Florens gave a roar and tried to lunge at her. Three soldiers pounced on him at once, and this time — councillor or not — they bound him hand and foot: none too gently, either, using the ties of his own tunic to secure his knees.
Alcanta blinked at him. ‘Don’t hurt him too much. I still owe him a little bit of gratitude.’ She turned to me. ‘Have you ever met the lictor, citizen? I wish I never had. He was a brute, a monster — he loved to cause you pain. When Florens told me that Antolinus was alive and that there might be a chance of seeing him, I pleaded with my husband to give me a divorce. He only laughed, of course, twisting my arm until he forced the truth from me — or most of it. I managed to hold out and not to tell him where Antolinus was — he would only have had him hunted down and put to death for desertion. Neither did I tell him that I was with child, because he would have realized that it was not his own. But Florens had a plan. He wrote to Voluus, inviting him to come here to Britannia — promising a future on the curia, a welcome banquet and all sorts of things. Voluus was flattered — he was always vain. He came to Glevum practically at once. It worked out splendidly. I had the child in peace.’
‘While Florens met him here and arranged to murder him!’ I said, casting a triumphant look towards the councillor. ‘Having contrived to be nominated as your guardian?’
She shook her head. ‘It should not have happened exactly as it did. The intention was to poison him after we’d all arrived in Britannia — these things can happen with unfamiliar food. But Voluus had spies. One of my servants wrote to him while he was here and told him of the child — I had meant to pass it off as belonging to a maid until after Voluus was dead.’
‘I see! So that was the letter that Voluus received that day in the mansio?’ It was making sense at last. That kind of fury comes from jealousy, not fear. ‘Not a threat at all!’
She nodded. ‘He was so furious that he threatened to return home that very day. He would have murdered me. Fortunately Florens intercepted him.’
Brianus was pawing at my arm again. ‘But I’m sure I heard that the letter was a threat. It was discovered afterwards, at the mansio.’
‘Not that letter, Brianus,’ I told him solemnly. ‘That message was destroyed. You told me Florens read it — and it gave him an idea. He had already planned to murder Voluus, but if he wrote another letter and left it to be found that would start the rumour of the threats. I imagine he wrote sealed letters to the house in Gaul, apparently from Voluus himself, explaining that the lictor wasn’t coming back, and making arrangements for moving all the goods. No one but Alcanta would have known about the truth, and she was quite content. She hoped to be reunited with her love in exchange for everything she had. But there had to be a body, representing Voluus, or some awkward questions would be asked. That’s where the threats came in. The authorities would look for ancient enemies.’
I looked at Alcanta. She didn’t disagree. ‘We never thought of Calvinus as a likely suspect. He had an ancient grudge against his master, it appears — but with a man like Voluus, there were sure to be others that we didn’t know about. His death was not a loss to anyone. It was a clever thought.’
Florens sighed. Suddenly the fight had all gone out of him. ‘It might have worked, as well, if Antolinus had kept things as simple as we’d planned. Arrange to have the treasure-cart come in here overnight, give the escort poppy-wine and steal the treasure while they slept to make the threats seem true. But there was a sudden problem — Antolinus sent to me, saying that he had been recognized. The driver of the treasure-cart was somebody he knew. There was only one answer. We had to kill the man. Antolinus did it — poison in the wine — but we still wanted people to know about the threats. He came up with the scheme about the bogus rebel raid. I was at a banquet, and I couldn’t help. He did it the same way as he’d done before, except that this time there were five corpses to arrange. He couldn’t do it on the road — it would have taken too much time — so he cut the bodies into pieces in the barn and put them on the cart. Then he had the problem of the horses, too. If he kept them here it would excite remark, so he took them to the roadside and simply slaughtered them as well — except for the one that he kept back to ride. Spread the blood around to make it look as if the party had been stabbed and hacked to death. It was a risk, of course, but he got away with it. Rode off into the forest as soon as he spotted the first witness on the road. He was an expert horseman. Just as well — he could not have managed six horses otherwise, even if four of them were towed behind the cart.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen. It was an accident of fate.’
‘How do you know all that? You must have talked to him. And suddenly he’s dead! Was that an accident?’ Alcanta’s eyes were blazing and she clenched her pretty fists. ‘So close, and yet I missed him. And you used his body as my husband’s corpse, when you promised me that it would be some nameless criminal! I can’t forgive that, Florens. I don’t care if they feed me to the beasts. I’m going to tell the truth.’ She turned to the centurion. ‘He wrote to me — under my husband’s seal, of course! — about a moon ago to tell me that Antolinus really had been killed this time. Lies, of course, but he promised that, if I continued with the plan, I could come to Britannia and he would marry me himself and give the child a home, since of course I had no husband now. I, like a fool, believed him and went along with it. I even thanked him when he offered me the farmstead as a home, when all the time my lover’s head was in the well. He must have put it there.’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ Florens said. ‘How could I have done? I was in Glevum all day yesterday — Libertus was with me a great deal of the time — and in the evening I was looking after you! When did I have time to kill him, tell me that? I couldn’t ride out to this farmstead in the time I had.’
She thought for a moment and then hissed angrily, ‘But you knew that he was dead. You had already told me that he was. And all that time he was actually alive. I don’t know how you did it, but it must have been your plan.’ She shook her head. ‘And I can’t imagine why. You already had the treasure — it was out here on the farm. You didn’t even have to move it once the escort-men were dead.’
‘But it’s as clear as daylight, lady.’ Biccus found his voice. ‘He’d seen you by then. It was you he wanted, not just the contents of the treasure-cart. And who could blame him? I would marry you myself.’ He sank back into silence.
‘And I think I know who murdered Antolinus for him,’ I observed. ‘Someone who would not be wanted at the banquet feast. Someone who was doubtless promised a reward and, like Calvinus, is hoping someday to be free and rid himself of his uncomfortable name. Somebody who killed the maidservant as well, so she could not swear that the body was not Voluus at all. Is that not true, Servilis?’
Servilis scowled. ‘They both deserved the penalty, even under law. One was a deserter and one a runaway. There is an automatic death penalty for both, and I was acting on the orders of a magistrate. I don’t think that you can punish me for that.’
I turned back to Emelius. ‘Centurion, I think we have the answers now. You are under orders to present me at the court. I would like you to do so, and bring these people, too. I believe I shall be able to prove my innocence. Though I may be in trouble for requisitioning a cart.’
EPILOGUE
I was sitting in the garden of my patron’s country house, where Marcus had been sitting when the whole affair began. Marcus was lolling on a folding chair nearby, watching his infant with indulgent eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose we can call that satisfactory. I am relieved that you managed to redeem yourself and did not cause me any more embarrassment. And they cleared you on all charges, even of the cart. Finding the lictor’s body helped, of course. How did you manage to work out where it was?’