I nodded. ‘Among several other crimes!’ I said. ‘And robbery is perhaps the least of them.’
He made a doubtful face. ‘Well, I can’t believe the steward was involved in it,’ he said. ‘Though I suppose that things look rather bad for him. But I’m sure the message said exactly what he claimed. He was as irritated as the rest of us at all the extra work that was required. And I can’t believe it was a forgery. The steward’s been with Marcus Septimus for years. How could he be deceived? Wouldn’t he know the handwriting and seal? But if you doubt him — and you obviously do — why don’t you go and ask him to produce the scroll?’
‘I’m very much afraid-’ I had begun to say, but he was rushing on.
‘That it will have been sent back with another message written crosswise — as a palimpsest? I know that sometimes happens, but not this time, I don’t think. I’m sure that he’s still got the scroll exactly as it came. He was using it as an inventory of items to be sent. And he can hardly refuse you if you ask for it — he’ll know you are in our master’s confidence — and then you can read and judge it for yourself.’ He stopped and gave me a sudden, startled look. ‘Oh, dear gods! He’s not gone missing too? Is that why you’ve come down here to ask me this? You said that much depended on what I had to say. You think he’s guilty of arranging this?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what to think. But the steward isn’t missing. He is there all right. And so are the others. Or what is left of them.’
‘What is left of them?’ All the swagger left him suddenly, and the swarthy face was white beneath the tan. ‘You can’t mean that they’re dead. The household slaves? Surely not all of them.’
‘I think so, though I don’t know exactly how many indoor slaves there were,’ I said. ‘But there were a dozen bodies in the orchard, by my reckoning.’
He did a calculation on his hands. ‘I make it fourteen with the gatekeepers,’ he said.
‘They were not included,’ I replied.
‘Then that would be the whole of the domestic staff.’ He gulped, seeming suddenly to realise the dreadful force of this. ‘All twelve of them? Dear Jupiter! What happened? Was there poison in something they ate? It must have been some kind of accident.’ He looked into my face again, saw the truth and said with disbelief, ‘Not intruders, surely? There are armed men always watching at the villa gates! No one could get in and simply murder everyone.’
There was no kind way to tell him, so I did not try to mask the brutal facts. ‘But someone did. This was no accident, I fear. All the heads were missing — hacked off the neck.’ I gestured to Minimus, who — having tethered up the mule — was now waiting patiently a little further on. ‘And these were certainly the bodies of the indoor staff. My own slave used to work at the villa and he recognised a few.’
The chief land-slave gawped at me. ‘So it was obviously murder?’
‘Of the most callous kind,’ I said. ‘Some of them were clearly stabbed as well — so they might have been dead or dying before the final blow.’
He had stopped talking now, and was digesting this. ‘And the gatekeepers weren’t with them? What does that suggest? I suppose they could be killers — they are strong enough, especially combined. Though I wouldn’t for a moment have thought that of them.’ He shook his head. ‘And I’m absolutely certain they could not have sent the scroll. Neither of them ever learned to read a single word, let alone write one, which is the harder skill.’
‘The guard from the front gate is accounted for!’ I said. ‘He wasn’t with the others. He was hanging in his cell. Not by his own hand, if I am any judge.’ I explained what I had seen. ‘And it’s possible we’ll find the body of the other one somewhere.’
My listener was as shaken as Minimus had been. ‘You think it’s an attack against the household then? And these …?’ He nodded towards his land-slaves, still working in the field, who were occasionally glancing towards us as they dug, but were oblivious — as yet — of what awaited them at home. ‘You think that they’ll be next?’
He sounded so concerned about his men that I was rather touched. I wanted to reassure him a little, if I could. I shook my head. ‘I doubt it very much,’ I said, although in fact I wasn’t sure of this at all. ‘Someone’s taken trouble to have you moved away.’
He nodded. ‘Probably because we’re generally fit and muscular. Working outside on the land all day every day for years, does build you up a bit.’ He said it with some pride. ‘We’d be a great deal more difficult to overcome than that soft-handed lot who only work indoors, to say nothing of the fact that there are far more of us. Especially at the moment, with the master gone away. It does not take many to look after the house, but — as I said before — this is a very busy season on the farm. The crops and animals need tending just the same and there are almost as many land-slaves as there ever were. Marcus had more sense than to dispose of most of us.’
I looked around the field. There must have been thirty or forty men at work. ‘So this is all of them?’
‘Dear gods! Of course it’s not!’ He looked at me appalled. ‘I’d forgotten that. I have sent another half a dozen up there to the estate.’ He raised an apologetic brow at me. ‘I know that my instructions did not allow for that, but I had to do something useful with them and I thought there’d be no harm. Just some of the youngest and the oldest who couldn’t dig all day. I sent them to do slightly lighter jobs — pruning, mending hedges and that sort of thing — though they’re not working near the villa, I made sure of that.’ He gazed into my face. ‘You think that something awful might have befallen them, as well?’
‘I doubt it,’ I told him. ‘I think all this happened yesterday. But perhaps we should go up there and see, in any case.’ He was looking so stricken that I was moved to add, ‘If they were working nearer to the villa at the time, it is possible that they have useful information to impart — for instance, if any tradesmen or visitors arrived, at the back gate in particular. As it happened, I saw somebody myself, some sort of patrician in a travelling coach. But I think the slaughter had already taken place, because I know the caller got no answer at the gate.’
My efforts to divert his thoughts had been successful, it appeared. He frowned. ‘Who was that, I wonder. Someone from abroad? All Marcus’s acquaintances know that he’s away.’ He raised a brow at me. ‘Maybe the owner of that house in Gaul?’
‘If indeed the house in Gaul exists,’ I murmured inwardly. Aloud I said, ‘That is certainly a possibility. In any case I must discover who that caller was, and exactly what happened when his slave knocked at the gate. If the answer is nothing, then at least we’d have a time before which all this horror must have taken place.’
He looked at me keenly. ‘I think you’re right. I’d better come and take a look myself. I could tell you, at least, if all the household is accounted for. And I’d be glad to know if I’ve lost any of my land-slaves in this dreadful incident.’
‘But you saw them all this morning and they were accounted for.’
‘You are assuming, citizen, that these murderous men have not come back. It may be that we land-slaves are scheduled to be next.’ He gestured at the labourers still digging in the field. ‘Would it be acceptable to leave this lot, do you think? I know that Marcus forbids it generally, but in the circumstances …’
I nodded. ‘I think he would agree. Are you going to tell them what happened at the house?’
He screwed his face into a horrible grimace. ‘I don’t think so, citizen. Or at least, not yet. They can have a little longer to enjoy their ignorance. I’ll wait until I’ve seen these horrors for myself before I tell them what has happened to their fellow slaves. Time enough to give them nightmares then. In the meantime, I’ll just tell them that you’ve come to call for me, and we can leave your own slave here to keep an eye on things.’