The Vestal Vanishes

TWENTY-SIX

The ferocity of her reaction startled me. ‘What makes you say that, citizen? Of course I am his wife.’ She squeezed his hand and looked affectionately at him. ‘True we did not have an expensive wedding feast, or a conferratus ceremony with witnesses and cakes, but when we reached here yesterday we summoned all the slaves and in front of everyone we lit the household shrine and made the proper vows before the gods.’

‘Where you are Gaius I am Gaia,’ Paulinus put in. ‘And I swore the same.’

‘But she isn’t Gaia. She is Audelia.’ Why had I not seen the possibility before?

‘All the same I am as much his wife as anyone could be. I even had a bridal costume, more or less — although I lacked the proper shoes and veil — and my hair was plaited in the proper way. In fact — ’ she shook her faded golden ringlets with a laugh — ‘it has been plaited in that way so long that even when — at last — I let it out, the tight curls still remain. My hair was absolutely straight when I first went to the shrine!’ She laughed again, then said with dignity, ‘Many people, citizen, are much less wed than that. And then, last evening, my husband came to me. I have become, in every sense, his wife. Even Lavinius’s famous law courts would agree to that.’

‘So what happened to the real Secunda?’ I enquired, struck by a dreadful thought. ‘Was it her body that we discovered in the box?’

‘Of course not, citizen,’ she said. ‘I am the only Secunda that there ever was. And it really is my name. Audelia Secunda my father called me, at my naming day, because an earlier daughter called Audelia did not live for long. Another affliction for my family, though my sister died of fever, as many children do, not of that dreadful curse that carried off the boys.’

‘The father was called Audelius and both girls were named for him,’ her husband said. ‘I knew the family slightly when I was a boy — they were relatives, of course. I grew fond of Secunda, as we called her, even then.’

The woman nodded. ‘To my mother I was always Secunda till the day I went away, though of course they called me Audelia at the shrine. But now I have retired. Besides — ’ she looked up at Paulinus lovingly — ‘I am a second wife. It seemed appropriate to use the name again.’

‘So who was the beheaded person in the box?’ I broke off as the realization dawned. ‘Oh, of course! It wasn’t murder as we all supposed. It was a suicide. That was the wet nurse who was rescued from the beasts?’

‘The body was released to Paulinus. It seemed the simple way. If my uncle found a body they would not look for me.’

‘So you cut the head and hands off?’ I saw Paulinus flinch.

‘It was the vilest thing that I have ever done. But it was not done with malice. Druids attach extreme importance to the head — they think that it is where the spirit dwells. I gave it to her family for proper burial, in the sacred grove or whatever place they chose.’

‘Besides,’ I said, heartlessly, ‘without a face, no one could be sure that the body was not Audelia?’

He nodded, with a kind of dignity. ‘That’s also true, of course. Don’t suppose I didn’t think of that. Otherwise I do not think I could have done the task.’ He swallowed hard, his voice-box bobbing visibly up and down. ‘But the woman’s family agreed to take the head and asked no questions about the rest of her. They were actually grateful, that was the dreadful thing.’

‘And what about the hands? I wondered at the time if they were calloused and would give the game away. I saw that the legs were strong and muscular.’

‘Much worse than work-worn, citizen.’ This time it was Secunda who replied. ‘The woman had a birthmark right across her hand and two of her fingers had been joined since birth. Defects like that would have prevented anyone from being accepted as a Vestal at the shrine. When Paulinus realized, he removed them too. It was not intended as an act of violence, citizen. The poor woman was already dead, and it was simply to allow me to escape.’

‘So you, Paulinus, cut off the missing portions before you left this house and put her in the box that you were travelling with — though, of course, the corpse was wearing her own garments at the time?’ I had understood this now. A coarse plaid cloak and tunic with a drawstring purse. ‘And when you reached Corinium you dressed her as a bride — or a Vestal Virgin, which is largely the same thing?’

Secunda — I could not think of her by any other name — laughed softly. ‘Exactly citizen, except I kept my cloak. Fortunately the girl was very much my size. Except for my white slippers which did not really fit. Then we put her in the box. Along with the wedding veil that I did not intend to wear.’

