Death at Pompeia's Wedding

by Rosemary Rowe

  I nodded. ‘Pulchra can take us both,’ I said. ‘My business here has been concluded too. I need to go back to the atrium and collect my slave.’ And I could talk to Maesta on the way, I thought. I wanted to ask her more about that wedding wine and perhaps, if I could work around to it, whether her husband had any grievance against Honorius – or, indeed, if she had any quarrel of her own. I would have to word my questions very tactfully, of course, but it occurred to me that she was a great deal more likely to talk to me in the present circumstance than if I had simply called on her at home. I knew that her husband held me in contempt.

  Pulchra, who had picked up the cup by now, put it on the table and came across to us. ‘Of course, I will escort you to the atrium at once.’ She opened the door to let us both pass through, and I stood back to let Maesta lead the way. As I did so, I saw Pulchra signal with her eyes. It was obvious she wanted something.

  ‘What is it Pulchra? You wish to talk to me?’

  I was speaking softly, but she placed a finger on her lips and shook her head. She indicated Maesta, who was by now outside, and already in the act of turning round to say, ‘Is there some problem? I have no time to waste!’ The vintner’s wife was smoothing down the dark-red stola as she spoke, with small impatient gestures, and the old sour look was back on her face.

  Pulchra looked urgently at me, and feeling that I must offer some covering excuse, I muttered, ‘I was wondering if we should replace the bar across the door.’

  Maesta managed a tight-lipped smile at this. ‘It will not be necessary now. I have told you, citizen, she will remain asleep and anyway it seems the frenzy may have passed.’ She turned away and set off towards the atrium, obviously impatient to be on her way.

  My heart sank. Maesta clearly felt more confident again, now that she was no longer anxious about her sleeping draught. Or perhaps it was the strong smell of lavender which had restored her to her old disdainful self – a group of slaves was busy in the central area cutting swathes of aromatic branches to lay around the corpse. Whatever the reason for the change of mood, I thought, it was unlikely I would get much more information out of Maesta now.

  I tried. I attempted to fall in beside her as she walked, and said conversationally, ‘You have provided decoctions for this house before?’ She only walked a little faster and did not answer me, so I pressed the point again. ‘You were talking about something you gave Pompeia for her warts?’

  She flounced and I thought for a moment that she’d ignore this too, but then she muttered, ‘Nothing that any seller of simples would not have given her. Bruised leaves of hartshorn to lay upon the place, and a weak decoction of briony and wine to cleanse the liver and drive away any evil humours from within. I’m not sure she ever took that, after the first dose – it is quite fierce and bitter, and Pompeia is strong-willed. But the hartshorn alone was enough to move the warts. Pompeia had been afflicted by them from a child.’ She was striding along the path around the courtyard all this while, but brought herself up short and stopped to glare at me. ‘Is all this important, citizen?’ She stood aside to let a slave pass with a pail.

  ‘Maesta,’ I said gently, taking the liberty of addressing her by name, ‘there has been a poisoning in this house today. It is important to know what potions we might legitimately find.’ I saw her redden with embarrassment. I risked another question. ‘By the way, who paid you for all that? It wasn’t Pompeia – she told us that she had no money of her own. And it was not Helena Domna – she was quite surprised today to learn that you had any skill with herbs. So who was your customer? The lady Livia?’

  Maesta paused beside the statue of Minerva in the court, sniffing the wreath of herbs that now encircled it. She would not meet my eyes. ‘I don’t know what business all this is of yours, Citizen Libertus. You are a pavement-maker, not a member of the council or one of the town watch.’ She brought herself up short, and glanced at Pulchra who was standing at my side. ‘But others will doubtless tell you, if I do not. So since you ask me, you are quite correct, I have served this household several times before – both the lady Livia and her predecessor too.’ Her voice softened. ‘Many’s the love potion that I made for her, poor lady, while she was alive – but she could not get her man to drink it, so it did no good.’

