“Ava said she might have scorched the porridge while making it.” Lucretia shook her head. “But I wasn’t tasting burnt gruel. It was something else. Maybe the wheat has become rancid. I’ll look into it a bit more.”
Lucretia sent Ava to the market that afternoon to get wheat from another source. Without telling me, Lucretia searched Ava’s room. She found a small mortar and pestle and a ceramic jar containing dried flowers beneath the bed and brought them to me.
“These flowers are foxglove. They contain enough poison to kill an infant or someone very old, but not someone as healthy as your mother,” she said, trembling with what she was thinking, “unless it were in her food every day.” She looked up a me.
“Are you saying Ava has been slowly poisoning her?”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
“But why?”
Lucretia lowered her voice. “Ava was a gift to your mother from Hannibal. Maybe she acts as his eyes and ears. Your mother had this suspicion from the beginning and was always careful in her presence.”
“But Ava couldn’t have known that my mother was passing on information.” I recalled how she had entered the room the night I had asked my mother not to go back to Metapontum. “Could she?”
“Only if she were very attentive and very secretive, listening when we didn’t know she could hear us.”
When Ava returned from the market, she put what she had bought in the kitchen then went to her bedroom. I followed her into the room and confronted her with the flowers. She denied everything, increasing my anger. I took hold of her by the wrist. “I don’t believe you,” I screamed. “You’re working for Hannibal. He’s paid you to poison my mother.” I leaned into her face. “Why? What did you tell him?”
Lucretia heard us and came running to the bedroom doorway. Ava’s eyes flashed to Lucretia for help. Lucretia came all the way into the room. “What did you tell Hannibal, Ava?”
“I didn’t tell him anything!” she shouted defiantly. “And he didn’t pay me either. The poison was my idea.”
“But why?” I demanded. “Why? She’s treated you well.”
“Because I knew she must be some kind of informant. She had Hannibal completely fooled. She cast a spell on him with her singing. He thought she was some kind of goddess. He even preferred her caresses to mine despite her being so old. He would never have listened to me.” She began to cry. “So I took it on myself to protect him.”
I backed away from her, my hands in fists, so upset I didn’t know what to do. I turned to Lucretia in absolute frustration. “What should we do with her?” I glared at Ava. “I can’t do what she deserves.”
“I can.” Lucretia strode across the room toward Ava. I saw that she held a kitchen knife behind her back. She slapped Ava once across the face with her free hand then buried the knife in her belly. Ava didn’t see the knife until the last moment. She gasped instead of screaming. Sweet and gentle Lucretia, the woman who had cared for me as baby, pulled the knife from Ava’s stomach and stabbed her three more times until the girl slumped to the floor dead, leaving a wide smear of blood on the wall behind her.
Lucretia faced me with a look so intense I didn’t recognize her. “She had it coming,” she snarled, then stomped out of the room.
CHAPTER 17
Lucretia and I wrapped Ava’s body in the blankets from her bed, then went to my mother’s room. We told her everything. My mother began to sob and shake. Lucretia held her, trying to calm her down. “We’ll begin a three-day purge right away, Arathia. I don’t know what else to do. Without the regular doses of foxglove, your health is certain to improve—and as soon as you have the strength,” the loyal slave turned to me, “we must leave Croton.”
I knew she was right. Eventually Hannibal or one of his officers would ask about Ava. Whatever we might say would lead to greater complications. There was no good reason for us to stay in Croton.
That night at the evening meal, Lucretia, proving to be shrewder than I had ever imagined, hatched a plan. She leaned across the table, her face lit by the oil lamp, and spoke very softly, just above a whisper. “Tomorrow, we’ll tell the neighbors that Arathia has died. We’ll put Ava’s body in her bed, covered by a sheet. We’ll notify the garrison commander and stage a funeral as soon as possible. He will pass the news on to Hannibal. He knew that she was sick. It won’t be a surprise. We’ll say you freed Ava and that she returned to her home. Then the three of us will leave as soon as your mother is strong enough to travel.” She took a quick glance around the room. “With all the gold and silver your mother’s saved, we can go anywhere.”
I had known Lucretia all my life. I thought of her as family, but never could I have imagined her covering up a murder, done by her own hand. “We’ll go to Rome, Lucretia. I know Rome and have friends there that can help us.”
“Rome is a long way, Timon. Your mother is weak. It will be a hard trip for her.”
“Where else could we go? It has to be to the north, out of the region controlled by Hannibal. And we would be strangers anywhere else we went. We wouldn’t know who to trust.”
Lucretia drew back from the table, thinking. After a moment, she nodded. “You’re right. We’ll go to Rome. Let’s move your mother to Ava’s room and tell her what we’re doing. I’ll talk to the woman next door as soon as the sun is up. With her mouth, the entire neighborhood will know of your mother’s death by noon.”
CHAPTER 18
My mother showed me her savings the next day. Hannibal’s generosity had made her wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. The money made everything easier. No one asked questions when you paid in gold.
