I saw that Cilla was making a gesture of dissent.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘That makes no sense at all. The commander would have sent a soldier, if he’d sent anyone, and anyway the army knew that I was still alive — they’d seen me when they came to take away the corpse. Yet someone must have sent the boy and given him directions as to where I lived. And no doubt paid him too. But who in Glevum was likely to do that?’
Cilla had picked up the dead chicken by its feet and now held it by its claws, so that the head drooped downward as she made little knife-slits in the dimpled skin. ‘Nobody paid him; he was promised money when he got here,’ she replied, stuffing the chopped herbs into the slits she’d made. ‘That’s why Gwellia gave him a coin before she left. As to who sent him, that’s not a mystery. It was Minimus — at least that’s what he said.’
‘Minimus!’ I almost dropped my own spoon into the stew. ‘It cannot possibly have been.’
She looked surprised. ‘A red-haired slave had sent him, that’s what the urchin said — or, rather, panted out. That is why we never doubted that the message was the truth.’ She stopped with a handful of chopped parsley in mid-air. ‘He might have been talking about Maximus, I suppose, but Minimus was attending you, so we naturally supposed that it was him.’ Her plump face creased into a puzzled frown. ‘Where is he, anyway? Isn’t he with you?’
I gave a despairing groan and shook my head. ‘That is another of the mysteries of today. Minimus is missing — he has disappeared. It seems whoever murdered Lucius has kidnapped him as well. I feared the rebels might have been responsible and I was hoping to find a demand for ransom waiting for me here. But there has been nothing?’ I enquired, knowing with a sinking heart that this was true.
‘Nothing,’ she confirmed. She had turned very pale. ‘Oh, poor Father, what a day you’ve had. That will have upset you, more even than the death. Let me heat some water and prepare hot mead for you. I’m sure that you must need it, and, for once, I might have some myself. The midwife recommends it as a restorative.’
I was instantly flooded with remorse. It was only eight days since the poor girl had given birth, and it was no wonder that she was looking white and strained. In a wealthy Roman household, she might still be lying in, though in humbler houses women rise as soon as they have strength. All the same, I understood why she’d not cooked the fowl or tried to bake the bread and oatcakes on her own — not only was she tired, but some sects will not permit their followers to eat the food prepared by a new mother after a birth until she has undergone a cleansing ritual. Some of the guests invited for tomorrow’s bulla feast might well hold such superstitious views.
I said, ‘Hot mead is a very good idea. You’ve had a shock as well — although a needless one. I will prepare it. I have done it many times.’ Without a murmur, she sat down on the stool. I took the half-stuffed chicken and placed it on the bench, and went to find the jar of mead that the household kept in store for me. Junio has more Roman tastes and likes a jug of wine; there was a full amphora of it leaning by the wall.
She watched me put water on the fire to heat. ‘Poor Minimus, I can’t bear to think of it,’ she said. She had worked beside him at my patron’s for a time and was quite fond of him. ‘I hope that he’s unharmed and you get him safely back — for your sake, father, just as much as his. Otherwise, what will Marcus say when he returns?’
It was almost the first thing that everyone had said, and something which I did not want to contemplate. I knew exactly how my patron would react. He would be furious and then demand the slave price, which would be very high. Both of those pages were very highly trained and worth a great deal more than I could possibly afford. And he might demand the right to restitution too — four times the value was the usual amount. My hand was trembling as I poured the mead into a jug and added a scoop of honey to the mix.
‘I wish I knew where I could start to look for him,’ I said.
‘You don’t suppose that Minimus really sent that messenger? He didn’t see the pie-seller attacked and thought that it was you? It might have looked quite like you from a distance, I suppose. The pie-seller was wearing your old tunic, after all. If Minimus had been absent — on an errand, let us say — and from a distance witnessed the assault, wouldn’t he have tried to send a message home and set off somewhere to find help himself? He might be at your workshop with a medicus right now!’
This was an attractive theory, and for a moment I was tempted to agree, but an instant’s contemplation made me shake my head. ‘Minimus would have known me from the pie-seller, however far away he might have been. Besides, if he thought he’d seen me set upon and hurt, he would have come running to look after me and he would soon have realized that it was Lucius.’
She was obliged to recognize the truth of this and nodded dismally. ‘And if he thought it fatal, he would have brought the news himself.’ But she did not give up. She was determined to help me think this through. ‘Perhaps it was someone else who looked into the shop? Some customer who didn’t know you very well, but saw the corpse and thought that it was you? Though the pie-seller is very distinctive isn’t he — with a scarred face and only one good eye?’
I considered her suggestion. It was a hopeful one. Perhaps something of the kind was possible. Lucius had been lying face down on the floor, and anyone who glimpsed him would not have seen his face. But then I saw the truth and shook my head again. ‘That is an interesting idea, but there’s a flaw in it, I fear. The murderer had doused the fire and lights and put the shutters up. The whole shop was in darkness. I nearly fell over Lucius myself. No mere passing customer could have seen that he was there.’ I mixed the water with the honeyed mead and poured some out for her.
She sipped it thoughtfully. ‘Yet someone red-haired sent that messenger. Who was it, if it wasn’t Minimus? It must have been someone who wanted to assist — that is hardly likely to be a rebel, you would think.’
‘Dear Jupiter!’ I jumped upright, almost oversetting the mead jug in my haste. ‘Glypto’s green man was talking to a boy — an urchin-boy at that. I thought at first the green man was the murderer, but perhaps I was mistaken, after all, and he’s the one that sent the messenger.’
‘Green man?’ Cilla was looking at me with alarm, as though it was my turn to have lost my wits.
‘I’ll explain it later,’ I assured her. ‘Though I’m not sure exactly what it means myself. In the meantime, this might be important in finding Minimus. What was he like — this urchin who brought the message here? What about his speech?’ I was still remembering the bandits in the woods — pockets of rebels from the western areas who had never really given up the fight — their accents would be quite distinct.
Cilla looked surprised. ‘He was so out of breath that it was hard to tell. Let me remember what he sounded like.’ She had a natural aptitude for mimicry and she used it now to imitate the voice — bad Latin with a coarse, uneducated twang — very much as Glypto had described. ‘“I had a. . dreadful business. . finding where to come. I. . wouldn’t have agreed if I. . had known how far it was. .” A little bit like that.’
I grinned. She loved the opportunity to tell a tale like this, and the hot mead was clearly loosening her tongue. I crouched down beside her and refilled her beaker again. ‘And what did he look like?’
She scarcely needed the encouragement. ‘He was ragged, as I told you, very small and thin and rather in want of a visit to the baths. Wore a brownish tunic and a sacking cloak, though I noticed he had a pair of stout boots on his feet. His hair was short and curly, and I think that it was brown, though it might have just been muddy, like the rest of him.’