against a freeborn man who would normally be his superior in rank. But the gig-slave had the excuse that he was obeying orders from above, and was enjoying this. I recalled what Cyra had told me earlier about how he had brought the prisoner home at Publius’s request, additionally bound around the legs and feet, ostensibly to prevent the chance of an escape but certainly ensuring a helpless, bruising ride. It occurred to me that the gig-slave would have relished the opportunity.
‘Well?’ he was demanding of his captive now. ‘What do you have to say?’
The raeda-driver raised a weary head and seemed about to speak, but at that moment Ascus cantered back, scattering the people as he’d done before. ‘I’ve found your carriage. I recognized the horses, they were stabled beside my own in Corinium last night. That flabby fellow over there was guarding it just now.’ He made a gesture with his massive hand to where a pudgy slave in temple livery was hastening through the gate. ‘I’ve sent him to his masters, to his great relief. The raeda is all right. The shutters are still up, but I have looked inside and there’s a box.’ He grinned at the raedarius. ‘You are fortunate. On a feast day like today, when the town is full of rogues, it would not have been surprising if it had disappeared. Let’s get the gig over there, and get it loaded on.’
‘When we’ve released the prisoner’s arms,’ I said.
The horseman grinned again. He reached into the lining of his riding-coat and produced a wicked-looking knife.
‘I thought you said you weren’t permitted…’ I began.
‘This is for dining purposes, if anybody asks.’ He flashed his gaps at me. ‘But I dare say it will serve for other purposes.’ He leaned into the carriage as he spoke, and sliced the bond in two, as effortlessly as though it were another piece of bread.
The raedarius stiffly moved his arms round to the front and eased his aching shoulders with an attempted shrug. A new bloodstain instantly appeared on his tunic, as though the movement of his back had opened up the wound. I was stiff from jolting, and I ached in every limb and it was difficult for me to climb unaided from the gig, still clutching my precious letter in my hand.
But he managed a wan smile as he joined me on the ground. ‘It is as well the horseman is so big,’ he said to me, in our own tongue again. ‘We could never have moved the box out of the raeda otherwise. That’s it over there.’
He walked so painfully and stiffly that people turned to stare, but he seemed oblivious of the attention paid to him. It was not until we reached the raeda that I understood. He did not stop to look inside at all. He made for the two horses and began to coo to them, whispering and stroking their dark flanks, almost lover-like. ‘Have you had food and drink my lovelies?’ They whinnied up to him.
Ascus was watching all this with a frown. ‘What did he stand accused of?’ he said privately to me.
‘Failing to take care of Audelia and her maid,’ I answered. ‘And failing to account for any kidnappers, or give any other explanation as to where she’d gone.’
Ascus looked thoughtful. ‘She must have been coerced. The last time that I saw her she was happy as could be — thoroughly delighted to be a bride at last.’
‘That is why I wished to look inside the raeda,’ I agreed. ‘To see if there were any signs of force — scratches, or damage, or any sign of blood.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll move that box for you. What’s happened to that gig?’ He gestured to the gig-slave. ‘Get that over here. And be quick about it. We haven’t got all day. This citizen wants to look inside the coach.’
The gig-slave, who’d clearly thought he had a friend, looked mystified at this but brought the carriage up. He leapt down from the driving-seat and gazed inside the coach. ‘That’s an enormous box.’ He put a hand to it. ‘And very heavy too.’
Ascus had dismounted. ‘I’ll put it on the gig.’ He took for granted he could handle it, and doubtless he was right. But I prevented him.
There was something about the nature of the box and its excessive weight that made me say, ‘Before you move it, let’s have a look inside. There might be something of importance there.’
The top had been secured with a heavy lock, but that did not stop Ascus. He used the knife again, this time as a lever, and pushed the lid ajar. But even before he’d fully opened it, the smell had reached me and I knew what we would find.
There was a body in it. A headless body, by the look of it. Ascus did not wait for a command, but reached into the box and pulled it out.
The corpse had been a woman, that was clear at once. Her arms, which had been forced behind her back, proved to finish in mere bloodied stumps where both of the hands had been brutally removed. A woman dressed in a distinctive garb.
Ascus looked at me. ‘Seems as your journey will not be needed now. We seem to have found the missing Vestal after all,’ he said.
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.’
