Rosemary Rowe - A Coin for the Ferryman

I did. Marcus had had a succession of pages, all of them chosen for their looks. Not that my patron had an interest in such boys — not since he was married anyway — but he liked to be attended by an eye-catching young man. He dressed them strikingly as well, in a scarlet cloak and tunic with gold edging round the hem, to show that their owner was a man of wealth; Pulchrus had looked magnificent, though the uniform made Niveus seem very young and pale.

‘I’m sure the boy will learn. I’m sorry we disturbed you. I see you have been petitioning the household deities,’ I said.

She flushed. She was always beautiful, but the colour in her cheeks made her even lovelier. ‘I felt I should do something. It is the feast of the Lemures in only three days’ time. And here we are with an unburied body on our hands. It was one thing when we thought it was just a peasant girl, but if she is from a wealthy family, even if we give her a sort of funeral, we may still offend the ghosts. So I thought. .’ She made a little helpless gesture with her hands. ‘This family is about to make a perilous journey overseas. You see what I mean, Libertus. One cannot be too careful. Especially when Marcellinus is so young.’

And then I understood. Julia would have prayed to any god on earth — in sackcloth and with ashes in her hair — if she thought it might protect her precious son. She was taking no chances with the Lemures. I only wished that I had better news.

She seemed to read my face. ‘I assume that Stygius was right? This is not a peasant girl?’

‘I can promise that, at least,’ I said gently. And then, seeing that the page had reappeared, at the head of a little army of servants bearing folding stools, a table and a tray of food and drink, I added, ‘Why don’t we sit down?’

It was not my place to issue an invitation of this kind, but Julia realised that I was preparing her for a shock. She gestured to the slaves, and we watched in silence as they arranged the seats and began to set out goblets, fruit and wine.

She took a chair and gestured me to sit. She proffered another stool to Junio, and indicated that Stygius should take up a position at my back. But it was to me that she addressed herself. ‘Well, go on. You have discovered who this mysterious young lady is — or was?’

I shook my head. ‘We have discovered that she is not a young lady after all,’ I said.

She gestured to the goblets, signalling the slaves to pour the watered wine for Junio and me. Ladies did not generally drink, except at dinner time, and Stygius clearly did not merit such hospitality. She took a sugared fig, and nibbled daintily at one side of it. ‘But I understood. . the hands?’ she said.

‘Not a young lady,’ I said again. ‘A young gentleman, perhaps. Stygius and Junio will explain to you.’

They did. Stygius gave her a blunt account of what we’d found, and Junio added, ‘It rather looks as if the face was damaged post mortem , after the corpse was dressed in a peasant woman’s clothes. Then it was hidden in a ditch, with bits of branches and dead leaves piled roughly over it.’

‘But that is terrible.’ She was clearly shaken now, but she was a Roman matron and courtesy to guests was paramount. ‘Refill the citizen’s wine cup, Niveus,’ she said, and I realised with a start that I had emptied it. I am not generally a great enthusiast for wine, preferring a bowl of hot mead now and then, but I was glad enough of its reviving qualities today.

Julia looked at the wine jug almost longingly, as if she would have liked to have a glass herself, but contented herself with taking another nibble at her fig. ‘Unfortunate enough when we thought it was a girl. .’ She made that hopeless gesture. ‘To lose a daughter is a frightful thing, especially if she is of marriageable age, and any father would clearly be distraught. But to lose a son. .’

‘Is even worse?’ I nodded. Had I not just acquired a son myself? ‘It would be to lose an heir! And if it is an only son. .’

I did not need to add the obvious — that the death of an only son entails the loss of the family name itself and, incidentally, of the whole paternal fortune too. If there are daughters, their share will go as dowry to their husbands when they wed. Worse still if there are no surviving children left at all, because then there will almost certainly be an expensive lawsuit when the father dies, with the estate dispersed not only to the beneficiaries mentioned in the will, but to anyone who can mount an effective counter-claim, including — quite often — the imperial purse. Even the money a man leaves to his wife — though nowadays she may use it while she lives alone — will finally revert back to her father’s family, often to some quite distant relative, unless she bestows it on another spouse. It ends up in the hands of other men’s offspring, either way.

‘The loss of an only son is a catastrophe. If it were Marcellinus. .’ Julia shuddered. ‘I can’t bear to think of it. Humiliated by being dressed up like a peasant in that way.’

‘It seems it was a wealthy peasant, though,’ I said. ‘Look what I found hidden in the dress’s hem.’ I showed her the gold coins I was carrying. ‘More than enough to keep a peasant woman and her family for years. Perhaps you would be good enough to look after them for me? I should hate to think that someone might come to claim the corpse, and suppose I’d stolen them.’

‘I’ll put them safely in my perfume chest,’ she said, taking them almost without a second glance and slipping them softly inside her stola -top. Gold coins clearly did not have as much significance for her as for us lowlier folk.

‘I wonder if the young man gave them to the owner of the dress?’ She shook her head. ‘It must have been a very young man. Someone would surely have realised, otherwise.’

That was aimed at Stygius, and he looked abashed, but in his mistress’s presence he scarcely dared to speak, far less attempt to exculpate himself.

‘I should have realised earlier myself,’ I said. ‘The size of the hands and feet was quite a clue. I actually thought about the body’s boyish form, never supposing that it really was a male. But you are right — he must be fairly young. Not fully come to manhood, anyway. His arms and legs were smooth as any girl’s.’

Stygius flashed me a grateful look and I was about to speak again when, rather to my astonishment, Junio broke in. The unaccustomed wine had given him the courage to speak up like the citizen he now was, instead of waiting to be spoken to.

‘But though the legs were muscular enough, the victim was no athlete,’ he observed. ‘His chest and back were soft and white — not tanned and hardened by the sun, as they would be if he had been wrestling half naked at the baths, or even running races and playing ball-sports as young men often do.’ He picked up his wine cup and took another sip, looking hopefully towards the servant with the jug who was by this time hovering at my side again.

I waved the slave away. Junio was not accustomed to drinking watered wine, especially in the middle of the day. I did not generally serve it in my house and although — like any other slave — he would have been given refreshment in the servants’ quarters when we went visiting, that would have been a thin, inferior vintage, vastly watered down. This was a good wine, kept for guests and only diluted to an appropriate degree: I did not think this was the moment for him to experiment with it, especially since there was Marcus’s banquet to look forward to tonight.

Junio looked reproachfully at me, but I ignored the glance. A paterfamilias has a right to decide things for his son. ‘That was well reasoned, Junio,’ I said, knowing that the praise would please him — as it clearly did. ‘I had not thought that out myself. But you are right, of course.’