“My lord, come quickly.” She turned and ran toward the back gate of the garden without waiting to see if I was following.
When I caught up to her, she was bending over a woman lying on the ground, with a hood over her head and her hands tied behind her. From the indistinct noises she was making, I guessed she was gagged.
“I found her when I came out to pick some sage,” the girl said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Untie her.” That much seemed obvious.
Kneeling and removing the hood, I recognized Rhoda, one of Livia’s servant women. As soon as I loosened the gag, she cried, “My lord, my lady Livia has been kidnapped!”
VIII
Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
—Virgil
Rhoda could not be calmed down. We carried her into the garden and got her something to drink, but she kept screaming, “They took her, my lord! It was horrible!” The racket waked those of the household who weren’t already up. Tacitus, Julia, Pompeia, and my mother and Naomi soon stood around us. Naomi took the girl in her arms and tried to comfort her. I noticed that Pompeia made no such move, even though Rhoda was one of her servants, not one of ours.
“Settle down,” I told Rhoda, patting her knee. “You’re safe now. You’ve got to calm yourself and tell us what happened.”
She took several rapid breaths. “Three men stopped us, my lord. On our way back from the lady Tertia’s house. It was horrible. Instead of heads they had skulls.”
“You mean they were wearing masks that looked like skulls.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, my lord. They had skulls instead of heads, just like I said.”
I wasn’t going to argue with a delirious woman. “Did they harm Livia and Procne?”
“Not that I saw, my lord. But they killed the driver. He tried to stop them. He hit them with his whip.” She let out another long wail. “And they took the other man, Brennus.”
The driver was a good man. He did what he was supposed to do, try to defend his mistress. “Do you know what happened to Livia and Procne?”
“One of the men said to be careful with them. He was angry about the driver getting killed. ‘Nobody was supposed to get hurt.’ That’s what he said.”
“That’s a hopeful sign,” Tacitus assured me.
“We were all tied and gagged, my lord, and had bags put over our heads. I was taken off in one direction. It sounded like my lady Livia and Procne and Brennus were being carried off in another direction.”
“Where were you before they dumped you here?”
“I was kept in some kind of a building, my lord. He dropped me on a marble floor. I had that bag over my head, so I couldn’t see anything. All I know is, the place smelled awful and it had some sort of slimy stuff on the floor.” She grabbed at a place on her gown. “This.”
“Could you hear anything? Animals? Other people moving around?”
“No, my lord. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. We’re just glad you’re safe.”
“If she was on a marble floor,” Tacitus said, “it could mean she was in a house. I wonder if we could find it.”
“You’ve seen how many houses there are along the shore of this lake. It’s like the coast of the Bay of Naples before Vesuvius erupted. Some of them are used only during the warmer months. I don’t know how we would ever find a particular place. And what good would it do now?”
“I suppose you’re right, but we’ve got to start somewhere.” Tacitus turned to Rhoda. “Someone brought you here on horseback, didn’t they?”
“Yes, my lord. I was thrown over the horse, like a big sack, in front of the rider.”
“Do you have any idea how long you were on the horse?”
“It didn’t seem like very long, my lord. But I was so scared. He couldn’t…keep his hands off me, and there was nothing I could do.”
Pompeia grabbed my arm. “Why are you sitting here talking, Gaius? My daughter is in the hands of some monsters. They’ve already killed one person. Why aren’t you out looking for her?”
I forced myself to speak calmly. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to remain calm in a crisis. When Vesuvius erupted, I forced myself to sit in the garden of our house copying some passages of Livy. My hands hardly shook at all, mostly from the tremors of the earth. “First we have to determine where to look,” I said, clipping my words, “or we would just be wasting our time.”
Pompeia’s voice reached a frantic pitch. “Livilla didn’t want to marry you, she said, because she was afraid of the danger you’re always getting yourself involved in. Now I see she was right to be worried. If anything happens to Livia, I’ll—”
“Something already has,” I said so sharply that she backed away from me. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure nothing else happens to her.”
“My lord,” Rhoda said, pulling away from Naomi, “you need to look at something.” She touched a brooch fastened haphazardly on the side of her gown. In the confusion and the dim light we hadn’t noticed it.
“That’s Livia’s!” Pompeia said. “It was her favorite. She wore it all the time.”
I recognized the brooch. Anyone who was around Livia for more than a day couldn’t help but recognize it.
“There’s something pinned to it, my lord,” Rhoda said, “inside my gown. It’s a note. The man said only you were to see it.”
“Unfasten it.”
Rhoda loosened the brooch and reached inside her gown to retrieve a note, written on parchment, folded in thirds and sealed by a piece of wax with the image of a skull pressed into it, the same image on the note we’d found on the road. My name was written across the front. Even at first glance I was sure it was the same hand that had written the warning message we received on the road.
