The Vestal Vanishes

TWENTY-FOUR

She realized immediately that she’d betrayed herself. Without another word she flung open the door and launched herself — not into the interior of the house, as she had meant, but into the arms of Secunda who was in the act of entering the room.

‘What is it little one?’ she murmured soothingly.

The child looked up at her beseechingly. ‘He knows! He’s found us out. He called me by my name.’

I saw the look of sorrow cross the lovely brow. ‘Very well. You take Paulina and go in there to play. I will deal with this. I promise faithfully no harm will come to you.’

The look the child gave her was an adoring one. Paulina was not delighted to be made to stop her scribbling on the slate, and at first she sat protesting in her silent way — kicking her feet and refusing to be dragged — but Secunda called the maid and the child was led away, still looking furious but no longer struggling. I found myself again alone with the lady of the house.

‘I might have guessed that you would work it out,’ she said, giving me the rueful smile that tore my heart. ‘That is Lavinia, of course. What gave us away?’

‘I asked myself why you should be so keen to keep your slave from meeting servants from the Glevum house,’ I said. ‘Especially when Modesta said that there was something slightly familiar about the page. It occurred to me that there is little difference between a boy and girl, except the clothes and haircut, when they are as young as that. What one mostly sees is just the hairstyle and the differing tunic length. But of course it’s possible to shorten both these things. Once I’d had the wit to question it…’ I left the words unfinished, quite ashamed of how long it had taken me to question anything.

Secunda nodded, still remarkably unruffled. ‘The hair was a problem, it was a striking red and of course she had always worn it long. We cut it off as short as possible, and tried to colour it.’

‘With lampblack?’ I said, understanding as I spoke. ‘I noticed that the scalp seemed very stained.’ I should have seen the significance of that — I had been told the colour of Lavinia’s hair.

‘Lampblack and writing ink. We rubbed some on the hands and knees as well — although she hated that — and dressed her in a tattered tunic that we purchased yesterday. It was enough to delude the casual eye and the land-slaves here and very shortly we were going to go to Gaul where it was unlikely that anyone would come and hunt for us. But it seems we did not manage to disguise the truth from you.’ Her cool grey eyes met mine and I saw great sadness in them. ‘I do not expect you to condone what we have done, but at least you know no harm has come to her.’

‘Except that her father will disown her now. She has dishonoured him and she can’t go home again.’

There was little furniture in here beyond the stools but Secunda signalled that I should sit on one, while she sank down on the other with her accustomed grace. ‘You call that misfortune, citizen? I fear Lavinia might think otherwise. Her paterfamilias has never been particularly kind. How do you think he would treat her after this?’

I thought of the way the so-called slave had backed against the wall, and how the nurse had claimed they had a private code for moments when Lavinius threatened punishment. How many whippings had she endured in Lavinia’s stead, I asked myself — and did not care to answer. Whipping-slaves were commonplace in many Roman homes, though more usually they were reserved for sons. Lavinius, however, had no son to whip. I said, ‘But what will become of her, now she has no home?’

‘She had a home here, citizen, until you came along. We would have cared for her. So it is up to you. Will you betray us to Lavinius, or not?’

‘But what about her mother? She will be ill with grief!’

‘If you are referring to Cyra, citizen — who was it, do you think, who made this possible? Who pressed and pleaded that Lavinia should spend the night in Corinium with her cousin — and at a lodging-house — and not at the chief priest’s residence as one might expect?’

It had occurred to me before that this arrangement was a bit unusual, but since all the parties had seemed entirely content, I thought no more of it. ‘So with Cyra’s collusion, Audelia arranged that you two should also spend the night at the same place and take the girl away?’

She looked embarrassed but said steadily, ‘That is effectively the case.’

‘But why? Surely the Vestal Virgin’s life would have been excellent? It would have removed her from Lavinius’s power: she would have been cared for all her life and indeed, retired with a pension and a dowry to her name. Why would Cyra interfere with that? Wouldn’t any mother want that for her child?’

Secunda dropped her eyes. ‘Not every mother’s child would qualify.’

I stared at her. What did she mean by that? But Secunda merely fiddled with her stola-folds and said nothing further. I searched my brain. Cyra had explained the criteria to me: two living parents, both of patrician birth and physical and mental perfection of all kinds — all of which Lavinia had been judged to have, as well as a useful dowry which had avoided the entrance lottery. So what was I missing? Then I recalled Secunda’s words when I mentioned Lavinia’s mother. ‘If you are referring to Cyra…’ she had said. Was it possible?

