‘He could hardly have done that. I believe that he was crippled and confined to bed for years. Anyway, whatever herbs were used for ritual would have been put into the fire and cremated with the corpse.’
She shook her head. ‘This is more like the offerings that the Romans used to put onto a grave. I remember when I was a slave, and my owner’s grandmother was very old and died, they buried her in the ancient way, and they had herbs like this. There’s even parsley mourning wreath among these leaves, I think!’
I lit the other taper and knelt to look, myself. ‘You’re right,’ I said, bewildered. ‘And there’s another of wild roses – all dried and withered now. Part of Eliana’s leaving rituals, do you think? Some kind of ceremony when she said farewell? It seems unlikely, but I suppose it’s possible. She is a forceful lady, and if she chose to have a private sacrifice …?’ I did not believe this theory myself, so I abandoned it, and looked around for something to help me to my feet.
My first thought was to lean on the piece of fallen stone, which was lying at an angle just within my reach, but when I put my hand on it, it rocked alarmingly. I let go quickly and looked round for something else, holding my taper up to illuminate my search. There was a jagged crack which ran down the back wall of the cave and – rather gingerly, in case there might be something lurking there – I put my fingers into it, and pulled myself upright. And discovered something that was rather a surprise.
‘Dear Mercury!’ I cried. ‘There is a draught through here. I can feel it on my hand. It is coming through the crack.’
‘There are too many shadows and you are tired tonight!’ Gwellia sounded indulgent and amused. ‘Your imagination is playing tricks on you! Of course there’s nothing of the kind. How can there be a draught from the inside of a cave?’
‘There is!’ I persisted. ‘Feel it for yourself.’ I looked a little closer. ‘That’s not just a crack, it’s a space between the rocks. And look, it widens there – behind that fall of stones. You can just see where it starts to broaden out. I think there might be a proper aperture – one you could crawl through, probably, if that heap of pebbles wasn’t in the way!’ I held my taper up enough for Gwellia to see the gap I meant.
She bent to look, then put her hand where mine had been. ‘Dear gods!’ she said. ‘You’re right. I wonder if there’s anything inside. There was talk of treasure somewhere, wasn’t there?’ She began to scrabble at the stones, and I worked with her, using the mallet head to sweep the rubble clear. As we cleared them it grew evident that there was indeed a hole, which seemed to lead to another space beyond. The cool air that I’d noticed was more perceptible, and that sickly smell was growing stronger too.
After a few minutes of this activity I paused in my labours and sat back on my heels. I looked down at the pebble I was holding in my hand. Something about its shape and smoothness struck me, suddenly. ‘Of course!’ I muttered. ‘How could I be such an idiot? This is a pebble – rounded by a stream. It’s not a fallen stone. So what’s it doing here? Someone must have brought it here, deliberately!’
Gwellia took the stone from me and fingered it. ‘I think you’re right again. Most of these stones are jagged – just as you’d expect – but some of them are not. They are not even the same kind of rock as what is in the cave.’ She stared at me, her face troubled in the flickering light.
My brain was working properly by now. ‘And look at where the stones are lying – in one single heap. If they had come down with that hunk of rock they would be scattered everywhere. I even noted that the surface of the floor was smooth – but I did not realize the significance!’
‘Someone brought the stones here to block the entranceway?’ She shook her head. ‘It can’t be that. The way that hunk of stone has fallen, it’s blocked it anyway. There’s no room to crawl through the opening, with that lying there. And that’s a natural rockfall, that is evident. No one could have moved it there deliberately, it’s such a massive piece of stone.’
It was indeed enormous – taller than a man and almost twice as wide – and though it was not very thick, it was heavy enough to have completely splintered the old amphora rack. A wooden rack which had once stood against the wall!
I looked at Gwellia and she looked at me. ‘Are you thinking what I am thinking?’ she enquired. ‘It was the rack that used to hide the hole – and when the rock fell down, it half-revealed the space, and someone brought in extra stones to block it up again?’
