Rosemary Rowe - A Roman Ransom

‘And what did Lallius say when he arrived and found the child was gone?’ Marcus was clearly following all this.

Another frantic nod. ‘He was beside himself with rage, but there was nothing he could do. Marcellinus was already safe. We knew that because just before Lallius arrived your page turned up and asked for Myrna back — I thought that I would die of fright. We hadn’t catered for that possibility. Luckily Myrna had gone to the neighbour’s with her child — she didn’t want her daughter there when Lallius turned up. But Julia was still hidden in the stable at the time.’

‘And when Lallius came?’

‘He decided he would turn our stupid plans to some effect, he said. He wrote the ransom note — he’d brought a writing tablet with him from the jail, from some friend of his who’d written to him there. Of course we begged and pleaded but he paid no heed to us. He even went in to see Julia and gloated over her. The ransom was all his idea, he said, and he was going to take her somewhere else — and then she’d learn what being a prisoner meant. But he could not take her with him then, because he only had a horse. He lurked around the woods near the villa until he saw your carriage leave and threw the tablet in over the wall. There were watch-geese in the orchard, he told us afterwards, and he knew that they would soon be fed. He rode back to the inn and drank all the wine we had, then went out later on. I suppose he picked the money up.’

‘He didn’t bring it here?’ I gestured at the inn.

‘Said it was safer where it was — and he’d put Julia somewhere safe as well. He went out again this morning, shortly after dawn, with a writing tablet that my husband had, and I knew he was going to do it all again. He said he’d teach us to let Marcellinus go, and he now knew exactly where to hide the ransom bag. And he took our best horse with him as well.’

‘But he has been back here? Someone leaped out of the window space upstairs.’

‘I hope he broke his neck,’ she muttered bitterly. ‘But of course he won’t. It’s always others who suffer for his deeds. And he wouldn’t even tell us where he’d been.’

‘I think we know that anyway,’ I said. ‘He put Marcellinus’s garments in the ransom bag and left it at my home. I think we even passed him on the way. Latter he wrote the other ransom note and got the slave-trader to bring it in. Obviously he had money with him then — he gave the fellow a denarius for doing it.’

‘I doubt that any money would last him very long. He talked about the ransom and all the things that he was going to do with it. I could see how he had got himself so terribly in debt. That was why my mother hatched this plot, you know — she was afraid that Numidius would disinherit him. He had threatened to do it several times before, but last time she went to Glevum she was convinced he would. The servants told her so. This legal hearing was the final straw. If the magistrates decided that it should come to trial, and Lallius was fined, his father was about to change his will. She’d saved him from all that. You would have thought that Lallius would be grateful, wouldn’t you?’

‘Let him tell you that himself.’ The voice came from the door, and there was Gwellia, dripping in the rain, holding a soaking child in either hand. ‘We have someone here that you might like to meet.’ She hurried in and let the soldiers pass. They had another captive, a short, dark, fleshy youth, whose handsome face was petulant and slack and veined with wine.

Gwellia turned to me and Marcus. ‘This is Lallius, of course. I would have recognised him anyway from what the servants said — fat face, slack jaw, small eyes, and twisted mouth — but when I saw that he was sneaking out of here, and that he had a toga, I guessed who it must be. He started limping down the road towards the carriage first — I think he hoped to bribe the driver for a lift — but when he saw the military cart behind it he turned round and hobbled off. I sent the slaves to catch him. He wasn’t moving very fast — he’s hurt his ankle in some way — so it wasn’t very hard, and he’s not the sort of man to fight. You would have been proud of Junio, though — he tackled him round the knees and threw him to the ground, then held him till the guards arrived to take control.’

Lallius bore the marks of a scuffle. His toga looked as though no fuller would ever get it clean, he was smeared from head to foot with blood and grime, and one ankle was hugely swollen, with the sandal dangling from a broken strap. But he had received a Roman education and it showed.

‘I am Lallius Numidius,’ he said. ‘What is the meaning of this outrage, citizens? I have been set on unprovoked and arrested without cause. If I am to be charged, I demand an advocate.’

Marcus looked contemptuous. ‘Demand? You have no right to demand anything. You’re not a citizen. We have witnesses to swear that you’re the midwife’s son.’

Lallius was collected. ‘You can’t prove anything. And I have rights in law. My father picked me up when I was laid before him; there are witnesses to that. I believe that makes me legally his son. And I was born free in Glevum, whoever sired me. That makes me legally a citizen, I think.’

I am not an expert on the niceties of law, but Marcus is a senior magistrate. ‘You’ll lose that status fast enough, if you are tried for this. It will be slavery in the mines for you, at least.’

‘And what will I be charged with? Kidnapping?’

‘The death of Myrna,’ I exclaimed. ‘We found her stabbed to death.’

‘Indeed. It’s most unfortunate. I heard of it myself. A robbery, by the sound of it. I hear the place was ransacked, and the treasures gone.’

Secunda struggled forward in her bonds. ‘Don’t believe him, Excellence. It was him for sure. He killed her because she had been to see you at the roundhouse earlier. Lallius was convinced that she’d betrayed us then. She pleaded that she’d simply smuggled out the child — and she was in as much danger as the rest of us. But he did not believe her. He obviously wanted to find out what she’d said — no doubt that’s why he tortured her before she died.’

I looked at her keenly. ‘And how do you know that? No member of the family has been near the place since we discovered her. Marcus has had the cottage under guard.’

Secunda seemed to crumple, like an empty water sack. ‘My mother told me, citizen. She went back that night — after she’d been to Glevum, as she always did. It nearly broke her heart. The house was empty, and my sister dead. Julia was gone, and all our treasures too. She could not stay there with that dreadful sight. She left it as it was and walked all the way to us, though it was dark by that time and the roads were dangerous. She was in a kind of nightmare. I don’t think she even gave a thought to thieves and wolves and bears. That’s why she. .’ She trailed off into silence.

I shuddered, trying to imagine how it must have felt, finding your daughter murdered in that way. It had been bad enough for us.

Lallius interrupted with a sneer. ‘You can’t prove any part of that,’ he said. ‘I have a witness who will swear that I was with him all evening.’

‘Wait a minute!’ I said suddenly. Another fragment of the mosaic fell neatly into place. ‘A witness? Would this be Cassius, by any chance? The man who insisted that you should be in jail?’

Lallius shot me a look that would have withered iron. ‘And supposing that it is? It’s not unknown for friends to reconcile.’

Gwellia glanced at me. ‘Especially when a man can pay his debts? Is that why you were interested in money all along? Why, what’s the matter, husband?’

I had leaped up from my makeshift stool again. ‘It all makes perfect sense. Of course it was the money. His father was intending to get married, wasn’t he? That’s what Philades told us — that he wanted to get another heir. And that’s it, don’t you see? He really was intending to disinherit his son. But Lallius goes to prison, and his father’s taken ill. Drinking bad water, everybody says. And who is quite above suspicion, because he isn’t there? Why, Master Lallius, of course — who is in jail because his closest friend conspired to put him there. Didn’t Cilla tell us that he sent his father an amphora of his favourite vintage, in an attempt to make peace between them. Poisoned water? More likely poisoned wine.’