Rosemary Rowe - A Coin for the Ferryman

‘She did indeed, Stygius,’ I said. ‘And I was impressed. It was very intelligent of you to notice it. Many people would not have spotted the significance of that.’

His face was browned with sun and wind, but I would almost swear he blushed. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, citizen,’ he said and stared down at his hands.

I realised that it was probably not often that anyone commended Stygius for his intelligence — it is not something expected of a land slave on the whole. Strong arms, a strong back and an unwavering application to the task in hand, however dreary and repetitive, were the important attributes, even for a chief man like Stygius. I felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him, labouring in the fields from dawn to dusk, at the mercy of all extremes of sun and rain: he was slow of speech and movement, but it was clear his mind was sharp. ‘You did very well,’ I added, and he flashed me a shy smile.

My praise had given him more self-assurance, it appeared. ‘If it was just a peasant I would have left her lying here,’ he said, raising his head to look at me, and lumbering into confidential mode. ‘But I thought that, with it being a wealthy girl perhaps, there should be someone with her in case the parents came. Give her a bit of dignity, at least, by standing guard over her instead of abandoning the body like an empty sack. The mistress did not send a household slave to keep vigil here, so I thought I had better do the job myself. I’ve left my deputy in charge out in the fields.’

He was half apologetic, and I understood. Had I been Stygius, I too would have found it more attractive to be here — keeping guard over a quiet body in a warm dry shed — than bending over the spade and hoe till darkness fell and urging labour out of other weary men. ‘I’m sure your intentions were sincere,’ I said, and followed, with Junio, as he led the way inside.

‘There you are!’ He pulled the door half closed behind us as he spoke, as if to exclude other prying eyes and afford the corpse a little privacy. The room was heavy with the smell of death.

The lack of window-spaces made the place quite dark, even though it was scarcely past midday, and it took me a moment to become accustomed to the gloom. When I did, I knew what I should see — I had been there once or twice before. It was a longish, narrow room, with stone walls and a floor of trodden earth. Sometimes there were boxes of funeral herbs about, but today it was empty except for the makeshift bier on which the body lay, covered with a piece of unbleached linen cloth. A pair of candles burned at head and foot, each supported by an iron spike, and these threw eerie shadows on the shrouded form.

‘You have prepared the body for burial?’ I asked. I imagined that the body had been washed and oiled, and sprinkled with the herbs.

Stygius shook his head. ‘The mistress thought that we should leave her for the family to do that — supposing that we find out who they are. My only instructions were to bring the body over here and make it look as decent as I could, so that’s what I’ve tried to do. The face was so awful that I couldn’t look at it, so after I’d got rid of all the ants and things I just brushed the leaves and dust off the clothing to clean it up a bit, and covered her all up with a piece of cloth I found.’

Junio had been standing patiently at my side through this exchange, but now he stepped forward and asked quietly, ‘You cleaned the clothing up a bit, you say? But weren’t there bloodstains on it, Stygius? Surely, compared to that a bit of dust would hardly signify?’

Stygius peered at him a moment, and then burst out with a laugh. ‘Why — it’s Master Junio, by all the gods! I knew that they were going to set you free today, but I’d never have known you in that fancy garb — saving your presence, citizen, of course.’

‘Junio is wearing garments which befit his rank,’ I said, and then — feeling that the rebuke had been severe — ‘More than this dead girl is doing, it appears. You have sharp eyes, Stygius. Answer his question: were there bloodstains on the clothes?’

Stygius thought a minute, puzzled, and at last he shook his head. ‘It’s a strange thing, Master Junio, now you come to mention it,’ he said, ‘but I don’t believe there were. A smear or two round the neck, no more. And you would have expected, with her poor face in that appalling state. . But, here, you’d better see for yourselves.’ He approached the bed, and with a single gesture stripped the cloth back from the shrouded form.

It was indeed a most appalling sight. The face was nothing but a bloody pulp, battered into formlessness. Nose, chin and cheekbones were all in fragments now and there was so little undamaged skin that the whole face looked as though it had been flayed — though doubtless rats and beetles had played their part in that. If the girl’s parents did arrive to claim her, I thought, the poor souls would find few features that they could recognise. But one thing was quite certain: this was no accident.

I had still been toying with that possibility, wondering if the girl had really run away — as I had suggested to Julia earlier — and somehow managed to lose her way and plunge down from a height, killing herself and leaving her stricken lover to hide her corpse somehow. But seeing the evidence, I knew there was no chance of that. Someone had wielded a heavy item, with enormous force.

I drew a little nearer to the corpse and looked more closely. Slight, with a boyish figure and of less than average height, the pathetic victim had clearly not been very old, and the garment she was wearing was too generous for her. Made of coarse woollen fabric in the Celtic style, it was very far from new, heavy and shining in places with years of unwashed grime. The broad plaid was roughly fashioned into a sort of gown, the hems ragged with use and the long sleeves patched and mended at the ends. It was tied in at the waist with a piece of battered rag, and a frayed shawl in a different plaid was tied round the head, so that no hair emerged, making a grotesque frame for that poor damaged face.

But as Stygius said, there was very little blood. Even in this dim light it was possible to see that. No spreading telltale stain of darkness on the dirt-encrusted chest, no brittleness of dried blood even on the scarf. A tiny smear upon the shoulder, when I looked carefully, and another on the shawl. Almost as if. .

‘She wasn’t wearing those clothes at the time she was attacked.’ That was Junio, echoing my thoughts as usual. ‘Someone must have dressed her in them after she was dead.’

I nodded. ‘I’m almost sure of it.’ I picked up one of the candles — forgetting the vengeful spirits for a moment — and brought it close to get a better light. ‘And what’s even more peculiar, the smears — such as they are — seem to be on the outside of the dress.’ I lifted back the tattered material to show him as I spoke. The neckline was grimed to grey with mingled dirt and sweat, in contrast to the smooth and flawless skin it circled, but there was no evidence of bloodstains anywhere.

My action had exposed the shawl-ends which were tied about the throat, and it occurred to me that we should remove it and see what was beneath. Even without the features, we could learn something from the hair — if it was sculpted in a Roman style, it might be helpful in identifying the girl by and by. Rather gingerly I undid the knots and let the plaid cloth fall back on the bier.

The effect was startling. ‘Great Minerva!’ Junio stared at me. ‘Someone has hacked her hair off at the roots.’

It was true. The hair had been cut off in savage, random clumps close to the scalp, so that only a few haphazard strands remained. ‘And look, there is no blood across the scalp, and nothing on the inside of the shawl. You see what that implies?’ I glanced at Junio and he raised his brows at me. I knew we understood each other perfectly.