Tenuis had been listening. ‘That’s just what one of the older land-slaves said,’ he blurted, through his tears. ‘But one of the new men told us that he’d known such things before. His previous owner traded wood with buyers overseas, he said, because timbers from Britannia are good for different things. And then somebody said that … oh …’ He trailed off in embarrassment.
‘Said what?’ Georgicus urged.
But the boy had turned unwilling, suddenly. ‘Nothing!’ He shook his head.
‘Tenuis!’ The overseer’s voice was dangerous. ‘What did the fellow say? Tell us before I have to beat it out of you!’ I don’t believe he flogged his land-slaves very much, but he looked as if he meant it this time, certainly.
The slave-boy looked down at his ugly boots and gulped. ‘He said … that the master does have sudden fads, sometimes, and perhaps if we were wise we shouldn’t query it. It wasn’t me. I didn’t say it – he did. But everyone agreed. It’s not up to us to question anything, they said. We’re only land-slaves, we just do as we are told.’
It was so nearly what Georgicus had said to me himself, it almost made me smile. But the overseer was not amused at all.
‘Then – not content with speaking so disrespectfully about His Excellence – they disobeyed my orders and sent you here today? When I had specifically told everybody they were not to come up to the house?’
A nod.
‘So why, when you did come running, did you go round to the back? Surely the front gate is much the quickest route.’
Tenuis turned scarlet and looked about to cry again. ‘I’ve never been through that front gate in my life,’ he muttered tearfully. ‘I didn’t even try. The gatekeeper would have given me a clout around the ear. Though I was beginning to think that I’d have to brave him after all when I came round here and hammered and there was no reply.’
It was my turn to raise a brow at Georgicus. Another death that Tenuis didn’t know about. ‘We didn’t hear a knock,’ I murmured to the slave.
‘Oh, I knocked,’ the boy said eagerly. ‘Perhaps not loud enough. I was afraid those people might still be loading up the carts. And then I heard you calling, captain, and realised you were here. So I started rattling for you to let me in. I didn’t want to have to dodge those wagoners again …’ He tailed off into silence.
Georgicus glanced at me. He stooped again and took the boy more roughly by the arms. This time he shook him as he looked into his eyes. ‘Again?’ he echoed. ‘You mean that you have seen them? You’d been up here before?’
Tenuis turned scarlet and tried to look away. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what I’m saying. I wasn’t here at all.’
‘Little liar!’ Georgicus exclaimed, yanking the child upwards by his arms until his boots fell off. He put him down again. ‘You saw these people. It’s obvious you did. You must have come here yesterday, though I had explicitly forbidden it. And the place was full of strangers. Isn’t that the case?’
The boy refused to meet his overseer’s gaze. ‘It was only for a minute.’ He sat down and started to pull his dreadful footbags on. ‘It hardly counted as coming here at all. I didn’t have a chance to notice anything.’ His voice was quavering with fright, but his face was mutinous and there was clearly something he wasn’t telling us.
‘If you did see someone, it might be fortunate,’ I put in, as gently as I could. I have often found that kindness loosens tongues where fear does not.
Tenuis looked up doubtfully at me. ‘I didn’t see intruders. There were just the men with carts. The ones we were expecting. Or perhaps you didn’t know – the master wrote and told us that they were going to come.’
I shook my head. ‘They were intruders all the same. The master did not send them. You have been deceived. They were not honest carters, they were thieves – and murderers.’
‘Murderers?’ The boy was horrified.
‘It rather looks like it. Several of the household slaves have been found dead. You can see it’s serious. So you won’t be punished if you just tell us the truth.’ I saw that he was hesitating still. ‘And nor will anybody else.’
Tenuis looked at Georgicus, who gave the slave-boy a reluctant nod.
The slave-boy put his boot on and scrambled to his feet. ‘Well then, I did come to the villa. Not for very long.’ A sniff. ‘I only came to see the kitchen slaves.’
I should have guessed. The boy was skinny to the point of being partly starved. ‘Because they give you food?’
