Requiem for a Slave

by Rosemary Rowe

  She sipped it thoughtfully. ‘Yet someone red-haired sent that messenger. Who was it, if it wasn’t Minimus? It must have been someone who wanted to assist – that is hardly likely to be a rebel, you would think.’

  ‘Dear Jupiter!’ I jumped upright, almost oversetting the mead jug in my haste. ‘Glypto’s green man was talking to a boy – an urchin-boy at that. I thought at first the green man was the murderer, but perhaps I was mistaken, after all, and he’s the one that sent the messenger.’

  ‘Green man?’ Cilla was looking at me with alarm, as though it was my turn to have lost my wits.

  ‘I’ll explain it later,’ I assured her. ‘Though I’m not sure exactly what it means myself. In the meantime, this might be important in finding Minimus. What was he like – this urchin who brought the message here? What about his speech?’ I was still remembering the bandits in the woods – pockets of rebels from the western areas who had never really given up the fight – their accents would be quite distinct.

  Cilla looked surprised. ‘He was so out of breath that it was hard to tell. Let me remember what he sounded like.’ She had a natural aptitude for mimicry and she used it now to imitate the voice – bad Latin with a coarse, uneducated twang – very much as Glypto had described. ‘“I had a . . . dreadful business . . . finding where to come. I . . . wouldn’t have agreed if I . . . had known how far it was . . .” A little bit like that.’

  I grinned. She loved the opportunity to tell a tale like this, and the hot mead was clearly loosening her tongue. I crouched down beside her and refilled her beaker again. ‘And what did he look like?’

  She scarcely needed the encouragement. ‘He was ragged, as I told you, very small and thin and rather in want of a visit to the baths. Wore a brownish tunic and a sacking cloak, though I noticed he had a pair of stout boots on his feet. His hair was short and curly, and I think that it was brown, though it might have just been muddy, like the rest of him.’

  I swallowed my hot mead in a gulp. ‘That would fit with Glypto’s estimate of the boy whose voice he heard. So perhaps the green man is our red-head after all. He might be Silurian, I suppose, like Minimus himself: lots of Silurians have that red-haired look – just as the Ordovices are tall and fair, like Quintus Severus. And there is nothing to say that the messenger was not a slave. That would explain that part of it – but I wonder how he came to know exactly where I lived?’

  She had emptied her own beaker for a second time. ‘Who is this Glypto anyway?’ she said. But before I could reply, we were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps crunching up the path, and, as we looked at each other in surprise, a hooded apparition burst in through the door.

  Eleven

  I am not by nature a superstitious man, but the creature looked so like one of the evil dwarves our poems speak about that for a moment I was truly shocked, just as my daughter-in-law had been when I arrived. So when the apparition pushed back the heavy hood and revealed himself as Kurso, the little garden slave, swamped in my birrus britannicus from the shop, my first reaction was of sharp relief.

  ‘Kurso, what are you doing in my cape?’ I said. Alarm had made me sound severe and I regretted it at once. Any reprimand was apt to make him shake so much with fright that he was generally incapable of speech.

  But tonight was an exception, it appeared.

  ‘Master, thank all the gods that you are safe!’ Stripping off the cape, he ran towards me and fell prostrate at my feet, kissing my sandals in an embarrassing display.

  ‘Now then, Kurso,’ I muttered awkwardly, ‘I’m glad you’re so delighted, but please get up at once.’ I took him by the arm and assisted him to rise.

  He was still grinning at me in disbelief, though he was trembling. ‘We went to Glevum – we heard you’d been attacked and might be in danger of your life. There was a message . . .’ He looked ready to kneel down and embrace my feet again.

  I prevented him by saying, ‘So I understand. I don’t know who sent it, but, as you can see, it was a mistake. I am sorry to have occasioned everyone alarm. I am touched that the household was so concerned for me, but I’m sorry that you and your mistress had a long walk in the dark for nothing, and no doubt in anxiety as well. It must be disappointing to find me boringly at home, safe and well and drinking honeyed mead.’