I took the brooch and the note and stepped away from the crowd around Rhoda. Before I gave the brooch to Pompeia I examined it to see if it had been damaged. It was large enough and the pin long enough to serve the same purpose as Aurora’s hidden knife. Turning the object over, I saw DEL inscribed on the back.
The bastard cousin whom I’d never heard of until this summer was suddenly cropping up all over my life.
When Tacitus started to follow me, I held up a hand. “They said it was for me only.”
“Isn’t that what the fellow said when he handed Caesar a note on the Ides of March?”
“Yes, and Caesar didn’t read it and you know how that turned out. Let me read it before I decide whether to show it to anyone else. Something very odd is going on here, and I prefer to be cautious. I’m told that this note is for me, so I’m going to read it first. Alone.”
Entering the library, I found a thin-bladed knife. The seal was so bizarre that I hated to break it. Cutting around the piece of wax, I managed to remove the seal without damaging it. I put it on a shelf and unfolded the note. When I had read it several times, I held it over the flame of a lamp, then drew it back. Refolding it, I dropped two blobs of warm wax on it and pressed my own signet ring into both of them.
* * *
“But why won’t you show it to me?” Tacitus said one more time, like a persistent child, as we rode with a group of our servants to the place where Livia had been attacked. “Don’t you trust me? If you don’t trust me, then Julia and I should just pack up and be on our way.”
“It’s not a matter of trust,” I said. “The message was intended for me. I’ll show it to you when it makes sense to do so. Right now we’ve got to find Livia. The body in the wall will have to wait. A few more days won’t matter to him.”
“But don’t you think Livia’s kidnapping is directly tied into whatever happened to the man in the wall and to whoever he is? That must be what the note is about. Why won’t you tell me?”
“The note said nothing about the body in the wall. It was about Livia’s kidnapping.”
“And you don’t think there’s a connec
tion?”
“I didn’t say that. I will tell you what the note said after I’ve had a chance to talk to one other person about it. Please, just be patient.”
The twist of Tacitus’ mouth reminded me that patience is not one of his virtues.
We were riding down the road that ran along the east branch of Lake Comum. Rhoda had given us the best estimate she could of where they were when they were stopped. I’d been surprised that they were travelling so late in the day, but Rhoda said Livia and Tertia had gotten into an argument and Livia had left in a huff. I didn’t have to ask who started the argument.
Regardless of my lack of feelings for Livia, I had to find her. I would have felt the same obligation for anyone who had been seized like this, even if I had never met them. Though I’m no philosopher, I agree with Plato that there are some absolutes in this world, and Justice is one of them.
“There it is, my lord,” one of the servants riding ahead of us called out.
We drew to a halt at the spot where the raeda had been pushed off the road and partially submerged in the lake. The attackers had taken the horses, presumably to carry Livia and Procne and the guard, Brennus. Our horses pulled the wagon out and we found the driver’s body in it, as I feared we would.
I designated two of the servants. “Hitch your horses to this thing and drive it back to the house. My mother will show you what to do with…him.” I realized I didn’t know the driver’s name. He was one of Livia’s servants, from her mother’s estate at Narnia.
We left them to that task and began to follow hoofprints leading away from the raeda. The road was paved, but its coating of dust had been settled enough by yesterday’s rain that we could see where the attackers had gone. I wished Aurora was with us. She could probably glean information from the prints that I was missing entirely. Even when I first knew her as a child, she had shown an uncanny ability to read animals’ tracks, a technique her father had taught her. When we played together on my family’s estates, she had honed her skill. She tried to teach me, but I couldn’t master more than the basics.
After a short while the tracks turned off the road and into the woods. “We’ve lost them,” I said.
We dismounted and examined the area as closely as we could, in ever-widening circles, but the layers of leaves on the ground were so dense and wet that we could no longer follow the trail.
“We know which direction they were headed,” Tacitus said.
“Once they went into the woods, they could turn in any direction, at any time.”
For an hour or more we searched on foot for any sign of horses passing through—a stray print, a broken branch, droppings, anything—but we couldn’t get back on their trail.
“We need to report this to the authorities,” Tacitus said.
I took him aside and lowered my voice. “That’s exactly what we’re not going to do.”
“Did the note you won’t share with me warn you not to?”
“That was part of it.”
“Are they demanding ransom? How much? I’m sure they know you’re rich.”
“They’re not asking for money.”
Awareness spread over Tacitus’ face. “This does have something to do with that body in the wall, doesn’t it?”
“It seems to have everything to do with it. I’ll tell you what the note says when I’m sure I understand it. I value your friendship and your help in the past, you know that. There’s someone I have to talk to first. Please trust me on this a little longer.”
* * *
We heard voices and the sound of horses in the woods on our right. If they were bandits, they were going to be disappointed. All we had was wagons loaded with quarried stone. The only thing we had worth stealing was…me. And we were only lightly armed—my knife and a couple of swords.
Felix raised a hand, bringing our caravan to a halt. “Whoever they are, they’re not exactly trying to sneak up on us,” he said, as if that would offer reassurance.