I nodded. ‘It seems the likeliest explanation, doesn’t it? And with the smell I think that I can guess what’s in that space. Perhaps Eliana’s husband was never on that pyre. I wish that I could move that stone and crawl in there and see. Though perhaps that’s possible. It’s only balancing. When I leaned against it, I made it rock before.’
I placed more weight experimentally against the stone. It moved a little more – just enough this time for me to glimpse the space behind. That was enough. I handed the lighted taper to my wife – this needed two hands – and I pushed with all my might.
‘Be careful, husband!’ Gwellia cried out in alarm.
But the warning was too late. Minimus had added his efforts to my own and the stone had lost its equilibrium and was falling as she spoke. It tumbled with a crash that made the ground vibrate, raising choking clouds of dust and sending deafening echoes eddying round the rocks. If I hadn’t stepped back smartly and snatched Minimus away it would have fallen where we stood, and crushed us as surely as a wine press smashes grapes. As it was, it barely missed my toes.
I was so shaken I could hardly speak, but I tried to hide my fright behind a feeble jest. ‘We almost had another use for all those funeral herbs!’ I said.
Minimus managed a sickly grin at this but Gwellia did not smile. She had seized the guttering lamp from where the slave had put it down – the falling stone had blown my taper out – and was staring past me with her mouth agape and a look of horror dawning on her face.
‘I think we’re right in our suspicions about the funeral,’ she said. ‘Look what’s behind you!’ She gestured with her hand. ‘Is that Eliana’s husband, do you think? And if so, whose ashes are in the family grave? That is a human body, or it used to be – and one that has never been cremated on a pyre. And don’t tell me it’s a vagrant mendicant who crawled in here to die – beggars don’t wear neatly hobnailed sandals like that!’
I turned, and saw what she was pointing at. There was still a pile of rubble in the way, but now discernible through the gap between the rocks was something that was clearly a human leg and foot.
TWENTY-TWO
I glanced across at Gwellia, who was looking anxious in the flickering light. I was loath to abandon this mystery unsolved, but it was already late and soon it would be dark. ‘Shall we come back tomorrow?’
But she shook her head. ‘None of us will sleep if we just leave this now! Minimus, come and help your master to move the rest of the rubble which is in the way. I’ll hold the lamp for you. It may be that we’ll want you to crawl in through the hole when it is clear – you are the smallest, so it’s easiest for you.’
That suggestion clearly terrified the slave, though he set to work as he’d been ordered, naturally. I felt for him – even an adult might be nervous of uneasy spirits here. I was not entirely without concerns, myself. However, I was the paterfamilias, and responsibility in this household was ultimately mine.
So I cleared my throat and said, as casually as I could, ‘I think it’s best if I’m the first to go. Once we’ve moved this remaining pile of stones there’s obviously room to let a grown man through, provided that he bends down low enough.’ I was rewarded by a grateful glance from Minimus, who worked to clear the blockage with a much greater will.
A few more minutes of combined effort proved that I was right. The aperture was low, but it was wide enough for a stooping man to pass with care. Furthermore, the area beyond was now partially revealed. It was clearly another, rougher, colder and much smaller, cave – little bigg
er than a plunge pool at Marcus’ private baths – and what seemed to be a human body took up most of it.
It was not entirely unexpected, but it still made us gasp. It seemed that our speculations about the corpse had been correct. The body was largely swaddled in a stained and faded cloak, and partly obscured by large outcrops of the rock – the floor was as uneven as the outer one was smooth – but it was possible to see that the owner of the sandalled foot had been a full-grown man. (Presumably the origin of that vague pervading smell, which seemed more pungent now the opening was cleared.)
I picked up the fallen taper and relit it at the lamp, then – feeling for some reason compelled to draw my knife – I stooped and walked into the little cubicle of death. To this day I don’t know exactly what I hoped to find – except perhaps some proof that the dead man on the floor was indeed the former owner of the farm.
What I did find made me exclaim aloud. ‘This isn’t Eliana’s husband!’ My shout of surprise made the whole cavern ring.
