‘And so he killed her, having fortuitously brought some poison with him when you roused him from his sleep?’ I shook my head. ‘I doubt it very much. But just in case Lavinia did contrive to leave a sign, I’ll have a look myself — although I’ve no idea what I am looking for.’
There was nothing at all of interest in the luggage-box, except a wisp or two of long red curly hair, which — from the description that I had received — were presumably Lavinia’s own, so I moved to examine the pile of clothes, still on the other bed. They were no longer piled into a human shape, but scattered as though the nurse — as she promised — had made a search of them. But if there was a signal, I could not fathom it. There seemed to be nothing of much consequence, at a casual glance — mostly girlish stoles and tunics such as you would expect Lavinia to have.
Except…? If a girl was on her way to join the Vestal house, why would she take with her all the clothes that she possessed? She was never going to wear them any more. Even the youngest novices at the shrine are given special robes as soon as they arrive — just as a boy puts off his toga praetexta when he becomes a man, or a bride abandons her childish garments when she weds. Besides, not all of these garments were Lavinia’s, when I looked more closely at the pile.
There was an adult’s cloak, for instance, made of woven plaid: and when I rummaged further, I found a woman’s pale-brown tunic which had been much repaired and a well-worn drawstring purse of the same coarse material. Who did these belong to? Not the nursemaid, most assuredly — one glance at the body was enough to tell you that. These peasant clothes were much too big for her, and clearly far too large to fit a six-year-old. Besides, they were of inferior quality, thick cloth and roughly sewn — not the sort of thing Lavinius would have permitted in his house. So where had they come from? Was this somehow the sign the nursemaid had been looking for?
I picked up the empty purse. It was a useless thing (only the poorest do not have a leather money-pouch) and this one was stained yellowish and had a hole in it, so that any small coin would have instantly gone through. It smelt of carrots, too. I put it down again. Who would want to hoard a purse like that, which was no use at all except to hold a…
‘Wait just a heartbeat!’ I exclaimed aloud. Yellowish stains and carrots? I knelt down and began to scrabble on the floor beneath the bed, but there was nothing there except dust and a few cobwebs where the broom-bunch had not reached.
Trullius came over and stood staring down at me. ‘Shouldn’t we go down now and question the slave-boy, citizen? What are you searching for?’
‘Something that isn’t here!’ I looked up to answer and saw him silhouetted against the open window-space. I clambered to my feet. ‘The window-space, of course! Let me get my shoes on and I’ll come downstairs with you. We’ll decide what to do with this body afterwards.’
He looked completely mystified as I rushed into my own room and pulled my sandals on, but he didn’t question me and when I clattered down the dimly lit staircase he followed close behind. His wife was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, still dressed in an under-tunic as though she’d just got out of bed — with her legs exposed and only a cloak around her top for dignity.
‘Jove save us, citizen,’ she wailed. ‘Another death. This is some Druid curse and we shall all be murd-’
I cut off her lamentations without courtesy. ‘Which way to the courtyard?’ I demanded. She must have judged my mood of urgency, because she stood back without protest and indicated the direction I should take, though she joined in the procession as soon as I had passed.
‘I’ve locked the stable slave-boy in the kiln,’ she was saying, at my heels. ‘I’ll take you to h-’
But I brushed all this aside. ‘Stay where you are. Don’t step on anything. I’m sure there’s something here. It is already broken, almost certainly, and may be hard to find. One misplaced foot, and if it’s made of glass the whole thing will be crushed beyond all hope of learning anything. I trust I’m not too late.’ I began to pace the courtyard, searching every inch.
She hovered at the doorway, with Trullius at her back. ‘Tell us what it is you’re looking for. We’ll help you search for it.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure myself.’
‘You’re worse than that nursemaid,’ the wife said in disgust. ‘Dead bodies everywhere and people keep searching for things they won’t describe! I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ve got real jobs to do, if others haven’t.’ And she turned away, muttering as she did so, just loud enough to hear. ‘Watch him, Trullius. I know he says he had a letter from Audelia’s bridegroom, but I’m not sure that I’m convinced. He might be the one who is working with the Druids.’
Trullius shuffled forward. ‘I’m sorry, citizen. She has no right to speak like that. She’s worried, that is all, and perhaps that’s no surprise. She forgets that you’re a citizen, deserving of respect, even without your toga. I’ll go and tell the slaves they’re not to come out here until you’ve finished searching underfoot. And I’ll make sure that I don’t stand on anything myself.’
I did not stop to answer, just continued with my systematic search. It was not an easy one. No doubt the courtyard was occasionally swept, but between the cobbles there were oddments and fragments of all kinds — scraps of wood and old material, wisps of hay and rusty nails — as well as mud and tufts of grass and the inevitable evidence that horses walked that way. In one corner by the kiln, I found a pile of greening, dusty, broken pots, presumably a remnant of the previous business here. But nothing that matched what I was looking for. I had worked my way right to the inner wall before Trullius returned.
He came across to me. ‘I see you’ve not succeeded in your search. What did you hope to find?’
‘This!’ I swooped on something which I’d just spotted on the ground. I picked it up and held it triumphantly aloft.
It was a little silver bottle, smaller than my hand, bruised and badly dented where it had hit the ground and bounced — indeed, one side was split — but, being metal, otherwise intact. It was shaped like an amphora (or it had been once) with a handsome corkwood stopper still attached by a length of woven cord around the damaged neck. It was quite empty now, but clearly fashioned to hold medicine of some kind. Threaded through the handles was a slender chain, of the kind which — on little potion-flasks like this — holds a little silver disc on which a reminder of the contents and dosage can be etched. This one had obviously been designed to hold a sleeping draught: the label had been most delicately and expertly inscribed, though the disc was no bigger than my thumbnail and had been bent against the body of the flagon in the fall.
‘There you are! A pretty object and no doubt a costly one, clearly made by a master-craftsman for a woman of some rank,’ I said to Trullius. ‘And there’s the proof.’ As I turned the stopper over I could see that the silver top was marked with a device etched into it — a device I recognized. It was the same pattern as the seal-stamp I’d seen on Cyra’s desk. ‘In fact it carries Lavinia’s family seal,’ I said to Trullius.
He nodded. ‘No doubt it was given to the nurse. She mentioned to Secunda that she had a sleeping draught. Offered it to her in case she found it hard to sleep.’ He stretched out his one good hand to take the flask, and I was about to pass it up to him, when I noticed something else which made me hold it back.
The corkwood stopper had a slightly yellow tinge — very much the colour of the stain I’d noticed on the drawstring bag upstairs. I raised the stopper to my nose. It smelt faintly of carrots, as I feared it would. ‘Someone clearly has tampered with it since,’ I said, wondering who was responsible for this. ‘Poison hemlock, by the look of it.’ I handed him the flask.