There were a couple of them lurking under the span, but they were dopey. By the time they called out we had passed them and crossed over. Then, Faustus abruptly ordered our driver to stop. He was reluctant, while still so near the bridge, but he knew Tullius’s nephew of old and grudgingly obeyed orders.
Faustus clambered over me, leaped out and set off across a nearby field. Caught short, presumably. The driver and I exchanged glances, then we, too, descended and made ourselves comfortable. For modesty, we chose bushes on different sides of the road, neither of us bothering to go as far as our companion, but staying near enough to protect the carriage.
Faustus was a long time gone. The driver stood up on the footboard, looking for him. He hollered out, at which I caught a faint reply. The driver shrugged and took his seat once more. Curious, I climbed down and made my way across the weedy field in the direction Faustus had taken. There seemed to be a kind of path, but it was one of those wobbly walk-along byways rural people have, which infuriatingly peter out. I had shoes on, not sandals, but was groaning to myself at the twigs that scratched me and the mud underfoot.
How come even parched ground in the country always has puddles and cart-ruts full of foul squelchy substances into which you always step? So much safer in the city where you can see what’s coming.
How do goats keep their hoofs clean? You never see a nanny wiping her slimed foot against a tussock, scowling with disgust.
Actually there were no goats in sight, though animals with unhygienic habits had passed this way regularly. Farm Boy, my husband, would have chuckled at my squeamishness − but he was also a strong lad who would have picked me up and carried me over the rough and smelly parts. He always thought it hilarious that, although I come from a province so remote it is mythical, I am utterly a city girl. Londinium is full of shacks, but it has streets with stalls and verandas to keep the rain off. I want fresh produce and regulations. And I don’t want to encounter people my father describes as having hairy toes and three ears.
Bumpkins had been here. Faustus was in a clearing. It had been heavily trampled, and was full of sordid litter. While I tried to work out what the aedile was doing, I murmured, ‘This is one of those places the lads of the village – assuming there is anything so cultured as a village nearby – bring shameless girls to fornicate in groups by moonlight.’
‘Don’t worry, that is not my plan for you.’
‘Such a pity!’
‘Wait your turn …’
The only reason he let me lead him into this banter was that his mind was not really on it. He was intent upon another task he had set himself.
The villagers must come often for entertainment. They had left ash from several fires. Outside the circle, though not very far out, I noticed human waste. On one side of the clearing stood a high pile of junk. This had attracted Manlius Faustus, who was single-mindedly picking the pile apart and inspecting every item he yanked out. In his careful way (the reason it took such a long time) the pieces of old wood, sections of wheel, twisted tree branches, amphorae, odd boots, oily rope ends, gourds, mouldy bread chunks and a half-carcass of a rotting sheep were meticulously sorted into neat lines, in categories of his own devising. The locals who came here were going to be extremely puzzled to discover this array some night soon.
I sat on what I took to be a log, cleaning my shoes with leaves, and cooed gently, ‘Tell me your plan then, dear Aedile.’
‘I think you’ll see.’
‘Not evident so far. But I have great faith in you, Tiberius.’
He looked up briefly, holding a dirty old garment between his fingertips. ‘I knew you were the girl to bring!’ He noticed what I was doing. ‘What’s that you’re on?’
‘Part of a fallen tree? Some result of accident or lightning?’
‘I do not think so, city woman.’
I jumped up quickly, in case it was horrible.
Manlius Faustus positioned the tunic where he deemed it belonged in his collection, then came across to me. He stood with one arm round my waist, blissfully comfortable. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He leaned away – ‘Hair tickling!’ Still his arm remained, warm and heavy, fast round me.
We looked down at what had been my seat. It was a long, sturdy pole, weathered but properly shaped and finished by a good carpenter. Once painted, its colours were now peeling after soaking in dew. Faustus kicked aside the undergrowth and uncovered a metal socket into which it would be fixed, when this pole was used for lifting the equipage it belonged to. He picked them up, pole and socket, and carried them over to a carefully assembled group. I saw now that he had singled out pieces that belonged together: three uprights, one leg with a fancy foot, another pole, a half-round roof with decorated semi-circular ends, parts of a slatted mattress base, a shaped back support, various ripped curtains and the rods they had hung on. There was even the mattress, though that seemed to have been used by the villagers for some filthy purpose and he would not let me near it.
‘This is all I can find, so the rest must have been used for firewood. If I carry the roof, will you be able to manage that leg for me, Albia? I want to take enough for a sure identification when we fetch it back to Rome.’
I picked up the leg gingerly. I knew, without Faustus spelling it out, I was now holding part of the litter in which Callistus Valens had set out on his ill-fated journey to his country estate.
43
It is an inescapable truth that when two strangers, who are courteous but slightly official in manner, ask, ‘Excuse me, do you live around here?’ all the locals will say no.
This held us up. We wasted the rest of the morning trying to get somebody to talk to us. Anybody. Only when we found a roadside snack stall did things improve. The stallholder accepted we were only travellers, rather glum people, but prepared to eat savoury meatballs for lunch and drop sauce down our tunics quite normally. He could hardly deny that he lived nearby. The meatballs were warm; he had fetched them from his hovel, which we could see from the stall.
He knew who the night birds were, hooting rowdies who came and lit campfires. They collected on long summer nights to drink, sing, play crude musical instruments, knife one another in quarrels over women, and exchange stolen goods they had pilfered from passing wagons or from local farms. The snack-seller thought they must have found the Callistus litter and pulled it off the road for sport; he doubted they would have been involved in whatever ambush happened. Faustus agreed because he reckoned if robberies took place at the bridge on a regular basis the authorities would have set up preventive measures. If nothing else, they would have installed a bridge-keeper.
I said, yes, that would be a good way to ensure the authorities knew that when carriages were held up, the bridge-keeper did it.
Although to me the countryside is bare, plenty of people could be found. Once we squeezed evidence out of one lot, others spoke to us. We followed a trail through farmhands and road-menders to a small villa rustica close to the River Anio, where the field labourers admitted they had seen what happened. Their story was corroborated by the semi-professional beggars who sat by the bridge. Locals had leaned on hoes or lain under pine trees and watched it all. None, of course, had rescued the victim or bothered to report the incident afterwards. It was nothing to do with them. The people involved were city folk.
A group of ‘foreigners’ – that is, from Rome, which was at the most five miles away – had arrived early one morning, driving away the beggars and positioning themselves at the bridge. There were either five or six, or ten or fifteen, depending who was telling us. Before the beggars had had time to gather reinforcements to regain their squatters’ rights, along came the Callistus litter with its bearers and attendants. Out jumped the men lying in wait. The attackers were shouting oaths and threats, wielding sticks and possibly daggers. The slaves made a stand initially, but their master put his head out of the litter and gave orders to save themselves; they all ran away across the fields and had not been seen since.