Virgin Territory

XXXI

It was still there, the hut in the hillside. Built of stone and as wide as it was high as it was deep, this dwelling wouldn’t crumble from wind or rockfall or even fire. The surprise came from its being there at all. So strange had been her previous encounter with the huntsman Aristaeus that sometimes Claudia wondered whether she’d dreamed the whole affair, and half of her expected the clearing to be a figment of her imagination, along with the hut and the dogs and the wooden statue of Diana.

Smoke coiled from the hole in the roof. Chieftain and Druid heard her approach and lifted themselves, reluctantly, from their slumbers and dry, sleepy snouts were pressed into her hand. If they caught boar, she mused, it must be because they charmed the miserable buggers to death. She leaned her hand against the door and it swung open, not on a hinge but on a primitive pivot. Claudia accepted the tacit invitation and walked in.

There were two of everything. Two wooden platters, two goblets, two knives set out on the table, two carved chairs drawn up. The fire, a permanent necessity for any isolated, humble dwelling, glowed faintly and gave off very little heat. The chest on the far wall was made of oak, plain and functional. Moreover, it was unlocked.

‘I knew you’d be back.’

The lid crashed down, echoing monstrously in the tiny hut.

‘Oh.’ It seemed woefully inadequate, but it was difficult to know what to say when your hands were full of that person’s shirt.

The heavy frame of the huntsman filled the doorway. The hounds’ wagging tails, their snuffled greetings, belied the silent menace.

And then he grinned. ‘Find anything of interest?’

‘No.’ It was too late for politeness, so she gave him the truth. ‘I didn’t have time.’

The grin creased his face into thick, leathery lines. He shrugged off the quiver of arrows and laid his bow against the wall by the door. Either he’d been unsuccessful or his quarry was too large to bring in. Of course, anything larger than a pheasant probably wouldn’t fit.

‘Sit down.’ It was gruff but well-meaning. He wiped his hands down the sides of his leather leggings and poured beer into the goblets. ‘Hungry?’

‘Famished.’

It was one of life’s revelations. You stare death in the eye and, incredibly, it sharpens the appetite.

‘Do you know what these are?’ She dropped four shiny black berries on to the table.

He gave them barely a glance. ‘Baneberries.’

Not much of a conversationalist, was he? ‘What can you tell me about them?’

‘They smells foul and they’re poisonous.’ He’d drained one goblet and was now dividing his time between sinking a second and cracking eggs, hundreds of them, into a bowl. ‘Drop one down that pretty blue tunic of yours and you’ll never get the stain off.’

‘A black dye, in other words?’

‘Yep.’ He was adding honey and almonds and oil and milk to the eggs.

‘And your spiders’ webs. They don’t all go to Syracuse, do they?’

‘Nope.’

He lifted the pan off the fire and threw in the egg mixture, agitating it with his hunting knife. Funny how, when you don’t have many possessions, the ones you do own become multi-purpose. Claudia laid down her beer and delved into the folds of her gown.

‘Recognize this?’ She laid a garnet ring on the table.

‘Nope.’

‘What about this?’ The second item stopped him in his tracks, but only momentarily.

‘What about it?’ He stirred the eggs.

Claudia tapped her fingernail on the blue glass. ‘Sabina kept her soul in a flagon identical to this.’

You could hear his breathing above the scrape of steel on iron. ‘Where did you get the ring?’ He still didn’t look at her.

‘Syracuse. She gave it to Minerva for safe conduct from Rome.’

Aristaeus laughed, a rich, brown laugh that matched his rich, brown features. ‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘She gave it to Minerva because I told her to.’

Two plates of sweet, scented eggs materialized on the table. Claudia blew on hers to cool it, but Aristaeus shovelled his straight in, confirming his insides were as weatherbeaten as the exterior.

‘How-’

‘Eat your eggs,’ he said. She did, and they were delicious.

Finally, when the plates had been polished by the dogs and the goblets refilled, Aristaeus leaned back in his chair. He was not, she realized now, a day over thirty-five, it was the grey at the temples which made him seem older. That, and the dark brown, outdoor skin.

‘Knew you’d be back,’ he said slowly. ‘I kept the table ready.’

‘This was for me? You couldn’t be certain.’

‘You knows my secret. That’s what brought you up here in the first place, and you ain’t the type to let things rest.’

I knows your secret. Claudia settled her spine against the back of the chair. Do I, Aristaeus? Do I really? She sipped her beer, watching him over the rim of the goblet. ‘I know you taught Sabina to dye her hair with walnut juice.’

His eyebrows arched in surprise, but he merely said, ‘My mother used it.’

It was the day of Sabina’s funeral, when Claudia was in the atrium smoothing the orange bridal veil, that she noticed the roots were a different colour to the rest of her hair. It was virtually all grey, which made her Matidia’s daughter all right. No question of it.

‘And you intercepted the letters.’

‘I bribed the messenger, if that’s what you mean. Gave him meat, which he couldn’t otherwise afford.’

