it looked, built of osiers itself, and thatched with reeds. I had to bend half double to get in through the door, but inside it was welcoming and warm. A skinny woman started up from a bed of skins and rushes at our approach, disturbing a small child in a woven basket at her side who set up a disgruntled wail. In the firelight four other pairs of sleepy eyes regarded us from another pile of reeds against the further wall.

‘Husband!’ the woman said, clutching her garment to her, and regarding me with ill-disguised alarm.

‘This is the man I told you of last night — the passenger I took downriver in the dark,’ Tullio said, bluntly but with some rough affection in his voice. ‘I promised Sosso we would take him in — he’ll pay us for his keep.’

‘But husband. .’ the poor woman wailed, looking around her tiny house despairingly. It was clear that she was wondering where I was to be put.

‘No buts, wife,’ Tullio said. ‘The matter’s settled. Now, fetch us a drink. Our guest is thirsty. We have been walking for a long time.’

The woman looked resentful, but she did as she was told. She went to the pot that was hanging on the fire, and a moment later I was holding a rough bowl of something warm. It smelled and tasted strongly of eel, but it would have been impossible to refuse. I swallowed it, feeling the liquid warmth seep through my bones.

Meanwhile the woman roused her children from their bed and divided their bedding-reeds into two unequal piles, of which the largest was assigned to me. Sensing that protest would only make things worse, I lay down gratefully, taking off my mantle to spread it over me.

As I did so I realised, with no real surprise, that the coin which I had tied into my hem was gone. I smiled ruefully — remembering how Cornovacus had clapped me on the back. One had to admire his skill, but it had taught me what I wished to know. I must be on my guard. Sosso’s gang might be working for me now, but still they would lose no opportunity to rob me if they could.

I waited until Tullio and the woman were in bed before I removed my chafing sandals from my feet and slipped the aureus into my belt. Then, taking care to lie across my purse, I shut my eyes.

When I opened them again, broad daylight was streaming through the door. The beds were empty and Tullio was gone. His wife was sitting outside the doorway, gutting fish, while two of the children scrabbled at her feet, and the baby slept fitfully in the basket at her side. I got rather stiffly to my feet and, stooping as I passed the entranceway, went out to talk to her.

As soon as she saw me she paused in her task, and went to fetch me water in a cracked earthen cup, together with a hunk of ageing bread. It was not an appetising meal, but from the envious looks the children cast at me I understood that it was more breakfast than they’d had themselves. They watched me in grave silence as I ate.

I tried to have a conversation with the wife, but it was well-nigh impossible. She seemed embarrassed by the presence of a man, and would only answer in a word or two if I asked her a direct question, and not always then. She was called Capria, I learned — the name means ‘nanny-goat’ so whether it was Tullio’s half-affectionate sobriquet for her, or whether she was a land-child and called that from birth, it was difficult to guess. She had five children and had buried three more, all of cold and hunger in the bitter winter a year or two ago.

She answered my queries like a slave, obedient and polite, but blank. I wanted to discover more, so I continued to press for information long after normal politeness would have forced me desist. The older children were with Tullio, she said, collecting worms to go and fish for eels. There were few eels in the river at this time of year, but there were always some, and that was what the family chiefly ate. In spring especially, there were lots of fish: Tullio made traps for them, and sold them in the town to pay for cloth and grain and oil, and other necessities of life.

I could think of nothing else to ask, and she was volunteering nothing, that was clear. She had cause to be resentful, I realised suddenly. This little house was safe from those who did not know their way across the marsh, and I could see why Sosso had suggested it. All the same she was afraid — not just of me, as I had thought at first, but of the risk that I posed to her family by simply being here.

I made a last attempt at friendliness. I gestured to the fish that she was filleting. ‘And sometimes there are fish to spare?’

For a moment the thin face was brightened by a smile. ‘Sometimes, at some seasons of the year, there are so many fish you can walk out to the shallow pools left by the tide and catch the stranded salmon in your hands.’ The smile faded. ‘Then we might eat some of them ourselves. But mostly it is eels.’ She lapsed into silence once again, and went on with her task.

