the door.
His wife was clearly furious with me. ‘You will be asking me to feed this wretched slave, next, I suppose?’ Then, when she saw my nod, she added, ‘Are you sure that you don’t want me to give up my bed for her?’
The nursemaid turned her head to look at me. ‘I beg you, citizen. Take me to the room. Starve me if you like. But let me spend this night there, where my darling was. Bind my feet by all means, or chain me to the bed. Though I have to warn you, I may need my hands, if I am to find what I am looking for. It may not be obvious to the casual glance…’
‘Tell us what it is, and we will search for it.’ The voice was sharp, but Priscilla had seized the woman by her two bound arms and was jerking her forward and out into the night.
‘You wouldn’t know what you were looking for. I hardly know myself. But I’ll know it when I see it.’ The nurse was on her feet now, and stood there tottering. ‘I may have to wait for daylight to find it, anyway. Though, even then — you understand — I make no promises. If she was abducted, it is a different thing. If anyone but Lavinia made the model in the bed or knotted the cloths to make the rope, then obviously there will be nothing there to find.’ She managed half a shrug. ‘Our best hope, in that case, is that she managed to throw some garment down, in a way that did not alert her kidnappers.’
She was surprisingly tiny now she was upright, no higher than my chest-clasp as she looked up at me, but there was nothing little about the anguish in her eyes. ‘Believe me, citizen. I am as anxious for her safety as you are yourselves. I swear by all the gods — on my own life and Lavinia’s if you wish — that I won’t try to run away.’
‘You will not have the chance. You’ll be guarded anyway.’ There was a muffled commotion in the stable, as I spoke. The door creaked open and a shadowy form appeared, a blacker shape against the darkness of the night. Trullius said something and the figure disappeared again, to return a moment later with a sleeping-mat and what proved to be an unlit taper in its hand.
When Trullius brought the stable-slave over to the light, I got a look at him. He was a young man, tousled and more than half-asleep, but from the look of the brawny muscles in his arms — as he straightened the outer tunic which he’d hurriedly pulled on — he was more than a match for the tiny aging nurse. Even a Druid might think twice before attacking him, I thought, as he pulled out a knife and cut the ropes around the nurse’s legs.
I surrendered the oil-lamp to the lady of the house. She allowed her husband to light the taper from the flame, and she set off towards the kitchen-block, while we filed back through the painted passage and the dining- space into the entrance-way where I’d first been received. This time, however, I was ushered up the stairs.
‘This was Lavinia’s bedroom,’ Trullius said, stopping at the first door on the landing, and hustling the nursemaid roughly into the room beyond. I followed them and had a look around.
There were two beds in there. I should not have been surprised — I’d heard that Audelia and her cousin had shared the room — but I somehow had supposed that they had shared a bed, as people in a guest house generally do. But these were individual, proper sleeping frames, with goatskin mattresses and woven blankets too — though on the bed beside the window-space these had been thrown back to reveal a pile of clothing carefully arranged to look at first glance like a sleeping form. A travelling box, in which the clothes had evidently been packed, was standing empty by the window-space.
The nursemaid saw my glance. ‘That was Lavinia’s, of course. It held her dowry too — though it seems that it has disappeared as well. Through there, do you suppose?’
She nodded to the window-space. The covers from the other bed had been deftly knotted into a sort of rope, secured firmly around the bed-frame at one end, the rest of it still snaking downward towards the inner court.
I walked across to get a better look. The knotted rope extended almost to the ground, but it was not strong enough to take a lot of weight. A supple climber, or a child, might manage to descend. I shook my head and glanced around the room. I wondered anyone would want to run away from here.
There was a handmade carpet on the floor and a wooden chair nearby, with a large pot under it, complete with lid and fresh water in a jug, Whatever the dining arrangements downstairs, this was luxury. No wonder that Cyra and Lavinius had thought it suitable.
Trullius had joined me at the window-space and seemed about to pull the rope inside, but the nursemaid stopped him. ‘Tie my feet again — do anything you like — but let me pull the rope in, so I can see the knots.’
