The Vestal Vanishes

by Rosemary Rowe

  ‘And the nurse?’

  ‘The loading-keeper had her seized at once and locked away, awaiting questioning. She’s quite distraught, of course, but it does not seem that she has very much to tell. She was in sight of the inn-servants all morning, anyway.’ He gave me a rather quizzical look. ‘I know you mentioned Druids, citizen, but this business does not sound like Druid handiwork to me. It looks more as if Lavinia has contrived to run away.’

  I had to admit that it did look probable. Yet there were objections. ‘But where could she run to? Her father would hardly consent to have her back. The best that she could hope for – if he was merciful – was to be sent into exile to some barren isle with nothing to her name. But I don’t think mercy is his speciality. He might even sell her into slavery; he would have legal cause. She has disgraced the family – broken her parents’ vow and made a mockery of them. It would be the talk of Glevum for a moon – and that’s not something her father would lightly tolerate, if I am any judge.’

  He took a moment to consider that. ‘The pontifex supposed that – being only six years old – she would run home again but Mars knows you are right. Lavinius is not obliged to have her back, and the temple would not take her after this – of course – not without Lavinius making it worthwhile. But from what you say it’s much more likely that he’d cast her out and then her fate would be deplorable. But surely his daughter would have realized that?’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps she did, since there’s been no sign of her.’

  ‘So where would she have gone? She has no family in Corinium – otherwise she and Audelia would have lodged with them, of course, as Audelia had done in other places on the way. She can hardly walk unnoticed around an unknown town alone – a well-dressed wealthy child like that – and she won’t have any money to pay for lodging-rooms. Besides, according to the raedarius over there, she was excited about her future life.’

  ‘Dear Jupiter. I do believe you’re right. Perhaps somebody did take her captive and smuggle her away, and deliberately arrange the room to make it look like flight. Though if so, they must have watched the house and seized the moment when the poor nursemaid was not sitting on the step and when none of the other servants were about. If it was not Lavinia acting by herself, this must have been meticulously planned.’ He frowned at me. ‘What makes you think the Druids might have been involved?’

  I glanced towards the gig, where Ascus and the others had by now arranged the box and were in the act of putting back the lid. ‘It rather looks as if they laid hands on her aunt,’ I said.

  He had not seen what was in the box, of course, and his voice was casual. ‘The bride of Publius, who did not appear?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The pink eyes widened. ‘I did hear a rumour that she hadn’t come, but I thought it was just gossip, or perhaps she’d changed her mind. I didn’t know that she was taken off by Druids. But you think it is connected?’

  ‘Two disappearances in a single day – both of them Vestals, or very close to it – and taken both from Corinium, by the look of it. Hardly a coincidence, do you suppose?’

  He nodded. ‘You are right. I’d better go and tell the pontifex. If the Druids have captured the young woman, we must think again. If she had simply run back to her family as we had supposed, her service to the temple might just have been excused as childish nervousness – given sufficient extra dowry – just as a shy bride can be forgiven for unwillingness on her wedding day. But this is different. Obviously the Vestals will never have her now – this is too bad an omen for a novitiate. Too bad for almost anything, in fact. There will most likely be a ransom to be paid, if you’re to get her back, and even that won’t be the end of it. She’ll carry the stigma of bad luck all her life. Perhaps her parents can arrange a match for her, something quiet in a year or two – some older man who’d be glad to take the dowry she would bring and is not too worried about her history.’

  I noted that he had subtly washed his hands of her: the words ‘if you’re to get her back’ had made that very clear. ‘But you’ll still inform her parents?’ I enquired. ‘After all, the pontifex was to take charge of her.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not until this evening. So it’s no longer our affair. And you should be the one to tell them, surely, citizen? If you are going back to the villa with the box, and you are somebody the family trusts.’

