‘And you were there that time as well!’ The gig-man sneered. ‘Is that a coincidence? I wonder if the master will think so when he hears? I have my own ideas — and I’d like to know where you’ve hidden the jewels you cut from her.’ He glanced at Ascus, certain of support. ‘Will you seize him, horseman, or should I call the guard? I daren’t lay hands on him this time — he is a freeman and I am just a slave and I have no authority from my master or Publius to take him prisoner again. And…’ He looked contemptuously at me. ‘It’s clear this citizen will take no steps at all.’
Ascus surprised me. He put down the headless corpse, letting it collapse into a heap upon the street, then turned towards Lavinius’s slave and stood towering over him. He was twice as big as the gig-boy, and looked as if he could swallow him for lunch so I was not surprised to see the young man flinch.
The ex-cavalry-man put a giant hand under the gig-slave’s chin and forced the young slave to look up at him. ‘Listen here, young man! Take care whom you accuse. You think you’re very clever, but you know nothing of the world. Any man can murder, for profit, for revenge — that much I will grant you. But to take a knife to some helpless female and cut bits off her — that takes a special kind of ruthlessness. And I will tell you this — the raedarius clearly is not that kind of man. You saw what happened when I cut him free — he was more concerned about his animals than anything else. If he had known what was hidden in the box, would he have ignored it and been so happy to let me open it? Besides, a man who cares that much about a horse is not likely to cut women into pieces, in my view.’
The gig-slave was attempting in vain to get away. ‘But you heard what he said about the hands…’
‘Exactly!’ Ascus said. ‘And what he says is true — I’ve seen it happen on the battlefield, myself. People are always plundering the dead. And not just cutting off their rings and amulets — but whole torcs and helmets, and even pairs of boots.’ He let go of the boy, who stumbled back and rubbed his face. Ascus turned to me. ‘So I find the explanation very probable. And Audelia did have finger-rings, I told you earlier. She promised one to me.’
I nodded. ‘Though that was in her jewel-box, I believe you said? She wasn’t wearing it?’
Ascus looked shifty. ‘That’s true. And the jewel-box isn’t here. Though there is something in here, now I come to look. I don’t suppose…’ He leaned across the corpse — paying no more attention than if it were a dog — and plunged one massive hand into the box. ‘Nothing significant. It is only cloth.’ He drew out a folded piece of delicate material dyed a saffron hue. ‘This was underneath the body. I did not see it before.’
‘That must be Audelia’s marriage-veil,’ I said.
He flipped it by two corners so that it half-opened out. It was beautifully embroidered with gold and silver thread — butterflies and flowers, as if to match the shoes. ‘It answers the description that I heard of it,’ he agreed.
‘I’ll give you two sesterces for it,’ said a cheeky voice. ‘Cursed by being with a corpse or not.’
I turned around. I had been so transfixed by our discovery that I had not realized it, but we had attracted quite a little crowd of curious spectators, many of them slightly the worse for drinking wine.
‘Make it three sesterces,’ the speaker said again — a fat, florid tradesman with a pockmarked face. ‘It’s a handsome offer. You won’t get more than that. Come on, citizen, she won’t be needing it. And I won’t sell it locally — I’ll take it somewhere else. I know a bride-to-be who will be pleased to have the veil — she doesn’t need to know that it belonged to someone dead.’ It was clear that he’d decided that I must be in charge — I was wearing the toga after all — and he pushed his face towards me, reeking of cheap wine. ‘You can’t tell me that you want to put it on the pyre. All that work, it would be such a waste. It’s not even damaged, she’s hardly bled on it.’
There was an outbreak of ragged cheers at that and cries of: ‘Go on, citizen.’ But I hardly noticed them. I was staring at the speaker. ‘What did you just say?’
He sighed theatrically and spread his hands apart. ‘Three sesterces and one denarius. That’s my final offer, citizen. I can’t make a profit if I give you more — even on stitching of pure gold and silver thread.’
But I wasn’t listening. ‘She hasn’t bled on it,’ I echoed, stupidly. ‘Of course she hasn’t! Or on her vestments either!’ I turned to Ascus. ‘You see what that implies? Someone cut her hands and head off after she was dead. Quite a while afterwards — or there’d be bloodstains everywhere.’
