Read Online The Ghosts of Glevum by Rosemary Rowe - Free Book Online
Authors: Rosemary Rowe
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standing in the doorway of the hut. ‘You’ll be no help to your patron if you’re ill in bed.’
I nodded. It was true that I was chilled and shivering. ‘Very well, Gwellia, my dear. No doubt you’re right. But what about the boy?’ My plans of sheltering him overnight and producing him triumphantly in the courts were all in ruins now. This testimony would seal Marcus’s fate.
‘He’ll have to find somewhere else to go.’
‘My dear wife . . .’ I protested. It was not like Gwellia to be hard-hearted in this way.
She softened a little, as I knew she would. ‘Or he can stay here by the fire if you insist. But not inside the house. He is a runaway, Libertus, and I refuse to have him under my roof.’ She saw my look and added urgently, ‘Husband, it is you I’m thinking of. Junio has been telling me what happened at the villa earlier – and I’m concerned. It seems to me that, with your patron in the cells, the guards would be only too happy to press charges against you. If they find you harbouring a runaway, they will have all the evidence they need – and what will happen to this household then?’
She could hardly have mustered a stronger argument, but I still demurred. ‘But if Golbo stays out here . . .?’
‘You can say that he came in here to hide without your knowing it – which after all is no more than the truth. That might be some kind of defence. If he’s in the roundhouse, there will be no possible excuse. Oh, Libertus, please do come inside. There is obviously something serious afoot. If anyone comes searching here tonight, it’s better that they find us in our beds.’
This was so manifestly true that I complied. ‘You are right, of course. Very well, I’ll come with you now. Golbo, you can stay here by the fire, where at least you can be warm and dry tonight. There’s clean water in the big bowl by the door, and a pile of fleece. Lie on it and pull some over you. Tomorrow we must think where you can go.’ And what we should do about your testimony too, I thought, although I didn’t speak the words aloud.
And then, at last, I did submit to Gwellia’s urgings and went back into the house, where I allowed my weary slaves to undress me, sponge down my muddy clothes and legs, and help me to my welcome bed of reeds. Then they wrapped me in a woollen blanket and tiptoed away, leaving me to Gwellia and my thoughts.
I couldn’t sleep. Gwellia invited me to talk, but the more I turned the events of the evening over in my head, the less sense any of it made to me. It was Gwellia, in the end, who voiced the thought that I could not allow myself to think.
‘Husband,’ she whispered, when I had rehearsed the same thing for the twentieth time, ‘has it occurred to you that Mellitus could be right? Perhaps it was your patron who pushed Praxus in the bowl. What other explanation can there be?’
‘I don’t know!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yet surely there must be one. I don’t believe for an instant that Marcus murdered him.’ But when I came to consider all the mounting evidence I had to admit the possibility, though I couldn’t bear to contemplate it for long. That is why I didn’t sleep all night, and why – as soon as the first light of chilly dawn broke through the sullen clouds – I slipped away from my still sleeping wife, pulled on my sandals and a woollen cloak, and went out to find Golbo in the hut.
But I was too late. Golbo wasn’t there.
VI
I searched the whole enclosure – behind the woodpile, in the chicken-house, even under the holly branches in the grain pit – but there was no sign of him. I went out to the steep rocky lane which ran past the house, but there was nothing to be seen, only the hazy outlines of the trees looming at me through the misty murk. No trace of footprints, either, on the frosty earth.
I was still there, gazing intently at the road, when a voice hissed, ‘Citizen?’ startlingly close to me. I whirled round to see a cloaked figure detach
I nodded. It was true that I was chilled and shivering. ‘Very well, Gwellia, my dear. No doubt you’re right. But what about the boy?’ My plans of sheltering him overnight and producing him triumphantly in the courts were all in ruins now. This testimony would seal Marcus’s fate.
‘He’ll have to find somewhere else to go.’
‘My dear wife . . .’ I protested. It was not like Gwellia to be hard-hearted in this way.
She softened a little, as I knew she would. ‘Or he can stay here by the fire if you insist. But not inside the house. He is a runaway, Libertus, and I refuse to have him under my roof.’ She saw my look and added urgently, ‘Husband, it is you I’m thinking of. Junio has been telling me what happened at the villa earlier – and I’m concerned. It seems to me that, with your patron in the cells, the guards would be only too happy to press charges against you. If they find you harbouring a runaway, they will have all the evidence they need – and what will happen to this household then?’
She could hardly have mustered a stronger argument, but I still demurred. ‘But if Golbo stays out here . . .?’
‘You can say that he came in here to hide without your knowing it – which after all is no more than the truth. That might be some kind of defence. If he’s in the roundhouse, there will be no possible excuse. Oh, Libertus, please do come inside. There is obviously something serious afoot. If anyone comes searching here tonight, it’s better that they find us in our beds.’
This was so manifestly true that I complied. ‘You are right, of course. Very well, I’ll come with you now. Golbo, you can stay here by the fire, where at least you can be warm and dry tonight. There’s clean water in the big bowl by the door, and a pile of fleece. Lie on it and pull some over you. Tomorrow we must think where you can go.’ And what we should do about your testimony too, I thought, although I didn’t speak the words aloud.
And then, at last, I did submit to Gwellia’s urgings and went back into the house, where I allowed my weary slaves to undress me, sponge down my muddy clothes and legs, and help me to my welcome bed of reeds. Then they wrapped me in a woollen blanket and tiptoed away, leaving me to Gwellia and my thoughts.
I couldn’t sleep. Gwellia invited me to talk, but the more I turned the events of the evening over in my head, the less sense any of it made to me. It was Gwellia, in the end, who voiced the thought that I could not allow myself to think.
‘Husband,’ she whispered, when I had rehearsed the same thing for the twentieth time, ‘has it occurred to you that Mellitus could be right? Perhaps it was your patron who pushed Praxus in the bowl. What other explanation can there be?’
‘I don’t know!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yet surely there must be one. I don’t believe for an instant that Marcus murdered him.’ But when I came to consider all the mounting evidence I had to admit the possibility, though I couldn’t bear to contemplate it for long. That is why I didn’t sleep all night, and why – as soon as the first light of chilly dawn broke through the sullen clouds – I slipped away from my still sleeping wife, pulled on my sandals and a woollen cloak, and went out to find Golbo in the hut.
But I was too late. Golbo wasn’t there.
VI
I searched the whole enclosure – behind the woodpile, in the chicken-house, even under the holly branches in the grain pit – but there was no sign of him. I went out to the steep rocky lane which ran past the house, but there was nothing to be seen, only the hazy outlines of the trees looming at me through the misty murk. No trace of footprints, either, on the frosty earth.
I was still there, gazing intently at the road, when a voice hissed, ‘Citizen?’ startlingly close to me. I whirled round to see a cloaked figure detach
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