‘And what happened to the messenger? I owe him something for his services.’ I forced myself to look her in the face.
‘I paid the boy what you had promised him,’ she said with dignity. ‘Two sesterces. I would have paid twice that to learn where Radix is.’
I mentally acknowledged the urchin for his ingenuity. It was a great deal more than I had undertaken for, of course, but I did not tell her that. This poor woman had sufficient woes. ‘I fear you will not think so, when you hear the truth.’
The grey eyes clouded. ‘Not the prison, then? I feared that the aediles might have marched him off, for giving short-weight coin or something of the kind. It has been known before when someone passed it off on him. But it is more than that — I see it in your face. There’s been an accident? Or worse — someone has attacked him and he is lying hurt? I know there are rumours of rebel bandits in the southern woods.’ Her eyes still searched my face. ‘Dear Jove! Worse still? Don’t tell me he is dead!’
I knew that I was witnessing the death of hope. I saw it written in those troubling grey eyes.
I shall not forget, until I die, the dawning pain in them as I said, as gently as I could, ‘I wish that I could tell you otherwise.’
Twenty-Two
She was magnificent in grief; I must acknowledge that. No wealthy Roman matron could have been more dignified. There was no screaming or shrieking or beating of the breast; only a sudden stiffening and stillness of her form, and one long juddering painful sigh to betray how deeply the news affected her. I could see that there were glinting tears behind her eyes, but she did not let them fall, though she pressed her lips together to stop them quivering.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, sounding as helpless as I felt.
She didn’t answer, just stood there staring at her roughened hands. Then, in a tiny voice that did not seem to come from her at all, she asked, ‘What killed him?’
‘He was murdered — strangled — set on in the street.’ What else could I say? She would see him soon enough, and there was no softening the blow. ‘I have no idea who murdered him, or why.’ Then, after a moment, ‘I only know it wasn’t me, or mine.’
She dragged her gaze from somewhere centuries away and focused it on me. ‘I didn’t think it was.’ Suddenly her face was tired and old, and all the beauty had gone out of it. ‘Where is he? What have they done with him?’ she said.
‘He was dragged into my workshop, and I found him there today. We have covered him and lit some candles round his head-’
She cut me off abruptly. ‘Take me there and let me see,’ she said.
I took her the few steps to my counter and called out for Maximus. The little red-haired slave-boy was there at once, rushing to open the workshop door for me. When he saw the woman at my side, he gaped.
‘This is the turnip-seller’s wife,’ I said, and stood back to let her in. The tapers at the head and foot were both alight, I saw, and the flame on the altar was also burning bright, but there’d been no attempt to light the workshop fire, perhaps for fear of heightening the pervasive smell, of which I was now painfully aware. She must have smelt it too, because she made a little noise and clapped both hands around her nose and mouth. However, she recovered instantly and strode across to where the body was.
Junio had moved over from the window space and would have greeted her, but she scarcely looked at him. She just said bluntly, ‘May I look at him?’
I motioned to Maximus to move aside the cloak, expecting that when she saw the purpled and distorted face she would be much distressed, and as soon as she had glimpsed it, I made a sign to Maximus to cover it again. But as he moved to do so, she prevented him. She pushed back her hood, revealing a knotted plait of greying hair, and knelt beside her husband for a moment silently. Then, bending forward, she kissed that tortured brow. Only then did she rise and allow Maximus to put the birrus back.
‘I will make arrangements to have the body moved,’ she said in a voice that trembled on the brink of tears. ‘As soon as possible. Thank you for doing what you could for him.’
Maximus was unable to disguise his sheer relief at this. He actually smiled, though he recalled himself at once.
Junio hastened to ask the widow courteously, ‘Will you be able to arrange the rest yourself — find someone to provide a proper bier and herbs and everything? And what about a pyre? Our slave could assist you by running messages.’
She looked at him a moment as if he’d been speaking Greek or some other language which she didn’t understand. ‘I will arrange to have him taken home and given burial. There will be no pyre. Our family is Celtic and prefers the ancient ways. And as for the offer of your slave, there is no need for that. His brother and my son will help me bury him, and my two daughters will pick the herbs for me and help me put him in a winding sheet. We’ll lay him in the ancestral grave-site just outside the farm, where his parents and our dead babies lie — that is what he would have wanted, I am sure — and where I expect to join him, in my turn, very soon.’
There was an awkward silence. She would not welcome comfort — she was a stranger here — but it was hard to deal with shock and grief so deeply felt. I said at last, ‘Then one of us will stay here till your family comes.’
It shook her into action. She said, in the gruff and businesslike tone she had used when we first met, ‘I won’t be very long — my son came into town today to help me search for him. Well, I have found him now. I’ll send him and his uncle with a shutter board to carry him away. I’m sure my brother-in-law will find room on his cart and take it home for me.’ She pulled the hood up round her head again and made towards the door. ‘Thank you, citizens. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused to you. I will have your birrus laundered and returned to you, of course.’
She made me feel so helpless that I spread my hands. ‘If there is anything whatever that we can do for you. .’
She looked at me, the grey eyes glinting in the shadows of the hood. ‘You can find his killer, citizen. Oh, I have heard of you. You have a reputation for solving mysteries, so that even His Excellence — with all the resources at his personal command — relies on the pavement-maker for advice. Everyone in Glevum is aware of that. Perhaps that’s why the killer left the body here — simply to taunt you that you could not solve a crime left on your own doorstep, quite literally so.’ She raised her roughened hands. ‘By all the ancient gods of stone and tree, prove him wrong, citizen, and tell me who did this.’
I muttered something about trying to do that anyway, because I wanted to find out on my own account.
She shook her head. ‘Simply trying isn’t good enough. Promise you’ll succeed. Tell me who would want to kill an honest, humble man like my poor husband there, who never did a bad deed in life and never had a single enemy.’ Her voice was trembling, but with anger now, not grief. ‘You tell me who it is and I’ll go on from there. I won’t just drag him before the justices — being thrown to the beasts is far too good for him — I’ll call curses on his head that will make him writhe in this world and the next. So, if you really want to help me, citizen, that’s what you can do. Find out who the killer is and let me know his name.’
I could hardly promise that, but I reiterated that I’d do my best.
She nodded abruptly. ‘Then I look forward to your answer. Till then, good afternoon. I will send the shutter to you as soon as possible.’
She had reached the door by now. Maximus scuttled to escort her from the room, but at the threshold she turned back to me. ‘And when you find out anything, make sure you send me word. Any market stallholder will tell you where I live.’ And, this time, she was gone.