‘Remove the pavement?’ He sounded incredulous. Then he added, piteously, ‘Oh, great Minerva! Does Marcus know of this?’
I did not dare to answer him. Aulus was listening, for one thing, and I have always been a clumsy liar. Instead I favoured him with a pitying look. ‘Really, Andretha, do you need to ask? You know that I am working on Marcus’ behalf.’
He was not convinced, I saw it, but he was in a quandary. If he guessed wrong, whichever choice he made, there was likely to be trouble. And Andretha was in enough trouble already. Even if Rufus was thrown to the bears, it was not certain that Andretha would escape execution. There was still that question of household negligence. To say nothing of shortfalls in the accounts.
In the end he chose the lesser of two evils. ‘I suppose, since you come from Marcus, you must be allowed to do as you please. But let it be on your own head if Marcus is displeased.’ His hands fluttered like butterflies.
I nodded. It would be on my own head, with a vengeance, I thought, if we dug up the pavement and found nothing there. However, this was not a time to vacillate.
‘Let me have Aulus,’ I said, briskly. ‘He is strong. And two or three of the garden slaves. I need men who are handy with a spade.’
Andretha rounded up the slaves and followed me to the librarium, the lump in his thin throat moving up and down so nervously that he reminded me of a gulping frog. Though if anyone had cause to be nervous, I reflected, it was me. Marcus was buying the villa, and he would be less than delighted to find his librarium mosaic dug up and spoiled before he had even taken possession.
The door had been left unlocked after Rufus’ departure, and as I walked into the gloomy little room, my confidence returned. Why had it not occurred to me before? Without the door open, there was hardly enough light to see the mosaic, and with the door ajar the room was surely too chilly to sit in. No one, surely, would choose to have a pavement laid in a poky back room like this.
I gave the sign to Aulus, and he lifted his adze. I saw Junio flinch.
‘First we spend a day digging the floor over to make it even, and then another bringing in barrows of earth to lay a good foundation for the pavement, and no sooner is it finished than we start digging it all up again,’ one of the land-slaves grumbled, under his breath. ‘What does he hope to find?’
I did not answer him. If I was right, he would discover soon enough,
In fact, the mosaic was easier to lift than I had feared. It had been laid on smooth cement-plaster, stuck to a piece of coarse linen, and because it had been in place only a few weeks, once the plaster was lifted it came away in large pieces, instead of our having to move it tile by tile. After an hour or two the waiting barrows in the courtyard were full of jagged sections of pavement, and the trodden earth floor was once again revealed.
Even then we managed to start at the wrong end of the room. It was not until we had dug it over more than halfway, and I was beginning to fear that I had been mistaken, that Aulus’ spade suddenly hit something solid, but soft.
He bent forward casually to see what he had struck, turned pale and rushed out into the courtyard, where I could see him making a sudden and unintentional libation before the little god by the sundial. A very personal oblation, with cabbage in it, I fancy.
What he had glimpsed was not a pleasant sight, admittedly, even to those well acquainted with death. It had been a woman, we found when we disinterred it further. A tallish woman in a russet gown, that much was still clear, with her hands bound and her throat slit, almost severing her head from her body. She had been dead for weeks.
It was Andretha who first recognised the ring. We slid it off the decomposing finger and I took it to the women’s quarters. Faustina, red-eyed and pale, glanced at it without interest.
‘I don’t know,’ she said dully, when I asked her whose it was. ‘I think it was Regina’s. Where did you find it?’
‘She was wearing it,’ I said softly. ‘We have found her, I think, under the librarium pavement.’ I was afraid I would distress her further, but Faustina had no tears left to shed for Crassus’ unhappy wife.
‘Have you seen Rufus?’ she implored.
I shook my head.
‘What will become of him?’
She did not really expect me to reply. She knew the answer better than I did. In her dreams she had witnessed him being fed to the wild animals a dozen times already.
‘Is there any hope?’
‘Only,’ I said gently, ‘if I can find some connection with this earlier murder. Rufus has not confessed to that.’
She dropped her head into her hands. ‘Then we are back where we began. We are all under suspicion. We shall all die.’
‘Not if I can find the killer. Are you willing to come and look? Tell me if this was Regina? You knew her better than anyone in the villa. I warn you, it will be an ordeal — especially if you were attached to the lady.’
She looked up. ‘I was attached to her. Regina was kind to me.’
‘She has been dead a long time.’
Faustina swallowed hard. ‘Poisoned?’
I shook my head. ‘Her throat is cut.’
She gulped. ‘Poor lady. That is a brutal death. I hope she did not suffer long. Aconite is quick, at least. She used to say it was the way to die. “A feeling of giddiness and heat, a dryness in the mouth, slurred speech — almost like being drunk. If you are unlucky, vomiting and bleeding from the mouth. But often, little time for pain. There are worse deaths.” Poor, poor Regina. She found a worse one, certainly.’
‘And a worse one to see,’ I said.
She sighed. ‘I will come, all the same, for Rufus’ sake. At least you gave me a choice.’ She got to her feet and gave me a wan smile. ‘Willing or not, I would have had to come, if Crassus ordered me.’ She followed me resolutely out of the building, and back into the courtyard.
They had moved the body by this time. I will spare you unnecessary horrors — the maggots, the smell, the decomposing flesh. Faustina, however, was spared none of them. I led her around to windward and she looked down at the corpse.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, with a shudder. ‘It might be Regina. Might have been Regina. It is hard to tell. That is rather like her hair. Yes, look — there is a comb, I put it into her hair myself. I do not recognise the veil, it seems to have been russet — like a bride’s.’ And then at last, she began to weep, and Andretha led her away.
‘“She went away triumphant”,’ I quoted softly. ‘“We have not seen her since.” But you did see her, Aulus. That night when you looked out of the gatehouse, and saw her in a man’s arms. Only he was not embracing her. She was already dead. He was carrying her here, to bury her secretly, where the slaves would cover her with earth and she would be safely hidden by the pavement. While you were opening the gate, he carried her up the other path, to the nymphaeum, and brought her in through the back of the house. It was a risk, but he had to take it. Hard work, but he was strong.’
‘Daedalus killed her?’ Junio said. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Perhaps he tired of her,’ Aulus suggested, ‘and she threatened to betray their courtship to Germanicus. She could be persistent, as we know, in seeking a husband. If Daedalus was seeing her without his master’s permission, there would be an end of his manumission. A free woman, and his master’s lady once! So, you think he killed her?’
‘If it was Daedalus you saw that night. You are sure it was?’
‘I am sure it was Daedalus who went out earlier, and he took her food and gifts at other times. I am sure of that.’
‘And now Daedalus himself is dead,’ Andretha said. ‘We buried him in the slave pit two days ago.’ He gave a helpless sob, raising his arms like a praying priest. ‘I thought this business was over when Rufus confessed. I even thought I might have been reprieved. But now we have another murder here. Only a woman, but she was freeborn. I have lost Crassus’ treasure. .’ He saw the startled faces. ‘Yes — that has disappeared. And now I’ve lost Paulus. It goes from bad to worse. I will be put to the sword, I know it.’