The Vestal Vanishes

THIRTEEN

It was a long journey to Corinium and for the first hour, at least, an uneventful one. The roads were almost empty and we travelled fast until we reached the crossroads where the basket-weaver lived.

We had hardly exchanged more than a few shouted sentences till then — the rattling carriage drowned them and the wind of our passage whirled the words away — but now the raedarius slowed the cart and turned towards me, gesturing with his whip towards the place. ‘Do you still want to stop there, in case anything was seen while I was at the stall, or has the discovery of the corpse made that unnecessary now?’

I thought a moment and decided that I wanted him to stop. I signalled to Ascus to rein in his horse and we left him holding the raeda while we walked over to the stall. It was a simple lopsided table piled with osier baskets of every shape and size and stood outside a tumbledown cottage in a weed-strewn patch of ground, where hungry chickens pecked for food among straggly cabbages. Behind the stall a warty woman was sitting on a stool, weaving yet another of her wares.

She looked up and watched us warily as we approached, her face as thin and sharp as any of the dried stems that she wove. She exuded a strong smell of sweat and cooking-smoke. But she seemed to know the raeda-driver. She gave him a doubtful smile.

‘Why, Ephibbius, are you back again?’ She gestured to his bloodstained tunic. ‘You’ve been whipped, I see.’ She glanced evilly at me as though she thought I might have wielded the lash. ‘Brought a customer?’

I shook my head. ‘We are on our way back to Corinium. I hoped to have a word with you, that’s all. About that basket which you sold him earlier, when he drove his carriage past…’ I nodded to where Ascus had the raeda in his care.

‘That so, citizen?’ She picked up a knife and began to trim the ends of the osiers set around the frame, with savage little movements that emphasized her words. ‘Well, don’t you come complaining and bringing giants here. He doesn’t frighten me. If that basket handle’s broken, it’s no fault of mine.’

‘Broken?’ This was unexpected. I glanced at Ephibbius, since that seemed to be the raeda-driver’s name. I wondered how the woman came to know — he had certainly not mentioned it to me. However, the word sounds rather like the Greek for ‘horse’, so it may have been a nickname she had just thought up for him. I used it anyway. ‘Did you know that, Ephibbius?’

She put the knife down, and began to thread another willow-strand into her handiwork. ‘Well, of course, he did — that’s why he sent it back. But it won’t do any good — I told the slave-girl that. Perfectly all right when it left here, it was. Must have been something that she did to it. Silly child put too much weight in it, I expect.’

I stared at her. ‘What slave-girl do you mean? What are you talking of?’

She looked up at me, her hands still busy with her work. ‘Don’t come here in your toga and start harassing me. You are a citizen. You must know the law of sale as well as I do. Caveat emptor — let the purchaser beware. Ephibbius bought the basket he contracted for. If he gave it to that maidservant and she broke it afterwards, that’s no concern of mine.’ She gave him a sly look. ‘And him telling me he bought it as a present for his wife!’

‘But I didn’t give it-’ the raedarius began.

I interrupted him, ‘Not now, Ephibbius!’ I turned back to the hag, suddenly realizing the implication of her words. ‘Are you telling us you have seen the girl again? The one who was with him?’ I hazarded a guess. ‘She brought the basket back?’

The woman pursed her lips and gave an affronted sniff. ‘Supposing that she did? I told her — same as I told you. Not my responsibility if the handle broke. She should have been more gentle — stuffing it so full.’

‘Full of what?’ I wondered. From the account that I’d been given earlier, Puella had no possessions of her own.

‘Wild watercress!’ the hag said, with a contemptuous sneer. ‘Isn’t that what Ephibbius gave her the basket for? Trying to sell it, from the looks of it — though Minerva knows who’d want to buy it around here. If we want it, we go and pick it for ourselves. There’s plenty of it, off the beaten track.’

