The Vestal Vanishes

ELEVEN

I stared at the poor, mutilated, lifeless thing which dangled from his hands like some grotesque stuffed doll. Hard to believe that it had once been a living woman, with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Clearly an attractive woman, too. If this had indeed been Audelia, I thought, she did not share the angularity of her aunt.

The form, or what one could perceive of it beneath the Vestal robes, was slim and shapely still, and the bare legs and ankles (though mottled purple with pooled blood where they had been pressed against the box), were well-formed, shaved and slightly muscular.

I wondered at that for a moment, but then remembered what I’d been told when I was in Londinium — that Vestal Virgins sometimes walked for miles to gather the spring water that featured in the shrine. I had not seen it for myself, of course, but I had heard of it: flowing incessantly into a bowl which, in turn, spilled out into a pool to be siphoned back again, so that a priestess or worshipper who washed her hands, in accordance with the ritual, washed them in pure running water every time. To let the water fail was to infringe the vows, so the reservoir was reverently topped up every day. No wonder that this Vestal — if that was what she was — showed signs of constant gentle exercise.

But… ‘Why cut off her hands and head?’ I said the words aloud. ‘Unless the intention was to disguise the identity of the corpse?’

The gig-man, who had been standing goggling at my side, looked pityingly at me. ‘And leave the rest of her in that distinctive dress? What sense is there in that? More likely it was to make the body fit into the space. Must have been a fairly tight squeeze as it was.’

Ascus looked surprised. He hoisted the corpse above the open box, and gauged the volume by dipping it inside and pushing down. He turned to me. ‘I believe he might be right. There’s not a lot of room — and if the head was on, you couldn’t close the lid.’

I had to admit there was some force in that. ‘But why remove the hands?’ I persisted. ‘That would hardly help to get the body in the box.’ I was about to press my theory of disguised identity, when I realized the fundamental flaw. That could hardly be the explanation here — one wealthy woman’s hands look much like the next. Unless this was some arthritic ancient crone, or hard-working toil-worn slave (which clearly it was not, the rest of the body was too well-fed for that) the hands were surely quite irrelevant. It was not as though you could classify people by their finger-shapes, and we didn’t know what Audelia’s looked like anyway. ‘So what could anyone hope to gain by doing that?’ I said aloud.

It was the raedarius who answered. ‘After her jewellery, citizen, I shouldn’t be surprised. Whenever this was done they must have wanted speed, or they might have been discovered. Easier to hack the finger off than struggle with a ring.’

The gig-driver rounded on him instantly. ‘So you know all about it? And you had this box riding with you all the way?’ He smiled, unpleasantly. ‘I knew that we should not have set you free.’

‘Of course I did not touch the Vestal,’ the raedarius protested. ‘I place far too much value on my life! Anyway, I’d no idea that she was in the box. It’s just that I’ve come across the same thing once before — two unhappy corpses, that I found in a ditch, who had been stripped and robbed by highway thieves. They’d also had their hands and feet removed to steal the golden toe and finger-ornaments.’

‘And you were there that time as well!’ The gig-man sneered. ‘Is that a coincidence? I wonder if the master will think so when he hears? I have my own ideas — and I’d like to know where you’ve hidden the jewels you cut from her.’ He glanced at Ascus, certain of support. ‘Will you seize him, horseman, or should I call the guard? I daren’t lay hands on him this time — he is a freeman and I am just a slave and I have no authority from my master or Publius to take him prisoner again. And…’ He looked contemptuously at me. ‘It’s clear this citizen will take no steps at all.’

Ascus surprised me. He put down the headless corpse, letting it collapse into a heap upon the street, then turned towards Lavinius’s slave and stood towering over him. He was twice as big as the gig-boy, and looked as if he could swallow him for lunch so I was not surprised to see the young man flinch.

The ex-cavalry-man put a giant hand under the gig-slave’s chin and forced the young slave to look up at him. ‘Listen here, young man! Take care whom you accuse. You think you’re very clever, but you know nothing of the world. Any man can murder, for profit, for revenge — that much I will grant you. But to take a knife to some helpless female and cut bits off her — that takes a special kind of ruthlessness. And I will tell you this — the raedarius clearly is not that kind of man. You saw what happened when I cut him free — he was more concerned about his animals than anything else. If he had known what was hidden in the box, would he have ignored it and been so happy to let me open it? Besides, a man who cares that much about a horse is not likely to cut women into pieces, in my view.’