So even the fish that she was gutting was on my account. I felt a rush of sympathy for her. ‘Perhaps, if I am to stay here in the house, there is something that I can do to help? If your children are collecting worms, for instance? I don’t know much about it, but I could do that too, perhaps.’

‘Perhaps.’ She did not look at me.

I said with sudden inspiration, ‘If any soldiers come this way, that would be a good disguise. They won’t be looking for a fisherman.’

She looked at me without curiosity. ‘When my husband returns, he can show you how. Until then, better wait inside the hut.’

It seemed a very long time until Tullio came back. I watched the wintry sun move halfway round the sky. Then I sat down on the bedding pile to think, wondering where Sosso and his men were now, and whether they could possibly discover anything that would help my cause.

I doubted it. The case against Marcus looked very dark indeed. First there was the death of Praxus — and, much as I wanted to believe in my patron’s innocence, I could not see who else could possibly have managed that.

Then that treasonable document had been discovered in Marcus’s house. Of course it was always possible that someone else had put it there after Marcus was arrested, knowing there would be a search — but again, it was hard to see how it was done. Not only was the villa under constant guard once the death of Praxus had occurred, but the incriminating letter was sealed with Marcus’s own seal. Yet Marcus wore his seal-ring on his finger all the time. He was wearing it on the evening of the feast — I’d noticed it — so no one could have forged the letter later on because the ring had gone with him to jail. I sighed. If I was Emperor Commodus, I thought, I would have found Marcus guilty straight away.

And yet, and yet. . Someone had killed Golbo too. The authorities weren’t interested in the mere murder of a slave, but surely it had to be significant? Marcus didn’t do it — he was locked up at the time — although it was just possible that he had ordered it. But now someone was having me consistently pursued — not through the usual legal channels, but by Bullface and his men — and I was quite sure that Marcus wasn’t responsible for that.

I sighed. It was physically alarming, but a comfort mentally — it convinced me that there was someone else involved and that I was not a fool to go on questioning.

‘Citizen?’ Tullio’s gruff voice from the doorway made me start. I scrabbled to my feet. ‘I believe you offered to help us with the eels?’

I nodded.

‘Then come now, and I’ll show you how it’s done. We shall be glad of assistance. Sosso has sent word. He’s found your poet. I am to go and guide him through the marsh.’

He turned without a further word and led the way. I followed, taking care to plant my feet exactly where he’d planted his, until we came to more solid ground, where the two older children were busy doing something with a length of wool.

‘Watch them,’ said Tullio, and set off through the reeds.

It was not a complicated task, and not a pleasant one. The two boys were digging for worms and threading them lengthways along the coarse strand of home-spun yarn with the aid of a piece of sharpened bone. I watched them for a while, and then assisted in the provision of the worms. The threading exercise was more than I could bear. They, on the other hand, were quite adept at it, and very soon there was a sizeable length of worms, strung end to end, like so many squirming beads. My remarks and questions were ignored. Like the rest of the family, it seemed, these boys were used to working hard and speaking little.

‘Enough,’ the older one said suddenly. It was the first word that either child had addressed to me. He took the length of wool, tied the loose end firmly round a stick, and wound the string of worms around it so it formed a ball. Then he took it to the waterside, and plunged it in. ‘You?’ he said, and handed me the pole. He went back to his brother who, meanwhile, had pulled out another length of wool, and was beginning to create another string.

I was unsure what they expected me to do, but it soon became self-evident. There was a wriggling in the mud, a tug, and a moment later several eels — one of them quite large — were biting at the wool. I let out a howl of surprise and almost dropped my piece of wood, but the older boy was with me in a flash.

He looked scornfully at me and seized the stick, which he simply lifted to the shore. The eels, much to my surprise, clung on — too dedicated to their gruesome feast to let it go — until the younger boy came up with a sharpened stone and severed them just below the head. Even then the greedy, nasty little jaws remained clamped firmly to their prey, and had to be prised off with a piece of flint. I have never cared for eels very much, but this revolted me.

The carcasses were flung into a plaited basket waiting on the bank. ‘A good spot for eels,’ I said nervously.

The older boy gave me that look again. ‘Better in the dark. You should see them in the season,’ he said bitterly, and handed me the eeling pole again.

So that was how Tullio and Loquex found me, later on, standing by the river, trying to catch eels on a stick.