‘And the wedding slippers? You left them behind on purpose, I assume? To be rid of Ascus for an hour or two?’

A nod. ‘If I’d had an escort I could never have escaped.’

‘And then, I think, you blamed your little maid for it?’

She looked apologetic. ‘I raised my voice, it’s true. I told her that they had been left behind and that she had not packed them — which was strictly accurate. Poor Puella! She was so upset, but I dared not entrust her with our secret, naturally.’ She gave her shyest smile. ‘I did the best I could: warned her to leave the coach at Glevum, the instant it arrived — on pain of the severest penalty — and go back to her former owner near the shrine. I gave her a letter and her slave-price to ensure that she was freed, and could not be arrested on the way.’

‘You did not think she might be blamed for what was in the box?’

Secunda shook her head. ‘How could that be, citizen? She was sitting in the front with the raedarius — I made sure of that, so she had witnesses to her presence all the way. By the time the door was opened and it was found that I had gone, I knew that she was likely to have disappeared. If not, there was the letter to fall back upon. I hoped she would not witness the discovery of the corpse.’

‘Ah yes, the unfortunate Druid wet nurse!’ I exclaimed.

‘We thought that Lavinius would build a pyre for her and give her Roman rites, so at least she would obtain a proper funeral. We were anxious to show as much respect to her as possible,’ Audelia-Secunda told me earnestly. ‘I even pinned a spray of mistletoe and oak onto the bridal veil I left with her, so that tokens of her own religion were attached to her. We should have guessed what someone might construe from that.’ The gentle lips were almost twitching in a smile as she added softly, ‘Though it was hard to answer, citizen, when you asked outright whether the Druids might have been involved. As a Vestal I am bound to always tell the truth — anything else would be a violation of my vows.’

‘Yet you signed a contract, didn’t you? Agreeing to marriage with a certain Publius? Surely breaking that was a violation, too?’ It sounded quite severe, but I had put it mildly. It was much worse than that. A Vestal Virgin may not break her legal bond on pain of the most dreadful punishment, since if she does so she is seen to be endangering the state.

For the first time I saw a flash of anger in her eyes. ‘Indeed I signed a contract. It is not a pleasant story. Sit down, citizen, and I will explain. We have no wine to offer, as we said before, but I think there is some apple-beer somewhere that Muta made last year from fermented windfalls. We had some yesterday when we got to the house.’

‘I will go and fetch it,’ Paulinus volunteered. ‘This story is better coming from my wife. I blurt things out too much — look at the trouble I’ve already caused!’ He got to his feet and went out in the direction of the ante-room.

But it was not his blurtings which detained me now. ‘Muta made the apple-beer?’ I said. ‘But I understood you only bought her yesterday?’

She came across and stood very close to me. ‘I thought better of your powers of deduction, citizen. Does Muta look like a brand-new servant in this house?’

Of course she didn’t, now I came to think of it. For one thing she had clearly won Paulina’s confidence, and learned to communicate in some way with the girl. I shook my head.

Secunda reached up to the shelf and fetched down three drinking bowls. ‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘who do you suppose accompanied Paulinus to the lodging-house before we others got there?’

‘That was Muta? But she doesn’t speak! And she walks so badly!’

‘That was an advantage, citizen. Paulinus had bought her a stola and a russet travelling-cloak, and of course she travelled in a hood and veil — as any matron with old-fashioned sensibilities might do. Anyone who saw her would remember just the cloak — it was an unusually fine colour dye of course — and the fact that the wearer was walking with a limp.’

‘But Trullius and Priscilla must have seen her face,’ I protested, and broke off. ‘But of course, I remember. She retired to rest and did not come again until you had arrived. To greet you with affection, as I understand.’

‘With affection,’ she allowed, ‘but not with words, at all. Paulinus did the talking, and Lavinia later on. No one expects a woman who is frail and tired to say very much.’ She picked up the water-pitcher as she spoke.

‘And then when you were dining she went back upstairs?’