‘Occasionally,’ Tenuis said, unwillingly.
Georgicus reacted sharply. ‘What for? You have your slave-ration like anybody else!’
‘But I’m only little, captain. Sometimes the bigger land-boys bully me and take away my lunch. The cook once saw it happen – he came into the orchard when we were working there – and ever since then all the kitchen slaves have been very good to me. If someone takes my food away I come and tap the door, and they generally find a stale crust or something else that I can have. Something that would otherwise have gone out to the pigs – not stealing anything. But I’m grateful just for that. I sometimes think I’d die of hunger otherwise.’
Georgicus was frowning. ‘Who is it takes your lunch? Tell me the culprit and I’ll see that he is flogged.’
The slave-boy shook his head. ‘I don’t know, captain,’ he said, then added, with more truth, ‘and if I did, I wouldn’t tell. They would only beat me and hold me in the well. They say that I don’t deserve the meal because I am no use. But I get awfully hungry, that’s why I came up here even though I knew that I was disobeying you. I’d made up a story to tell the gatekeeper, pretending I had a message about sending down some scraps. But I didn’t see him anyway …’ He trailed off. ‘Great gods! It isn’t him that’s dead? Is that why there wasn’t anyone today to open up the gate?’
I thought of the sorry pile of headless corpses that we’d left lying in the orchard. ‘We don’t know what’s become of him,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t at his post when we arrived today. Nor yesterday, from what you say of him. So how did you get in?’
He made a comic face. ‘The gate was wide open. I was quite surprised, but the court was full of carts, so I suppose that there was lots of movement in and out. They must have been nearly ready to depart. There were a lot of people rushing round with lists, and coming and going into the house with packed-up goods. They were all so busy that they didn’t notice me. So I did a silly thing. I made a dash for it and rolled underneath the nearest cart, thinking I could wiggle over to the arch one wagon at a time and get into the kitchen that way. But when I popped my head out, I realised there were escort guards as well, standing by the wall and watching everything.’
‘Escort guards? With weapons?’ Georgicus looked at me. ‘We thought there must have been. But that did not surprise you?’
It seemed to be the question which surprised the child most. He shrugged. ‘Not really, captain. Of course there’d be an escort for the master’s goods – and he’d taken his own usual bodyguards with him. And that’s clearly what they were. Ugly-looking creatures with clubs and swords and things, all dressed in some sort of livery. Some of them were huge. I hadn’t seen them from the gate – the wall had hidden them. But when I did, I realised that I’d have to give it up. They were keeping a close watch on everything going on, and if I wasn’t very careful they would notice me. I backed off hastily and was just about to shuffle myself round and creep back to the lane, when I saw the little kitchen-boy come out through the arch. He was carrying a jug, obviously going to get something from the storage yard. He—’
I interrupted him. ‘Was this Pauvrissimus, by any chance?’
He looked at me, amazed. ‘That’s right, citizen? How do you know his name?’
‘He was a friend to my own slave, Minimus, who was once a servant here. But go on with your tale. You saw Pauvrissimus …?’
He nodded. ‘He bent down to tie his sandal strap and saw me hi
ding underneath the cart, though – thank Juno – no one else had done. He put his finger to his lips and gestured to the side wall of the court, obviously meaning I should come round there and he would bring some food. But then the chief steward saw him and shouted at him for taking such at time, so he got up and hurried to the storage courtyard with his jug and when he came back he didn’t look my way again.’
‘So you went to the orchard?’ I glanced at Georgicus.
Tenuis looked puzzled. Then he shook his head. ‘Not the side wall that way, citizen. The other one – beyond the storage yard. It’s high, but there’s a field the other side and a gate a little further down so you can get there from the lane. I knew that’s what Pauvrissimus had meant.’
‘And I suppose he could find a reason to back get into the yard,’ I mused. ‘So that is what you did?’