The gig-slave was attempting in vain to get away. ‘But you heard what he said about the hands…’

‘Exactly!’ Ascus said. ‘And what he says is true — I’ve seen it happen on the battlefield, myself. People are always plundering the dead. And not just cutting off their rings and amulets — but whole torcs and helmets, and even pairs of boots.’ He let go of the boy, who stumbled back and rubbed his face. Ascus turned to me. ‘So I find the explanation very probable. And Audelia did have finger-rings, I told you earlier. She promised one to me.’

I nodded. ‘Though that was in her jewel-box, I believe you said? She wasn’t wearing it?’

Ascus looked shifty. ‘That’s true. And the jewel-box isn’t here. Though there is something in here, now I come to look. I don’t suppose…’ He leaned across the corpse — paying no more attention than if it were a dog — and plunged one massive hand into the box. ‘Nothing significant. It is only cloth.’ He drew out a folded piece of delicate material dyed a saffron hue. ‘This was underneath the body. I did not see it before.’

‘That must be Audelia’s marriage-veil,’ I said.

He flipped it by two corners so that it half-opened out. It was beautifully embroidered with gold and silver thread — butterflies and flowers, as if to match the shoes. ‘It answers the description that I heard of it,’ he agreed.

‘I’ll give you two sesterces for it,’ said a cheeky voice. ‘Cursed by being with a corpse or not.’

I turned around. I had been so transfixed by our discovery that I had not realized it, but we had attracted quite a little crowd of curious spectators, many of them slightly the worse for drinking wine.

‘Make it three sesterces,’ the speaker said again — a fat, florid tradesman with a pockmarked face. ‘It’s a handsome offer. You won’t get more than that. Come on, citizen, she won’t be needing it. And I won’t sell it locally — I’ll take it somewhere else. I know a bride-to-be who will be pleased to have the veil — she doesn’t need to know that it belonged to someone dead.’ It was clear that he’d decided that I must be in charge — I was wearing the toga after all — and he pushed his face towards me, reeking of cheap wine. ‘You can’t tell me that you want to put it on the pyre. All that work, it would be such a waste. It’s not even damaged, she’s hardly bled on it.’

There was an outbreak of ragged cheers at that and cries of: ‘Go on, citizen.’ But I hardly noticed them. I was staring at the speaker. ‘What did you just say?’

He sighed theatrically and spread his hands apart. ‘Three sesterces and one denarius. That’s my final offer, citizen. I can’t make a profit if I give you more — even on stitching of pure gold and silver thread.’

But I wasn’t listening. ‘She hasn’t bled on it,’ I echoed, stupidly. ‘Of course she hasn’t! Or on her vestments either!’ I turned to Ascus. ‘You see what that implies? Someone cut her hands and head off after she was dead. Quite a while afterwards — or there’d be bloodstains everywhere.’

He stared at me. ‘I do believe you’re right. I should have thought of that.’ He opened out the veil to examine it. ‘This was underneath her all the time, but there’s hardly a sign of a bloodstain anywhere.’ But even as he spoke, something brownish-green fell out and fluttered to the ground. He bent to peer at it, pushed it with his foot, then said dismissively, ‘That isn’t anything. Just a piece of leafy twig. Caught in the hemming by the look of it.’

‘That might be important, all the same,’ I said reprovingly. ‘For instance, it might give us a clue as to where the girl was killed — or put into the box. Could you get it, gig-boy, and save my poor old back?’ I placed Publius’s precious letter in my toga-folds, where it would be supported by my belt, and held out my hand.

‘If you insist, citizen.’ The gig-boy gestured the trader to stand back, and bending down, picked up the piece of twig. But instead of handing it to me, he took one look at it and dropped it instantly as if it burnt his skin. All the colour had drained out of his face.

‘Well?’ I held my hand out more insistently.

He shook his head and went on shaking it. ‘I’m not touching that. Where’s that lucky charm I saw tied on the coach? It’s not a proper deity, but it’ll have to do.’ There was a crude wooden trinket-doll tied to the raeda — the sort of talisman that travellers sometimes use to ward off evil spirits on the road. The gig-boy scooped it up and pressed his lips to it and I saw him mouthing some kind of hasty prayer. Then he let the charm go and said shakily, ‘That’s the only good-luck incantation that I know. I hope it is enough.’

