‘You went to talk to him?’
He nodded. ‘We got to the workshop as quickly as we could, but there was no one there — and no sign of any struggle or blood or anything. The fire was still alight, and there were some snuffed-out tapers on the floor. The mistress was terribly upset to find no sign of life and sent me to the tannery to enquire if anyone there had any news of you.’
I grinned, thinking of my neighbour’s love of gossiping. ‘Which no doubt they did?’
The dark hood nodded up and down again. ‘The tanner was very anxious, master, when he heard you might be hurt, and very keen to help us when he realized that you weren’t. He even left his shop and came round to reassure the mistress personally. I’m glad he did. She would have doubted the message unless she heard it from his lips: that he’d seen you only an hour or so before and you seemed in perfect health. He saw you set off into town with some turnips in a bag.’
My turn to nod. So the tanner had been watching my departure from the shop. I was glad that Radixrapum had escaped by then and taken Pedronius’s pavement safely out of sight. ‘Did he say anything about an army cart?’
There was a short pause as Kurso skirted a little patch of mud, and then he said slowly, ‘That was true, then? We wondered about that. He assumed there’d been some kind of accident — he’d seen the army cart drive up and take something away. He thought it was a body, but he couldn’t tell us more — except that it wasn’t you. He seemed to hope that we’d enlighten him, but, of course, we couldn’t — we did not know ourselves.’ He gazed enquiringly at me, but he said no more.
I answered the question that he had not dared to ask. ‘There was a corpse,’ I told him, ‘but it was just a street-vendor who used to sell me pies.’ I sent up a mental apology to poor Lucius for that ‘just’, but I wanted Kurso to be reassured. I did not tell him either that it was no accident. Here in the dark there was enough to worry him. ‘He died outside the shop. I imagine that’s what made someone send that messenger to you — though I don’t know who did that. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t Minimus.’
‘From his description, we assumed it was. A red-headed slave. Who else could it have been? It wasn’t Maximus. He turned up later on, with the young master, and they were just as mystified as we were by it all-’ He broke off as the silence of the night was broken by the distant howling of a wolf. Kurso huddled a little closer to my side and slowed to crawling pace.
‘Keep walking,’ I told him. ‘And keep your voice up too. They are said to be just as nervous of us as we are of them. Besides, they’re afraid of fire and we have a torch.’ I tried to pretend that I believed that, but I doubted every word, and when the torchlight shone upon a pile of broken branches near the path, tied into little bundles with a cord — somebody’s pile of kindling, by the look of it — I selected two stout ones that were longer than the rest and handed one to him. ‘And now we’re armed as well,’ I said.
He didn’t answer. He was rooted to the spot. The courage from the mead had quite deserted him. But it was dangerous to linger. I took the torch and strode away from him, knowing that he would have to follow me or find himself benighted on the path. It was unkind — Kurso was such a nervous creature anyway — but it was the only way that I could think of to keep him on the move.
After a moment, he trotted after me, and I observed in a deliberately loud and ordinary tone, as if there’d been no interruption in our talk, ‘Junio turned up at my workshop after you?’
He nodded. ‘We felt a bit foolish when the tanner left, not knowing what to do. But then the young master came along, trying to find you to walk home with you.’
‘Why was that?’ I wondered. ‘I was not expecting him.’
‘He and Maximus were struggling with the handcart,’ Kurso said. ‘They had a huge heap of purchases to manage — lots of food and metal trinkets, to say nothing of the lamb — and it was obviously going to be much harder when they got out of town. They were hoping you would come along and help to steady it.’ It came out in a rush, but it had done the trick. He was thinking about the story, not the dangers of the night. ‘Of course, they were surprised to find us there, but we told them what had happened, and then they understood. We waited a bit longer, but you didn’t come, and it was getting dark. .’ He tailed off unhappily.
I said, to change the subject to happier things, ‘And you thought you’d better give me up and set off home again?’
He gave me a sideways, apologetic look, as if I had accused him of deserting me. ‘We did try to find you before we left the town — we even asked the sentry on the gate if he had seen you recently. But no one had seen you on the road at all.’
‘I didn’t come that way — and I hired a gig,’ I said. ‘I can see why you were worried.’
‘The mistress was beginning to wonder if the messenger was right, and someone had indeed attacked you after the tanner had seen you leave the shop! But Junio persuaded us that this could not be true — the messenger would never have got to us in time, not even if he’d come here on a horse.’
‘Which he clearly hadn’t, from what you say of him.’ I frowned. The more I thought about that messenger, the more of a mystery he seemed to be. ‘And he didn’t give you any clue as to who might have sent him, or where he heard the story that I’d been set upon? Even though you went all the way to Glevum in his company?’
Kurso shook his head. ‘Oh, we did not do that. He left us almost as soon as we set off — he could move much faster than the mistress could and he was wanted back, he said. We hadn’t got as far as this when he ran off again, and we did not see him after that. I’m sorry, master, I can’t tell you more.’
So there might have been a horse or an accomplice in the woods, I thought, but then I shook my head. Why should I suppose that there was something sinister? I had never been set upon at all — it had been Lucius. Yet why should someone have supposed that it was me? And why, by all the gods, should a green man — or anybody else — care enough to alert my family?
Kurso saw the shaken head. ‘What is it, master? Something startled you?’ He stiffened and then added in a frightened whisper. ‘I can hear a noise myself.’
I was about to assure him that there was nothing of the kind when I realized he was right. There was a faint sound of voices and a rumbling sound — and it was getting nearer all the time. I tightened my grasp upon my makeshift staff, and said, with more conviction than I felt, ‘Only a farmer looking for his sheep. .’ I trailed off as I heard a distant thump, and the sound of cursing drifted through the night.
‘What is it, master?’ Kurso’s voice was shrill. ‘Do you think it could be the rebels after all?’
‘I don’t believe so.’ I found that I was grinning out of pure relief. ‘Listen!’
In the distant darkness a familiar voice was saying very loudly, ‘To Dis with this handcart! It’s impossible. Where has Kurso got to with the light?’
Twelve
It took us a little time to reach them even then, and what a reception I received when we arrived! I might have been a hero returning from the wars, the way that Junio and Maximus behaved. They dropped the handcart as quickly as they could, grinning like a pair of idiots, and hastened over — my son to clap my shoulder heartily and the slave to fall on one knee and kiss my hand. But my wife seemed less delighted to find me safe and well. She shouldered past the pair of them, and — far from giving me a fond embrace — pummelled against my chest with both her fists.
‘Libertus! Husband! How could you worry me so much! First I thought that you were dead, and then you were missing-’ She broke off, and I recognized that she was in tears and this was the anger of extreme relief.