She was pouring water into the little bowls and swilling them around to clean the dust from them. ‘Of course the poor thing could not eat with us. She would not have known the proper rituals. So Paulinus took her to the room, and later on she managed to share something with the nurse when they sent up a plate of bread and meat.’ She set the drinking-vessels upside down to dry. ‘And then next day she came to see me off, and that is when it happened.’

I remembered that Priscilla had remarked that Secunda had seemed to move more easily in the morning after she had slept and that up to then she had hardly said a word. ‘But how did you effect the substitution then? There were a lot of people in the court. You must have been observed.’

She shook her head. ‘I got into the raeda as myself, of course, and Paulinus and the nurse came crowding round as well. Muta was in her travelling cape again, but this time she did not have the stola underneath. I was wearing that under my mantle, tucked up in my belt. I got into the seat in front of everyone, ostensibly settling while they brought down the box. I made quite a fuss — sending for extra cushions for my back, and ordering the maidservant to sit up at the front and while everyone was occupied I put the shutters up. Of course the box was already largely shielding me from sight. Muta leaned right in the other side, as if to give me an embrace, and while Paulinus crowded round the back, slipped her cloak and veil off and handed them to me.’

‘Together with her wig?’ I said. ‘Priscilla said she had one.’

She nodded. ‘It assisted the disguise. And it was necessary for me afterwards, of course. My Vestal hairdo might have drawn remark, even underneath a cloak and veil. That left Muta in her tunic, looking like a slave, and that was the most dangerous moment of the whole affair. She does not move quickly and there were people in the court though she tried to choose a moment when they were occupied. The nursemaid tried to draw attention away from her as well, by waving at the window of Lavinia’s room — and it worked to an extent. The inn-slaves and the driver all looked up that way, but in fact Muta did not manage to get out unobserved. Priscilla glimpsed her from another room upstairs. Fortunately she took her for a goggling bystander.’

I nodded. ‘She even told me so. Shouted at her to go away and get outside the gate. That was fortunate!’

That earned a little smile. ‘Muta went, as fast as her poor legs would carry her, hurried into the forum and waited there for us. Meanwhile I slipped her cloak and veil on over mine and — now pretending that there was still someone in the coach — stepped out backwards and loudly said goodbye.’

‘Taking your jewel-case with you?’ I enquired.

‘I had already packed it in a leather bag which Muta gave me as I got into the coach. I stuffed the wig in too, and simply brought it out. It looked like an exchange of gifts if anyone observed. Then I joined Paulinus — remembering to limp — and together with the nurse we waved the raeda off. I’ve never been more thankful to see anything depart. We hurried to an alleyway where I put on the wig and buried my own white cloak inside Paulinus’s sack, then on to the slave-market where we arranged to hire the boy and met up with Muta. That was still a risk, since she had been spotted earlier, but we bought her a new tunic from the old-clothes stall and Priscilla never really looked at her again.’

‘And then Paulinus went and fetched the cart?’ I said.

She nodded. ‘He drove it to the lodging-house and paid the bill, then I waited in the cart with Muta while he went back upstairs for the famous travelling box. The nursemaid had packed it and he carried it downstairs. He did it on his own — it was heavy but he didn’t want the servants looking in, though I’d bought a rug to loosely cover up the child. I think you know the rest… But here he is! And not alone, I see.’

Paulinus indeed was entering the room, carrying a huge pail of something in both hands, while Modesta followed him uncertainly. Her thin face brightened at the sight of me.

‘Citizen, the shadow is long past the paving stone. Fiscus sent to ask if you were coming soon. We are already waiting, but we can’t get past the dog.’

We three citizens exchanged a glance at this, and I said quickly, ‘I will not be long. Paulinus has a message that he hopes to send, expressing his condolences to the Glevum house. When it is written I will join you in the barn.’

‘I’ll tell him, citizen.’ She bobbed her little curtsy and disappeared again.

Paulinus put down his heavy pail and stared at me. ‘You really do not mean to tell Lavinius all this?’

‘I will delay as long as possible,’ I said, ‘to give you a chance to get away to Gaul. But I really think that’s all that I can do for you. After all, Audelia is legally at fault. She broke a contractual vow. That is a serious criminal offence for anyone at all. For a Vestal Virgin, it’s unforgivable.’