  I had to smile inwardly at his view of my role but perhaps I had led him to suppose I was a trusted friend. ‘I am not returning to the household,’ I explained. ‘I am charged with travelling to Corinium – just as the pontifex had arranged to do. And I must leave at once. So I am afraid you will have to deliver that message for yourself – as you were ordered to – unless you wish to send it by the gig-driver?’

  ‘It hardly seems fitting, but perhaps I could.’ But he was tempted. I could read it on his face.

  ‘He is already carrying serious news,’ I urged. ‘About the likely involvement of the Druids. We’ve just discovered that. And in that connection, you could help us, perhaps. I know that you were asked to guard the raeda through the day – did anyone come close to it or speak to you at all?’

  ‘Only some pock-faced trader who tried to look inside, obviously bursting with curiosity. But I knew my duty. I sent him away. I told him nothing. Did you think I would?’

  ‘And you did not for an instant leave your post? Not even to . . . ?’ I waved towards the large pot just outside the gates, where someone from the wine-shop was busily engaged in providing urine for the fuller’s shop. ‘Or to eat and drink? It was a long time that you were standing there.’

  He shook his head and gave a grimace that might have been a smile. ‘When you work at the temple, citizen, you learn great self-control. Some of the ceremonies can go on for hours. And as for food and water, today’s a fast for us, until we celebrate the birthday feast tonight with a special meal at the temple slave-quarters.’

  ‘So nobody could possibly have tampered with the box?’

  ‘Not without my knowledge, citizen. And I saw nobody.’ He was emphatic now.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Thank you for your help. Now if you would like to go over to the gig and pass your message on, I will take the raeda and set off at once. It is a long way to Corinium and when I get there I have to find the house.’

  ‘Can’t you tell them for me, citizen?’ the slave began, but Ascus was already striding towards us by this time.

  ‘The gig is ready, citizen, and the raedarius is waiting for your orders to depart.’

  I turned to the temple-slave who was boggling at the giant. ‘Then I will leave you to pass your message to the gig-driver. I think we’ve finished here. Very well, Ascus, help me to my seat. On the front of the raeda with the driver would be best – then you can call him and we’ll be on our way.’ I beckoned to the raedarius and he came across while I let Ascus hoist me to my seat.

  ‘Are we ready?’ the raeda-driver asked, climbing gingerly aboard and picking up his whip. I nodded my assent. Ascus had vaulted up onto his horse again, and was already clearing a path for us through the now thinning crowds. I took a last look back.

  In the distance I could see the gig with the box wedged into it. The temple-slave saying something to the gig-driver, who looked up and waved frantically at us.

  I made a swift decision and waved politely back. I had not told my two companions that Lavinia had gone. I would tell them later – when we were on our way. Otherwise, I feared a mutiny.

  I settled in my seat. ‘Lead on,’ I called to Ascus, and we rattled off.

  THIRTEEN

  It was a long journey to Corinium and for the first hour, at least, an uneventful one. The roads were almost empty and we travelled fast until we reached the crossroads where the basket-weaver lived.

  We had hardly exchanged more than a few shouted sentences till then – the rattling carriage drowned them and the wind of our passage whirled the words away – but now the raedarius slowed the cart and turned towards me, gesturin
g with his whip towards the place. ‘Do you still want to stop there, in case anything was seen while I was at the stall, or has the discovery of the corpse made that unnecessary now?’

  I thought a moment and decided that I wanted him to stop. I signalled to Ascus to rein in his horse and we left him holding the raeda while we walked over to the stall. It was a simple lopsided table piled with osier baskets of every shape and size and stood outside a tumbledown cottage in a weed-strewn patch of ground, where hungry chickens pecked for food among straggly cabbages. Behind the stall a warty woman was sitting on a stool, weaving yet another of her wares.

  She looked up and watched us warily as we approached, her face as thin and sharp as any of the dried stems that she wove. She exuded a strong smell of sweat and cooking-smoke. But she seemed to know the raeda-driver. She gave him a doubtful smile.

