'The two veterans?'
He shrugged. 'According to a slave, Secundus was seen just before dawn walking down to the baths; the General had given him some task. He went in, and the other must have joined him later, but how they were killed so easily, so quietly, I don't know. Now, mistress, I really must go.'
The physician hurried back towards the library, and Claudia went searching for Polybius and Oceanus. She found them sitting on some steps in the kitchen courtyard, surrounded by servants from the sculleries and nearby stables. Polybius was trying to distract them. In the centre of the courtyard was a fountain, the water spout in the shape of a sheaf of corn tied to the tail of a fleeing fox carved out of marble. Polybius was describing the rites of the great festival in Rome when a fox, with burning brushwood attached to its tail, was released at the foot of the Aventine Hill.
'I think the origins,' Polybius declared, who fancied himself as something of a teacher, 'dated from the time when a fox was caught raiding a hen coop. Apparently it was covered in straw and set alight, but escaped with only its tail burning. The sacrifice brought great luck, so ever since then…'
He paused as he noticed Claudia, excused himself, rose and hurried towards her, Oceanus stumbling behind. The servants protested that his story wasn't finished, and Polybius shouted over his shoulder that he would tell them the rest one day. Claudia took them both over to a shadowed corner of the courtyard.
'Before you ask,' Polybius smiled, i snouted like any good little pig for whatever bit of news I could find.' He gestured back towards the kitchen, where the servants, disappointed that his story hadn't been finished, were filing back to their duties. 'It was a happy household. Aurelian ran it with a rod of iron, but he was very kind and generous. The servants loved him. There were many visitors here. Apparently the old general doted on his son and his memoirs, whilst Lady Urbana and Cassia were devoted to their own good causes and the cult of a woman called…' He closed his eyes, screwing up his face.
'The Magdalene.'
'Ah yes,' Polybius opened his eyes, 'the Magdalene.' 'How is Murranus?' Oceanus asked. 'There's a bad bruise to the side of his head and he is still unconscious. I've got to wait until he wakes.' She turned back to Polybius. 'Have you learned anything about the attack?'
'Well, everyone knew they were leaving for Rome. Oh, by the way, someone else was killed, a peasant farmer who worked on the outlying estate. They found his corpse with a feather shaft in his back; he must have been killed by the same people who ambushed Murranus.'
Claudia stared up at the sky. White wisps of cloud were disappearing, the sun growing stronger. 'Let's go there,' she declared. 'I want to visit the place where the attack took place.'
They left the villa, going out on to the sun-baked trackway. Claudia wished she'd brought a hat. The heat was cloying; the cool breeze had disappeared, and sweat trickled along the back of her neck. The trackway was rock hard; the undergrowth, sprouting wirily along the sparse hedgerow, was already alive with insects and the constant clicking of crickets. They reached the place of ambush, dark, cool and shaded by the trees on either side of the road. A place of ghosts, Claudia reflected, where the manes of the murdered hovered restlessly. She quickly muttered an incantation her mother had taught her, not knowing if it was Christian or pagan. Oceanus and Polybius stood, hands on hips, staring up at the interlaced branches above them.
'A good place,' Oceanus declared almost in a shout. 'This is where I would attack someone.' He crouched down and drummed his fingers against the hard pebbled soil.
They searched the ground carefully. Claudia detected bloodstains, fragments of arrows; here and there horses had skittered and turned, their hoofs chipping up the soil. Only faint signs remained of the violent attack which had cost five men their lives. She followed Oceanus into the copse on her left; here the undergrowth was tangled and thick but at last they found a trackway the attackers must have used. Oceanus had spent many years in the auxiliaries, and his military training now came to the fore. At first he was bumbling and hesitant, but eventually he began to point out how the attackers had used the trees on either side of the trackway to position archers. Claudia, standing under the shade of a sycamore, realised how clear a target Murranus and his companions must have been. They crossed the trackway and searched the other copse. Little by little they collected scraps of information. Oceanus reckoned there must have been about twelve men, who had sheltered in the copse for some time; they found a heap of horse dung, a stone where a sword had been sharpened, scraps of food, a broken cup and a piece of leather.
'I believe,' Oceanus concluded, 'that the attackers, about a dozen in all, came here long before dawn. They camped, ate and drank and prepared themselves. The trees are closely packed together; the undergrowth is tangled and dense. Even the birds would get used to their presence. They were professional killers, they knew what they were doing. Strange,' he mused, 'they only had one or two horses.'
'And after the attack,' Claudia declared, 'surely they'd be noticed when they went back to Rome?'
'Not necessarily,' Polybius declared. 'If you follow this trackway it leads down to the crossroads. The attackers could escape down there, break up, mingle with other travellers going to and from the city; as long as they didn't act suspiciously, no one would really notice. Who knows, they may even have been disguised as soldiers, auxiliaries travelling to some garrison. Who would have reason to stop them?'
'I wonder,' Claudia asked, 'what happened to their own wounded, even their dead. Murranus would give a good account of himself.'
Polybius and Oceanus, mystified, just shook their heads.
Claudia walked back to the trackway and stared towards the villa. There was something wrong, but she felt too tired, too confused to put her finger on the knot of the problem. She called Polybius and Oceanus, and they followed her through the trees and out across the field to where the farmer's corpse had been found. The ground here was hard underfoot, dipping and twisting, so they had to be careful they didn't stumble or wrench an ankle. The land rose sharply to the summit of a hill. They found the plough and the wheelbarrow still full of dung; the oxen had been unhitched and taken away. Oceanus discovered a bloodstain. Claudia, standing on the brow of that lonely hill, stared down at the farm that stood at the bottom, a red-brick building surrounded by trees, and wondered what tragedy, what grief the death of that poor man had caused. She stood immersed in her own thoughts as she reasoned what might have happened. The farmer must have come out before dawn, leading his oxen to hitch to the plough. He would work for as long as he could under the boiling sun, breaking up the hard ground. Afterwards he'd push the wheelbarrow along, scattering the manure to fertilise the ground when the rain came. The ambushers must have realised the danger the farmer posed; he might see them, so they killed him, a callous addition to their further cruelties.
All of a sudden Claudia heard the distant sound of a trumpet; she whirled round and caught the glint of sunlight on armour on the trackway between the trees.
'What is it?' Oceanus called.
'The Empress,' Claudia replied. 'Helena in all her glory is coming to the villa.'
'In which case,' Polybius declared, 'it's time we disappeared.'
Claudia whirled round. 'What do you mean?'
'Nothing.' Polybius stared innocently back. 'But that Pict you advised me to hire as a cook, he is proving to be an artist, Claudia. I must return to keep everything in order…'
All the power of Rome arrived at General Aurelian's villa. Imperial palanquins, their carved wood gleaming a dark warm brown with gold edging and screened by heavy white drapes fringed with precious stones, brought Helena and Constantine to pay their respects to the dead general's widow. The Augusta and her son were accompanied by leading courtiers and administrators including Anastasius, Chrysis and even Presbyter Sylvester. The imperial guard, both foot and cavalry, also came, resplendent in their magnificent dress armour with sculptured breastplates, greaves, leather-studded kilts, scarlet cloaks and gloriously ornate, purple-crested helmets. They filled the courtyard and grounds of the villa, commandeering outhouses and stables, setting up tents and pavilions on lawns and in the fields beyond the wall, circling the villa with a ring of steel.