Audelia herself was scooping apple-beer into the bowls. She set one in front of me, another one she gave to Paulinus, while the third one she took over to the shrine, and made a small oblation there with practised ease. If I had not known she was a Vestal up to then, that single skilful action would have alerted me.

She turned and signalled me to drink. ‘I broke no vow. Or not deliberately. In fact I kept the only one I made. I promised Paulinus months and months ago, when he and Paulina came to see me at the shrine, that when I retired I would marry him and provide my dowry to help him with the child. Of course I had known the family for many years — I remember him from when I was a child myself, and he and his wife made many sacrifices with me after that, asking for Vesta’s blessing on the home.’

Paulinus nodded. ‘She lent me money once. I had applied to Lavinius for help but had been turned away.’

Audelia sighed. ‘After that my uncle came to see me at the shrine. He was my agent, as I think you know and managed my affairs in Glevum, so I trusted him. I taxed him with his lack of charity, saying that the goddess requires us to be kind to relatives, and telling him what I proposed to do. He deceived me, citizen. He came again and brought a document, which seemed to be agreeing to the match, and persuaded me to sign. It would save me from a hundred importunate suitors, so he said, and he would undertake to fund the wedding feast himself the very day that I returned to Glevum from the shrine. I did it willingly. The trap was in the name.’

I frowned. ‘I do not follow you.’

‘I undertook to marry one P. Atronius Marinus, my widowed kinsman — you know how these things are phrased in legal documents. I believed it was a promise to marry Paulinus — but it was a trick. My uncle had arranged a deal with Publius — a handsome sum if he could secure my hand — and he had no scruples about deceiving me. A single iron-nib stroke was all that it required to change the name to P. Atronius Martinus, which is what he did.’

I gulped. ‘If that could be produced in evidence Lavinius could be arraigned in court — fined or even exiled.’ I remembered my moment of disquiet at the gate when Paulinus came over and introduced himself. I must have registered the similarity of the names — though these things are not surprising within a Roman gens. ‘Tampering with a legal document is a serious offence.’

‘And how could I prove it, citizen? I would not have known till I arrived in Glevum and met Publius at the games. Of course the written contract was signed and sealed by me, and is — by that fact — a legal document. A refusal to honour it could be challenged in the court. With my uncle’s word against me, it would be exile for me, as well as losing everything I owned. Lavinius knew he could oblige me to submit. If I had protested they’d have fed me poppy-juice or even forced me into intercourse. After that my word would be no more than any other female’s and my uncle could have forced me to wed anyone he chose. Cyra heard them plotting.’

I gulped my apple-beer. ‘So that’s how you discovered that you’d promised the wrong man? Cyra wrote and told you?’

Paulinus nodded. ‘It was her gift to us, in return for asking us to help Lavinia. Her husband, of course, had no idea she was in touch with us and he was gloating — so she told me — about his cleverness.’

Audelia sipped her drink with all the elegance with which she did everything. ‘Publius had also promised to return a proportion of my dowry if I died and that, I think, was what alarmed her most. Publius had been married several times before, in Rome, and all of his other wives had died quite young, apparently of illness, but it made her think. It certainly made up my mind for me.’ She reached out and squeezed her husband’s hand. ‘One way or another I was bound to break my word. I chose to honour the contract that I meant to make. Do you really blame me for that, citizen?’

Of course I didn’t, and I told her so. ‘In fact,’ I said, ‘I think it would be wiser to take Publius’s advice, and forget everything I’ve learned about this whole affair. As far as he’s concerned his bride-to-be is dead and decently cremated. Lavinius may try to seek the so-called murderer, but since there’s no such person, he won’t have much success. Better to report Priscilla’s view of things — that it was either sorcery or the revenge of Druids. Or both.’

Paulinus looked at me as though he dared not trust his ears. ‘You mean that, citizen?’

‘I do.’ I’d drained the drinking bowl by now and I replaced it on the board. ‘Though there are two questions which remain unanswered in my mind. What happened to the contents of Audelia’s travelling box? You cannot simply have exchanged them with your own, because you had to put Lavinia into that.’