  ‘Why, Ephibbius, are you back again?’ She gestured to his bloodstained tunic. ‘You’ve been whipped, I see.’ She glanced evilly at me as though she thought I might have wielded the lash. ‘Brought a customer?’

  I shook my head. ‘We are on our way back to Corinium. I hoped to have a word with you, that’s all. About that basket which you sold him earlier, when he drove his carriage past . . .’ I nodded to where Ascus had the raeda in his care.

  ‘That so, citizen?’ She picked up a knife and began to trim the ends of the osiers set around the frame, with savage little movements that emphasized her words. ‘Well, don’t you come complaining and bringing giants here. He doesn’t frighten me. If that basket handle’s broken, it’s no fault of mine.’

  ‘Broken?’ This was unexpected. I glanced at Ephibbius, since that seemed to be the raeda-driver’s name. I wondered how the woman came to know – he had certainly not mentioned it to me. However, the word sounds rather like the Greek for ‘horse’, so it may have been a nickname she had just thought up for him. I used it anyway. ‘Did you know that, Ephibbius?’

  She put the knife down, and began to thread another willow-strand into her handiwork. ‘Well, of course, he did – that’s why he sent it back. But it won’t do any good – I told the slave-girl that. Perfectly all right when it left here, it was. Must have been something that she did to it. Silly child put too much weight in it, I expect.’

  I stared at her. ‘What slave-girl do you mean? What are you talking of?’

  She looked up at me, her hands still busy with her work. ‘Don’t come here in your toga and start harassing me. You are a citizen. You must know the law of sale as well as I do. Caveat emptor – let the purchaser beware. Ephibbius bought the basket he contracted for. If he gave it to that maidservant and she broke it afterwards, that’s no concern of mine.’ She gave him a sly look. ‘And him telling me he bought it as a present for his wife!’

  ‘But I didn’t give it—’ the raedarius began.

  I interrupted him, ‘Not now, Ephibbius!’ I turned back to the hag, suddenly realizing the implication of her words. ‘Are you telling us you have seen the girl again? The one who was with him?’ I hazarded a guess. ‘She brought the basket back?’

  The woman pursed her lips and gave an affronted sniff. ‘Supposing that she did? I told her – same as I told you. Not my responsibility if the handle broke. She should have been more gentle – stuffing it so full.’

  ‘Full of what?’ I wondered. From the account that I’d been given earlier, Puella had no possessions of her own.

  ‘Wild watercress!’ the hag said, with a contemptuous sneer. ‘Isn’t that what Ephibbius gave her the basket for? Trying to sell it, from the looks of it – though Minerva knows who’d want to buy it around here. If we want it, we go and pick it for ourselves. There’s plenty of it, off the beaten track.’

  I frowned. Collecting watercress to sell? This sounded less and less like Audelia’s maidservant. If Puella had been fleeing to escape a punishment – as the raedarius supposed – she would never have deliberately drawn attention to herself by coming to the basket-woman to complain. She would have known the risks she ran by calling here again – being recognized and handed to the authorities. There would be more than a mere flogging to be fearful of – the penalty for a slave who ran away was very often death. As to my own theory, which I’d briefly held, that the girl had run away because she knew what was hidden in the box – it was clearly false as well. Unless Puella had done the deed herself (in which case she was doubly certain to avoid the chance of being recognized) seeing the body would certainly have frightened her too much – knowing that the murderers were somewhere still at large and might do the same to her, if only to ensure she held her tongue. I could discount the whole idea. No female who had seen that mutilated corpse would idly stop in a deserted spot to gather watercress.

  I shook my head. ‘There must be some mistake. It was the same basket, you could swear to that?’

  She snorted. ‘Of course I could. I’d know it anywhere. It had a piece of blue-dyed thread around the joint. I put it there to cover up the . . .’ She broke off. ‘To make it stronger,’ she corrected hastily. ‘It was the one I sold to Ephibbius, all right. I should know my own handiwork, I hope. Anyway, I recognized the girl.’

  That would have been my next enquiry. ‘You’re certain of that too?’

