Rosemary Rowe - The vestal vanishes

It was Publius who unexpectedly came to my support. ‘He may be right, you know, Lavinius my friend. I’ve been witness to such things in Rome. Evidence extorted is not always true.’

I could see Lavinius wavering, and I pressed the point. ‘What I need from this raedarius, you see, are little details of the trip — perhaps things that did not seem important at the time, but which in retrospect may be significant. He tells me, for instance, that they had to stop to let a legion of marching troops go past. That might be the place where the kidnapping took place, and not in Glevum as we thought at first-’

‘So,’ Lavinius interrupted curtly. ‘Why ease his limbs for that? It seems to me that a modicum of pain has already spurred his memory.’

‘If we loosen his bonds there may be more that he recalls — a man can’t think clearly about details like that when his mind is focussed on his suffering.’

‘Have them cut the bonds, Lavinius’ Publius urged. I’d obviously swayed him by my argument, ‘I’m willing to try anything to find Audelia. And what is there to lose? This pavement-maker has already learned something that we did not know before. Nothing that your steward’s flogging managed to obtain has, up to now, been of any use at all.’

I turned to my unexpected ally with a smile. ‘Respected citizen, if you are really willing to try anything, the really useful thing would be to have this driver take me to the place where he was compelled to stop because the troops went past. If he can identify the spot, it is possible I can discover something there. Though there is still the question of the maidservant-’

Lavinius’s snort of outrage interrupted me again. ‘You can’t mean that you expect me not just to loose the bonds — though, Jove knows that is extraordinary enough — but actually to let this fellow go? And more than that, to give his raeda back and actively encourage him to drive away from town in it? Citizen, you have a very strange idea of how Roman justice works.’

Actually I had a pretty clear idea, and I could see that I was likely to end up in court myself — charged with conspiring to help a prisoner escape — if I persisted in this argument. I was about to say that I’d abandoned the idea, when Publius again spoke up in my defence.

‘Perhaps we should try it his way, Lavinius, my friend. There seems to be very little else that we can do, and this is at least something positive. The place where the raeda stopped might well be relevant, but it will not be easy to identify the spot, unless the driver is there to point it out. And, as the citizen suggests, the easiest way of him achieving that is for the raedarius himself to take him there. I’ll bear responsibility, if trouble comes of it.’

I was warming to this fellow, despite his podgy pompous looks. Perhaps it was his open nature which had won Audelia. I would have liked to ask him how he came to know his bride, but Lavinius was already saying angrily, ‘I can’t agree to that. It was the pavement-maker citizen who suggested this, and he alone must be responsible. I think the whole idea is ludicrous, but you are the bridegroom, and my guest besides, so of course the choice is yours. If you wish me to indulge this citizen in his unlikely plans, then I must comply. But only if the pavement-maker will pledge a hundred aureii on the driver’s safe return.’ He cast a triumphant, cunning look at me. ‘And I give him fair warning that if he lets the man escape then I will drag him through the courts for full payment of the debt — and the value of whatever jewels were lost as well.’

I gasped. A hundred aureii was a huge amount of gold — more than I had ever set eyes on in my life, and certainly a good deal more than my whole estate was worth. The mere suggestion took my breath away. Of course I realized that Lavinius was perfectly aware of how I would react, and this was simply a way of making sure that I declined the trip. But before I had recovered my wits enough to utter the legal formula required to refuse a bargain and so make it void, my defender Publius had intervened and was clapping me on the shoulder with a friendly smile.

‘Well then, pavement-maker…’ Before I realized what was happening he had seized my unsuspecting hand and thrust it into Lavinius’s bony grasp. ‘There! You have shaken hands and I have witnessed it, so the contract between you now has legal force. Come, steward, cut the driver’s bonds and let him go.’ He turned to Lavinius with his chubby smile. ‘If His Excellence Marcus Septimus has such confidence in our mosaicist, then I am inclined to act on his advice — and if he is right there is no time to lose. The sooner he finds out where the stop took place, the faster my dear bride is likely to be found.’

To say that I was utterly appalled by this does not come close to describing how I felt. I was literally speechless with dismay. Not only was I legally compelled to bring the driver back, on penalty of a small fortune in gold coins, but I was also apparently expected to set off at once — when it was already the middle of the afternoon — to a town that was fully twenty miles away, with not the slightest prospect of getting back that day. Whatever else, I’d not intended that.

‘But my family, mightiness,’ I burbled. ‘They won’t know where I am. Besides, it will be dark in only a few hours and I have no money for an inn. What am I to do when I get to Corinium? Or do you expect me to sleep beside the road?’

Lavinius gave me his icy pale-blue stare. ‘Citizen, I have complied with your request.’ (In fact he hadn’t — the driver was still bound.) ‘After that — as far as I’m concerned — the matter rests with you. If there are resultant problems, that’s not my affair. Perhaps you should have thought the matter through a little more.’ He turned to the steward, who was hovering nearby. ‘Slave, do as this pavement-maker says. Cut this scoundrel’s bonds then go and fetch the iron-smith to strike the fetters off his feet. If he tries to run away, arrest the citizen.’

The steward stepped forward and drew out a long knife from his belt. He pulled the driver roughly up onto his knees, causing him to groan in agony and, propping him in that position against the sacks, began — none too gently — to hack at the rope tethered between the feet and hands. As he worked, the pressure on the bonds was visibly increased and I could see the driver biting his lip to stop himself from crying out. Then the tether snapped and the captive, suddenly released from being tensioned like a bow, toppled over and fell forward on the floor.

The steward kicked him over on his side and knelt to cut the belt that bound the hands.

‘You need not let the prisoner go entirely,’ Publius put in. ‘He does not have to drive his raeda yet — that’s still outside of Glevum anyway. In fact he does not have to drive the thing at all. Lavinius, you could send them in your gig. There would be just room for both the prisoner and Libertus at a pinch, and that way you could keep the man in bonds throughout.’

That was quite an intelligent idea: not only did it appease Lavinius, it might save me a good deal of anxiety besides.

Before I could voice this, the raeda driver spoke up from the floor — unbowed as ever, it appeared. ‘The box containing all Audelia’s wedding-gifts is still inside my coach — at least I hope it is — and I imagine you will want it back? There would be not room to take that with us in the gig.’

It earned him a savage thump across his back from the steward. Lavinius scowled at the prisoner’s impudence, and Publius looked affronted at this challenge to his words. For two quadrans, I could see, he would wash his hands of this.