  I meant to tease him, but he did not smile. ‘Not disappointed, master, only glad. Though we already knew that it was a false alarm. We heard in Glevum that you were unhurt. The mistress was so relieved she sent me out for wine and poured it on the workshop altar as a sacrifice.’

  Gwellia is no more an adherent of the Roman gods than I am, and I recognized how distressed she must have been to have thought of engaging in this little ritual. ‘I’ve never been the subject of thank-offering before. I must thank her for her care,’ I told him with a smile. ‘She is not far behind you, I assume?’

  ‘She and the young master’ – he meant Junio, of course – ‘are coming down the old lane this moment with the cart. But it’s difficult and dark.’ He shuffled a little closer to the fire, and I realized that the trembling was partly due to cold. ‘They sent me on to get the fire alight and take them back a torch.’

  I nodded. ‘Then I can save you time and trouble. I have already banked the fire, and when I came up here I brought a torch with me.’ I nodded to where it was still burning on the spike. ‘You can take that one. But have a little sip of something warming first.’ I stirred some more hot water into the last few drops of honeyed mead and handed it to Kurso. We rarely gave him alcoholic drink, of course, but he was shivering.

  He drank it from the jug with a grimace and you could almost see the warmth come seeping into him.

  ‘So,’ I said, when he had finished it, ‘they sent you for a torch. What brought you up to Junio’s roundhouse, then? Surely the mistress told you to go home?’

  He saw another reprimand in this and backed a step or two but the mead had given him the courage to reply, ‘Master, I was to come and see the young mistress anyway, when I’d got the torch.’

  ‘Of course – to tell her that I was safe and well, and that the bulla feast could therefore go ahead. I should have thought of that.’

  ‘To tell her we believed that you were safe, although we were not absolutely sure, because we couldn’t find you in the town. But I thought I heard voices in here, so I came here first – and realized it was you. The mistress will be very glad to learn that you are home.’ Kurso relinquished the jug reluctantly. ‘I ought to go back at once and let her know.’

  I nodded. ‘I will come with you and set her mind at rest,’ I said, thinking of his safety as much as anything. Gwellia at least had two young men with her, but timid Kurso would be travelling the woodland lane alone. I had not forgotten the rebel bandits in the wood. ‘And I see you are wearing a thin tunic with no sleeves,’ I added. ‘You’re no use to anyone if you have caught a chill. Put that birrus on again before you go out in the wind.’

  My patron would have thought I was a fool, of course, but I felt responsible. It was clear that the poor boy had set off for the town in such a rush that he had not thought to provide himself with a cloak. He threw me an uncertain glance. ‘You won’t want it yourself? That other one you have is only half as thick.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’d left it in the workshop, so I could not have used it if you hadn’t brought it here. It was the mistress who told you to wear it, I suppose?’ I saw him nod, and I smiled. ‘So who am I to contradict her words?’

  He was still looking doubtful but he put on the cape, and pulled the heavy hood around his ears again. The garment was much too long for him and almost reached the ground, and with his face completely hidden in the hood, he looked again as he had looked when he first came through the door – like some mysterious creature from the underworld. He took down the torch and stood at the doorway, ready to depart.

  I turned to Cilla who had been sitting silently, cradling her mead cup and listening to all this. ‘We shan’t be ver
y long.’

  Kurso nodded, anxious to be gone. ‘If we don’t hurry, they’ll be almost here. And I was to tell you, mistress, that the young master could not find a calf, but he has managed to buy a whole lamb for tomorrow’s feast.’

  I was astounded at this news. ‘But surely there’s not time to cook it now?’ I gestured at the fire.

  Cilla nodded. ‘The slaves dug a cooking-pit earlier today and set a fire in it, so that we could buy a butchered beast and cook it overnight – the way that Gwellia says you used to do when you were young. She meant it to be a nice surprise for you. In fact, she promised that you could show us how. There should be time to do it – the pit will still be hot – provided that Junio gets here with it fairly soon.’

