‘You don’t believe that she would kill herself?’
‘I can see she might want to do that!’ she replied. ‘Especially if — as now seems likely — she was party to the plot, either against the Vestal or against Lavinia. If her owners found that she was guilty of anything like that they’d have her put to death in ways that would make the poison seem an easy route. I can understand all that. But even if she took the potion willingly, the problem still remains: why throw the flask away?’
I had been asking the same question of myself. ‘Perhaps to make it look like sorcery,’ I said. ‘She was unlucky there. I have had dealings with an infusion of crushed hemlock once before. Otherwise I wouldn’t have recognized the stain on the drawstring of that purse — or identified the smell.’
‘And we’d have gone on thinking this was a Druid spell?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you?’ I asked.
She nodded thoughtfully and seemed about to speak, but the hopeful ribbon-man was back, bobbing up between us with his tray again. ‘Best ribbons, lady. All hand-dyed and woven by my wife.’
She turned on him. ‘I’ll hand-weave you, if you don’t move along!’ and he sidled off to hustle someone else. She gave me a knowing look. ‘And you had better move along with your donkey-boy as well, before some other customer appears who offers ready cash. But after what we’ve said, I think that I agree. I’ll simply send the message that the nurse is dead. If there are other explanations you can make them when you get back to Lavinius yourself.’ She made a wry face. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well. This way the nurse can have her funeral — if only with the guild — before her owners know that she was working for the Druids. Otherwise they might simply throw her body to the dogs, and then who knows what trouble we might have with her ghost. So I’ll go back and send that horseman with the message straight away, unless there is anything else you need me for?’
‘There is one thing that you can do for me, when you get back to the house. I think you said the nursemaid took Lavinia’s pot outside to empty on the midden-pile? Yesterday noontime, when she came down for the tray?’
‘That’s right.’ She looked surprised.
‘Then will you have your house-slaves search the rubbish pile for me? They’re looking for anything resembling a phial, or some container to put poison in. I still believe the hemlock mixture was carried into the bedroom in that pouch, and almost certainly not in that silver flask. If your slaves find anything unusual, have it put aside for me.’
‘With pleasure, citizen.’ Priscilla smiled. It struck me that — though she talked too much — she had a lively mind and now that her household was no longer under threat she was actually delighted to be asked to help. She beckoned to the donkey-boy, who had been lingering nearby. He came across at once. ‘Now see that you take this citizen the shortest way,’ she said to him. ‘If I find you’ve been taking detours, just to raise the fee, I’ll tell the magistrates — and I warn you this citizen has a wealthy patron, too, who knows how to make your life a misery. You understand?’
The boy looked sheepish but he said stubbornly, ‘I wasn’t going to cheat him. I’ll go the quickest way. But if he wants to get there for the fee that we arranged, we ought to go at once — give me a chance to earn some food today. I know you’ve promised to pay me later on — quite handsomely, I grant — but that’s all very well. I still need to eat and you can’t buy bread without real money in your hand. The baker doesn’t trade in promises. So, if you are quite ready, citizen?’
I signalled that I was and he set off at once, tugging his reluctant animal. There was nothing for it but to follow them. The donkey was a melancholy-looking specimen, all skin and ribs, and I feared it had the mange, so I consoled myself that perhaps it was as well that I was not to get my ride. But when we reached the eastern gateway to the town the urchin paused beside a mounting stone, and indicated that I should climb onto the creature’s back.
The only saddle was a patched and tattered rug, tied underneath the belly with a piece of hempen string. I climbed up, graceless and rather hesitant. I was accustomed to owning horses in my youth, but I scarcely went near one when I was a slave and it is many years since I have ridden anywhere.
This donkey was bony and bouncy compared to my fine steeds of long ago, and distinctly slow. But it was not displeasing to be on its back and although my toga billowed out and threatened to unwind, I very quickly got the hang of it. The donkey-boy was even more surprised than I was at my skill.
‘He seems to like you, citizen. Sit tight, and I’ll squeeze in ahead of you.’
I was certain that the donkey would refuse — it seemed recalcitrant in any case — but to my surprise it answered to the switch and we found ourselves swaying precariously along, not very quickly, but faster than on foot.
We must have presented a strange spectacle: a scruffy boy and a Celtic citizen with his toga half-undone, squashed together on a skinny donkey’s back. Certainly we did not go unremarked. Cart-drivers and riders who passed us on the way grinned and raised their whips in mock-salute and various land-labourers turned their heads to look.
The track — we had long ago turned off the Roman roads — swung uphill and down the valleys as the boy had said. In places it was barely wide enough to take a cart, but wheel-tracks in the mud were evidence that a wagon had indeed lurched past this way, and fairly recently. The presumed Paulinus and his wife were said to have a farm-cart, I recalled, and certainly the homesteads here were agricultural.
I began to wonder if my mission was a waste of time and this farmer and his family were not impostors, lured by the reading of the letter — as I’d thought — but exactly who they claimed to be, in which case all my careful reasoning fell apart and I had no other theory to advance. I would have liked to ask the donkey-boy about his previous mission to the farm, but he would have had to turn his head to catch my words, and such was the concentration required to stay on — particularly here, where the road was rough and steep — that there was really no opportunity for that.
At last the lad urged the creature to a stop, close to a clearing where there were several homesteads scratching a living from the land. ‘Here you are, citizen. This is the very place.’ He gestured with his switch.
I looked where he was pointing. Paulinus was a Roman citizen, from a patrician family and, although I had several times been told that he was not a wealthy man, I had expected something more like Lavinius’s estate, though on a smaller scale. This was a humble farm. The house was square and made of stone, as Roman dwellings generally are, and there was a land-slave working in the grounds outside, but there all resemblance to a normal villa ceased. There was no handsome court, no separate slave-quarters, no gatekeeper on watch inside imposing walls, just an enclosure made of piled-up stones, a single dwelling with a stable to the side and rows of turnips and cabbages behind, and a tiny orchard with chickens pecking free. There was a pig-byre just beyond the house, sharing a scruffy pasture with a cow and several piebald goats, while the entrance to the whole was guarded by a large dog on a chain. This was more on the scale of my own abode than anything more grand.
The donkey-boy was looking impatiently at me. ‘This is where I brought the letter, citizen, following the directions that were given me. Are you not getting down? I thought I was to leave you here, when I’d delivered you?’
I swung off my makeshift saddle, which swivelled under me and almost deposited me head-downwards on the ground. However, I managed to keep my balance and maintain my dignity, though I discovered that I ached in every limb. ‘And the man who lives here is called Paulinus?’ I said, with as much gravitas as I could muster.
He looked at me as though I were the donkey here. ‘That’s right, citizen. Or that’s what I was told. The letter was addressed to someone of that name, and when I brought it here, the slave I spoke to went and got him from the house and he came out personally and took it from my hands. Seemed very pleased to get it, from what I saw of him. Gave me a piece of bread and cheese for bringing it. Not the sort of greeting I usually expect, especially from proper citizens: generally they keep you waiting for an hour and then send a servant out to deal with you.’