Paulinus laughed. ‘That was very simple, citizen. We put most of it into the sack that I took to town with me. It was mostly jewels and gold in any case, of course, and later it had the Vestal cloak in it. When we picked the cart up, we put the sack on it. The lighter items of the dowry — such as lengths of silk — I rolled up in the rug and put on top of Lavinia in the box before we left.’

‘Oh, and of course I had my jewel-box with me from the coach, having loudly announced that I was giving Secunda several rings,’ his wife put in.

I nodded. Priscilla had already hinted this. ‘And when you arrived here you dyed the Vestal clothes — I presume that is what is hanging on the bushes now?’

‘Exactly, citizen.’ That was Audelia. ‘We are not so wealthy that we can afford to waste good clothing of that quality. And the other question?’

‘Was it not against your vows to tell the other lie — that you were going into the forum to buy a pair of slaves. Yet, Priscilla tells me that is what you said.’

Secunda’s lovely lips curled in a gentle smile. ‘Citizen, I took a vow that I would never lie. I did not swear that I would not choose words which might disguise the truth. We worked out very carefully what we were going to say — that we were going to the forum to collect two slaves. And that, of course, is exactly what we did.’

I put my bowl down. ‘Then I think that’s all. If you would care to write that letter.’ I fished into my belt. ‘I actually have a writing-tablet here that you can use. It’s a letter from Publius under seal promising to pay my expenses in the town.’

‘Then you must certainly keep that, citizen.’ Secunda put her own bowl on the board as well. ‘Otherwise you might find it hard to hold him to his word. We have bark-paper here, and lamp-black ink, as I think you are aware. Paulinus will write something and you can take it back — saying that he’s saddened to have heard the news and that he’s about to leave for Gaul and take Paulina to the healing shrine.’ She smiled. ‘And there’s no lie in that, either, citizen. When we heard the news about the nursemaid we were very sad indeed.’

Her husband nodded and went out towards the porch. I heard him moving in another room.

‘Lavinius will not guess that you have married Paulinus instead?’ I ventured.

‘He could hardly say so, citizen, even if he did. Especially when there is supposed to be a corpse. That would be admitting to his own perfidy. And he can scarcely follow us to Gaul. Besides, he’ll hear from the lodging-house that Paulinus had a wife before I disappeared. I think we’re safe enough.’

I fought down an unexpected wave of jealousy. ‘Then I hope you will be happy. I am glad to be of use.’

She gave me the most brilliant smile that I have ever seen. ‘And there is another thing that you can do for me. I promised the horseman that he should have a ring, in recompense for all his extra work on my behalf. If I go and get it, will you see it reaches him? I was there — you can tell him — and I heard the promise made and I wished it honoured. Will you do that for me?’

‘I would be delighted,’ I said, truthfully, and she went away to get it. That left me quite alone, and that was how Modesta found me a moment afterwards.

‘I didn’t know if I should come in the house or not. Nobody seemed to answer when I tapped the door? Are you coming, citizen? Fiscus is alarmed. He thinks that we are going to get to Glevum very late.’

I was about to answer when the householders appeared and thrust a bark-letter and a small parcel in my hands. ‘That concludes our business, I believe. The citizen is ready to accompany you now.’ Paulinus gave the smile that transformed his face. ‘I myself will come and see you past the dog.’ He led the way outside.

As he tethered the still snarling animal I glanced back at the house. I could not restrain a tiny sense of loss. As I watched I saw a figure scuttle from the byre and make towards the side-window of the house. I looked the other way. Everyone else was still looking at the hound, making certain they were out of range of teeth.

I permitted Fiscus to help me on the gig and sat down on the seat. He sat down beside me, leaving Modesta to kneel in what little space remained. The gig-driver, who was scowling at me as though I were the cause of all his many woes, raised his whip and we were ready to depart.

‘Wait a moment, citizen. I have a gift for you.’ Secunda herself had come running down the path. She came across and handed me a piece of slate. ‘A present from Paulina. I’m sure that’s what she wants.’

I looked back at the door. The deaf-mute girl was standing there, grasping Muta’s skirts and as I watched she smiled and raised a hand as if to wave.

The driver brought the whip down and we were on our way.