  I was delighted at the prospect of a Celtic roast. I grinned at her. ‘Then we will go and light him on his way. Come, Kurso,’ I said, and we set out into the night.

  I was glad I had my cloak on. It was very cold indeed, and the south wind had blown in heavy clouds which covered up the moon. In the darkness, the forest made alarming sounds: every rustle of a creature and every snapping twig made me think of rebel footsteps in the wood, and the breeze sighed in the treetops like bandits whispering. Even the torchlight did not seem to help: the light sent monstrous shadows skittering everywhere. For Kurso’s sake – as well as for my own – I began to chatter in a cheerful tone.

  ‘There are a lot of questions that I’ve not had time to ask,’ I said, as we picked our way along, stumbling over tree roots and boulders on the track. ‘Who was it told you that I wasn’t hurt – or dead?’

  ‘It was the tanner in the shop next door.’ He peered at me from under the darkness of the hood. The torchlight was oddly reflected in his eyes, giving them an unearthly glitter in the shadow of his face.

  ‘You went to talk to him?’

  He nodded. ‘We got to the workshop as quickly as we could, but there was no one there – and no sign of any struggle or blood or anything. The fire was still alight, and there were some snuffed-out tapers on the floor. The mistress was terribly upset to find no sign of life and sent me to the tannery to enquire if anyone there had any news of you.’

  I grinned, thinking of my neighbour’s love of gossiping. ‘Which no doubt they did?’

  The dark hood nodded up and down again. ‘The tanner was very anxious, master, when he heard you might be hurt, and very keen to help us when he realized that you weren’t. He even left his shop and came round to reassure the mistress personally. I’m glad he did. She would have doubted the message unless she heard it from his lips: that he’d seen you only an hour or so before and you seemed in perfect health. He saw you set off into town with some turnips in a bag.’

  My turn to nod. So the tanner had been watching my departure from the shop. I was glad that Radixrapum had escaped by then and taken Pedronius’s pavement safely out of sight. ‘Did he say anything about an army cart?’

  There was a short pause as Kurso skirted a little patch of mud, and then he said slowly, ‘That was true, then? We wondered about that. He assumed there’d been some kind of accident – he’d seen the army cart drive up and take something away. He thought it was a body, but he couldn’t tell us more – except that it wasn’t you. He seemed to hope that we’d enlighten him, but, of course, we couldn’t – we did not know ourselves.’ He gazed enquiringly at me, but he said no more.

  I answered the question that he had not dared to ask. ‘There was a corpse,’ I told him, ‘but it was just a street-vendor who used to sell me pies.’ I sent up a mental apology to poor Lucius for that ‘just’, but I wanted Kurso to be reassured. I did not tell him either that it was no accident. Here in the dark there was enough to worry him. ‘He died outside the shop. I imagine that’s what made someone send that messenger to you – though I don’t know who did that. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t Minimus.’

  ‘From his description, we assumed it was. A red-headed slave. Who else could it have been? It wasn’t Maximus. He turned up later on, with the young master, and they were just as mystified as we were by it all—’ He broke off as the silence of the night was broken by the distant howling of a wolf. Kurso huddled a little closer to my side and slowed to crawling pace.

  ‘Keep walking,’ I told him. ‘And keep your voice up too. They are said to be just as nervous of us as we are of them. Besides, they’re afraid of fire and we have a torch.’ I tried to pretend that I believed that, but I doubted every word, and when the torchlight shone upon a pile of broken branches near the path, tied into little bundles with a cord – somebody’s pile of kindling, by the look of it – I selected two stout ones that were longer than the rest and handed one to him. ‘And now we’re armed as well,’ I said.

  He didn’t answer. He was rooted to the spot. The courage from the mead had quite deserted him. But it was dangerous to linger. I took the torch and strode away from him, knowing that he would have to follow me or find himself benighted on the path. It was unkind – Kurso was such a nervous creature anyway – but it was the only way that I could think of to keep him on the move.

  After a moment, he trotted after me, and I observed in a deliberately loud and ordinary tone, as if there’d been no interruption in our talk, ‘Junio turned up at my workshop after you?’