‘Cyra was not Lavinia’s mother after all? Or was Lavinius not her father?’

She raised her eyes and smiled. ‘Neither of those things. Poor Cyra’s infant turned out to be a son — and boy-children in our family never seem to live. My father and my grandfather were both of them convinced that it was some sort of curse on us, and that it could only be removed by offering the girls to be Vestal Virgins, if they qualified.’

‘As you did not,’ I countered, but she did not rise to that.

‘As Cyra didn’t, citizen. And when she gave birth to yet another son, and it began to show the signs that all the others had — swelling up and screaming when he got a bruise, or if they got the slightest cut they almost bled to death — she knew at once that it would not survive. And what’s more, that since she’d failed again, she was likely to be instantly divorced and thrown onto the mercy of her distant relatives. Not a pleasant prospect when you’re no longer young — and she had very little money of her own, scarcely a dowry that was worthy of the name. So she found a stratagem. Lavinius of course had not been near her since the birth, so when the child was brought to him for him to pick it up — and thereby officially accept it as his own…’

‘She substituted someone else’s child?’ I finished. And then: ‘It was the nurse’s? Of course — the hair was red!’

‘Naturally, citizen? Who else could it have been? The wet nurse who was acting as attendant at the birth had very recently had a child herself — I think it was arranged between them in advance. If Cyra’s child had been a living girl, then well and good, it would be presented to Lavinius and all would be exactly as it appeared to be…’

‘If, however, it proved to be a son and sickly — as it was very like to be — then the promised substitution would be made? Especially since you tell me that he actually died. But why would the nursemaid agree to such a thing?’

‘Cyra had promised her a comfortable home and her infant the best upbringing that money could provide — and since the woman was a widow with no money of her own, naturally it seemed a wonderful exchange. What was there for her precious child otherwise? This way she would even have the chance to tend the child and watch it all its life…’

‘Until Lavinius decided that his daughter should join the Vestal house?’ I said.

‘Exactly, citizen. You can imagine what a turmoil that decision caused. You know how strict the rules for choosing Vestals are — and what the consequence would be if anyone infringed them knowingly. The omens would be simply terrible. And whatever Lavinius might or might not know, one cannot keep this kind of secret from the gods.’

I looked at her but she was clearly not in jest. ‘You believe in such a curse?’

‘Remember, citizen, our family history — the boy-children who always die in agony. What else is it but a kind of punishment? My grandfather was right. To defy the goddess by offering a girl who did not begin to meet the foremost rule was almost begging for a further curse. The nurse was terrified and Cyra even more, because she feared that if Lavinia was sent off to the shrine the slave would tell her master and the truth would be revealed. After all the child had the colouring of a Silurian slave, rather than a patrician Roman family, though it seems that Lavinius never thought to question that. So between them, they got in touch with me — Cyra writes a good deal better than her husband knows and always managed to find a public courier in town who would deliver her messages to me — and we hatched this little-’

Whatever she was going to say, the words died on her lips as Muta came stumbling frantically from the inner room, making painful strangled noises in her throat. She grasped her mistress by the stola and tugged at her, in a way that no normal household slave would ever dare to do. It was evident that she wanted her to come, and urgently.

‘What is it, Muta?’ Secunda was already following, and — since there was clearly some emergency — I came along as well, through a little anteroom, which led out to the rear and where querns and bowls and sweeping-brooms were stored, into a little sleeping room beyond.

It was a small room by any standards and it seemed smaller still for the Roman bed in it: a simple wooden bed-frame with a palliasse, not unlike the one in which I had spent the night before. Beside it on the floor was another smaller mattress, clearly made of straw, where I imagined Muta slept herself. On it sat Paulina, happily engaged in drawing patterns on her piece of slate and not even glancing up as we approached. It all seemed very tranquil but Muta was clearly very agitated still.

‘What is it, Muta?’ Secunda said again.

The slave-woman pointed to the window-space. The shutter, if there was one, had not been put in place and the room looked out onto the grounds. I went across to see. To one side was the gate, and on the other the pasture-field and the wood beyond. Nothing was moving out there except a tranquil cow. I shook my head. I didn’t understand.