Claudia picked up the ring and examined it. Aristaeus had instructed Sabina to give it to Minerva. Why? And why pick Syracuse? Why not Rome? Then, slowly, the pieces fell into place.

Sabina hadn’t been to Rome.

Yes, she was on the Furrina, but now Claudia realized Sabina had been shipped there and, just like cargo, transferred from one boat to another before being ferried back to Syracuse. Lest someone recognize her, she had been under orders not to disembark until the very last moment. Which posed something of a problem. How could she make her offering to Minerva? Hence she had slipped away and had, quite simply, got lost. There was nothing sinister about two wagons converging on a narrow street and the sailors were just sailors, drunk and soft and not really meaning any harm. It was a lark, a prank, which spun out of control.

‘Sabina Collatinus lived with you, didn’t she?’

Aristaeus blinked rapidly. ‘I thought that was why you were here?’

‘One of the reasons,’ she said carefully. ‘Care to tell me how it came about?’

The story was astonishing. Wilder than any theories she’d tried stringing together herself, yet coming from this rough, tough mountain man, it seemed as normal as clipping your toenails or putting the cat out. The sort of thing any decent chap would do, placed in the same position.

Thirty years ago, said Aristaeus, a man called Faustulus was hired by Eugenius Collatinus to escort his six-year-old daughter to Rome where she was to be ordained as a Vestal Virgin. At the time, Collatinus was a prosperous wheat farmer working lands to the east and Faustulus a hunter in the hills above, renowned for his integrity and dependability.

‘It was the father what was supposed to hand the daughter over,’ Aristaeus explained, ‘but we was at war with Rome. Sextus agreed to Sabina’s ordination but he wouldn’t agree to Eugenius leaving, whereas Faustulus, being Sicilian born and bred, knew ways.’ He tapped the side of his nose knowingly.

‘Faustulus handed her over to the Vestals, then the next thing he knew, she’d run away. He found her at the wharf, hysterical and desperate to find a passage to Sicily, saying the Holy Sisters wanted to bury her alive.’ Claudia was fully aware of the tale of the recalcitrant Vestal who had forsaken her vow of chastity. Her lover had been whipped to death in the Forum, but she, poor cow, had been interred alive.

‘So the young novice had nightmares?’

Aristaeus toyed with his plate, tapping his knife against the wood. ‘You must understand,’ he said eventually, ‘that Sabina was only six, and what she told Faustulus he believed.’ He threw down the knife. ‘She said she couldn’t go back to the temple, because she was…unchaste.’

‘Surely he-’

Aristaeus cut in firmly. ‘Sabina told him her daddy had done to Sabina what her daddy had done to her mummy. Do you understand?’

Claudia gulped, and nodded.

‘Right. Faustulus believed that, six years old or no, they’d bury her alive because Vestals have to be pure. Not just free of bodily defects, pure right through.’

‘Rubbish! They simply wouldn’t have admitted her!’ The huntsman held up a restraining hand. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But Faustulus didn’t understand, he thought she’d been ordained and that if he took her back, that’s what would happen. So he told the Sisters she’d been killed in a traffic accident and that, for them, was the end of it.’

She knew Orbilio had tried tracing Sabina’s chaperone, but after three decades the leads were too cold. ‘What happened next?’ She was almost scared to ask.

‘Faustulus brought her back to Sicily and raised her as his own. What else could he do? Couldn’t hand her back to Aulus, not after that. So we pretended she was ordained. Who’s to know? Not that lot, they’re too busy looking after Number One.’

Claudia slowly shook her head. Aulus. Old Conky. Assaulting his own daughter…

Not long after, Aristaeus said, Sextus began stripping the hills for his warships and Eugenius was having financial problems from not being able to offload his wheat stocks. When Collatinus moved west, Faustulus followed. Sabina could keep tabs on her family, and in any case the pickings were good above Sullium.

‘Faustulus was your father?’

‘Yep.’ He swung out his arm and lifted another jug of beer on to the table. ‘On his deathbed, he made me swear to look after Sabina for the rest of her life.’

Claudia made rapid calculations. ‘How old were you?’

‘Fifteen.’ The word was almost obscured by a gulp. ‘Both sisters long married and my mother two years in the ground.’

‘It doesn’t sound like Faustulus,’ she protested. ‘It was unfair. I mean, why for life?’

‘Oh, Sabina always had clouds in her mind,’ he said, as though half the population were batty. ‘From the outset we knew she was…’

‘Mad?’

‘Special.’

‘Because of what Aulus had done?’

He didn’t reply, but set cheese and radishes on the table. Claudia watched him slice off a fist-sized piece of bread and chew on it.

‘You loved her?’ she ventured.

His eyes rose and bored into hers. ‘I cared for her,’ he replied, wiping the crumbs from his beard. ‘But I told her straight. We’ll keep up the pretence, but when your thirty years is up, you go home. When the Senior Vestal retired, I sent her back.’

Claudia thought back over the things Sabina had told her. About seeing mountains split asunder, spilling rivers of blood. Etna, erupting nineteen years ago. So obvious. Just like Varius. Why couldn’t she see the things that were under her nose?