  He nodded. ‘We felt a bit foolish when the tanner left, not knowing what to do. But then the young master came along, trying to find you to walk home with you.’

  ‘Why was that?’ I wondered. ‘I was not expecting him.’

  ‘He and Maximus were struggling with the handcart,’ Kurso said. ‘They had a huge heap of purchases to manage – lots of food and metal trinkets, to say nothing of the lamb – and it was obviously going to be much harder when they got out of town. They were hoping you would come along and help to steady it.’ It came out in a rush, but it had done the trick. He was thinking about the story, not the dangers of the night. ‘Of course, they were surprised to find us there, but we told them what had happened, and then they understood. We waited a bit longer, but you didn’t come, and it was getting dark . . .’ He tailed off unhappily.

  I said, to change the subject to happier things, ‘And you thought you’d better give me up and set off home again?’

  He gave me a sideways, apologetic look, as if I had accused him of deserting me. ‘We did try to find you before we left the town – we even asked the sentry on the gate if he had seen you recently. But no one had seen you on the road at all.’

  ‘I didn’t come that way – and I hired a gig,’ I said. ‘I can see why you were worried.’

  ‘The mistress was beginning to wonder if the messenger was right, and someone had indeed attacked you after the tanner had seen you leave the shop! But Junio persuaded us that this could not be true – the messenger would never have got to us in time, not even if he’d come here on a horse.’

  ‘Which he clearly hadn’t, from what you say of him.’ I frowned. The more I thought about that messenger, the more of a mystery he seemed to be. ‘And he didn’t give you any clue as to who might have sent him, or where he heard the story that I’d been set upon? Even though you went all the way to Glevum in his company?’

  Kurso shook his head. ‘Oh, we did not do that. He left us almost as soon as we set off – he could move much faster than the mistress could and he was wanted back, he said. We hadn’t got as far as this when he ran off again, and we did not see him after that. I’m sorry, master, I can’t tell you more.’

  So there might have been a horse or an accomplice in the woods, I thought, but then I shook my head. Why should I suppose that there was something sinister? I had never been set upon at all – it had been Lucius. Yet why should someone have supposed that it was me? And why, by all the gods, should a green man – or anybody else – care enough to alert my family?

  Kurso saw the shaken head. ‘What is it, master? Something startled you?’ He stiffened and then added in a frightened whisper. ‘I can hear a noise myself.’

  I was about to assur
e him that there was nothing of the kind when I realized he was right. There was a faint sound of voices and a rumbling sound – and it was getting nearer all the time. I tightened my grasp upon my makeshift staff, and said, with more conviction than I felt, ‘Only a farmer looking for his sheep . . .’ I trailed off as I heard a distant thump, and the sound of cursing drifted through the night.

  ‘What is it, master?’ Kurso’s voice was shrill. ‘Do you think it could be the rebels after all?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’ I found that I was grinning out of pure relief. ‘Listen!’

  In the distant darkness a familiar voice was saying very loudly, ‘To Dis with this handcart! It’s impossible. Where has Kurso got to with the light?’

  Twelve

  It took us a little time to reach them even then, and what a reception I received when we arrived! I might have been a hero returning from the wars, the way that Junio and Maximus behaved. They dropped the handcart as quickly as they could, grinning like a pair of idiots, and hastened over – my son to clap my shoulder heartily and the slave to fall on one knee and kiss my hand. But my wife seemed less delighted to find me safe and well. She shouldered past the pair of them, and – far from giving me a fond embrace – pummelled against my chest with both her fists.

  ‘Libertus! Husband! How could you worry me so much! First I thought that you were dead, and then you were missing—’ She broke off, and I recognized that she was in tears and this was the anger of extreme relief.

  I captured both her hands and held her tight. ‘It’s all right, Gwellia,’ I murmured in her ear and felt her sobbing cease. Then, in a complete reversal of her mood, she collapsed upon my neck and – in full view of the servants – hugged and kissed me tenderly.