  She sat back on her stool and grinned gleefully at us. ‘So you didn’t send her here? Well, by all the gods! Steal it from him, did she? Lure it from him and then run away? Well, I am not surprised. Used to getting her own way in everything, that one, you could see that at once – the way she was looking up at him, I knew what sort she was. Pretty face and pretty figure – knew how to use them, too.’

  ‘You noticed her when she was here with Ephibbius before?’

  ‘Well, you could hardly miss her, sitting where she was. Made you wonder what she was doing, riding up the front with him – especially in the rain – instead of travelling with her mistress in the coach. But when I got a look at her, I knew what sort she was.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘He’ll know better, another time perhaps – letting a pretty girl wheedle a present out of him – and him telling me that he had bought it for his wife.’

  ‘But I didn’t . . .’ Ephibbius began again.

  I shook my head at him. Her view of his character was not important now. ‘But you’ve seen this servant since. How long ago was this?’

  She screwed up her face. ‘An hour or two, I suppose. The sun was over that elm tree over there.’ She gestured to the place.

  I was disappointed. ‘It couldn’t have been her. She was in Glevum close to the end of the birthday sacrifice. She could not possibly have walked here in the time.’

  The sneering look came back. ‘Who said anything about her walking here? She was riding on a cart. Ogling the owner, as you would expect. Seemed to be a farmer carrying some hay. Bribed him to carry her – or that is what she said, though she called it “paying him”, of course.’

  ‘But she had no money. She was a serving girl!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Well, you may say so, citizen, but she had cash all right. Plenty of it, too. I saw the purse myself. Offered me a quadrans to put the handle right, but when I said that it would take an hour she wouldn’t wait, because the farmer came over to tell her to get back on the cart.’ She had picked up her work and started weaving the osiers again. ‘His place is on the far side of Corinium, he said, and if she wanted to get there before dark they’d have to go. He’d promised her a dry bed in his stable overnight.’

  I looked at Ephibbius with a puzzled frown. This was more and more perplexing. If this really was Puella, as the woman seemed to think, why had she been so eager to impart the details of her future whereabouts, which would make it easier to hunt her down? It made no sense at all.

  The woman saw the frown, and misinterpreted it. ‘With the horses, so she told me,’ she said gleefully. ‘And she was proud that she’d agreed a price – though I have my doubts that money was what that farmer had in mind. I saw how he was looking at her while she talked to me – worse than Ephibbius,
if that is possible. I wonder what the wife will have to say when he gets home.’ She broke off, with a leer. ‘In any case, citizen, what is that to you? It wasn’t your purse, was it? She told me that her mistress had given it to her.’

  It was Ephibbius who spoke then. ‘Her mistress gave her nothing – and I can vouch for that. The servant was in trouble for having lost some shoes, and was expecting to be punished. When we arrived in Glevum . . .’ He exchanged a glance with me and obviously thought better of what he’d planned to say. ‘When we arrived in Glevum the servant disappeared. Obviously she took the money from her owner when she fled. So now the family want her. We’re here to look for her.’

  The woman seemed singularly unmoved by this account. The warty chin wobbled in a mirthless laugh. ‘And what about the letter? Did she steal that too?’

  The raeda-driver and I exchanged a look, and said in unison, ‘What letter?’

  That changed her attitude. She put down her weaving and got slowly to her feet, wafting the scent of burned grease round us as she moved. Her fingers closed around her trimming-knife. She was a tiny woman, no higher than my chest, but her hard life had clearly toughened her. With her knife clutched menacingly against her skinny breasts she was more intimidating than many a full-grown man.

  ‘Now see here, gentlemen. I’m a self-respecting trader and I want no trouble here. I thought that you were honest and had simply come to complain about that basket, but it seems I’m wrong. I don’t know what your game is, but this I’m certain of, if you had been sent here by her owner’s family, as you said you were, you would know that she had a letter from her owner round her neck, to the person she had served before.’