She crept across the gravel that separated the last flowerbed from the house, and tried to peer round the shutters of a side window. Everything inside was dark. The next window was the same, and the third. It did not seem right. There should have been servants moving about. Lamps being lit.
When she returned, the Medicus had laid the gatekeeper on his side. She whispered, ‘There is nobody there. Will he live?’
‘I think so. Are you sure?’
‘No. I cannot see through walls. Do you want to go in?’
‘Not yet.’
When he did not suggest anything else, she said, ‘What is happening?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘I am not going to stand here all night. What are this Calvus and Stilo looking for?’
‘Money.’
‘There is plenty of money to steal back in Arelate,’ she pointed out. ‘Why come here?’
‘They’d already stolen it,’ he said. ‘Or rather, Severus stole it for them.’
This did not make a great deal of sense, but he seemed to have lost interest in explaining. He was pointing to the shapes of what must be farm buildings looming on the far side of the garden. ‘I thought I heard something over there.’
‘Walk through the flowers,’ she told him. ‘Not on the path.’
‘What?’
‘Otherwise you might as well shout hello, here we come.’
The Medicus followed her, lifting the crutches, plunging them down through the plants and swinging his feet to land heavily further forward. There would be a fine mess in the morning, and it would be obvious who had made it.
The gate that led through the garden wall to the farmyard had been left open. Trying to peer ahead without being seen, she could make out an empty cart and the complicated shape of some sort of wooden harvesting machine under a shelter on the far side. She held her breath as something moved in the machinery, then the sleek black shape of a cat jumped down into the yard and melted away into the shadows. Somewhere, an animal snorted and stamped.
The Medicus was about to go through the gateway when there was a muffled burst of laughter from inside one of the buildings that opened on to the yard. Tilla pulled at his tunic to drag him back. ‘Was that what you heard?’
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘That’s just the slaves in the bunkhouse.’
The slaves did not sound as though they knew there were murderers about. Nor did they yet know that there was another pair of intruders sneaking around the yard in the dark. Once they found out, they would have no trouble catching the one on crutches and beating him up in the name of the Senator.
‘This is not a good idea,’ she whispered.
‘I know,’ he agreed, ‘but I haven’t got any others.’
‘If we do find those men, what are we going to do?’
‘I’m glad you said “we”.’
‘I have to. You are not much use on your own.’ She pushed past him and slipped in through the gateway. ‘Stay there.’
She heard the crutches tap on the cobbles as he hissed, ‘Wait for me!’
She was waving a hand to tell him to stay where he was when she heard the scream. Then a man’s voice. Then some sort of muffled thump.
‘In that building over there.’ She jumped when she realized that the Medicus had moved close enough to whisper in her ear without her noticing.
After what seemed an age keeping lookout with her back against the warm stone of the building while the Medicus peered through a gap by the door hinge, Tilla began to wonder if they had been mistaken. The sounds she could make out from inside the building sounded more like work than murder. The sharp crunch and rattle of earth being dug and shovelled away. Indistinct murmurs of conversation. Then a hollow clunk as if something were being smashed, the slosh of liquid and, seconds later, the rich smell of grape juice. This must be the estate winery.
Beside her, the Medicus crouched down, trying to get a better view.
She slid down the wall to breathe in his ear, ‘What can you see?’
He did not seem to have heard. When she repeated the question he took her arm, pointed to the narrow gap between the door and the wall and eased himself back to his feet.
Tilla closed one eye and pressed her face against the gap. For a moment she could make no sense of what she was looking at. She had expected an ordered winery like the one back at the Medicus’ house: rows of buried jars brimming with sparkling foam. Instead she was watching an unlikely bunch of people deliberately and silently wrecking the place. As far as she could make out in the lamplight, jars had been dug up and smashed. Piles of earth and broken pottery had been dumped against the walls and inside the juice vats. The wreckers, several men and a bedraggled woman with smeared make-up and short, strangely coloured hair, were squelching about in a quagmire of mud mixed with fermenting juice. It was hard to see why they were doing it, since they did not seem to be enjoying themselves. As she watched, one of the men picked up his shovel and deliberately shattered the shoulder of the closest jar. The woman stepped aside to avoid the juice that was forming a glistening pool around her feet and glanced towards the door. For a moment Tilla thought she had sensed there was someone watching her. Then she realized the woman was looking at something inside the winery.
‘Who said you could take a rest?’ The voice was familiar, and alarmingly close.
Tilla grabbed the nearest part of the Medicus, which turned out to be his knee. She was about to whisper, ‘Stilo!’ when the woman aimed her shovel at the next jar, missed, slipped in the mud and landed on her backside. As the woman put her head in her hands and began to sob, something moved and blocked Tilla’s line of vision — but not before she had recognized the one who called himself Calvus stepping forward across the mud.
The slap and the order to shut up were followed by a third, oddly strangled-sounding voice: a girl, who seemed to be standing just behind the door where Tilla was listening. ‘Please!’ she whimpered. ‘Please, just do what they want!’
‘I can’t!’ wailed the woman.
‘You can!’ insisted the girl.
Tilla, still unable to see, straightened up. From inside the winery she heard Calvus say, ‘All right. Put your shovel down and get back in the corner. You — yes, you — move across and take over.’
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ It was a thin, officious voice.
‘No,’ said Stilo. ‘Shut up and dig.’
‘Only it would be more efficient if we — ’
His suggestion was drowned by a squeal of pain from close by the door. Tilla winced.
‘See?’ said Stilo. ‘That’s what happens when you make suggestions. Just find the money. Then nobody gets hurt.’
Tilla felt the warmth of the Medicus’ breath on her cheek. ‘They’ve already got the steward in there,’ he whispered. ‘Go across to the bunkhouse, find out who’s in charge and get them to send a couple of sensible men into town to tell Fuscus what’s going on, and fetch Probus.’
‘Will they send help?’
‘I doubt they’ll get here in time. Tell the rest of the men to round up every sort of weapon they can think of — there should be plenty of scythes and things in the barns — and come over here and surround the exit to the building without making any noise.’
‘What if the slaves are all locked in for the night?’
‘You’ll think of something.’
‘What are you going to do?’
The Medicus straightened his crutches and hitched himself forward. ‘I’m going in for a chat with our so-called investigators,’ he said.
81
Ruso had intended to wait until the farm slaves were armed and in position before making a move, but a long wait followed by a reverberating crash loud enough to wake the spirit of Severus and all the Senator’s illustrious ancestors told him that the slaves had indeed been locked in, and that Tilla had thought of something.