Florens held up a hand to silence her. ‘Nothing to concern yourself about, Alcanta. I will handle this. They have simply come to take our unwelcome visitors to court.’
He had spoken very firmly and I saw her set her lips. The pretty chin was raised in a defiant jut. ‘Well, make them go away. If we are to be married and go back to Gaul when I am out of mourning. .’
I interrupted her. ‘Married! But Florens is contracted to marry someone else.’
Florens had turned from pink to scarlet now. ‘Not so, citizen. I don’t know how you came to hear of that, but in any case the contract will be void. It depended on a dowry that will not now be paid.’ He turned to Alcanta. ‘Take no notice, lady. The citizen is wrong. All will be exactly as I promised you. You and your infant will be safe with me.’
The girl in widow’s mourning stole a doubting look at him. ‘If you say so, Florens.’ She sounded unconvinced.
The councillor propelled her by the arm and led her briskly to the door, though she did not look as if she cared for that. ‘Then, centurion, if you would care to bind and take your prisoners under guard, I will follow in the gig and see you at the court. Alcanta, I will have to leave you here a little while — I’ll make arrangements for the funeral while I am in town and have your husband’s body moved into the flat, where I suppose a servant should start on the lament — but my escort-slaves will very soon be here and then you’ll have a guard. In the meantime, look around the place and see if it will suit you as a temporary home. I will return as soon as possible. The trial of this miscreant should not take very long.’ He was already striding off with her across the court.
Emelius watched them go, then jerked a thumb at me. ‘Very well, then. Let’s have you on our cart. It won’t be a very comfortable ride for you today! You two soldiers on the end can bring the other pair — and I suppose we’d better take the one that’s over there, as well.’ He gestured two more of his men towards where Junio was still lying in the court, with Servilis standing over him. Florens and the lady had also stopped to look.
‘That is my adopted son,’ I said. ‘He is a citizen, and Florens attacked him. He almost broke his skull.’
The centurion made a little face. ‘Tell that to the court. The councillor claims that you were robbing him. And the lad’s not desperately hurt — you heard they’d seen him stir.’
‘Then let’s try and revive him, not drag him like a sack,’ I pleaded. ‘A splash of water might help bring him round.’
‘Oh, very well,’ he said reluctantly. ‘It’s easier to manage a man when he’s awake. I noticed that there was a bucket at the door. I’ll get my men to fill it with water from the well and fling it over him. That should do the trick. See to it, soldier.’ He nodded to one of his two remaining men.
The fellow nodded and ran off to the well, carrying the bucket. I was wishing that I’d had the wit to use it as a weapon when I could, but it was too late now. Emelius had his centurion’s baton in his hand, and was prodding me towards the open hiring-cart — probably the very one I’d ridden in last night, though the driver was a man I didn’t recognize. Biccus and Brianus were shoved up after me, their hands bound behind them with a piece of rope. As a citizen, at least I was spared the indignity of that.
I craned to see if they had managed to wake up Junio, but the soldier with the bucket was standing helplessly, looking round the court as if searching for the well. Florens made no move at all to help.
Biccus saw the problem. ‘The well is in the corner over there,’ he shouted, gesturing in the right direction with his head. He turned to me and added, in the Celtic tongue, ‘I ought to know. I almost fell into it when I came before — to tell the owner to control his dogs.’
The soldier nodded an acknowledgement and trotted over to fill up his pail, but Florens gave a roar and rushed across to him. ‘Stop! What in Hades are you doing! Keep away from there.’
The man stopped, bewildered. ‘But the centurion said. .’
Florens’s manner altered instantly to one of unctuous charm. ‘I think the well is poisoned. It’s not safe to use. If you want water, get it from the stream.’ He smiled apologetically at Emelius. ‘I’m sorry, officer. That well is dangerous. One of the first things that I propose to do is fill it in and dig another one.’ He turned to Alcanta and smiled down at her. ‘I can’t have anything happen to the lady here.’
Biccus was scowling and grumbling audibly. ‘Shouldn’t be anything the matter with that well. My family had this farm for centuries. Perfectly good water from it all that time. Someone has been careless and let something rot down there. I told you that ex-soldier did not know the first thing about how to run a farm.’
Alcanta threw a look of purest hate at him and Florens looked furious, but Emelius simply shrugged. ‘Well, it hardly matters what the water’s like. He isn’t going to drink it anyway. We only want to throw a little over him to bring him round. Jump to it, soldier!’
The man saluted smartly and started to obey, expertly tying the pail onto the waiting chain, ready to lower it gently down into the well, but Florens stepped forward and intervened again. ‘I told you, it’s poisonous — you’ll get it in his mouth!’
The soldier hesitated in his task and looked to his superior to advise. As he did so, I had a wild idea.
‘Tell him to do it, Emelius!’ I cried. ‘I think I know what is hidden down that well.’
Florens would have slain me, if a look could kill. But he essayed a casual laugh. ‘Nonsense! Of course there’s nothing hidden in the well — except the water which, as I say, is dangerous.’ He looked around, as if appealing to the gods, before he said, ‘I expect that’s why the previous owner was so keen to sell the farm but, as the law says, the buyer must beware.’
I realized what question had been niggling in my brain. ‘But I thought that he was dead?’ I challenged. ‘You told Alcanta so. I overheard you when you first arrived. So how did he sell you the farm so recently?’
Florens’s face was almost purple now — more purple than his usual patrician stripe. For two quadrans, I could see, he would have lunged at me, just as he had lunged at Junio earlier. But the soldiers were watching and he controlled himself. ‘The two things are not contradictory. He sold it to me just before he died. Probably poisoned by the water from the well!’
Alcanta clutched at him. ‘Florens, is that true? I thought. .’ She tailed off as she saw the fury in his face.
I turned to Emelius. ‘Another useful coincidence, centurion, don’t you think? Murder seems to follow the councillor around. The treasure-cart just happens to be passing his new farm the night it is attacked: the lictor names him as guardian of his wife, and then just happens to be murdered on his way. And now we learn the previous owner of this house has also died, just after selling it to him. All a little too convenient, wouldn’t you agree? I have no proof of anything, of course, but if we should happen to find treasure in that well. .’
I said no more. Emelius, who had been gazing speculatively at me, gave a brisk command. ‘We shall soon find out. Water, soldier. Dip the pail at once.’
This time there was a rattle as the chain ran down and the soldier shook it to make the bucket tip. ‘Almost ready, sir,’ he muttered, shaking it again. ‘But I can’t get it up again. There’s something blocking it.’
I looked at Florens. ‘What do you think we’ll find? Statues, chests of money, gold and silver bowls?’
‘There’s no treasure in there,’ he muttered stubbornly. ‘Probably just a bit of wall collapsed. It’s obvious the well has not been used for months.’
‘Yet it managed to poison the owner of the farm!’ I said, earning another, still more vicious scowl.
Emelius took a quick decision. ‘The citizen is right. There is something very odd about this story of the well.’ He signalled to the soldiers who were guarding us. ‘Leave the prisoners and come and lend a hand. And you. .’ This time it was Servilis that he was talking to, ‘. . find a bowl or something and get water from the stream.’