jewels before she left, and I suspect she let her have a purse as well. Certainly there was some kind of parting gift and it would be like Audelia to be generous.’
‘Did you see the party after they came back from town?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Of course. They came for their possessions, citizen. They had some luggage which they left here while they shopped — another travelling box: much rougher than Audelia’s, of course, and a lid that didn’t fit. They’d brought a lot of stuff with them in fact. There was a present for Audelia, I know — I saw Secunda hand it to her in the coach — and they’d brought goods to trade in town while they were here: several amphorae from the weight of it, most likely full of produce from the farm. They clearly sold a lot of it, as well. I saw Paulinus take a clanking sack of something into town but all I saw him carrying when he came back again was a woven rug that he said Secunda chose.’ The wine was making him rather garrulous.
‘You see?’ Priscilla said, triumphantly to me. ‘Buying not only slaves, but luxuries. And they can’t have bartered all the goods they’d brought — the box was still quite heavy when they brought it down.’
Trullius waved his cup at her. ‘But, woman, since the Vestal had given them her purse they didn’t need to barter everything. And there wasn’t that much left. The box was not too heavy for one man to lift. Paulinus lifted it onto the cart himself.’
That rather puzzled me. ‘Yet they had slaves by then? You would have expected them to bring the baggage down.’
Priscilla answered that. ‘They would have been no use. A skinny woman — who in any case stayed attending Secunda in the cart — and a scruffy little lad who looked too thin and weak to carry anything. Unprepossessing creatures, both of them. Personally, I wouldn’t have them in the house. Whatever Paulinus paid for them, it was a lot too much. And that won’t be the end of the expense. They’ll both want new tunics, by the looks of it — the one the boy was wearing was scarcely more than rags.’
Trullius shook his head. ‘You always have a theory about everything! Make up your mind which one you think is true. One moment Paulinus is taking Roman gold, and the next he can’t afford a decent slave. Anyway, I don’t know how you saw enough to know. They looked all right to me.’ He turned to me. ‘And that is all we can tell you, citizen. If you want more information you should ask the slave trader — he’ll be in the market for another day. You can see him in the morning, if you are quick enough.’ He seized the lamp again. ‘Though you will have to rise betimes. So if you would like to follow me upstairs…?’
Priscilla had leapt up to her feet at once. ‘Husband, don’t be so ridiculous! Of course he doesn’t want to go to bed. There’s someone he must see.’
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s far too late to see anyone tonight.’
‘It’s not too late for this! Can’t you see what’s clearer than the candle on that wall? Look at what’s happened. When Lavinia disappeared, we didn’t think of Druids. We had no idea that they might be involved. But now it seems certain that they had a hand in this. This citizen is right. Someone in this household must have dealings with the sect — someone told them who was coming here, someone who let them in. And it must have been someone who was in the house today — there have been no visitors, till this citizen arrived.’
‘Except the temple messenger,’ Trullius pointed out, putting down the lamp and fumbling to pour the last few drops of wine.
She treated this with the disdain that it deserved. ‘Even you, Trullius, don’t believe that it was him. But someone was clearly in contact with the Druids. It wasn’t you and me. It certainly wasn’t Audelia herself. It wasn’t the raedarius or the horse-rider, they both left here when Audelia was alive. Paulinus and Secunda may have had unwitting dealings with a Druid, but they’re hardly followers, and anyway they were gone before Lavinia disappeared. So unless one of our own servants is involved — which I don’t believe — there is only one person left that it could be.’
The metal cup dropped from Trullius’s good hand and bounced sharply on the floor, hard enough to make a big dent in the rim. He stood mouth open, looking at his wife. ‘You mean…? You can’t mean…? Not Lavinia’s nurse?’
Priscilla smiled triumphantly. ‘Well done, husband. I was sure you’d work it out. Now aren’t you glad you let me lock her up?’ She took the lamp and motioned me to rise. ‘Follow me, citizen. I’ll take you there at once.’
SEVENTEEN
I followed Priscilla through a musty painted passage, out into a sort of courtyard where — by the smell — the kitchen and the stables were. But the kitchen fire was evidently doused again by now and it was cold and dark out there, so that even with the oil-lamp it was hard to see. A quiet whinnying from a building close nearby suggested where the horses and the horsemen had been housed. There was no light from there either — even the slaves were clearly all abed, as I was beginning to wish I was, myself.
I stumbled on a cobblestone, bruising my big toe. ‘You’ve got her in the stable?’ I said, as my mishap brought the party to a halt.
Priscilla laughed. ‘We’ve got her over there.’ She gestured to a squat little circular building on the right, which I had not noticed up till now. It was hardly taller than my shoulder and an arms-width round, with a low entrance at the front and a sort of open chimney at the top. ‘It used to be the kiln, though the roof’s part-ruined now. But it’s got solid walls, apart from the fire-hole in front, and we block that up at night. We use this now as a punishment- cell for disobedient slaves.’ She bent down to roll a large stone from the entrance as she spoke, and I found myself peering into a tiny clay-lined space, cold and damp and disagreeable.
There was a woman in there, blinking in the light. She was no longer young. Her plump flesh was sagging and her reddish hair — pulled back from her face into a coiled plait — was streaked with grey. She was huddled in the centre, knees pulled to her chin, and shivering in the draught from the chimney-space. In the glow of the oil-lamp I could see that her hands and feet were loosely bound with rope, and her thin tunic was the orange-colour of the livery worn by the servants in Lavinius’s country house.
She squinted up at us. ‘What do you want now? You’ve no right to keep me here. I’ve told you all I know. I’ll answer to my mistress, if to anyone. She knows I would have guarded Lavinia with my life! Send me back to her.’ Her voice was harsh, almost defiant, but she spoke Latin well. Then she noticed me. ‘Who is the citizen in the toga?’ she enquired. ‘Has he come to harry me as well?’
‘He will ask the questions!’ Priscilla snapped, but she answered anyway. ‘His name’s Libertus, and he’s been sent here by Lavinia’s family to find out what happened and what you know of it.’
It was not quite the truth and I was on the point of setting matters straight but the prisoner forestalled me. Something that might have been a spark of hope flashed into her eyes. ‘Cyra sent you?’ she said, eagerly.
‘She knew that I was coming,’ I agreed. ‘But really I am here at Publius’s behest to find news of his bride. But then I learned that Lavinia had disappeared as well, and I am bound to investigate that matter too, of course.’
The hope — if that was what it was — had died. She looked away and stared dully at the floor. ‘Then I really cannot help you, citizen. As I told these householders, I can’t imagine what would make Lavinia run away. She seemed so happy with her cousin yesterday.’
Her voice had softened, and she spoke with such concern that I was moved to murmur, ‘You were fond of your young charge?’
She raised her eyes. They sparkled in the darkness like a wolf’s. ‘It is no secret, citizen. I adored that little girl. Loved her like I would have loved my own, if it had lived. I swear to you, citizen, I would lay down my life rather than have any harm come to that child. So can you imagine what a shock it was, when I went into the room and found she wasn’t there? When I’d been on guard outside the door all day, as well? I was asked, you know, to fetch a tray for her and when I went back, it was to find she wasn’t there — almost as if I’d been sent deliberately away. It almost breaks my heart — just ask that woman there!’
It was clear that she was speaking with completely sincerity. Yet something was stirring in the cobwebs of my brain. There was something about this account that did not quite make sense, but I could not for the life of me work out what it was. I searched my memory. Surely this version of events tallied exactly with what I’d heard before? Yet I still felt that some important detail was eluding me. I was still puzzling over it when Trullius spoke up.
‘Well, slave, it seems that Lavinia did not run away at all.’
