Rosemary Rowe - A Coin for the Ferryman

‘So, if you are ready?’ Stygius prompted me.

I picked up a taper. ‘It’s time to go,’ I said, and one by one we filed out into the dark. It was cold and frosty, and the night was still, and it was eerie walking through the trees without a light. We came to the cleared site where the new roundhouse was to be, and formed into a circle round the fatal ditch.

Kurso brought the ash bowl and I placed my thumb in it and made a sign on my forehead, as I’d been told to do. Junio did the same, followed by all the women and the slaves — if there was any doubt about the efficacy of this ritual, I thought, I wanted it performed by all of us.

Maximus brought water, and I washed my hands — and this time it was only for the men. I felt a little foolish as I turned round three times, taking care I didn’t stumble: it was uneven underfoot, and to miss my footing would have been the worst of omens now. Minimus brought the beans — in the blackness they looked blacker still — and I took a handful and, with averted face, threw them behind me, saying nine times over the all-important words: ‘These beans I cast away, with these I redeem myself and mine.’

The words and actions were duly repeated by my son, and without a backward glance we began to walk away. Caper had been carrying a covered bowl of coals till now, and as I touched water, and clashed the bronzes I had brought, he whipped the lid off and there was suddenly a glow of cheerful light.

We fairly strode now, back the way we had come, Junio clashing the bronzes all the while and all of us demanding that the ghosts should take the beans, accept our offering and leave the place in peace. As I reached our own enclosure I heard a distant clang, and knew at the villa the same ceremony was taking place.

It must have been effective. Junio’s roundhouse has been built in almost record time and he and Cilla are moving into it. Marcus and Julia are so pleased with me they have gifted us the boys and given me the commission for the memorial pavement, too, for which they are promising to pay me handsomely. Little Niveus has been sold on again — slightly more confident than he was before — to a kindly master who is good to him. Even Morella’s mother has found a kind of peace: her husband was so frightened of reprisals that he has run away, and she and her daughters are farming in his place.

The trials were duly held. Hirsius was sentenced to death — as he well deserved — but found a way of taking poison in his cell. Perhaps the fleet commander had provided it, although — as I had predicted — he and his wife appealed to the Emperor and (no doubt at the cost of some exotic gift) managed to escape the justice of the courts. The snake-charmer and the mimic were not so fortunate.

Marcus’s mother, when she had recovered from the shock, declared that the whole thing was exactly what she had always feared, and might have been predicted if he’d listened to her dreams. She foresaw more evil auguries — and wrote to say so almost every day, right up to the time that Marcus and his family left for Rome. However, the honours that were piled upon him there must have made her wonder if the auguries were right.

My little household is as happy as it has ever been — without the slightest visitation of phantoms or bad luck. We must have pacified the Lemures that night.