  Pulchra was standing as no slave should stand, with her arms folded across her ample chest, openly listening to every word of this. When she caught my glance she amended this at once, and adopting a properly submissive pose, she said in a careful, polite and docile tone, ‘Your pardon, citizen. But if you wish to know about decoctions which might be in the house, I believe my mistress has a tonic in her room at this moment – provided by this lady, if I recall aright. It is supposed to relieve the morning sickness and make the child grow strong, but it smells disgusting – that is all I know. And it tastes so nasty that she has to wash it down with watered wine. The mistress opened a new phial of it this very day. I could fetch it for you, citizen, if you would like me to.’ She dropped her voice. ‘That was what I wanted to tell you, citizen. Since there was poison – I thought you ought to know.’

  The vintner’s wife seemed unconcerned by this, though I noticed that her cheeks were still ablaze. She was still striding through the statues towards the atrium as she said, ‘Vulvaria – stinking arrach – it is a well-known cure. Send for it by all means. No harm could come to anyone from drinking that. Now, are we going to be announced in the atrium, or not? My husband will be expecting me at the shop by now.’

  There was something so urgent in the way she turned her back, and abruptly tried to change the subject, that it made me wonder what else she had to hide. ‘One more question, madam. Those are the only potions you have ever provided in this house? You never concocted anything for the eldest girl, or – of course – for Honorius himself?’

  The back of her neck had turned to mottled red. ‘I don’t know on whose authority you ask me all these things, but since you’ll hear it from the slaves, no doubt –’ she turned and glared at Pulchra with such malice that it took me quite aback – ‘I suppose I’d better tell you, though it was years ago and couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what happened today.’

  I glanced at Pulchra, but she was staring at the ground. ‘What was it you provided, Maesta?’ I enquired.

  She hesitated. ‘It was something I once did for Honorius himself – well, not exactly for himself. He paid me to supply him with hemlock for the jail – a dose for some prisoners who were condemned to death but were permitted to choose the form of execution. You know the sort of thing?’

  I nodded. It was not uncommon. It is a privilege awarded by the courts to those of higher rank – and sometimes lesser prisoners, who would otherwise die a long and painful death – to bribe the guards to bring them poison and get it over with. Was hemlock the poison that had been used today? I had thought of wolfsbane, from what Minimus had said, but I am not an expert on these things in the way that Maesta was – and I hadn’t been a witness to the death myself. Hemlock was a possibility – it too can produce that drunken look that Minimus described. ‘Hemlock?’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘And Honorius approved? It does not sound like the sort of thing he’d be in favour of.’

  She nodded. ‘He told me that it was right to be severe but within the law one could be merciful. Even a famous Greek philosopher took hemlock, so he said.’

  ‘When did he ask you this? Some time ago you said?’

  Now the news was out, she had relaxed again. ‘Oh, years and years ago – when his last wife was alive. I think he found out that I’d been supplying her – all those wasted love potions which she’d paid me for – and he came to see me on his own account one night. Vinerius was very angry when he heard – he doesn’t really like me selling herbs at all: says a proper Roman wife stays home and tends the house, though he is happy enough to see the money that I make from it. Honorius, in particular, paid very well indeed. He used the hemlock, but there was a problem with one of the subjects, I belie
ve – a tax inspector for the Roman court – who did not die at once, but recovered and had to be thrown to the beasts. The poison should have worked – it was a massive dose – and at the time I could not account for it, but I have found a reason since. I understand that it is possible, if you take tiny doses of poisons every day, in time they will not harm you. You have heard of Mithradites – the ancient king of Pontus who invented mitraditium, the antidote to almost anything?’

  I nodded. It was a famously ironic tale. ‘The one who drank small doses of poison every day, to prevent assassination by his enemies?’

  ‘Exactly, citizen, but it worked too well. And when he was taken prisoner, and tried to take his own life by poisoning himself, it didn’t kill him and he had to fall upon his sword.’ Maesta shook her head. ‘I explained it to Honorius, but I think he still blamed me. At all events, he never asked me for anything again.’

  ‘Who could have known what you’d supplied him with? Anyone in the household?’

