A Whispering of Spies

by Rosemary Rowe

  Florens gave a roar and tried to lunge at her. Three soldiers pounced on him at once, and this time – councillor or not – they bound him hand and foot: none too gently, either, using the ties of his own tunic to secure his knees.

  Alcanta blinked at him. ‘Don’t hurt him too much. I still owe him a little bit of gratitude.’ She turned to me. ‘Have you ever met the lictor, citizen? I wish I never had. He was a brute, a monster – he loved to cause you pain. When Florens told me that Antolinus was alive and that there might be a chance of seeing him, I pleaded with my husband to give me a divorce. He only laughed, of course, twisting my arm until he forced the truth from me – or most of it. I managed to hold out and not to tell him where Antolinus was – he would only have had him hunted down and put to death for desertion. Neither did I tell him that I was with child, because he would have realized that it was not his own. But Florens had a plan. He wrote to Voluus, inviting him to come here to Britannia – promising a future on the curia, a welcome banquet and all sorts of things. Voluus was flattered – he was always vain. He came to Glevum practically at once. It worked out splendidly. I had the child in peace.’

  ‘While Florens met him here and arranged to murder him!’ I said, casting a triumphant look towards the councillor. ‘Having contrived to be nominated as your guardian?’

  She shook her head. ‘It should not have happened exactly as it did. The intention was to poison him after we’d all arrived in Britannia – these things can happen with unfamiliar food. But Voluus had spies. One of my servants wrote to him while he was here and told him of the child – I had meant to pass it off as belonging to a maid until after Voluus was dead.’

  ‘I see! So that was the letter that Voluus received that day in the mansio?’ It was making sense at last. That kind of fury comes from jealousy, not fear. ‘Not a threat at all!’

  She nodded. ‘He was so furious that he threatened to return home that very day. He would have murdered me. Fortunately Florens intercepted him.’

  Brianus was pawing at my arm again. ‘But I’m sure I heard that the letter was a threat. It was discovered afterwards, at the mansio.’

  ‘Not that letter, Brianus,’ I told him solemnly. ‘That message was destroyed. You told me Florens read it – and it gave him an idea. He had already planned to murder Voluus, but if he wrote another letter and left it to be found that would start the rumour of the threats. I imagine he wrote sealed letters to the house in Gaul, apparently from Voluus himself, explaining that the lictor wasn’t coming back, and making arrangements for moving all the goods. No one but Alcanta would have known about the truth, and she was quite content. She hoped to be reunited with her love in exchange for everything she had. But there had to be a body, representing Voluus, or some awkward questions would be asked. That’s where the threats came in. The authorities would look for ancient enemies.’

  I looked at Alcanta. She didn’t disagree. ‘We never thought of Calvinus as a likely suspect. He had an ancient grudge against his master, it appears – but with a man like Voluus, there were sure to be others that we didn’t know about. His death was not a loss to anyone. It was a clever thought.’

  Florens sighed. Suddenly the fight had all gone out of him. ‘It might have worked, as well, if Antolinus had kept things as simple as we’d planned. Arrange to have the treasure-cart come in here overnight, give the escort poppy-wine and steal the treasure while they slept to make the threats seem true. But there was a sudden problem – Antolinus sent to me, saying that he had been recognized. The driver of the treasure-cart was somebody he knew. There was only one answer. We had to kill the man. Antolinus did it – poison in the wine – but we still wanted people to know about the threats. He came up with the scheme about the bogus rebel raid. I was at a banquet, and I couldn’t help. He did it the same way as he’d done before, except that this time there were five corpses to arrange. He couldn’t do it on the road – it would have taken too much time – so he cut the bodies into pieces in the barn and put them on the cart. Then he had the problem of the horses, too. If he kept them here it would excite remark, so he took them to the roadside and simply slaughtered them as well – except for the one that he kept back to ride. Spread the blood around to make it look as if the party had been stabbed and hacked to death. It was a risk, of course, but he got away with it. Rode off into the forest as soon as he spotted the first witness on the road. He was an expert horseman. Just as well – he could not have managed six horses otherwise, even if four of them were towed behind the cart.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen. It was an accident of fate.’