He nodded. ‘I managed to sneak out again went round into the field, over to where I thought the storage court might be. The wall is high. You can’t see over it, especially if you’re me. But after a while, I heard a whistle from the court the other side. I tried to whistle back, though I can’t do it very well, and a moment later a crust of bread came flying through the air. I picked it up and ate it. And that’s all I know.’
That explained the cut loaf on the bench, I thought. It had not been cleared away. So it could not have been long afterwards that everyone was killed. ‘You were lucky no one saw you!’ I told him. ‘Luckier than you know.’
‘No one except Pauvrissimus, though I expect he told the cook.’ For the first time I saw Tenuis give a shadow of a smile. ‘He couldn’t have smuggled that bread out to me otherwise. All the same, I’m afraid he got a beating over it. I had just started on the bread when I heard a lot of shouting and then a muffled squeal – probably the steward catching up with him.’
‘A squeal?’ That confirmed what I’d been thinking. ‘Oh, dear gods!’ I exchanged a startled glance with Georgicus, who had clearly come to much the same conclusion for himself.
Tenuis misinterpreted my expression of dismay. ‘I couldn’t help him, citizen. I would only make it worse, so I went back to the woods and tried to help the others with collecting up the pile. But I’ll thank him when I see him. He took a risk for me. I just hope he didn’t get into too much trouble for my sake.’
I turned to Georgicus. ‘I think it’s time we told him. We’ll show him what we found – and then we’ll go and get your other land-slaves from the wood.’
The overseer nodded, grimly. ‘I’ll send somebody in with you to tell the Funeral Guild. Then I suppose we ought to find the missing heads. Some of the male land-slaves can institute a search. In the meantime I’ll have some women start on a lament. And there’ll have to be a pyre. There are quite a lot of corpses to be burnt. So there may be a use for that wood-pile after all.’
I shook my head at him. This was not the way I’d meant to break the news to Tenuis. But it was too late. The poor little lad had been listening to all this, and his white face told me that he’d understood exactly what had happened to his friend.
‘Funeral? Heads? Corpses? Oh, dear Juno …’ It was a strangled sob. Blank as a sleepwalker, he took a stumbling step.
I darted forward and was just in time to catch him in my arms before he fell crashing to the paving in a faint.
TEN
It took us some moments – and half a bucket of water from the well – to bring him round again. When he did revive, the poor child looked like someone who had brushed with death himself.
‘It’s true?’ he whispered, sitting up and shaking his damp locks. ‘I didn’t dream it? Pauvrissimus is dead? Someone chopped his head off?’ He sounded as if he could not believe what he was saying, even now.
I reached out a hand to help him to his feet. ‘Among a lot of others, I’m afraid. If it is any comfort, I’ve promised my own slave that I’ll find out who the killers are, and see that they are made to pay for this – and for stealing everything of value from the house.’
He looked doubtfully at me. ‘If robbers did this, I suppose there is some chance. The master would want them punished for theft, if nothing else, so the authorities would have to help you, wouldn’t they? Though they mightn’t care too much about the death of a few slaves.’
‘Oh, I rather think so. They were his possessions, too,’ I pointed out.
He bit his little lip. ‘I still can’t quite believe those men with carts were bad men – thieves and murderers. The steward didn’t think so. He even let them in.’
‘And now the steward’s dead,’ Georgicus said and sobered him again.
‘But why did they want to kill all the master’s slaves – especially the little ones, like Pauvrissimus? He couldn’t possibly have done them any harm.’
‘Because he saw them. We think they killed the witnesses – anyone who might describe them afterwards. It wasn’t a question of how big they were,’ Georgicus said.
Tenuis was young but life had made him sharp. ‘So if those guards had seen me, I’d be dead as well?’ He turned as pale as chalk and I thought for a minute he was going to faint again but all that happened was that his eyes filled up with tears, two of which spilled over and trickled down his cheeks. He was too stunned even to attempt to wipe them off.
‘It makes you a valuable witness, from our point of view,’ I said heartily. ‘You saw them, but nobody saw you – so they won’t be looking for you and you should be quite safe.’