He looked at me. I nodded and we two stepped aside. The slave-boy set the taper down and drew the knife again, cutting the rope-bonds which still bound her wrists. She flexed her hands a moment, and then came across and pulled in the twisted cloth, lingering over every knot as it appeared. As she undid the last of them she shook her head at me. ‘Nothing of interest in that, citizen. I’ll have to look elsewhere. But I’ll see better when the daylight comes.’ She turned to Trullius. ‘If I may use the far bed, you can tie my legs again and seal the shutters if you wish. Not that I could climb out of the window in the dark.’
‘I’ll tie you up all right!’ It was Trullius’s wife appearing in the doorway with the lighted lamp, a hunk of dry bread and a heavy length of chain. ‘You think I’m going to leave you virtually free, after what has happened in this house?’ She thumped the bread down on the chair-seat as she spoke. She turned towards the slave and motioned to the chain. ‘The nursemaid wears a slave-collar with her name on it. Attach this to the back of it and chain her to the bed. Make sure that the screw-link at the end is out of reach. Give her enough slack to reach the pot, of course — I don’t want staining on my mattresses — and she can eat and drink this if she can find it in the dark. If that arrangement meets with your approval, citizen?’ she added in my direction with a sneer.
It was hardly what I would have chosen, but I did not object. Far better to be chained up in a comfortable dry room, with food and drink — however minimal — than to spend a freezing night starving in a draughty ruined kiln. ‘I’ll come back in the morning, then,’ I murmured to the nurse. ‘And hope that you have something to report.’
The slave-woman, who was submitting to the chain, gave me a rueful smile. ‘If I have nothing to tell you in the morning, citizen, do as you wish with me. I will have nothing left to live for, anyway, if my darling’s lost. But I swear by all the gods that I’ll do all I can.’
I nodded. ‘Goodnight then.’ I followed Trullius. He led me into the other attic-room, as the stable-slave spread out his sleeping-mat outside the nursemaid’s door.
I looked around my attic. So this was where Secunda and her husband slept. Priscilla had said that this was her room as a rule, and certainly the accommodation was much less lavish than next door. There was no chair or table, no covering on the floor, and only a crude bolt to latch the door. The bed provided was far more primitive, simple wooden slats and a stuffed straw palliasse, but it was still much more luxurious than my pile of reeds at home. Besides, I was so tired I would have slept on cobblestones. I paused just long enough to unwind my travel- stained toga and pull my sandals off, then — without even waiting to crawl beneath the woven covers on the bed — I lay down on the pillows and was instantly asleep.
EIGHTEEN
I woke from a confused dream in which a man in Druid robes was cooking headless corpses in a kiln, while a giant in yellow wedding slippers kicked the chimney down.
I forced my eyes open, uncertain for a moment as to where I was, and peered around until I recognized the room. Dawn light was streaming through the shuttered window-space, my shoes and toga were where I’d put them down and I was still lying on the covers. It was obvious that I had hardly stirred all night. But the noisy kicking of my nightmare seemed still to be going on.
I struggled to sit up but the banging didn’t stop. Sleepily I realized that it was not a dream at all, but somebody knocking loudly on the door. And the landlord’s voice was hollering my name. ‘Citizen Libertus, I can’t unlatch the door. Are you all right in there?’
I swung my feet down, shambled to the door and pulled back the bolt. I had scarcely time to do so before Trullius burst in. He was still in his under-tunic, without even a blanket to hide his ruined arm, but he made no excuse. ‘Oh, citizen! Thank Mars you are all right. I had begun to worry when you didn’t answer me. I suppose you were asleep. I’m sorry to wake you but you’d better come at once.’
I grovelled for my sandals, but he shook his head.
‘There isn’t time to dress. I don’t know what to do. My wife went in there when she first got up and…’ He shook his head. ‘You’d better come and see.’ He was already hustling out of the door again.
I followed stupidly, still more than half-asleep. What was the panic? Surely Lavinia had not unexpectedly
