Rosemary Rowe - A Whispering of Spies

‘What?’ I found myself shouting. ‘Not the lictor? But Alcanta has just told us that it was!’

‘Well, it isn’t.’ Biccus was gazing intently at the grisly face. ‘But I can tell you who it is. I only glimpsed him for a moment once, when he set his dogs on me, but I’m fairly sure that is the man who used to own this farm. I never knew his name. Antonius, Antoninus, Antolinus — something of the kind.’

‘Dear gods!’ This time it was Emelius who spoke. ‘Antolinus! Of course it is! Didn’t have a beard and lots of curly hair when I last saw him, but that’s who it is. I thought that he was dead. But there’s no doubt about it. Antolinus Gallus. Optio in the Fourth Gauls Half-mounted Auxiliary Regiment.’ He shook his head.

I was still struggling to make sense of this. ‘So you think he was the driver of that treasure-cart? The owner of the belt that someone recognized? And this is what happened to the head?’

The centurion shook his head. ‘Not a chance of it. You saw that body that the death squad found. That man was forty if he was a day. Antolinus was comparatively young — as you can still see by the look of him. But I thought he had been murdered by rebels long ago — they said they found his body. .’ He trailed off. ‘But obviously it wasn’t him at all.’

‘Certainly it wasn’t, if this really is his head. I agree with you — this fellow is relative young and has not been dead for long. If it is your Antolinus, he must have been living somewhere in disguise. Oh, of course! Out here in the country, it’s quite obvious — running a farm he didn’t really understand and hoping the army would never think of looking there for him. A clever ruse, in fact. Often a runaway is better hidden very close to home. People always expect the opposite.’

‘Especially when they think he’s dead,’ Emelius said. ‘I expect there was an ambush but he managed to fight free. It must have been a rebel he hung up on the tree, dressed in his uniform and hacked to pieces to match the way they treated us. No doubt his companion was murdered in the raid and he just deserted, knowing that we wouldn’t look for him.’

‘No wonder he kept dogs to frighten neighbours off. It would have been certain death if they discovered him.’ I looked again at the bearded handsome face. ‘Though somebody obviously did kill him in the end. Probably Florens — though I don’t know why.’

I gestured to the requisition cart, where Florens and Servilis were being bundled in at sword-point, just as I had been — the councillor still protesting that he was innocent. ‘Is it my fault if rebels use my well?’ he was demanding, of no one in particular. ‘Libertus is talking nonsense when he accuses me. Like the rest of his assertions, it’s quite preposterous. Of course I didn’t kill the escort of the cart. How could I have done so? On the Ides the basilica was closed, but I was in the public baths all afternoon and in the evening Gaius had a special sacrifice to mark the day — half the curia was there! And you know yourself that I was in Glevum all day yesterday. And why should I kill the previous owner of this farm? I’d just bought it from him — there are records of the fact. What would I have to gain by killing him and chopping off his head?’

That was the problem with all of this, I thought. I could understand the murder of the lictor, possibly: Florens stood to profit, as Alcanta’s guardian, and more so if he took her as his wife, as she seemed to have agreed. So why bother to steal from the treasure-carts at all, let alone kill the escort in that appalling way? And what had this deserter got to do with it? Yet I was convinced that Florens was at the heart of this.

Emelius was looking equally perplexed, for reasons of his own. ‘But if this is Antolinus, where’s the body gone and, if this is not the lictor, where is Voluus?’ He gazed at me suddenly. ‘You don’t suppose we’ll find he isn’t dead at all?’

That would make nonsense of all my theories, I thought wearily. Florens would get nothing if the lictor was alive — indeed, he would be forced to marry Porteus’s girl. I had a sudden inspiration. ‘Wait a minute!’ I said the words aloud. Without waiting for permission I ran over to the cart. ‘You didn’t meet the lictor, but you went to Gaul? Don’t I remember that you told me that?’

Florens still had self-possession left. He looked disdainfully at me. ‘I met his family, as I told you. I never met the man.’

‘And yet he nominated you to be guardian for his wife?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘He knew my reputation as senior councillor, I suppose. Perhaps he learnt about me while he was over here. He sent a sealed message to me afterwards, inviting me to act in that capacity, should the need arise. Only while she is in Britannia of course; otherwise she goes back to her brother’s potestas. Is that so surprising? I can produce the letter if you like.’

‘So you only met his family while you were in Gaul? What family was that? I heard that Voluus had no other relatives. So was it his wife that you’re referring to? A foreign heiress that you hoped to wed? Only by then it was too late, of course — a binding contract had already been made with Voluus.’

Florens couldn’t answer; he was blustering. ‘I don’t know why you want to make an issue out of that. Of course I would have married Alcanta if I could. Who wouldn’t want to do so? She is very beautiful. But she was already promised and, as I say, I never met the lictor in my life.’

Brianus by now was standing at my heels and he tugged my tunic sleeve. ‘But he did know him, master. I told you so before. I saw them dining at the mansio.’

‘And he’s already told us that they discussed the farm!’ I pointed out. Then I realized what Brianus had said. I whirled around to him. ‘You mean it was this councillor who dined with Voluus at the mansio that night?’ I’d gone on thinking that Porteus was the dinner guest.

Florens was flustered. ‘Ah, of course. I had forgotten that occasion. There was such a fuss. We were in the mansio discussing the matter of the farm, but Voluus received some sort of threatening note and he lost his temper. It was embarrassing.’

Hardly an occasion to forget, I thought. Aloud, I said, ‘I hear you saw the contents of the note?’

He waved a vaguely self-important hand. ‘Vague threats — “you will be killed and all goods destroyed if you come to Glevum, I’ve not forgotten you” — that sort of thing. Not signed or sealed, of course. Voluus was simply furious. Swore that he would have the writer caught and brought to trial or even kill him with his own bare hands. I had to calm him down.’

Brianus was nodding. ‘That’s quite true, master. I saw it for myself. And master — my other master — must have been alarmed: he told me to get his luggage packed at once, because he’d changed his mind and was going straight back to Gaul. He wasn’t even stopping to acquire a horse — he was going to borrow one so he could start at once, and I was to join Calvinus and Pronta at the flat and he would send instructions as to what to do.’

Emelius and the soldiers — except the helmet man — had gathered round us and were listening to all this. ‘And did he send instructions?’ the centurion asked.

‘He sent them all the time,’ Brianus replied. ‘I couldn’t read them, but Calvinus could. Proper letters, sealed and everything. All the details about him moving over here: how many carts we were expecting and when they would arrive and what we could expect in every one of them.’

‘So it looks as if Calvinus really was involved?’ Emelius remarked. ‘I was beginning to wonder if we were mistaken about that.’

‘I think we’ve all been making a mistake,’ I said very slowly. ‘I don’t think the lictor wrote those messages at all.’