‘Whatever is the matter?’ the raedarius asked.

‘Oak leaves and mistletoe,’ the slave said, breathlessly. ‘That’s what the matter is. Though it explains the mystery, doesn’t it? I am sorry I accused you of taking part in it. These were not ordinary robbers and murderers — though that would be bad enough. This is the work of those accursed Druids.’ His voice was getting high and faster all the time and it was clear that he was panicking. ‘They didn’t cut her head off to put her in the box, they cut it off to hang it in their accursed grove — no doubt a Vestal Virgin was a special prize — and only their dark gods know what they wanted with the hands.’

At the mention of the Druids, the forbidden sect, there was a frightened murmur from the onlookers and even the florid trader stepped back a little way.

I confess that a cold shiver had run down my own spine. It was more than possible that the boy was right. Oak leaves are everywhere, of course, but mistletoe was not a common plant round here these days — and when it was found it was almost never picked because of its association with the sect. It had become an evil sign, regarded as a curse: the symbol of the forbidden cult of Druids, who — as the gig-slave said — famously cut off the heads of enemies and hung them onto trees in a grisly offering to the gods.

But it was not only their treatment of dead enemies that made the Druids so much feared. Their priests were rumoured to disembowel living men, in order to read the message of the entrails, and there were ancient stories of huge man-shaped structures, built of wood and filled with people who were burned alive to pacify the gods. It had all served to put the cult beyond the law. The Romans frowned on human sacrifice and, besides, their own troops were often the ex-owners of the heads. To be a Druid follower these days was a capital offence.

Despite this — or perhaps because of it — the religion flourished still, mostly in dark, secret places in the woods. I am not a follower — although I am a Celt — preferring the simpler ancestral deities of streams and woods. All the same, I have seen a sacred grove; one of the few outsiders who have done as much, and lived. It was an eerie place, its gruesome oak trees draped with mistletoe and hung with rotting skulls, displayed as a kind of ghastly sacrifice. The stuff of nightmares, just as rumour said. And there were other rumours, even more unspeakable, which spoke of what would happen to those that crossed the cult. No wonder that the gig-boy was so terrified.

I reminded myself that there were other aspects of the Druids, too — fine artefacts and learning, poetry and healing arts. I bent down stiffly and picked up the sprig of leaves myself. As I did so, I pricked my finger on something in the leaves.

A strand of wool had been tied around both stems to make a tiny sprig, and a small metal pin was still threaded through the stalk, showing where it had been deliberately pinned onto the veil. As I sucked my finger, I realized what this meant. The presence of this greenery was not an accident. Someone had fixed it there on purpose, as a deliberate sign of connection with the Druids. The gig-boy was quite right.

I wondered what Lavinius and Publius would say when they heard this. It might be kinder not to tell the groom, in fact, because what might have happened to Audelia in Druid hands, before she died, was horrible to consider. I wondered if I should examine the corpse a little more to see whether my worst fears were justified, but decided I could hardly do so in this public place. In any case, I reassured myself, such an examination of this body was not appropriate. This had been a Vestal Virgin after all, and intimate inspections were likely to be cursed if carried out by any man at all who did not happen to be a pontifex. I sucked my hand again, hoping that there had not been poison on the pin.

‘Citizen?’ an urgent voice said in my ear.

I turned. Most of the crowd had drifted back a little way — frightened off by the discovery of the mistletoe, no doubt — but I found the florid trader still hovering nearby with a curious companion not very far behind.

I was about to demand a little more respect for what was clearly the body of a woman of some rank and tell them to go away, but the man forestalled me. The pock-marked face came very close to mine. ‘I formally withdraw the offer, citizen. If Druids are involved, I want no part in it.’

‘You quite sure?’ his companion enquired. ‘Your customer won’t know.’

‘You can’t take chances. There might be a curse. How do you think I got these marks?’ He was still murmuring. He turned to me and pointed to his nose. ‘Once bought a blanket that was cheap because it had been wrapped around a sickly cow. More than likely the animal was hexed. Next thing I know, I had caught a pox myself — and lucky to survive it, everybody said. So — as this man is my witness — I formally withdraw my offer for the veil.’