Muta held one hand out at the level of her waist and made a motion as if running on the spot. We frowned at her, and then understood her at the same instant. I cried out, ‘Lavinia! She should have been in here. What has happened to her?’ just as Secunda said, ‘She must have recognized that slave-girl from the gig and taken fright.’

More pointing at the window.

‘She ran away through there?’

Emphatic nodding.

Secunda looked at me. ‘We shall have to find her, citizen — whether those slaves from Glevum learn of it or not. If she gets in the forest, the gods know how she’ll fare. She’s not used to walking anywhere alone and there are bears and wolves about. And Paulinus has just gone out to feed the beasts, he isn’t here to help. Oh, Vesta and all the household gods preserve the girl! We cannot even be sure which way she might have gone. Did you see her, Muta?’

Muta shook her head. She pointed from herself to the intervening room and made a motion as of sweeping up. I had noticed that there was a bundle of tied brooms in there.

Secunda looked frantic. It was the first time I had seen her other than serene. ‘Then it must have been the window. I don’t know where to start. If only Paulina could tell us what she knows.’

Muta squatted down beside the deaf girl, leaning very close. She pointed to her eyes and then the window-space and made that running motion that she’d made before. Paulina beamed. She took the slate and smudged it with her sleeve, half erasing what she’d drawn on it. She took the chalk and started drawing something else.

‘It’s no good,’ Secunda said. ‘She doesn’t understand…’

But Muta had held up a warning hand. She pointed to the slate. It was a childish drawing but unmistakeable. It was a little building with a sort of doorway at the front. Secunda was about to turn away again and start the search, but Muta seized the chalk. She drew a sketchy picture of a cow.

Paulina rubbed it out and drew what looked like a long fat table on two spindly legs. She stared at it a moment, as if dissatisfied, then drew a spiral at one end of it.

I frowned at it a moment and then had an idea. Very gently, I took the chalk-stone from the child and gave the thing a head. I looked at Paulina, who smiled delightedly. I tried a pair of ears, and then a flattened nose — and the ‘table’ had transformed itself into a pig.

Paulina was grinning as though her face would burst. She took my arm and dragged me to the window-space where I could see the byre. It was not much like the picture she had drawn, but she pointed to the slate and then to it and then made the running motion which she’d seen Muta make. There was no doubt at all what she was telling us.

‘Lavinia’s hiding in the pig-byre,’ I announced, but the others had already worked it out.

‘Muta, go and find her. Better still, go and find the master and get him to come here. He can go and tell her that we know where she is, but that she can stay there until the gig has gone. You’d better warn him that the land-slaves mustn’t move the pig back to the byre. That sow’s a heavy beast. If it turns on Lavinia, she will certainly get hurt.’

Muta nodded and disappeared at once in search of her master. Secunda turned to me. ‘So I ask you once again, are you going to betray her, citizen?’

I could not answer her. ‘Do I not have duties, lady?’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘I am being paid.’

‘Duties to whom, exactly, citizen? You know now that the girl that we have taken in is not the child of Cyra and Lavinius, but of a Silurian widow who entrusted her to us.’ She held out those lovely pale white hands to me. ‘Libertus, you are a man of some intelligence. You will see that there is little to be gained by returning a girl — whatever her legal status may have been — to a cruel man who has in any case announced that he has rejected her. If she were dragged back there she would find herself at best obliged to sell herself to slavery — or at worst, reduced to being a beggar or a fugitive. I cannot believe that you’d connive at that — or even that you would tell Lavinius the truth about her parentage. Think what would happen to Cyra, in that case. It would serve no purpose, human or divine. Better that he simply believes the girl has run away.’

I have heard lawyers argue with less force. I looked at her with even greater admiration than before. ‘You have a point, of course,’ I said, slowly. ‘Lavinius has no natural claim upon the girl and he has publicly renounced his legal one. And as you say, her mothers — if I may use the phrase — were both content that she should stay with you.’

She could see that I was weakening and she sealed it with a smile.

I found myself saying, by way of self-excuse, ‘Besides, I was not actually required to find Lavinia at all — it was simply that I chose to do so while I had the chance.’

‘Then you will not betray us?’

‘That might depend,’ I said untruthfully, ‘on what you tell me next.’