I frowned. Collecting watercress to sell? This sounded less and less like Audelia’s maidservant. If Puella had been fleeing to escape a punishment — as the raedarius supposed — she would never have deliberately drawn attention to herself by coming to the basket-woman to complain. She would have known the risks she ran by calling here again — being recognized and handed to the authorities. There would be more than a mere flogging to be fearful of — the penalty for a slave who ran away was very often death. As to my own theory, which I’d briefly held, that the girl had run away because she knew what was hidden in the box — it was clearly false as well. Unless Puella had done the deed herself (in which case she was doubly certain to avoid the chance of being recognized) seeing the body would certainly have frightened her too much — knowing that the murderers were somewhere still at large and might do the same to her, if only to ensure she held her tongue. I could discount the whole idea. No female who had seen that mutilated corpse would idly stop in a deserted spot to gather watercress.

I shook my head. ‘There must be some mistake. It was the same basket, you could swear to that?’

She snorted. ‘Of course I could. I’d know it anywhere. It had a piece of blue-dyed thread around the joint. I put it there to cover up the…’ She broke off. ‘To make it stronger,’ she corrected hastily. ‘It was the one I sold to Ephibbius, all right. I should know my own handiwork, I hope. Anyway, I recognized the girl.’

That would have been my next enquiry. ‘You’re certain of that too?’

She sat back on her stool and grinned gleefully at us. ‘So you didn’t send her here? Well, by all the gods! Steal it from him, did she? Lure it from him and then run away? Well, I am not surprised. Used to getting her own way in everything, that one, you could see that at once — the way she was looking up at him, I knew what sort she was. Pretty face and pretty figure — knew how to use them, too.’

‘You noticed her when she was here with Ephibbius before?’

‘Well, you could hardly miss her, sitting where she was. Made you wonder what she was doing, riding up the front with him — especially in the rain — instead of travelling with her mistress in the coach. But when I got a look at her, I knew what sort she was.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘He’ll know better, another time perhaps — letting a pretty girl wheedle a present out of him — and him telling me that he had bought it for his wife.’

‘But I didn’t…’ Ephibbius began again.

I shook my head at him. Her view of his character was not important now. ‘But you’ve seen this servant since. How long ago was this?’

She screwed up her face. ‘An hour or two, I suppose. The sun was over that elm tree over there.’ She gestured to the place.

I was disappointed. ‘It couldn’t have been her. She was in Glevum close to the end of the birthday sacrifice. She could not possibly have walked here in the time.’

The sneering look came back. ‘Who said anything about her walking here? She was riding on a cart. Ogling the owner, as you would expect. Seemed to be a farmer carrying some hay. Bribed him to carry her — or that is what she said, though she called it “paying him”, of course.’

‘But she had no money. She was a serving girl!’ I exclaimed.

‘Well, you may say so, citizen, but she had cash all right. Plenty of it, too. I saw the purse myself. Offered me a quadrans to put the handle right, but when I said that it would take an hour she wouldn’t wait, because the farmer came over to tell her to get back on the cart.’ She had picked up her work and started weaving the osiers again. ‘His place is on the far side of Corinium, he said, and if she wanted to get there before dark they’d have to go. He’d promised her a dry bed in his stable overnight.’

I looked at Ephibbius with a puzzled frown. This was more and more perplexing. If this really was Puella, as the woman seemed to think, why had she been so eager to impart the details of her future whereabouts, which would make it easier to hunt her down? It made no sense at all.

The woman saw the frown, and misinterpreted it. ‘With the horses, so she told me,’ she said gleefully. ‘And she was proud that she’d agreed a price — though I have my doubts that money was what that farmer had in mind. I saw how he was looking at her while she talked to me — worse than Ephibbius, if that is possible. I wonder what the wife will have to say when he gets home.’ She broke off, with a leer. ‘In any case, citizen, what is that to you? It wasn’t your purse, was it? She told me that her mistress had given it to her.’

It was Ephibbius who spoke then. ‘Her mistress gave her nothing — and I can vouch for that. The servant was in trouble for having lost some shoes, and was expecting to be punished. When we arrived in Glevum…’ He exchanged a glance with me and obviously thought better of what he’d planned to say. ‘When we arrived in Glevum the servant disappeared. Obviously she took the money from her owner when she fled. So now the family want her. We’re here to look for her.’