  She looked bewildered. ‘No one, I don’t think. Helena Domna didn’t live here at the time – she still lived with her brother, though she stayed here quite a lot; Livia, of course, wasn’t married to him then. His wife and daughters might have known, I suppose, but it was my impression that he kept it strictly to himself, and did not even tell the council what he’d done – as if he was ashamed of showing weakness with regard to punishment.’

  ‘But it was Helena Domna who employed you today?’ I said.

  ‘It was, but I suggested it myself – offered to bring something to calm Pompeia down and make her sleep.’ She gave that unexpected moaning wail of hers. ‘Vinerius was furious when he knew what I had done – while we were rushing home for me to pick up the remedy, he swore and blustered at me all the way. He says that my herbs bring suspicion on us both, and we’ll be lucky not to be dragged before the courts and put to death – especially if there turns out to be a problem with the wine that we supplied. He means it, too – told me to prepare a lethal dose for us in case. And of course I haven’t done it – I didn’t have the time before I came back here with this, and anyway I haven’t got the herbs in store that I could do it with.’ She seemed to have forgotten whom she was talking to, but now she pulled herself together and finished breathlessly, ‘Really, citizen, I have said too much. Vinerius always accuses me of gossiping. If I am not careful he will take a stick to me. I must get my money and go home as soon as possible.’

  If I feared a beating when I got home, I thought, it was the last place that I would want to hurry to, but I am not a woman.

  I said severely, ‘Very well. I have finished with questioning for now, but tell your husband I shall be calling at the wine shop very soon because I am looking into matters for the family.’ It was almost the truth, I told myself. Gracchus would be part of this household very soon. ‘In the meantime, Pulchra, you may announce us now. I believe your mistress is in the atrium? And I think my slave will be waiting for me there.’ I gestured to the door which opened from the atrium to the court and which had been closed off since the guests had gone. ‘And perhaps you could find out where Helena Domna is – Maesta and I both need to speak to her before we leave.’

  Pulchra sketched a bob and scurried off, to come back an instant later. ‘I am wanted elsewhere in the house, but I am sent to tell you to come in.’ With that, she ushered us into the atrium. But it was not the lady Livia who was awaiting us.

  ‘Ah, there you are, citizens.’ It was Helena Domna, leaning on a stick and supervising the dozen or so slaves who were arranging wreaths and sweeping the ornamental floor where the wedding dais had stood, though that had been completely dismantled and removed. A purifying sacrifice was already being made on the household altar, by the look of it. The air was thick with the smell of burning herbs and a shapeless female servant was wailing on a lyre.

  ‘I’m afraid Livia has gone to light the candles round the corpse of my poor son. The funeral women will almost have finished by this time, with their washing and anointing rituals, and they will be bringing in the body for the lament to start. You have been a long time with Pompeia, both of you. Maesta, I am not altogether pleased. From your promise I expected swifter results. And as for you, citizen, I was about to send my page to fetch you back.’ She waved her free hand to waft the smoke away.

  ‘It appears that your granddaughter did nothing criminal, merely called upon the gods, and thought that she had somehow brought down a curse,’ I said. I was about to explain about the sleeping draught, but Helena Domna interrupted me.

  ‘Well, that is satisfactory – though there’s no time for details now. I am wanted elsewhere and, so it seems, are you. There has been a message for you. Your slave has taken it.’

  ‘For me?’ I was astonished.

  By way of an answer, she gestured to the corner of the room, where Minimus was already scrambling to his feet. He had been resting on his haunches, in the way slaves do when they are engaged in that everlasting waiting which they seem to do. I sympathized – I have been a slave myself – but the boy was hastening over to apologize.

  ‘I am sorry, master, I did not see you come. There has been a note.’ He still had the silver platter in his hand. There was a folded writing tablet resting on it now, and Minimus offered it to me as he spoke, bowing very slightly as he presented it.

  ‘That’s a striking writing tablet,’ Helena Domna said. ‘I wonder where it’s from?’ It was indeed a very pretty thing, with ivory covers part inlaid with gold, and tied with a piece of finely woven silk. Her voice had taken a peculiar edge and I wondered if she hoped that I would make a gift of it.

