I need not have worried. There was room for us — the dwarves and the acrobats had presumably accepted the offer of a servant’s mattress for the night — and the girls were huddled together, giggling, at the far end of the cart, under the stern eye of their chaperon and the skinny musician-conjuror who seemed to be her husband. They had somehow managed to herd the girls so that we had room enough to stand, and by holding on to the framework of the cart we could keep our balance as it lurched away, though I found myself jammed uncomfortably face to face with the dancing woman.
She glared at me, her face ghastly in the light of the torches. Maximus and Minimus were trotting at the wheels, so I was able to make out her expression.
I countered with a smile. ‘You must be very proud of your performers,’ I remarked, though the words came out in little jerks in rhythm with the cart. She made no reply, but we were forced into uneasy intimacy by our position, and I tried again. ‘It is quite an honour to be chosen by His Excellence.’
That stung her into speech. ‘Honour! I suppose so. Just as well. Two rotten denarii — that’s all he’s paid tonight. And I was fool enough to fall for it — all on the promise that we might get invited to serve the Emperor. But one look at that patrician and you could tell it was no use, and of course by then it was too late to ask a higher fee. So our clever magistrate gets a bargain at his feast. I wouldn’t have been much worse off if I’d agreed to pay the bribe! Two denarii — I ask you! For girls who dance like that.’ She spat contemptuously. ‘It doesn’t even pay me for recruiting them.’
‘They do dance very. . well,’ I said. I had been about to say something else, but I remembered that my wife could overhear. ‘Girls who move like that must be difficult to find.’
‘You would not believe the trouble I have.’ Her tongue was loosened now. ‘Not in finding candidates — there are always willing girls. We’ve had three people want to join us since we’ve been staying here. But they’re so rarely suitable. One looked very likely, a nice-looking girl. Nicely spoken, too: it was obvious she’d been properly brought up. I asked her to pick up her stola so I could see her legs, and she was horrified. I could have asked a hefty fee for her, but the next day her father came and found her and took her home again. Turned out she didn’t like his second wife and simply wanted to get away from home. Just as well we didn’t try to use her in the show. Caused enough trouble as it was — he behaved as if we’d taken on a slave that ran away.’
‘Does that happen often? Fugitives, I mean?’
She shook her head. ‘More often girls who think it’s glamorous — simply want to do something different with their lives. Of course, it isn’t glamorous at all. The training’s very arduous, and they get too old for it and there’s little chance of marrying afterwards.’ She smiled. ‘We do get one or two who get an offer, though, when we put on a show for someone rich — not as wives, of course, but as concubines and slaves — and I usually won’t stand in their way, although of course I expect a recompense. What I can’t put up with are the ones who get themselves with child, spoil the troupe, waste all those training hours, and not even a financial reward to show for it. Unfortunately there’s always someone who is fool enough to fall for that.’
‘And what becomes of them?’ Junio had been listening. I knew that, like me, he was wondering if this might be relevant to our mystery.
She looked surprised. ‘Occasionally, if they are good-looking, I can sell them on as slaves, and then at least they have a roof above their heads. But the rest of them. .’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I have to turn them out. I suppose they beg, or work as prostitutes — and I have to find a substitute, sometimes jolly quickly too.’
‘And you have plenty of suitable candidates?’ I said.
‘Suitable candidates?’ She laughed. ‘And unsuitable as well. We had a smelly peasant turn up the other day — grimy and graceless as it’s possible to be.’
‘A peasant?’ I was paying close attention now. Gwellia, behind me, clutched my hand, and I realised that she, too, was listening to every word.
‘Pudgy face, thick ankles, rawhide boots and a plaid robe she obviously hadn’t changed for years,’ the chaperon said. ‘About as flexible as a chest-plough and as erotic too — her hair was bleached with that awful lime you people use, and it hung in stinking braids right to her waist.’
‘Really?’ I was genuinely surprised. Celtic warriors at one time used to lime their hair, and wear it in thick spikes to scare the enemy, but it was hardly a thing that females often did — any more than they wore earrings or moustaches. Anyway, the lime paste smelt disgusting, as the woman said.
She nodded. ‘I think she must have been dimwitted, but she’d heard about the troupe — swore she had been promised that I would take her on, and she had dreams of going to Rome with us. Of course, I told her in no uncertain. .’ She faltered to a stop. I realised that the cart had halted too. I had been so interested in her story that I hadn’t noticed it.
‘Well, citizen, are you getting down or not?’ the cart-driver shouted, and Junio and I scrambled off and assisted the two women to get down after us.
Gwellia leaned towards me as I helped her down and held her close. ‘So, husband, your peasant was probably a young girl after all.’ She gave me a quick squeeze. ‘Now I must go inside. It is getting late and there are household tasks to do.’ And with that she disengaged herself and went into the house, together with Cilla and the slaves, while I stood thoughtfully watching the wagon lumber off. Suddenly, it seemed, there was a lot to think about.
The dancing woman, however, saw me lingering and was determined to complete her tale. She leaned over the rear plank of the cart, and shouted after me, ‘You know she even offered me a bribe to take her on? If people want to join us, they are prepared to pay.’
Bribe? I was thinking about the coins we’d discovered in the skirt, but the cart was already disappearing down the lane. I did, however, have the wit to call, ‘What did she try to bribe you with?’
Her voice came floating back to me as the cart lurched on. ‘Looked like a gold aureus, but I don’t suppose it was. More likely a forgery — where would a peasant get a coin. . like. . that?’
They turned a corner and the cart was gone.
‘Master. . I mean, Father?’ Junio had been standing at my elbow all this time. He peered at me in the darkness. ‘It must be, don’t you think. .? The person who owned the dress?’
I nodded. ‘It gives us a description to go on, anyway. In the morning, perhaps we can find out who she was. In the meantime, I should talk to Cilla, briefly, in case she found out anything of use. No doubt she will be bursting to tell us if she did.’ I led the way into the roundhouse as I spoke.
But Cilla had disappointingly little to report. None of the villa staff had anything to say about the corpse, except that they wished it buried before the coming festival, and no one had seen a stranger calling at the house.
Of course, Cilla being Cilla, she was anxious to expand and would have given me a word for word account, but by this time it was very late indeed. Gwellia was making signs to me that it was time to go to bed and the boys were doing the last chore of the day, raking some of the ashes round the baking pot so that the yeast cakes could cook in the embers overnight.
‘We’ll talk again tomorrow, Cilla,’ I said with a yawn. ‘It’s been a long, exciting day and an exhausting one.’
She nodded and went out to the servants’ hut where she still had a bed.