The Vestal Vanishes

by Rosemary Rowe

The two householders exchanged a glance at this, but it was Trullius who spoke. ‘It didn’t come to that. Paulinus did his best for them, I heard Audelia say. Bribed the guard to give them hemlock they could drink and die with dignity – both the wet nurse and her child and husband too.’ He rounded on his wife. ‘Would he have done that, woman, if he’d betrayed them first? It isn’t in his character. You say yourself he is a gentle man. And yet you think he’d do a thing like that? It makes no kind of sense.’

  She tossed her head. ‘Even a good man knows his duty when it comes to Druids – and serve them right, I say. I don’t believe he’d let them suffer, if he could save them that, but after the atrocities that took place in the wood, he might have felt obliged to name them to the authorities. After all, he is a citizen, and related to an important family, even if he isn’t a wealthy man himself. And that is just the point. Here are the authorities offering a reward, and suddenly the wet nurse is arrested and arraigned, and those two, who never had a proper establishment before, are suddenly in the market for not one slave, but two.’

  ‘One who is mute, and the other a mere child. An untrained one at that, from what I glimpsed of him. Cheap bargains, both of them.’ He gulped down the contents of his cup. ‘Don’t be so stupid, wife! Secunda’s dowry would have paid for slaves like that a thousand times.’

  I cut across the bickering. ‘Did you say they had not been married long?’

  Trullius shook his head, and said, now with the careful diction of the slightly drunk, ‘Not very long at all, I understand. A month or so at most. I’m not sure exactly when. Paulinus told me he’d been looking for a wife to help him raise the girl, but most women would not take on such a burden all their lives. Then he met Secunda, who was longing for a child, and didn’t care what defects it might have. Not a wealthy marriage, but it has worked out very well. He is clearly fond of her, and she is fond of him.’

  The woman snorted. ‘They were lucky then.’ She sobered suddenly. ‘Or perhaps he’s not. His first wife died and now Secunda clearly isn’t well.’

  ‘Yet she went to the slave-market?’ I said, thinking of the markets I have known myself – both as a purchaser and as a slave for sale. They are unpleasant places: the buyers prodding muscles and assessing teeth, the menfolk leering and pinching the females on display, amid the nauseating smell of fear and unwashed flesh. ‘Hardly a place for anybody frail.’

  ‘Wanted to see what her husband bought, I suppose,’ Trullius replied. He’d begun to wave the wine-cup in an emphatic way. ‘And when they’d finished shopping they didn’t have to walk. They had their cart to take them home again. They didn’t leave it here – I could hardly have a farm-cart in the court with Vestal Virgins here – Paulinus took it to a hiring-stables at the gate where they look after passing horses overnight. And before my wife has theories about that, I’m sure Audelia gave them money so they could pay for it! I know she’d slipped Secunda some 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.’

  ‘What?’ the nursemaid queried sharply.

  Trullius raised his hand. ‘It seems more likely, now, that Druids captured her and simply made it look as if she’d made her own escape. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Druids?’ The nursemaid looked incredulous. ‘How could Druids get into the house? Or get out again? Someone would have seen. I would have seen myself! I was on guard all day outside the door.’

  My hostess thrust the lamp in to look more closely at her captive’s face. ‘Not if they climbed up the cloth-rope to the window, when no one was about. That must be what it was! And you must have helped them plan it. I’ll wager you sent a signal that you had come downstairs and the room was unguarded while you fetched the tray and kept me busy in the kitchen area! Come to think of it, I saw you at the time, carrying something out into the alleyway beside the house. I thought it was a chamber pot for the midden-pile. But it was a signal, wasn’t it? Admit it now, and make it quicker for us all.’

  Trullius was right about her having theories, I thought – this one almost sounded plausible. I was about to say so, when she spoke again.

  ‘Though Minerva knows why you’d agree to help them in that way, if you are as fond of Lavinia as you seem to be. More magic, I suppose. If the Druids put a spell on you so that you couldn’t help yourself, then say so straight away. It might go easier for you when it comes to punishment.’

  She was offering the slave-woman a convenient excuse, and one which might have stood up at a legal trial, but the nurse disdained it. ‘I’ve never knowingly spoken to a Druid in my life. Why should you think they’d want to . . . ?’ She broke off suddenly, and looked at me again. ‘Is this to do with Audelia, citizen?’

  I nodded. ‘We think the Druids murdered her, as well.’

