I knew that little nervous trick. It meant he scented money. I sighed. ‘I’m sure your master would agree to a reward,’ I said, ‘if there is anything really useful you can call to mind.’
‘Well, citizen, I’ll see what I can do.’ Aulus made a pretence at struggling to recall, which would not have fooled a baby. ‘Unusual vehicles?’ he said at last. ‘Depends what you mean by unusual, I suppose. That was the day the master had a banquet for his guest — no end of councillors and important people from the town, most in hired litters, but two of them had private carriages. Then there were the entertainers — they came in a cart — and there was the slave-trader who called and sold the master another page. He had a little cart with Niveus aboard. Is this the sort of thing you want to know?’
‘Exactly what I wanted!’ I summoned up a smile. The promise of money had revived his memory quite remarkably. I only prayed that Marcus would agree to pay the bribe. ‘Kurso, I hope you’re listening to this. I’ll have to remember all the details later on, so I can talk to the people who own the vehicles.’
Kurso flashed a frightened look at me. I could see that it was hopeless. Junio would have taken in the facts and helped me reconstruct the list when I got home, but poor little Kurso was so terrified, I doubted he would remember much more than his name.
But Aulus hadn’t finished. ‘And then there were the extra deliveries, of course — Marcus had ordered in some special wine from town, and all sorts of delicacies from the marketplace. There was a man with oysters and another with larks. Then there was a wagon of extra olive oil — not that the tradesmen came to the front gate, but I can see from here to where the back road branches off, so unless they come across the foot-tracks, the way they brought your corpse, I get to see almost everyone who ever comes and goes.’ With that wily expression in his close-set eyes, Aulus looked more than ever like a bear — if a bear could ever be said to look self-satisfied.
I nodded. ‘Very good,’ I said, although it wasn’t good at all. It could take weeks to check on all of this, and I didn’t have the time. It would be the Lemuria in less than three days. If I was to solve the problem of the dead boy’s identity, and soothe the vengeful spirits, I must do it very soon. I turned to the gatekeeper. ‘You’re sure that’s all the carts there were?’
I meant to be ironic, but it was lost on Aulus. ‘Well — there was the hired baggage wagon and another cart that Lucius had engaged. He is going to travel with Marcus and Julia when they go, but he has sent a lot of his luggage on ahead, with his chief slave riding with it to make sure it arrives — though Lucius kept fussing round it, giving different orders right up to the end. Marcus and Julia decided to take advantage of the cart and send off some of their belongings too — things the family will need when they’re in Rome. It’ll speed up the journey when they leave, I suppose, not having to slow the carriage to let the heavy goods catch up — though I expect they’ll take a wagonful of slaves with them anyway.’
‘But the baggage wagons came from the villa, surely?’ I put in pointedly. ‘They weren’t just passing by?’
He shook his shaggy locks. ‘Well, neither were the others, if it comes to that. They were all coming to the villa or taking things away. “Unusual carts or other transport in the lane” was what you said. You didn’t say anything about passing by.’ He was affronted now, jutting his chin forward and glowering at me.
I hastened to placate him. ‘Perhaps I should have done. Though anything you’ve told me may be useful in the end. But — was there anything?’
He humphed. ‘There was that trapper from the forest with a wagonload of skins — I think that was the day — heading for the tanner’s by the look and smell of it. And a farmer from the hills who seems to go past every day, with a cart full of something for the market in the town. I think that’s all there was. All that I can remember, anyway, that could possibly have been carrying a corpse.’
I looked at Aulus, and caught him glancing maliciously at me. I was by no means certain that a silver coin would not have wrung a little more from him, but I had none to offer. ‘So nothing really unusual at all?’ I said. ‘Nothing that mightn’t have gone past on any day? Nobody you didn’t recognise by sight?’
‘I’m afraid not, citizen. I only wish I did have something more helpful to report. I’d be glad to have a little extra in my purse.’ He bestowed another whiff of onions on me, as he shoved his big face close to mine and gave me a gigantic, knowing wink. ‘You won’t forget to mention that I did my best?’
‘I shall tell my patron exactly what you said when I see him at the banquet later on. In the meantime, keep on the alert. If you see anything suspicious, or if you remember something that might have slipped your mind, make sure you let me know. Now, where’s that little slave of mine? It’s time for us to go.’
‘Here, m-m-master.’ Kurso was at the doorway, where he’d retreated, cowering. He looked at the brutish gatekeeper with uncertain eyes. I could understand his feelings, to a point. Aulus was so much bigger, he could have eaten him for lunch.
However, one cannot encourage timidity in a slave. ‘Come, Kurso,’ I said briskly. ‘Attend me down the lane.’ I gestured to Aulus, who was standing motionless. ‘And you, doorkeeper, may escort us through the gate. I have already taken leave of my patron and his wife.’
Aulus looked surly, but he undid the gate and ushered us outside.
I turned to him. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen the villa cart come back? Your mistress was promising us a lift if it was here. Though I suppose it would have gone round to the rear — it was bringing the entertainers for tonight.’
He shook his head. ‘I would have noticed it. I told you, I can see everything from my guardroom.’
‘Even if you were talking to someone at the time?’ Aulus had not had his eye to the spyhole while I was in the room.
He didn’t answer for a moment. Even Aulus could see the implication of my last remark. He wiped a fat hand across his massive face. ‘I would have heard it,’ he said defiantly. ‘Just as I would have heard anyone who drove past the other day, whatever you might think. Horses and wheels make a clatter in the lane, and that wagon, in particular, is a noisy one. I’ll bet a quadrans, citizen, that cart has not come back.’
In this, at least, he was demonstrably right, for even as he spoke the cart in question turned the corner of the lane and lumbered into view, with such a squeaking and clattering, such a thudding of hooves and juddering of wheels, that only a deaf man would not have noticed it.
Aulus flung me a triumphant glance. He didn’t say, ‘You see?’ but his smirk conveyed the message with perfect clarity. ‘You wish me to stop it, citizen, before it goes round to the back? So you and your slave can ride back to your house?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, but set off down the lane, gesticulating at the driver as he went.
The wagon stopped, and there was a whispered consultation in the lane, with Aulus motioning towards me with his thumb, and the driver countering by gesturing at his human cargo with his whip. However, a decision was obviously reached, and in my favour too, because presently the passengers began to climb down from the cart.
They were a striking collection. Two handsome, muscular young men in leather skirts, who moved and looked like acrobats, and an ageing one who certainly did not; a pair of stunted men with exaggerated beards and straggling haircuts, who might have been a form of comic turn; and lastly a group of chattering young women — most genuinely Iberian from the look of them, with the typical striking red-blond colouring of Celts from that part of the Empire, though there were one or two with darker skin and hair. All of them were comely. Aulus was ogling them as they got down from the cart, and I found that I was staring at them too.