A Coin for the Ferryman by Rosemary Rowe Page A

lady,’ I said again. ‘A young gentleman, perhaps. Stygius and Junio will explain to you.’
    They did. Stygius gave her a blunt account of what we’d found, and Junio added, ‘It rather looks as if the face was damaged
post mortem
, after the corpse was dressed in a peasant woman’s clothes. Then it was hidden in a ditch, with bits of branches and dead leaves piled roughly over it.’
    ‘But that is terrible.’ She was clearly shaken now, but she was a Roman matron and courtesy to guests was paramount. ‘Refill the citizen’s wine cup, Niveus,’ she said, and I realised with a start that I had emptied it. I am not generally a great enthusiast for wine, preferring a bowl of hot mead now and then, but I was glad enough of its reviving qualities today.
    Julia looked at the wine jug almost longingly, as if she would have liked to have a glass herself, but contented herself with taking another nibble at her fig. ‘Unfortunate enough when we thought it was a girl . . .’ She made that hopeless gesture. ‘To lose a daughter is a frightful thing, especially if she is of marriageable age, and any father would clearly be distraught. But to lose a son . . .’
    ‘Is even worse?’ I nodded. Had I not just acquired a son myself? ‘It would be to lose an heir! And if it is an only son . . .’
    I did not need to add the obvious – that the death of an only son entails the loss of the family name itself and, incidentally, of the whole paternal fortune too. If there are daughters, their share will go as dowry to their husbands when they wed. Worse still if there are no surviving children left at all, because then there will almost certainly be an expensive lawsuit when the father dies, with the estate dispersed not only to the beneficiaries mentioned in the will, but to anyone who can mount an effective counter-claim, including – quite often – the imperial purse. Even the money a man leaves to his wife – though nowadays she may use it while she lives alone – will finally revert back to her father’s family, often to some quite distant relative, unless she bestows it on another spouse. It ends up in the hands of other men’s offspring, either way.
    ‘The loss of an only son is a catastrophe. If it were Marcellinus . . .’ Julia shuddered. ‘I can’t bear to think of it. Humiliated by being dressed up like a peasant in that way.’
    ‘It seems it was a wealthy peasant, though,’ I said. ‘Look what I found hidden in the dress’s hem.’ I showed her the gold coins I was carrying. ‘More than enough to keep a peasant woman and her family for years. Perhaps you would be good enough to look after them for me? I should hate to think that someone might come to claim the corpse, and suppose I’d stolen them.’
    ‘I’ll put them safely in my perfume chest,’ she said, taking them almost without a second glance and slipping them softly inside her
stola
-top. Gold coins clearly did not have as much significance for her as for us lowlier folk.
    ‘I wonder if the young man gave them to the owner of the dress?’ She shook her head. ‘It must have been a very young man. Someone would surely have realised, otherwise.’
    That was aimed at Stygius, and he looked abashed, but in his mistress’s presence he scarcely dared to speak, far less attempt to exculpate himself.
    ‘I should have realised earlier myself,’ I said. ‘The size of the hands and feet was quite a clue. I actually thought about the body’s boyish form, never supposing that it really was a male. But you are right – he must be fairly young. Not fully come to manhood, anyway. His arms and legs were smooth as any girl’s.’
    Stygius flashed me a grateful look and I was about to speak again when, rather to my astonishment, Junio broke in. The unaccustomed wine had given him the courage to speak up like the citizen he now was, instead of waiting to be spoken to.
    ‘But though the legs were muscular enough, the victim was no athlete,’ he