  ‘As well?’ The voice was sharp with shock, but I quickly realized it was not concern for poor Audelia’s fate. Her only interest was in Lavinia. ‘You mean the child is dead?’ She strained forward and would have struggled to her feet, but her bonds prevented her. Bright tears were glistening in her eyes. ‘Dear Juno! Not Lavinia! Tell me it isn’t true.’

  I shook my head. ‘We haven’t found Lavinia, alive or dead,’ I said. ‘But if the Druid rebels have her, I worry for her fate. They are not noted for their mercy, even for small girls.’

  She sank back, forlornly, but obviously relieved. ‘You are right, of course. We can only pray she’s safe.’ She nodded towards the owners of the house. ‘Make them let me out of here tomorrow, citizen, and I will help you search. I know the sort of places she would go to hide.’

  Trullius’s wife, who had been stooping forward with the lamp, made an exasperated little noise. ‘What? Let her out, when she has been so clearly negligent? She must think me simple, citizen.’

  I motioned her to silence and took the lamp myself. I wanted co-operation, not defiance from the nurse. Besides I had identified what had been troubling me. ‘You don’t think she’s dead, do you?’ I murmured to the prisoner in the kiln. ‘You are not grieving, you are talking about places she might hide. What makes you think that she is still alive?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t explain it, citizen. I’m foolish, I suppose. But . . . if she were dead, I’m sure I would have known – felt it somehow in my blood and bones.’ The tears were brimming over now, and coursing down her face unchecked. She could not move her hands to wipe her cheeks. ‘I can believe she might have run away, if she thought she was in danger – especially if she could not find me when she looked for me. But when you mentioned Druids and said they’d murdered her “as well” . . .’ She broke off, shuddering. ‘What did you mean, if not that she was dead?’

  ‘I meant it seems possible they are involved in this, as well as playing a part in poor Audelia’s death. And – before you ask – we’re fairly sure of that. They deliberately left symbolic tokens with the corpse.’

  ‘Poor creature,’ the nurse said, soberly. ‘She will be greatly mourned.’ She tried to wipe her wet cheek on her tunic-shoulder, but it would not reach.

  ‘You knew Audelia?’

  ‘Not well. I met her for the first time yesterday. I liked her very much. I thought her very kind and beautiful. And surprisingly clever and intelligent, as well, quite capable of signing contracts and understanding them. Just like her young cousin would have been, I suppose, if Lavinia had ever had the opportunity of training at th
e shrine.’ She gave a bitter smile. ‘But now she never will. And poor Audelia’s dead, you say, and on her wedding day. I hope they build a fitting tomb for her.’

  ‘This is getting nowhere,’ Trullius’s wife exclaimed. She nudged me in the side. ‘Do you wish me to wake the stable-slaves and have her flogged a bit? That might persuade her to tell us what she knows. My husband would do it for us but he only has one arm these days, and he finds it hard to hold the victim down.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think it would help. If this slave cares for Lavinia as much as it appears, she’ll help us all she can without the use of whips. I’m interested in her assessment of the child.’ I turned back to the nurse. ‘Can you think of any way she might be bribed to leave – tempted by an offer, or lured to run away?’

  A stubborn shake of the head. ‘Nothing like that, citizen. Lavinia was obedient to a fault.’

  That wasn’t altogether the picture I had gleaned, but the nurse could clearly see no defects in her beloved charge. I leaned closer still, and murmured, in a gentler tone, ‘I am not suggesting this is Lavinia’s fault. If someone gave her orders which she could not ignore – purporting to be from her family, perhaps, or from the Vestal shrine – wouldn’t she obey them, if she is as dutiful as you say?’

  There was a longish silence while the nurse considered this, staring at a creeping damp patch on the wall. Then she turned an ashen face to me – even in the dim light I could see that she’d turned pale. ‘Now that you say that, citizen, there is one possibility that occurs to me . . .’

  ‘Well, tell him, for Mars sake!’ Priscilla, behind me, was exasperated now. ‘And then perhaps we can all get to our beds. Don’t contradict me, Trullius,’ she went on, as her husband made a noise as though he would protest. ‘You said yourself, it’s too late to do anything tonight.’

  I turned back to the nursemaid. ‘You were going to say . . . ?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s only an idea, and I’m not quite sure of it. I need time to think it out. It will make no difference for an hour or two – even my captors both agree we can’t do anything further tonight. I’ll tell you in the morning, supposing I’m alive.’ She gave me a wan smile. ‘I have had nothing to eat or drink all day, and a damp kiln is not kind to aging bones. But, citizen, to find out if I am right in what I think, I’ll need to see the things that Lavinia left behind – the clothes that were made into a shape inside the bed. Provided that nobody has moved them up to now?’