Though Ava’s corpse was covered, Lucretia dressed her in my mother’s clothing and woved some of my mother’s graying hair into Ava’s for the trip to the crematorium. We made a big deal of the funeral. I placed the urn in the Pythagorean School’s mausoleum alongside my father’s. I tearfully added the seven lyre strings to the urn, while the captain of the Carthaginian garrison and those few neighbors who knew my mother stood by.
Once the purge had been completed, and my mother was eating untainted food, her health began to improve, but she remained weak and uncommonly thin. We worried that Hannibal would send someone looking for Ava, so we felt it was important to leave no more than a week after the funeral. I bought a two-wheeled carriage. Balius would draw the carriage, and I would drive.
The day before we left, inspired by Lucretia’s courage to do away with Ava, I decided to complete some unfinished business of my own. I knew that the man who had killed my father drank in excess every night. I went to the establishment where I had seen him last. He sat at a table with two other men. I watched him drain one cup of wine after another. I had two cups myself to strengthen my resolve. The man got into an argument with the men at his table. He suddenly stood up and stormed out into the street. I threw down what was left in my cup and followed him.
His route was the same as the last time. We passed through the same narrow alley as before. The situation was perfect for what I had in mind. I gripped the dagger beneath the folds of my toga, determined to avenge my father’s murder, but before I could make a move, two men stepped from the shadows, one in front of my target, one in back. As soon as the first man confronted him, the second struck him from behind with a club. When he fell to the ground, the thug clubbed him two more times, while the other spat on him, then kicked him. Even in the dark I recognized the men as the ones he had been drinking with. They hurriedly rifled his pockets. I heard one curse, perhaps at the absence of money. They both added another kick for good measure, then took off at a run down the street, never having seen me.
I quietly slipped down the alley and knelt beside the man lying in a heap on the ground. He was still alive. He looked up at me with no idea who I was. His face was broken and bleeding. He took hold of my toga and pulled himself up close to me. “Help me, please,” he muttered. His hands lost their grip, and he sank back to the ground. I thought to finish the job with m
y dagger, but recalled the only time I had killed a man. It was after the battle of Numistro, and that man, much like this man, was in no shape to defend himself. I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. Instead, I remained at his side and watched him die. I’m not sure how long I was there, but when I left, my revenge felt tarnished and incomplete.
That night as I lay in bed unable to sleep, I realized my time in Croton had come to an end. We would leave the next morning just before daybreak so that no one would notice our leaving or see that two women sat in the carriage, not just one. Once we were out of Croton no one would notice or care.
CHAPTER 19
Everything went as planned the next morning. We took very little with us. We wrapped my mother in blankets to make the ride as comfortable as possible, and were rolling out of the gates of Croton just as the first rays of sunlight appeared in the east. I had built a secret compartment beneath the carriage to carry my mother’s gold and silver coins, and we did our best to make ourselves blend in with the other travelers on the road north. I wore a plain tunic, and both my mother and Lucretia had on bleached wool chitons of the most common variety.
It was midwinter. None of the armies had been dispatched yet. Fortunately the weather was mild as we traveled through Lucania headed to the west branch of Via Latina, approximately five days of rough travel on little more than rutted dirt roads. My mother struggled with the uneven ride, but we were able to find comfortable inns to stay the night.
Outside Grumentum, still a day from Via Latina, I noticed that a contingent of riders was coming up the road behind us. I took out the spyglass and quickly realized that the riders were Numidians. They gained on us quickly. I had little choice but to stay the course. Suddenly they were right behind us, their black mantles draped around the faces and shoulders, only their dark eyes visible. Then they were alongside the carriage, forty dark-skinned Numidians shouting what could only have been ugly propositions to my mother and Lucretia in a language none of us could understand. They rode small, agile horses called garrons and darted up close to us in swarms, hooting and laughing, then scampered off again. One rider leapt from his horse onto the back of the carriage. Two other riders rode up close to Balius, took hold of his bridle, and brought us to a stop. Just like that we were surrounded. Some of them remained on their horses, others dismounted, crowding in around the carriage aggressively. My mother and Lucretia, their scarves covering their faces, huddled together to avoid the grasping hands.
With no plan other than a request for mercy, I addressed them in Greek. They erupted with more laughter and incomprehensible, sneering remarks. Four Numidians, who had lagged behind the others, rode up. The men around us suddenly quieted and backed off to allow one of the four, a young man with his mantle pushed down from his face, to approach us. By the cut of his tunic, his gold-handled sword, and the silver trappings on his horse, this man, perhaps five years older than I, was surely the squadron captain.
The man was uniquely handsome and confident in his manner. He appraised me with green eyes as piercing as arrows, then addressed me in perfect Greek. “I’m sorry for the actions of my men. We mean you no harm. We are looking for someone. We only want to search your carriage.”
Even with this polite opening, because of the needs of the war, I expected the Numidians to take Balius and the carriage. “How can we make this easier for you?” I asked.
“Have the women get out of the carriage and reveal their faces.”
I looked at my mother. She nodded. I helped her climb from the carriage, then gave a hand to Lucretia. Both women removed their scarves as two of the riders searched the carriage—though not beneath.
When they were done, the captain thanked us for our patience, then explained that they were looking for a young Bruttian woman. A slave by the name of Ava. She was a runaway. Her owner, a ranking Carthaginian officer, wanted her back. “Have you seen such a girl?”