Gwellia’s anxious face peered through the aperture, illuminated by the lamp which she was carrying. ‘How can you be certain?’
‘For one thing the body has been dead for far too long!’ I said, moving the taper to get a better look. ‘Eliana’s husband died quite recently. This body has been lying in this cave for years. The leg is reduced to scarcely more than bone.’
I did not add that it was more than usually macabre. All trace of flesh had vanished, leaving just the leathery skin to stretch across the tibia, under the tattered remnants of what had been the clothes.
If I had not seen a similar phenomenon before – a two-headed cat which had been preserved this way (brought to Glevum for a public festival and exhibited, for a quadrans, in a show with other freaks) – I think I would have dropped the light and fled, fearing the presence of some supernatural hands. But I managed, with an effort, to fight my panic down and force myself to take a rational view. Conditions in the cave had clearly kept the body very dry, I told myself, and it was ventilated by that cooling draught which seemed to come from a fissure overhead – so instead of rotting as you might expect, the leg had desiccated like a piece of salted fish. Exactly the process which the owner of the exhibition had described to me. But even as I convinced myself that this was possible, I was still shuddering. There was something unnerving about the way this body lay – under the covering cloak it seemed eerily misshapen and unnaturally wide.
I used my knife-blade to move the brittle rags of cloth aside – and had my second shock. ‘And furthermore this is not one man, but two!’ I called to Gwellia. ‘There is another body half-underneath the first.’
The other cadaver was a slightly smaller one, lying on its side with both its knees drawn up (which is why it had been concealed by the cape) but it had clearly also been a male, and desiccation was equally advanced. Both sets of ribs were visible, standing out like those of skeletons, and – though something unpleasant had happened to the guts – under and around the stained and fragile clothes discoloured skin survived, looking like dark parchment – and about as thin. There were even a few remaining clumps of matted hair clinging to the two grotesquely grinning skulls. The effect was horrible.
I moved to rise and accidentally moved a fleshless arm, which flopped down gruesomely – revealing the grisly fact that it was incomplete. I let out an involuntary cry.
‘Dear Mercury! Husband, what has happened? Have you fallen? Are you hurt?’ There was a scrabbling sound and before I’d recovered my wits enough to speak, Gwellia had joined me in the tomb. I mentally applauded her bravery, of course, but I wished she hadn’t come. I tried to protect her from the ghastly spectacle by standing to shield it with my arms outstretched. ‘I am not hurt. Go back! Don’t look! It’s far too terrible!’
But she was already staring past me at the horror on the floor. ‘Witchcraft!’ she whispered in a shaking voice, clapping her free hand across her mouth. ‘No wonder you cried out. This place is genuinely cursed. Skeletons should not have skin and hair on them!’ She dropped the oil lamp suddenly and flung herself at me, and I could feel her sobbing as she clung around my neck.
Very gently, I disengaged myself and sat her on a rock while I picked up the knife that she had clattered from my grasp and managed to rescue the extinguished lamp just in time before the oil had all seeped out. I relit it from my taper – though darkness was arguably kinder in that awful place.
‘No sorcery,’ I soothed. ‘This is something that can happen naturally – though it is very rare. Sometimes it’s done on purpose.’ I explained about the cat. ‘The man who owned it told me that in the North African Province of the Empire, where he came from, it is not unusual – his tribal ancestors found dead bodies dried out in desert caves and perfected the technique to preserve their ancient kings. Making a mumia, he called it. Except that I don’t think it was deliberate this time. No one meant to dry these bodies, it is just an accident.’
‘Master!’ An urgent bleat from Minimus came through the aperture. ‘Grant me permission to come and join you soon. Forgive me, master, I know I shouldn’t ask – it’s a servant’s job to wait where he is told, but you have both the lights and it is dark out here. In fact, it’s getting dusk outside the cave as well …’ He sounded terrified.
I looked at Gwellia and shook my head at her before she summoned him. ‘Stay where you are, Minimus,’ I called back to the slave. ‘We are coming back to you in any case. We have seen everything we came to see, and more – and there’s nothing further that we can do tonight.’