The first horse emerged from the woods and I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Gaius!…Pliny! My lord.” I hoped the others in both parties didn’t notice my near slip. As the next horse appeared, I cried out, “And Cornelius Tacitus! Sir! What a surprise.” I tapped my heels on my horse’s sides and rode forward until I was beside Gaius, our horses nuzzling one another. Felix stayed with the wagons.
“What are you doing out here, my lord?”
Gaius’ face was dark with worry. “Livia’s been kidnapped.”
“By the gods! When? Where?”
“It happened yesterday evening.” He told me the whole story. “We followed their trail into the woods but lost them. We thought perhaps they had gone through the woods to this road.”
“We’ve seen no sign of them, my lord.”
Gaius shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Perhaps if I rode over there with you, my lord. I might see something—”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Gaius said. I could see the relief on his face. He told one of his men to ride along with Felix. The other man turned with us and Tacitus, and we started back through the woods.
“If they did come this way, my lord,” I said, “you’ve probably destroyed any trail they might have left.”
“I know, but I had to do something.”
“I didn’t mean to be critical, my lord. As far as you know, there were three men.”
“That’s what Rhoda said. One of them took her off in a different direction, so I think there were only two men with Livia and Procne and Brennus.”
“And four horses?”
“Yes, but I don’t know, of course, whether they had their captives riding the horses or put the women on horses with them.”
“Either way, I doubt they could cover their trail completely, my lord, unless they were quite skillful about it. Four horses leave a lot of prints…and other evidence.”
When we arrived at the site where the women had been attacked, Gaius and I dismounted. I motioned for him to stay to one side and I walked back down the road, in the direction from which the raeda had been coming.
“One of the horses pulling the raeda was wearing hipposandals, my lord.”
“That’s not unusual for a horse pulling a load.”
“No, it’s not. But it could make him easier to track. The hipposandals make a clearer, deeper print than a bare hoof.”
Leaving Tacitus and the servant to hold the horses, Gaius and I followed the tracks leaving the raeda.
“Here’s where they left the road,” he said after we’d gone about twenty paces.
He turned into the woods, taking my hand and pulling me after him. When we were out of sight from the road, he embraced me, not out of passion, I could tell, but out of fear. I held him and felt him tremble until he drew away from me and let out a long breath.
“All I can think about,” he said, “is what if they had taken you?”
I took his face in my hands. “My dear Gaius, we’ve got to focus on finding Livia.”
“I know, I know. But how?”
“I think we ought to stay on the road.”
“Why? They went into the woods here.”
“Just follow me.”
We emerged from the woods and walked another thirty paces until I found what I was expecting. I pointed to the tracks. “This is where they came back onto the road. They removed the hipposandals so they could travel faster.”
Gaius swore an oath, the strongest I’d ever heard from him. “So Tacitus and I were wasting our time tromping through the woods. How could I be so stupid?”
“You weren’t stupid, Gaius. They tricked you.” We walked a bit farther up the road. “Here’s where they went back into the woods. Do you see that stream over there? I suspect they rode into it and followed it for a while. It’s what I would have done. It would make it impossible to track them until they left it.”
“Are you saying we won’t be able to find them?”
“I’m just saying it will be more dif
ficult. We could get more men, spread out over a wider area. Maybe we should bring some dogs.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gaius said.
“Why not? You want to find her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But they left a note, pinned to Rhoda’s gown.”
“What did it say?”
When he finished telling me about the contents of the note, I could only shake my head. “What are you going to do?”
“I simply don’t know.”
“Gaius, you have to find your wife. There can’t be any uncertainty about that, can there?”
* * *
At Aurora’s urging we followed the stream back into the woods, looking for a place where a rider might have emerged from it. We left our horses with the servants on the road to avoid spoiling any tracks the kidnappers might have left.
“Something feels odd,” I finally said. “The trees along here are younger. It’s as though there was once a path or a small road through here.”
“I think you’re right.” Tacitus measured one of the small trees against his own height. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been through here in quite a while, though.”
“Someone came through here in the last day or so, my lord,” Aurora said. She pointed to a broken twig on one of the trees. Then she knelt and sniffed at the leaves. “Someone on horseback.”
“How can you tell?” Tacitus asked.
Aurora pointed to the spot where she was kneeling. “A horse’s urine has an aroma all its own, my lord. Would you care—”
“You’re the expert,” Tacitus said, raising a hand. “I’ll take your word for it. Mare or stallion?”
“Mare, my lord, and in heat.”
Tacitus’ jaw dropped.
A dozen paces or so farther on, just before we came over a small rise, we found more evidence of the recent passage of a horse, with the flies buzzing happily around the pile.
“No need to sniff that, I hope,” Tacitus said.
“It speaks for itself, my lord,” Aurora said.
As we topped the rise, we stopped in amazement. “Is that really a house?” I asked.
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