My Celtic did the trick. Subulcus flashed his teeth again, and launched into delighted speech. ‘I know. They stole my pig. I had to run off after them. And there was the Roman man who left this tunic for a present. I like Romans now — that’s why I’m not afraid to talk to you. He was kind. Not like the nasty ones my master talks about.’
I translated this. The optio turned to Marcus with a shrug. ‘This is hopeless, and we’re wasting time. Should we take him back and have him questioned properly by the torturers? I’m sure Libertus could translate for us.’
Marcus shot me an enquiring look. He knows my views on this. Handing a man over to the torturers may be useful in extorting information from his lips, but that is not necessarily the same as getting at the truth. After an hour or two of torment the victim will usually admit to anything at all, simply to make the anguish stop, even if he has to make up the facts they want to hear.
It is never a process which appeals to me, and I particularly loathed the idea of causing pain to a poor simpleton like this, who would hardly comprehend what was required. Better to try to gain his confidence. I shook my head. ‘I think he’s telling us the truth,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t got the wits to tell a lie. You could torture him for hours, to no avail. I don’t think he knows anything at all.’
My patron sighed. ‘Very well, Libertus, question him and see what you can do.’ His tone suggested that it was beneath his dignity to question swineherds in the woods. ‘If you can make no progress, we’ll try flogging him.’ He had spoken in Latin, but the pigman got the drift. His face crumpled and he was near to tears. His filthy fingers were plucking at my sleeve.
‘Don’t let them hurt me,’ he whimpered. ‘I didn’t mean to lose the pig. I wouldn’t have left them for a minute — I don’t usually — but my master sent for me to come up to the house. Then when I got there it was a mistake, and he didn’t want me after all, so I hurried back. When I arrived, I saw some horsemen here. They had one of my pigs and they were driving all the others off into the woods. I ran off after them but they just laughed at me. And then young master came by, and he was cross with me because the pigs were loose. He told me to run up to the round-house right away and fetch the children to help to round them up.’
‘And that is what you did?’
A vigorous nod. ‘I have to do what he says now. My master tells me so. I have to do what all the family says, because my proper family aren’t here.’
It made a kind of sense. Pigs have a special value in the Celtic world. Roast boar is the universal meat at feasts — together with goose and venison — and the animal is sacred to the gods. Those with simple, trusting minds like Subulcus are believed to have a special gift with animals and also to be favourites of the moon goddess, whose caresses have deprived them of their brains. So such a child, though rejected by his parents as a normal son, might well be ‘adopted’ by the tribe and housed and protected in return for tending to the pigs — though in truth, his condition was not much better than a slave’s.
Subulcus was still finishing his tale. ‘I found three of the children from the farm, and brought them back, but when we got here all the pigs were gathered up, and there was a tunic for me in the hut.’ He looked down at my pathetic garment, mired with mud. ‘Young master said it was a present from a Roman man. It’s a nice one, isn’t it? The best I ever had.’
‘This young master — does he often give you gifts?’ I said.
He dropped his eyes. ‘I don’t see him very much. He says I know nothing about anything. But it isn’t true. I know about the pigs. My master says there’s nobody who knows more about pigs than me.’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I murmured soothingly. ‘Tell me, who told you that your master wanted you? I suspect, you see, that you were sent away on purpose, so those bad men could get in and steal your pig.’
He thought about this gravely and then shook his head. ‘It was a big man on a horse. The Roman man. But it can’t have been a trick. He had a big ring with a seal — and a sort of uniform like that.’ He gestured towards Regulus and screwed his grimy face into a frown. ‘I thought that you were him again, at first, but I can see now that you’re not.’
‘It wasn’t one of us,’ I said gently. ‘I don’t think it really was a Roman man at all. I think he was just dressed up as if he was. But you thought he was a soldier, so you did what he said?’
He nodded. ‘I have to do what soldiers tell me — there’ll be trouble else. My master always tells me that. And I mustn’t spit at them or call them names — even if they did come in and take our land away.’
It was as well that Marcus couldn’t understand all this, I thought, or poor Subulcus might find himself enduring a flogging after all, for speaking out against the Empire. I said, ‘Your master tells you that?’
More vigorous nodding. ‘He’s taught me that since I was very young, when he first took me in the family. He says I have a special right to know.’ Subulcus held out his arm, and pointed to the scar. ‘You see this mark? This is where someone hurt me when I was very small — for nothing. I wasn’t fighting him. I was just a baby and was in the way. But that was a naughty Roman man — he killed my proper mother, and he hurt my uncle’s son as well. He wasn’t a kind Roman like the one yesterday. That one left me a new tunic.’ He looked suspiciously at the optio and his men. ‘Are these kind Romans too?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Subulcus. The man who sent you to the farmstead yesterday was not a proper Roman, and he wasn’t kind at all. I think he stole that horse and uniform and ring, and killed the man who owned them, and more than likely murdered my poor slave as well. This soldier found him hanging from a tree.’
Subulcus was struggling with this information. ‘Then he was a bad Roman too? But he was kind to me.’
‘I don’t think he really was,’ I said. I was beginning to despair of ever making the pigman understand. ‘I think he told you to go up to the house, just so that the other men could come and steal your pig. I’d like to know about that tunic, though. I want to know how he got hold of it. It was mine. My attendant brought it to the woods and this soldier. .’ I indicated Regulus, ‘was the kind one — he gave the tunic to a pig-minder who helped him in the woods. Not you. But that’s the man we’re looking for today.’
Subulcus shook his head. ‘I’m the only Subulcus round here,’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘And you can’t give the tunic to another man. It’s mine. Young master told me so. It was waiting for me in my hut. He said the Roman man had left it, and it was for me.’
We were going round in circles. I glanced at Marcus, but of course he couldn’t understand a word. He was chatting to the optio, looking bored and tapping his baton impatiently against his thigh. That was a danger sign. I turned to Subulcus. ‘It’s all right. You can keep the tunic — if you help us as the other pigman did. So tell me, where’s young master now?’
‘Down at the homestead,’ he replied, as though I were the idiotic one.
I explained all this to Marcus, and was about to ask the pigman for directions to the place when we were interrupted by the sound of hooves. Our escort drew their swords at once and whirled round to form a square, ready to protect us if need be. Subulcus darted back towards his pigs. But the men who galloped up to us were not an ambush group, only the outriders from the marching-camp who had accompanied us on our journey here. The leader called out the password of the day, and our would-be defenders sheathed their blades and let them through.
The leading rider dropped from the saddle and presented himself before Marcus and the optio. ‘Your pardon, sirs. We are relieved to find you safe. We were beginning to become alarmed. The sub-officer you left in charge ordered us to come and see what had occurred — we feared you had been ambushed and attacked. He’s marching the rest of the men over here to offer you support — though it will take them a little longer to arrive.’