The man made a lugubrious face at her. ‘I am aware of that. This citizen wants to have a word with you.’
‘With me?’
‘In private!’ I added, since he showed no signs of going.
‘Very well. In private.’ He nodded to the girl. ‘But remember, if you need me, I shall be right outside.’ He turned, and I heard him clumping down the stairs. I wondered what he thought I might do to her and how he imagined he could stop me if I tried — he was so furtive and ineffectual I could have felled him with a blow.
The slave girl was still standing and I motioned her to sit. ‘It concerns a girl who came here, a little while ago, wanting to join the dancing troupe,’ I said. ‘A girl in a plaid dress with yellow-greenish plaits. I think she may have somehow obtained a tunic from someone when she came. It occurs to me that, since you are concerned with costumes, you might know if that’s true.’
I had come to the right person, that was evident. Her face had turned the colour of her handiwork, and she refused to meet my eyes. ‘There has been trouble, has there? Someone has complained?’ She picked up her bone needle and began to stitch again. ‘I only meant it kindly — I was sorry for the girl. The lady who manages the dancers was so unkind to her.’
‘You heard the conversation?’
‘I could hardly fail to hear. The girls were downstairs, most of them, rehearsing in the barn. Grandad — that’s what they call him — was down there with the drum: he takes them through their stretches and their movements every day otherwise they stiffen up and lose the knack of it.’
I laughed. ‘So Grandmother was up here, with just you and the girl?’
There was the faint hint of what might have been a smile. ‘They don’t call her Grandma — they call her the Wardress. But otherwise you’re right. The girl came asking, and they showed her up, and the Wardress took her behind the curtain at the end — she does that sometimes to look at applicants. Wants to see their legs and figures, so she makes them strip.’
‘And that is what she did?’
‘I imagine so — though it was obvious there wasn’t any point. Certainly the girl took off her dress. I could hear her babbling. Full of hope she was — she’d heard some fellow talking in the town, about how anyone could get a place to entertain the court if they only had the money to bribe him for the chance. She thought perhaps the Wardress would agree to do the same, and let her join the dancers if she paid us well enough. Well, of course, the Wardress simply laughed at her. Said that she had legs like tree trunks, a bottom like a tub, and a face to frighten horses. It was horribly unkind. And when she’d done it she just went downstairs to see her precious dancers, and left the girl alone. In floods and floods of tears she was when I went in to her. I let her have the tunic to cheer her up a bit.’
‘You gave her a tunic? You had authority for that?’
She fiddled with her needle. ‘Well. . not exactly gave it. I have to keep accounts. She had all this money. .’ The flame of her cheeks was now much brighter than the silk. ‘She could afford it — and it helped us both. It gave her a bit of hope — the man had told her to come back when she’d found a proper outfit and a substantial bribe, which was probably sarcastic, but she took him at his word — and it helped me to put a bit aside towards my freedom price, though obviously I had to put a little in the kitty for the cloth. And the tunic wasn’t wanted — it was torn across the back. The Wardress had already said it was no use to us, and was talking about unpicking it and using it for trim.’
‘So you sold a torn tunic for an aureus?’ I said. ‘And you want me to believe that was a kindly act? Not taking advantage of a rather simple girl?’
She looked at me helplessly. ‘You know about the gold? Well, in that case you’ll realise that I did look after her. She was carrying it just tied up in her shawl-end — did you know? Five gold pieces and she carries it like that — simply asking to lose it or be set upon and robbed.’
‘So you showed her how to hide the money in her hem?’
She nodded, with a sigh. ‘Then she wouldn’t put the plaid dress on again, of course! Insisted on wearing the tunic right away, and going straight to the forum to try to find the man. I had to help her make a proper bundle out of it — gave her a piece of old sack from the pile.’ She raised her eyes to look sorrowfully at me. ‘But the coins were stolen, that’s what you’re telling me? So I’ll have to give it back? I suppose I’m not surprised — she said they were her uncle’s legacy, but I should have known they weren’t.’
‘There is more truth in her story than you might suppose. If the coins were stolen it was not by her. Though her family might have a case against you, I suppose, for charging her so highly for what were damaged goods. A bargain made by someone who can be proved to be a simpleton has no validity in law.’
She looked abashed. ‘It wasn’t only the tunic that I gave her. I felt a bit guilty about it afterwards, and when she came back, a little later on, I found her somewhere she could sleep and gave her food as well.’
‘She came back here again?’ This was important news. I had been wondering what had happened to the girl after she left here with her tunic, and before she was seen in the morning talking to Aulus at the gate. ‘Back here?’ I said again.
‘That’s right, citizen. She hadn’t found the man. He’d left when she got there and he wasn’t coming back — at least that’s what was being rumoured in the town. She was awfully disappointed. She’d even been trying to find out where he lived. I was here alone by that time — the troupe had gone out to perform at the vinters’ guild that night — so I looked after her. They’d left some bread and meat for me, and I gave her some of that. And I found a warm spot in the rehearsal barn for her — I knew that no one would go in there again that night.’
‘So she didn’t find him?’ An awful possibility had occurred to me — that Hirsius might have been the murderer. After all, the rumour was that she had gone away with an entertainment troupe — the sort of thing that Hirsius was signing up in town — and she had been actively looking for him earlier that day. But now it seemed that she had not caught up with him. ‘Not at all?’
‘Not that night anyway. She was quite upset, but very grateful that I didn’t let her down. She was terrified that somebody was going to send her home. She was black and blue with bruises — I saw them before she put on the tunic. She said her father beat her, and it looked as though he had — that’s why she was so keen to find the man she was looking for. He was staying at some villa, I don’t know where it was — somewhere on the western side of town, I think. Anyway, the girl had found out where it was. She was going to go and find him first thing the next day — and I suppose she did, because when I came down after dawn I found that she had gone.’
‘Wait a minute!’ There was one detail of this story which I found startling. ‘Did you say the western side of town? Out across the river? You are sure of that?’ Marcus’s villa was firmly to the south, and a little east of here, if anything.
She made a face. ‘I don’t know for myself. I met a street musician the next day who told me that — I asked him if he had heard about the fellow taking bribes, because I was concerned about the girl. I knew that lots of street performers had been paying him, so I thought there was a fair chance that he’d know.’
‘And did he?’
A rueful smile. ‘It seems that he had given the man a hefty bribe himself, but it had got him nowhere. All the local acts were up in arms, he said, and were thinking of going out to the villa to confront him face to face, but by that time the fellow had moved on in any case. He’d been seen at the west gate, riding into town, to catch up with the party that had already gone — the acts that were selected, and a sort of luggage cart. They’d gone round the outside of the town, of course, being wheeled transport, but he’d ridden through, and several people had shouted after him.’