  ‘How do you know all that? You must have talked to him. And suddenly he’s dead! Was that an accident?’ Alcanta’s eyes were blazing and she clenched her pretty fists. ‘So close, and yet I missed him. And you used his body as my husband’s corpse, when you promised me that it would be some nameless criminal! I can’t forgive that, Florens. I don’t care if they feed me to the beasts. I’m going to tell the truth.’ She turned to the centurion. ‘He wrote to me – under my husband’s seal, of course! – about a moon ago to tell me that Antolinus really had been killed this time. Lies, of course, but he promised that, if I continued with the plan, I could come to Britannia and he would marry me himself and give the child a home, since of course I had no husband now. I, like a fool, believed him and went along with it. I even thanked him when he offered me the farmstead as a home, when all the time my lover’s head was in the well. He must have put it there.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ Florens said. ‘How could I have done? I was in Glevum all day yesterday – Libertus was with me a great deal of the time – and in the evening I was looking after you! When did I have time to kill him, tell me that? I couldn’t ride out to this farmstead in the time I had.’

  She thought for a moment and then hissed angrily, ‘But you knew that he was dead. You had already told me that he was. And all that time he was actually alive. I don’t know how you did it, but it must have been your plan.’ She shook her head. ‘And I can’t imagine why. You already had the treasure – it was out here on the farm. You didn’t even have to move it once the escort-men were dead.’

  ‘But it’s as clear as daylight, lady.’ Biccus found his voice. ‘He’d seen you by then. It was you he wanted, not just the contents of the treasure-cart. And who could blame him? I would marry you myself.’ He sank back into silence.

  ‘And I think I know who murdered Antolinus for him,’ I observed. ‘Someone who would not be wanted at the banquet feast. Someone who was doubtless promised a reward and, like Calvinus, is hoping someday to be free and rid himself of his uncomfortable name. Somebody who killed the maidservant as well, so she could not swear that the body was not Voluus at all. Is that not true, Servilis?’

  Servilis scowled. ‘They both deserved the penalty, even under law. One was a deserter and one a runaway. There is an automatic death penalty for both, and I was acting on the orders of a magistrate. I don’t think that you can punish me for that.’

  I turned back to Emelius. ‘Centurion, I think we have the answers now. You are under orders to present me at the court. I would like you to do so, and bring these people, too. I believe I shall be able to prove my innocence. Though I may be in trouble for requisitioning a cart.’

  EPILOGUE

  I was sitting in the garden of my patron’s country house, where Marcus had been sitting when the whole affair began. Marcus was lolling on a folding chair nearby, watching his infant with indulgent eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we can call that satisfactory. I am relieved that you managed to redeem yourself and did not cause me any more embarrassment. And they cleared you on all charges, even of the cart. Finding the lictor’s body helped, of course. How did you manage to work out where it was?’

  ‘Where would be more obvious than in the garden of Florens’s country house, where I would duly cover it with a pavement floor? He must have put it there the night that Voluus died – after h
e’d removed the ring and toga-clasp, of course. But it would not be really safe till I’d put the pavement down. He even had his servants flatten out the place, so that I would not disturb the grave by accident.’

  ‘Unfortunate that he actually murdered Voluus himself; otherwise he might have got away with just a fine. But a Roman citizen? And planning all the rest? No wonder he was sentenced to instant exile.’ He threw a padded ball for little Marcellinus to retrieve. ‘After being a wealthy councillor, he’ll find it hard, I think, though he’s taken that servant with him, I believe. Don’t know why the fellow went – the court decided that he was justified in killing two runaways whom the law condemned.’

  I made no answer, too full of sugared dates to speak. I had been given a whole plate of them entirely to myself, which I took as a kind of edible apology for his not volunteering to speak up on my account. It didn’t matter: Alcanta’s testimony had been more than enough to sway the magistrate, but I’d not declined the dates. I’m not particularly fond of them, in fact, but I was going to eat them all on principle.