I shook my head at him. ‘I did not agree to sell it,’ I said, impatiently. ‘And I would not have done, whatever price you offered. This is the body of a Vestal, as you see — and hence clearly a woman of very wealthy birth. We have come to take her back to her family for proper burial — and her vestments with her. So move away. That’s all there is to see.’

Neither of them budged. Indeed, the larger crowd, becoming curious, was edging close again. Ascus picked up the hapless corpse and put it in the box, draped the veil around it where the head should be, then turned to face the gogglers, fingers in his belt.

‘Have you no fear of omens, any of you fools?’ he demanded in a roar. ‘It is a sacred feast-day — and what have we here? A murdered woman — and a Vestal too — hacked about and with Druid symbols tucked into her clothes. And for double measure, she was to be a bride. What kind of luck do you suppose that sight will bring? And yet you idiots want to stand and stare at it?’

Even the florid trader turned bloodless at the words and there was a general murmur in the crowd.

‘I saw a donkey carrying hipposelinum yesterday,’ I heard someone remark, ‘I should have known there would be trouble.’ He spat on a finger and rubbed behind his ear, in the age-old gesture to keep evil thoughts and influence at bay. ‘I’m going to go and make a sacrifice at once, to ward the evil off.’

People were already starting to disperse, though mostly in the direction of the wine-shop, I observed. I grinned at Ascus. ‘That was well expressed. Shall we move the corpse into the gig?’

The raedarius however, motioned us to wait. He was staring at the box. ‘They can’t have done this when the raeda stopped to let the troops go by,’ he mused. ‘Someone would have noticed, and it would have taken far too long. And I saw Audelia get in the coach, myself. It must have happened since it’s been standing here.’

Ascus shook his head. ‘I don’t see how it could have. The box was under guard. I saw the man myself when we arrived. I told him that he was relieved and sent him on his way. A servant from the temple.’ He turned to the gig-slave. ‘You must have seen him too? I suppose it was the same one that Publius set on watch?’

The boy was still whiter than a piece of fullered cloth, but he nodded shakily. ‘It was the same slave, I am quite sure of that.’

‘Though, I suppose he might have moved in the meanwhile,’ I said. ‘You recognize the man. You go inside the gate and tell him to come here, so I can question him.’

The gig-slave was only too anxious to obey — anything to distance himself from Druid signs and corpses, obviously — but the pock-marked trader had overheard our talk.

‘I can save you the trouble. I’ve been here all day — that’s my stall over there. I had the raeda in my sight since it first came. I watched this raedarius draw up at the gates and saw him send a messenger inside — obviously to tell somebody that he had arrived.’

I had a sudden memory. ‘There was a slave-girl sitting on the seat with him,’ I said. ‘Did you see her depart?’

He frowned. ‘I think I might have done,’ he said. ‘But I was far too busy watching him.’ He gestured at the raedarius as he spoke. ‘It was obvious that something was amiss — the way he kept on looking in the carriage as if he could not believe his eyes. And then a moment afterwards, a citizen came out and this fellow was carried off in bonds — everyone was naturally staring by that time. So I noticed when the temple slave was put on guard. It isn’t a normal thing for them to do. I wondered why, but he wouldn’t tell me, though I came across and asked. But I did discover that there was a box — I managed to get a look inside the coach.’

‘And since he’d placed a temple guard on it, you reasoned that there was something very valuable inside? Which is why you made your offer for the veil?’ I suggested. I had been surprised by the amount of money offered, at the time.

Colour came flooding back into his cheeks and he gave me a wry nod. ‘It did occur to me. A man must take what chances he can get. Of course I didn’t know about the body at that time — but neither did the patrician, obviously enough — so I reasoned that if it merited a temple slave as guard, there must be something very special in the box.’ He essayed a little grin. ‘That’s why afterwards I kept an eye on it. Well, naturally I did! And I can tell you this: whoever put that body in the box there must have done it somewhere else. Nobody else came near the raeda all the afternoon. And the guard did not leave it. I’d stake my life on that. If that slave had gone anywhere I’d have had a better look myself, but he didn’t give me a moment’s opportunity. But here’s the slave in question, just coming through the gate. You can go and ask him, but he’ll tell you just the same.’