I meant to be supportive, but the boy looked terrified. ‘But what about when His Excellence comes back? I don’t know anything. Don’t let them question me. I didn’t really look. It’s no good asking me. I can’t remember anything at all.’ He buried his head in both his hands and sobbed like the little boy he was.
I understood his terror. It is commonplace for courts to torture slaves to make sure that they’re not withholding evidence. I put a friendly arm around his heaving back. ‘We won’t let them hurt you,’ I said, trying to sound as sure of that as possible. ‘And no one knows that you were here – apart from us.’
‘Or do they?’ Georgicus put in sharply.’ ‘Have you been talking to anybody else? Any of the other land-slaves?’
The child refused to meet his eyes. ‘Of course not, captain. I wasn’t supposed to come here yesterday. I didn’t say a word. I was afraid that somebody would ask me where I’d been, but the others were too busy fetching wood to notice whether I was there or not. Most of them don’t talk to me, in any case.’
‘Then don’t say anything to anybody now,’ his overseer warned.
‘But you can talk to us,’ I told him. ‘If you think of anything at all that would help us find these men – what they looked like, the colour of their hair, even how tall they were, perhaps – you must let us know at once. In the meantime, stay close to Georgicus. He’ll take good care of you. Go with him now and show him where this famous wood-pile is. I’m going to go to Glevum and call the Slaves’ Guild out to deal with the bodies, but in the meantime we need one of the senior land-slaves to start up the lament.’
Tenuis nodded. He ran a scruffy tunic-sleeve across his nose, then squared his skinny little shoulders and lifted his small chin. ‘Can I see Pauvrissimus before we go?’
I glanced at Georgicus. ‘Better not, I think. But when the Guild have prepared the bodies for the funeral and laid him on the bier, you can walk beside him to the pyre – which will obviously be on the property somewhere – and help lament him then. I think that your slave-captain would agree to that?’
Georgicus nodded brusquely. ‘I suppose that all we land-slaves will have to be involved. That’s all that’s left of the household, isn’t it? Jove knows how I’m supposed to get the grapevines planted now – or what the mistress is going to say when news is brought to her! It will bring her to her child-bed before her time, I think. You’re sure that it is possible for you to contact her?’
‘There’ll almost certainly be a courier from the garrison riding to Corinium anyway,’ I said.
‘There are messages between them almost every day. And if there’s any problem, I’ll hire a private messenger and tell him that the recipient will pay.’ That is not unusual, in fact, since it ensures that your message actually arrives and the rider doesn’t simply take the money and abscond. ‘I’m sure that Julia will agree to your proposals for the funeral. It’s obviously sensible to have the pyre out there on the fallow field – it involves the least expense.’
Georgicus looked doubtful.
I wondered what it was that troubled him. Perhaps he thought that mentioning expense seemed rather disrespectful to the dead. It couldn’t be concern about the sum involved, because the guild would be paying for the funeral in any case.
‘And being cremated in the fields they knew is the best way of showing proper respect towards the dead,’ I added hastily.
But it wasn’t money that was causing him anxiety. ‘Should we wait for permission from the mistress, do you think?’ he said. ‘I suppose she’ll get an answer back to you as quickly as she can. In fact, if she sends a verbal message it could come straight to me. But I wonder if we should begin on the preparations, anyway. With so many corpses, there is a lot to do. We’ll need a massive pyre.’ Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he added suddenly, ‘Though it occurs to me that, while the master is away, I was told that I was answerable to you. So I can reasonably act on your authority.’
I wasn’t sure I altogether welcomed this. I didn’t want Marcus holding me responsible if there were any problems. But it was obvious that Georgicus was right. We couldn’t leave the dead slaves lying where they were. ‘Then, I suggest that you start working on the pyre and I’ll send the Funeral Guild as quickly as I can. I’ll get word to Julia, explaining what has happened, and tell her what we’ve done. Now, since I don’t think there is anything else we can do here without your slaves, we’ll leave this back gate bolted and go out through the front. That’s where my mule is tethered, anyway.’
The Fateful Day Page 8