Gwellia clutched my arm. ‘But we can’t just leave the bodies lying where they are!’ she murmured, urgently.
‘Why not?’ I too had dropped my voice so Minimus could not hear. ‘They have been lying here for years and nothing we can do is going to help them now.’
‘But their spirits …! They must walk abroad. There’s been no funeral. No wonder that the villa is rumoured to be cursed!’ The murmured words were quivering with dread.
I nodded. ‘Tomorrow we will offer oil and wine for them – though you need not fear a haunting in the meantime, I don’t think. Those herbs suggest that something has already been done to appease the spirits. However I want to go to Aquae Sulis anyway – so I’ll find a priest to perform the proper cleansing rituals.’ I ushered her back through the aperture ahead of me, then took one final look around the space before I followed her. When I had come through into the outer cave myself (and given Minimus the taper, to his visible relief) I voiced the other thought that had occurred to me. ‘I don’t think that a funeral pyre would be appropriate – but we could perhaps arrange to put them in the family sepulchre. Eliana would have wanted that, I think.’
‘The family tomb?’ Gwellia’s tone was sharp with puzzlement, but now that she was no longer confronted by the dreadful sight, she began to sound her usual self again. ‘You think these men were relatives of hers?’ She had begun to move towards the entrance-opening, ready to light our way out of the cave, but now she turned and held the lamp aloft to frown at me. Then her face cleared. ‘I see!’ she said suddenly, in an altered tone. ‘You think that these are Eliana’s sons? I know you told me that their bodies were not found. So you suspect that they have been there ever since the fire?’
‘Don’t you? And I think Eliana found them only recently – after the fall of rock smashed down the wooden rack and revealed the entranceway. Possibly when she was preparing to vacate the farm. We know that she was hunting for that rumoured treasure, just before she left. And it would make perfect sense. Somebody left those funerary herbs outside the aperture.’
‘But the opening was blocked by rubble. No one could see the bodies lying there.’
‘Exactly so! The opening was blocked. But – as we agreed before – that was not by natural means. Someone piled those stones against it afterwards – even bringing extra pebbles from the stream to make sure it was sealed. I’m convinced that it was their mother.’
‘And she didn’t move
the bodies?’
‘She could not have moved that stone that blocked the way, alone, and by that time she would have sold her slaves.’
‘Except for Hebestus, though he would be no help, from what I hear of him.’
‘I don’t think she ever told him what she found,’ I said. ‘He would have mentioned such a heartbreak when he spoke to me. Perhaps it was the day that Esa met him on the road, when she was here without a slave at all – it doesn’t often happen for a matron of her rank. It would make sense, then, that she would try to bear the tragedy alone – she is not a woman to confide her griefs to slaves. Her pride would not permit it. And what could he have done? The cave itself had made a kind of sepulchre which held her sons. I’d like to think that she tried to do her best for them.’
‘I hope you’re right – that way at least their souls would be appeased.’ Gwellia spat on her finger and rubbed behind her ear. ‘So the mystery is solved. They came here to escape the fire but perished in the smoke.’ She shuddered. ‘Poor young fellows! What a dreadful death. And poor Eliana – what a shock for her! Though I’m surprised that, having found them, she agreed to leave the farm.’
There were several aspects of this summary I did not quite accept, but this was not the time to stop and argue with my wife. I put my hand upon her shoulder. ‘Assuming that all these speculations are correct,’ I said. ‘There are lots of questions that we don’t have answers to. But that is for tomorrow – for now I think we ought to get back to the house. If we don’t go soon, we will be trapped ourselves – out in unfamiliar fields in the dark! That lamp’s already guttering and the taper’s nearly gone!’
Gwellia nodded, and gestured to Minimus to pinch the taper out. ‘Relight that when I tell you. In the meantime we’ll just use the lamp, and try to catch the moment before the oil expires!’ And she led the way outside into the gathering dark.
The Ides of June Page 20