  However, I did nothing of the kind. I simply took the tablet and undid the ties, then read what had been scratched on the wax surfaces inside. ‘It is from that fellow Antoninus,’ I said. ‘Asking me to meet him at his apartment in the town. There is something of importance that he thinks I ought to know.’

  ‘“And which might be of profit to us both”,’ Helena Domna read, craning unashamedly to have a closer look.

  Minimus had got that eager expression on his face. ‘So, master? Are we going there straight away?’

  ‘Around the ninth hour this afternoon, he says. That’s when the sun is halfway down.’ I handed him the writing tablet, which he slipped into a pouch inside his tunic top, while I did a little calculation. The hours were shorter at this season of the year – daylight was simply divided into twelve – but if we called on Antoninus at the suggested time there would still be almost three hours before they closed the gates. ‘We should just have time to get home without a long walk in the dark. Very well, we’ll go and see him, but we’ll visit Redux first.’

  I looked around for Helena Domna to make my due farewells but she had turned away and was paying Maesta some money from her purse, so we waited until she’d finished before I took my leave.

  Eleven

  Minimus was almost hopping with excitement as the pageboy led us back down the passage and to the entrance. The prospect of helping me investigate this crime obviously thrilled him half to death.

  I wished I could feel enthusiastic on my own account, but without Marcus here to lend me his authority I could not well interrogate important councillors – or even insist that members of this household talked to me. I had faintly hoped that I might see Pulchra in the hall, in case there was something else that she hoped to say to me, but there was no sign of her or anybody else. From the interior of the house there came the smell of burning herbs, and I realized that purification of the corpse was under way. It would not be long before the body was brought to lie in state and the formal lamenting and homage would begin. Already I could persuade myself that I could hear the steward’s distant voice raised in a faint and ululating wail.

  The household was plunging into mourning and I would not learn much more from here – until the corpse was decently disposed of, anyway. I could only hope that Antoninus had some helpful news for me, otherwise there was no chance of earning Gracchus’s
fee. It was not enough to argue that Pompeia was innocent, I knew: after that confession she would be arraigned for sure – it only took one witness to bring a formal charge – and I had to discover who the real culprit was.

  The lugubrious doorkeeper greeted me with a faint, mocking grin. ‘You have your cloak already, citizen, I see.’ He opened the door and stood by to let me out – adding as he did so, in an undertone, ‘Though your slave need not have been in such a hurry to collect it earlier. You are the very last to leave. And you didn’t have to worry about the rituals, after all.’

  This reminder of our earlier conversation made me pause. ‘You know Antoninus, don’t you?’ I said thoughtfully, remembering how he had reacted to the name.

  The same result. He stiffened and his friendly tone grew colder than the Sabrina river at Janustide. ‘Perhaps I do. What is it to you, citizen? There is no law that says a slave can’t have acquaintances.’

  He had said ‘acquaintances’ not ‘friends’ I noticed, though perhaps I should not place too much importance upon that. Most slaves don’t strike up friendships with aspiring councillors. ‘I wondered,’ I said, ‘if you might know where he lives. I’ve been asked to call on him today, and I know he has an apartment somewhere in the town. Not far from the temple of Jupiter, I think, but that is all I am certain of. I was hoping for directions. I thought that you might help . . .?’

  He was so relieved that it was almost comical. ‘Oh, is that all, citizen? That’s an easy one. It’s not very far from here. Go to the temple, take the second block along and you’ll find him on the first floor above a cobbler’s shop. There’s a public staircase leading from the street, because there are lots of people living on the top floor overhead, but if you go up there and knock the door his slaves will let you in.’ He grinned again. ‘Got to be careful while you’re waiting, though – the upstairs lodgers throw things down the steps, slops very often. Jealous of people who have braziers and fancy togas, I suppose. It’s pretty cramped and miserable in those attics, I should think, and you can see from the street that the roof is falling in. But the landlord doesn’t bother – they still have to pay the rent.’