I told the man that we had just left Grumentum. It was our first day on the road, and we had not seen anyone. The captain took me at my word. He called out an order in Numidian. The riders quickly gathered into a loose group and galloped off down the road in the direction we were headed.
My mother looked at me. “Hannibal must have expected Ava to report to him in Metapontum. It seems he gave her a week before sending out his men.”
Lucretia nodded. “It’s likely he doesn’t know that we’ve left Croton. After learning of your death, Arathia, he would have little reason to be looking for Timon or me.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said. “The garrison commander saw the funeral. He knew how long you’d been sick. I don’t think he had the slightest inkling that the body we cremated was Ava’s. He may not have even known she was a plant.”
“Let’s get going,” said my mother. “The sooner we’re in Rome the better.”
I gave my mother a hand into the carriage. She collapsed into the blankets exhausted by the incident. Lucretia crawled in beside her.
Before climbing onto the driver’s seat, I patted Balius on his neck and leaned up close to his ear. “I just hope we don’t see those Numidians again,” I whispered. “I’m sure you noticed how they looked at you.”
I felt fortunate that our encounter with the Numidians had not been worse. I suspect we would have been treated quiet differently by any other squadron. But the young man, their captain, was exceptional. I sensed it immediately. I could hear it in the accuracy of his Greek. As I would learn later, he was a wealthy Numidian prince by the name of Masinissa who had been educated in Carthage. His father Gala was king of the Masesulii, one of the two most powerful Numidian tribes in the region west of Carthage.
Masinissa was in Italy at the time of the incident just described to be trained by Maharbal, Hannibal’s superb cavalry captain. Two years later, he would change sides in the war. He and I would meet in Africa and become friends. Even these tens of years later, I still know and see Masinissa. As a source for my writing, he has been invaluable. He told me parts of this story I could not have otherwise known.
CHAPTER 20
Once we reached Via Latina the trip became considerably easier. On a good day we could make twenty miles. The traffic on the road varied. At times we were alone, no one else as far as we could see—even using the spyglass. At other times, hordes of travelers, on foot, on horseback, in carts or carriages, filled the road and dropped our speed to that of those walking. Finding a place to stay each night became easier as we proceeded north. One night it might be a farmer’s barn, the next it could be a lodging in a walled city. We stayed in Nola and Catalia, but paid in silver rather than bronze.
We had just passed Capua and were alone on the road, making great progress, with the worst of the trip over, when the iron felloe on the carriage’s right wheel broke from fatigue, causing two spokes to splinter, bringing us to a complete halt.
I disconnected Balius from the hitch, then unloaded everything from the carriage. I dragged it to the side of the road and fiddled with the broken wheel hoping somehow to fix it. But we had nothing to work with, no tools or materials. I looked at my mother. “This carriage is done for. If Lucretia and I walk, do you think you could ride Balius?”
“I think so,” she said.
Lucretia nodded. “It will be all right, but we’ll have to give her regular breaks.”
“It will double, maybe triple the time it takes to get to Rome, but we can’t just stay here hoping someone will come along to help us. I suggest we retrieve the box of coins from beneath the carriage and get on with it. Most of this other stuff we’ll have to leave behind.”
My mother and Lucretia were gathering up the blankets to put them on Balius’ back for a softer ride, when I noticed that something large was coming down the road from the north. The women looked up at the same time I did because of the clanking sound it was making.
I got out the spyglass, thinking it was some kind of military equipment on wheels—siege apparatus or a catapult. I could see that six oxen were pu
lling an amorphous mass about the size of a small ship. All three of us stared down the road as the slow moving vehicle trundled into view.
The six oxen towed three large farm wagons, each one stacked precariously high with all manner of junk scavenged from the debris of war. A fat man in a dirty wool tunic sat at the reigns of the lead wagon. His black hair stuck out from his head in all directions. It was full of knots and curls and matched his beard in length.
I guessed that he was a Latin, and as the wagons drew closer, I called out to him. “Kind sir, do you have anything that might help us fix this carriage?”
I didn’t think the man heard me for all the rattling of the items piled in his wagons, but all of a sudden, just as the third wagon reached our carriage, he called to his oxen to stop. From what I could see in his ragged collection of junk, he had a little bit of everything from garden statuary and wall hangings to military armor and weapons. Household goods, ceramic ware, tools, I scoured the lot of it, looking for a wheel.
As the heavyset junk collector came down the line of wagons, two of his fellow scavengers, apparently walking on the other side of the caravan, appeared from between the wagons. They were a rough-looking bunch, swarthy Italians, likely three brothers. The heavyset driver was the oldest, perhaps forty years of age. He approached me grinning, showing a lot of broken teeth and smelling of garlic and stale wine.
“You could use a new wheel,” he said, sidling up to me, looking closely at my mother, who was still quite frail and sat beside Lucretia on a blanket they had laid on the ground. Our few belongings were piled beside them.
I wasn’t sure if these men were a threat or not, but I knew we were no match for them if they became aggressive. “Any chance you have something that might fit our carriage?”
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