‘Last year I built this hut. There’s no room for two, she knew I meant business.’

‘Did you sleep with her?’ After what had been aired today, the question didn’t seem impertinent.

Aristaeus took a deep breath. ‘A man has to relieve his frustrations, don’t he?’

Claudia hoped her expression was suitably ambivalent.

His fist thumped down on the table. ‘Croesus, she just lay there. I was eighteen years old, red blood coursing through my veins, and it’s not as though I didn’t ask if…I could…you know. But she just lay there, staring up at the roof. Then I saw it-the blood-and that’s when I knew…I knew…’

‘She’d been lying.’ Claudia finished it for him.

The huntsman’s face was distorted with pain. ‘I asked her. I said, why didn’t you tell me you was a virgin? Why say them terrible things about your father-and you know what she said? She said, “But he did. Daddy kissed me.”’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I sacrificed twenty years on account of a kiss.’

There followed the sort of silence that seems endless and yet, at the same time, seems no time at all. The sort of silence you feel sacrilegious about breaking.

Finally, Aristaeus picked up the ring. ‘This was my mother’s, it was all she had. I wanted to give it to Minerva, to atone for my shame.’

‘There is no shame, Aristaeus.’ Only irony. Bitter, bitter irony. But he needed, desperately, to assuage his guilt. ‘Why don’t you give it to Diana?’

He used his hunting knife to slice through the wooden hand to create a finger and solemnly slipped the ring on to it. Again, the sense of unreality was aroused. He patted the statue reverentially and stared deep into its carved eyes.

‘It wasn’t just that once, either.’

Claudia heard the wind whispering in the leaves, a distant woodpecker drumming. There was a faint mushroomy smell in the air, mingled with sawdust and wood smoke. She could sense the searing pain inside him, even though she struggled to catch the words.

‘I beseech you, Diana of the Forests, not to judge me harshly.’

She won’t. ‘Sabina was a selfish woman, Aristaeus. She came from a selfish family.’

‘Said she didn’t mind me doing it, because she was invisible.’

Sweet Jupiter, no man deserved this on his conscience. ‘If it’s any consolation, they’ve got the man who killed her.’

Pained eyes left Diana’s. ‘Who?’

‘Fabius.’

He shook his head in wonderment. ‘By Apollo, they’re an evil family.’

I’ll drink to that, Claudia thought.

‘How did you find out she lived here?’

Claudia explained about the blue glass flagon. How she was in Sullium on market day and noticed a barber mopping a cut with a spider’s web which he drew from the bottle. Preoccupied with other matters, it didn’t sink in at the time and only later, when the memory returned, Claudia realized that the chances of two such flagons appearing in one town were remote, to say the least. She sent Junius to track down the barber, who confirmed he bought his webs from Aristaeus, and the Syrian glassblower, who confirmed he had indeed supplied a stock for the huntsman.

She braced herself to ask the next question. ‘Do you know a woman named Hecamede?’

‘I know of a woman called Hecamede. Killed herself, didn’t she?’

‘Yes. Yes, she killed herself.’

Her knees were weak as she made her way across the clearing. She did not say goodbye. She did not look round.

She certainly did not tell him that Hecamede’s suicide was her fault. That, again, if only she’d seen what was in front of her nose, Hecamede would be alive today, coming to terms, albeit painfully, with what had befallen her little Kyana but at least having the satisfaction that justice was served at last to the man who’d abducted her.

Because that was the second thing she’d sent Junius to check out.

Stand in front of the harness maker’s, she told him, three paces from the corner, then turn and look over your left shoulder. What do you see? Take a wax tablet and a stylus and note down everything. Everything.

He’d followed her instructions to the letter. Harnesses, hooks, customers, shopkeeper, coins, strips of leather, a painted sign, a spider in its web, the side street, kerbs, gutters, a poulterer on the other corner, the barber’s next door to the poulterer…

Exactly. The barber’s next door. Had Claudia’s eyes not been riveted on the spider, her own survey would have taken in the shop over the road. She’d have realized earlier that not every barber pays for pre-vinegared spiders’ webs. That now and again, they go and collect them themselves.

So simple. Hecamede was a local woman, she’d have been concerned only with local issues.

Claudia passed out of the cool, leafy canopy into a blast of dry, dusty air, surprised to find herself weeping. Not for poor, blighted Aristaeus, whom she had nearly killed in the belief he was a child molester. Not for Kyana and the other little girls who had been abducted, tragic though it was. Not even for Sabina or the long-suffering Acte, despite their obscene murders.

Claudia was weeping for Hecamede, whom she had failed. Hecamede who was slum poor, and whose accusations against a seemingly respectable barber fell on a bigoted magistrate’s deaf ears. Hecamede, one breast lolling out of her tunic, driven wild by grief until, finally, she was driven to suicide.

Hecamede. Who had cut her wrists the way Claudia’s own mother had cut her wrists.

Claudia had failed her, too.