‘So she did bleach her hair?’ I said, returning to the point.
‘Bleached it! She nearly turned it green, and damaged it so much that half of it broke off the first time she put a bone comb into it. Her mother had a struggle to plait it afterwards — but the stupid girl was thrilled to bits with the effect. Just before her husband-to-be was going to visit, too! I was tempted to hack it all off with the shears and leave her like a sheep, but her mother persuaded me against that in the end. Said Morella would look even worse if she was bald — said it didn’t look too bad when it was braided up, and perhaps the colour would grow out again in time!’ He aimed another gob into the centre of the fire. ‘I should have given both of them a thrashing there and then. I’m too soft with my womenfolk, that’s the truth of it.’
I had to look away as he said this, and I caught Minimus’s eye — he was standing at my elbow all this time. His expression was carefully impassive, as Junio’s would not have been, and he did not return my glance, but I was convinced that he had understood our Celtic speech — with that red hair he was probably Silerian by birth. I was about to ask him to repeat what he had told me about the tunic and the boots when the farmer abruptly got to his feet.
‘About the clothes — I’ll have her mother in and you can talk to her yourself. She’ll know what the girl was wearing — I couldn’t tell you that. I never take an interest in such female details.’ He strode over to the doorway and clapped his hands three times. ‘Wife! I want you! Come to us at once.’
The wife in question must have been waiting close outside, because almost at once she came hurrying in. She was a little wizened woman, with an anxious stoop and a lined and worried weather-beaten face. She could never have been pretty — her nose was far too long — and age had not been very kind to her. Her neck was scrawny and wrinkled and her hair was thin and grey, though she still wore it in a long, brave braid; and her hands — though strong and brown — had ugly livid spots. I noticed that she had expensive sandals and toe-rings on her feet and, remembering the boots that my slave boy had described, I wondered if I’d come here on a fool’s errand after all. If the wife wore proper shoes, I told myself, wasn’t it likely that her daughter did so too?
But then my mosaic-maker’s eye fell on the pattern of the homespun plaid robe she wore, and I knew at once that it was one I’d seen before. Most Celtic families weave a special pattern of their own, and this was identical to the one the corpse had worn. That dress had belonged to a member of this tribe — if not the woman’s daughter, then another relative — and since that person, almost certainly, was dead, I felt a sudden surge of sympathy. But I could not spare her the grief that was in store. I looked at her sadly.
She was smiling a little nervously, showing a row of broken teeth. ‘You called me, husband? I was waiting for your summons. I am sorry that I took so long to answer it.’ Her voice was soft and squeaky, with an apologetic tone, although it seemed to me that she had come the moment she was called. ‘You want me to bring refreshments for your guest?’ she added, gesturing to me, since obviously the slave boys didn’t count. ‘Your’ guest, not ‘our’, I noticed. Clearly, in this household, the farmer’s word was law. Another thing he’d borrowed from the Roman way of life — in many Celtic households the woman has a say, and often is as educated as the menfolk are. ‘A drop of fresh milk and an oatcake, perhaps?’
It sounded quite delicious but the farmer shook his head. ‘No need for that. The citizen will not be staying long. He has a question for you, then he’ll be on his way. Tell him what he wants to know, and get back to your work.’
She turned towards me, her grey eyes wary. ‘Well, citizen, what is it that you want to know? Something about bees or dyeing wool, perhaps? I am not well informed on many things.’
‘Something about your eldest daughter,’ I said quietly.
I saw the flame of hope spring up in her. ‘You have some news of her? Oh, thank all the gods. I thought that I should never hear of her again.’
‘Be silent, woman,’ her husband said, much as he would have quieted the dog. ‘Listen to what the citizen has to say.’
I broke the news to her as gently as I could. We had found a plaid garment in suspicious circumstances, I explained, and we feared that it might once have been Morella’s — though I didn’t say anything about the money in the hem. Then I outlined the description which the dancing woman gave. ‘So, knowing that your daughter had run away, and gone to join an entertainment group,’ I finished, ‘I wanted to check if this dress could possibly be hers. It sounds as if it might. I understand from your husband that she’d lime-bleached her hair in a way that made her stand out from the general crowd.’
The woman shot an anxious look towards her man. ‘Morella didn’t mean any disrespect by that,’ she said. ‘She’s a bit slow of understanding, that’s the only thing. She thought that it looked pretty when she saw my father’s hair, and when I showed her how he did it, she tried it for herself.’ She ignored the furious scowl that her words produced and seemed to stand a little taller as she added, ‘My father is an elder of the tribe, you see, and he still keeps up the ancient warrior traditions in that way. Spikes his hair and wears a long moustache — and insists that members of his family do the same.’ The faintest ghost of a tired smile flitted on her lips. ‘Even sons-in-law,’ she added.
Suddenly I understood why the farmer, who clearly favoured Roman ways, stuck to the old traditions in his style of dress. ‘Yours is an ancient family?’ I hazarded.
She nodded, and was about to speak again when her husband interrupted with a sneer. ‘Ancient and feeble-minded, half of them, and all as proud as gods, though they don’t have much land or money since the occupation. Still, folks still look up to them. Why do you think I married her? It sure as Pluto wasn’t for her wealth and you can see it wasn’t for her looks.’
So I was right about the nature of this uneasy partnership — it was a marriage between a common man with money and a woman of good rank. He brought his wealth and she brought her tribal lineage. Perhaps it was her bloodline that still protected her — though she was cowed, she showed no signs of actual violence and I had no doubt that he was capable of it. Probably she still had powerful relatives.
At this moment she was looking at the floor, two red spots of humiliation on her withered cheeks. Poor woman! And I was the bearer of such unhappy news! I felt so sorry for her, I could hardly frame the words.
‘And Morella was wearing a dress like yours the day that she disappeared from home?’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘I think I recognise the pattern of the plaid — though it is different from the one your husband wears.’
She raised her eyes to look full into mine, and I could see the anxiety in them. ‘I weave the pattern that my mother used,’ she said, ‘though sometimes I use his family’s colour patterns too. But certainly Morella had a dress like this. I did not weave the cloth for it; my mother originally made it for herself, just a little while before she died. She passed it on to Morella one Beltane feast, when she was too ill to leave her bed any more, and Morella had finished her quick-growing phase. Morella was so pleased with it she rarely took it off, though recently it had been getting tight on her. I know she would have been wearing it on the day she left, although I didn’t see her go.’
‘And on her feet?’ I asked, although I was certain of the answer by this time. ‘Would she have sandals?’
She shook her head. ‘A pair of home-made boots.’ She glanced towards her husband, as if half afraid of how he would respond to what she said. ‘I don’t know why my husband didn’t tell you all this himself. She only had a single pair of boots, and only the one dress that fitted her these days. Her father thought. .’
He interrupted her again. ‘I am not made of money, woman, to have your looms kept busy with needless articles, when woven cloth commands a good price in the marketplace in town. Of course she would have had a proper dowry when she wed: two robes if she’d wanted them, from bought material, pink or blue or any hue she chose, with cobbler’s sandals and toe-rings and gold balls for her hair. Everything a modern bride could ask for, as well as her own cooking pots and pans. I’d put aside the cash to pay for it. But until that happened, what would have been the point? Her dress still fitted, and there was some wear in it yet, while the younger children are growing up like trees. There’s always one of them needs new clothes every year, even if the rest have hand-me-downs.’ He glared at her triumphantly. ‘And you see that I was right! What would she have done with them if I had given her new things? Run off with them, that’s what, and we would have spent all that money in vain.’