He stared at me. ‘I do believe you’re right. I should have thought of that.’ He opened out the veil to examine it. ‘This was underneath her all the time, but there’s hardly a sign of a bloodstain anywhere.’ But even as he spoke, something brownish-green fell out and fluttered to the ground. He bent to peer at it, pushed it with his foot, then said dismissively, ‘That isn’t anything. Just a piece of leafy twig. Caught in the hemming by the look of it.’
‘That might be important, all the same,’ I said reprovingly. ‘For instance, it might give us a clue as to where the girl was killed — or put into the box. Could you get it, gig-boy, and save my poor old back?’ I placed Publius’s precious letter in my toga-folds, where it would be supported by my belt, and held out my hand.
‘If you insist, citizen.’ The gig-boy gestured the trader to stand back, and bending down, picked up the piece of twig. But instead of handing it to me, he took one look at it and dropped it instantly as if it burnt his skin. All the colour had drained out of his face.
‘Well?’ I held my hand out more insistently.
He shook his head and went on shaking it. ‘I’m not touching that. Where’s that lucky charm I saw tied on the coach? It’s not a proper deity, but it’ll have to do.’ There was a crude wooden trinket-doll tied to the raeda — the sort of talisman that travellers sometimes use to ward off evil spirits on the road. The gig-boy scooped it up and pressed his lips to it and I saw him mouthing some kind of hasty prayer. Then he let the charm go and said shakily, ‘That’s the only good-luck incantation that I know. I hope it is enough.’
‘Whatever is the matter?’ the raedarius asked.
‘Oak leaves and mistletoe,’ the slave said, breathlessly. ‘That’s what the matter is. Though it explains the mystery, doesn’t it? I am sorry I accused you of taking part in it. These were not ordinary robbers and murderers — though that would be bad enough. This is the work of those accursed Druids.’ His voice was getting high and faster all the time and it was clear that he was panicking. ‘They didn’t cut her head off to put her in the box, they cut it off to hang it in their accursed grove — no doubt a Vestal Virgin was a special prize — and only their dark gods know what they wanted with the hands.’
At the mention of the Druids, the forbidden sect, there was a frightened murmur from the onlookers and even the florid trader stepped back a little way.
I confess that a cold shiver had run down my own spine. It was more than possible that the boy was right. Oak leaves are everywhere, of course, but mistletoe was not a common plant round here these days — and when it was found it was almost never picked because of its association with the sect. It had become an evil sign, regarded as a curse: the symbol of the forbidden cult of Druids, who — as the gig-slave said — famously cut off the heads of enemies and hung them onto trees in a grisly offering to the gods.
But it was not only their treatment of dead enemies that made the Druids so much feared. Their priests were rumoured to disembowel living men, in order to read the message of the entrails, and there were ancient stories of huge man-shaped structures, built of wood and filled with people who were burned alive to pacify the gods. It had all served to put the cult beyond the law. The Romans frowned on human sacrifice and, besides, their own troops were often the ex-owners of the heads. To be a Druid follower these days was a capital offence.
Despite this — or perhaps because of it — the religion flourished still, mostly in dark, secret places in the woods. I am not a follower — although I am a Celt — preferring the simpler ancestral deities of streams and woods. All the same, I have seen a sacred grove; one of the few outsiders who have done as much, and lived. It was an eerie place, its gruesome oak trees draped with mistletoe and hung with rotting skulls, displayed as a kind of ghastly sacrifice. The stuff of nightmares, just as rumour said. And there were other rumours, even more unspeakable, which spoke of what would happen to those that crossed the cult. No wonder that the gig-boy was so terrified.
I reminded myself that there were other aspects of the Druids, too — fine artefacts and learning, poetry and healing arts. I bent down stiffly and picked up the sprig of leaves myself. As I did so, I pricked my finger on something in the leaves.
A strand of wool had been tied around both stems to make a tiny sprig, and a small metal pin was still threaded through the stalk, showing where it had been deliberately pinned onto the veil. As I sucked my finger, I realized what this meant. The presence of this greenery was not an accident. Someone had fixed it there on purpose, as a deliberate sign of connection with the Druids. The gig-boy was quite right.
I wondered what Lavinius and Publius would say when they heard this. It might be kinder not to tell the groom, in fact, because what might have happened to Audelia in Druid hands, before she died, was horrible to consider. I wondered if I should examine the corpse a little more to see whether my worst fears were justified, but