  ‘It’s Porteus that I feel sorry for,’ he went on presently, when Marcellinus had toddled over with the ball. ‘All those debts that he’s been lumbered with! Well, he should have remembered that the buyer must beware. He is liable, because he did the ordering, though Florens wrote and asked him to, under the lictor’s seal. And he still has that daughter to find a husband for!’

  I nodded stickily. ‘It won’t be easy now. She won’t have much of a dowry after this.’

  Marcus gave a grunt. ‘And he won’t be able to afford to be a candidate for Imperial priest. That was what Florens was working for, of course – they were always rivals for the Servir’s post. If Porteus wasn’t such a pompous idiot, I could feel quite sorry for the man.’

  I didn’t answer. I hadn’t quite forgiven the councillor for what he’d done to me.

  Marcus didn’t notice. ‘I don’t think that awarding him the lictor’s flat is going to compensate him much, and of course he won’t get anything from Florens’s estate. That’s all gone to the imperial purse. Alcanta offered him the steward, I believe, but that’s no use at all. Calvinus wouldn’t fetch a quadrans at the slave-market after what they put him through.’

  ‘I wonder if Florens feels guilty about that? He must have known the servants would be the first to take the blame.’

  Marcus rose, yawning, and threw the ball again. It went about an arms-length and fell into a pool. He sat down with a laugh. ‘We’ll no doubt find that Calvinus was impolite to him. Florens was vindictive, I told you that before. That’s why – when the opportunity arose – he tried to imply that you had been involved. Not that he had anything against you personally, but he knew that by indicting you he would embarrass me.’ The slave had fetched the ball and rolled it to his feet. Marcus kicked it back, remarking lazily, ‘Well, he won’t be trying to embarrass me again. By sundown he’ll have had to leave the Empire for life.’

  ‘It’s lucky that Alcanta didn’t suffer the same fate.’ I licked my fingers delicately, as I’d seen my patron do.

  Marcus laughed, slapping his hand against his thigh. ‘There was never any chance of that, I think. Of course, she had a representative to speak for her in court, since being a woman she couldn’t speak herself, but she lowered her lashes at the magistrate and looked properly contrite, and managed to convince him that she’d been overruled by men. He even volunteered to act as guardian himself. Titus Flavius – the man’s a recent widower. I think she’ll be all right.’

  I had to laugh at this assessment of Alcanta’s charms. ‘She’s persuaded him to buy that pavement, too. I thought I was going to make a loss on that.’

  ‘Speaking of women, how’s your charming wife?’ Marcus was doing his best to flatter me. ‘She’s a doughty woman, too. You know she came here the other night to plead your cause? Wanted Julia to persuade me to speak for you in court. I had to promise that I’d do it if you really needed me. Combined their wiles against me, though I didn’t have to do it in the end.’ He glanced towards the gate. ‘Ah, and here they come! With that new slave of yours. Funny little fellow. What’s his name again?’

  ‘We call him Brianus,’ I answered. ‘And it’s worked out splendidly. My son and his family have been looking for a slave and Brianus will suit them very well. It’s sometimes difficult to make him understand that I am not his master and he works for Junio, but he is young and willing and no doubt he’ll learn. Now that he’s eating better, he is gaining strength as well. He told me he had never been so happy in his life.’

  ‘Well,’ my patron said, heartily, ‘I’m very pleased myself. You did very well to sort this problem out. They would never have caught the murderer if it had not been for you.’

  Marcus was not good at compliments and I appreciated this. ‘Oh, it was nothing, patron,’ I told him modestly. ‘At first I made a number of mistakes. The only thing I really did was focus on the farm.’

  He smiled benignly. ‘Come to think of it, I suppose that’s true. Anyone might have worked out the rest of it, if they’d happened to be there.’ He looked over at the plate which had been set for me, picked up the last date and ate it daintily. Then he got to his feet. ‘Shall we go and greet the ladies? I believe a light refreshment may have been prepared.’