The woman seemed singularly unmoved by this account. The warty chin wobbled in a mirthless laugh. ‘And what about the letter? Did she steal that too?’

The raeda-driver and I exchanged a look, and said in unison, ‘What letter?’

That changed her attitude. She put down her weaving and got slowly to her feet, wafting the scent of burned grease round us as she moved. Her fingers closed around her trimming-knife. She was a tiny woman, no higher than my chest, but her hard life had clearly toughened her. With her knife clutched menacingly against her skinny breasts she was more intimidating than many a full-grown man.

‘Now see here, gentlemen. I’m a self-respecting trader and I want no trouble here. I thought that you were honest and had simply come to complain about that basket, but it seems I’m wrong. I don’t know what your game is, but this I’m certain of, if you had been sent here by her owner’s family, as you said you were, you would know that she had a letter from her owner round her neck, to the person she had served before.’

I shook my head. ‘Her owner’s dead,’ I said.

The knife-blade faltered slightly. ‘Well, that slave-girl doesn’t know that — and it will break her heart. She was promised manumission as soon as she got home.’

‘Home? But her home was to be Glevum.’

A shrug. ‘Well, that is where you’re wrong. Somewhere near Calleva, as I understand. That Vestal she was travelling with — to whom she had been loaned — had sent her back again, and given her the letter to prove she was entitled to be travelling alone and to have her slave-price money with her in a purse. I know there was only a woman signatory, but she was a Vestal Virgin apparently, so the document had force.’

I stared at the woman. ‘How do you know all this?’

The basket-maker looked aggrieved. ‘She showed me the letter — a proper little vellum scroll, no bigger than my hand. In a wooden cover, like a locket, specially made, I’d say.’

‘And you read this yourself, though the text was in Latin?’ It was clear I doubted it. It would be astonishing if she could read at all.

Her eyes avoided mine. ‘I looked at it.’ A brief affronted sniff. ‘So, perhaps I couldn’t read the words, but I know a proper seal when I see one, and this had one all right — though it was already broken when I looked at it. I understand she’d shown it to the farmer earlier, though I doubt that he could read it either — if it came to it.’

‘So why are you so confident of what the letter said?’

She looked at me with something very near contempt. ‘Citizen, what kind of idiot do you take me for? I had it read, of course. Do you think I would have let her drive off in that cart, if I had thought she was a runaway? There was a mounted soldier passing and I called him over here — he looked at it and read the words out loud to us. I was slightly disappointed, to tell you the truth; if she had being lying I’d have had him lock her up and tell the authorities in Glevum where she was — in case the owners were offering a reward. But the letter asked the public to assist her on her way — so, of course, I had to let her go.’ She gave Ephibbius a crafty sideways glance. ‘I’d even have swapped the basket, if she’d asked me to. You can’t cross a Vestal’s wishes — it would be appalling luck.’ She sat down at the table and picked up her work again.

‘But she didn’t ask you to exchange the broken one?’

She shook her grizzled head. ‘Just got onto the cart and they set off again.’

‘I suppose the farmer was reassured by what he’d heard?’

‘In fact, I don’t think he was altogether pleased. I wonder if he might have had the same idea as me, and had planned to hand her in when he got home — or demand all her money to keep her secrets safe. However, once he learned that she was truly free to travel on her own, and had the protection of a Vestal Virgin too, he could hardly argue. He treated her with more respect, I noticed, afterwards.’ She glanced up at us again. ‘But you should have known that, if you really represent her owner’s family. Though the woman’s dead, you say?’

I shook my head. ‘I was right the first time. This has all been a mistake. Thank you for your help.’ I gestured to Ephibbius. ‘Let’s be on our way. Unless you want to buy another basket for your wife?’

He shook his head grimly and we went back to the cart. Ascus listened gravely as we told him what we’d learned. He used his giant hand to scratch his head. ‘This gets more and more bewildering!’

Before we moved off, I told them about Lavinia’s disappearance too. Additional disturbing and perplexing news could hardly make much difference to us now, I thought.