I felt a fire in my head. ‘But instead of paying her, you poisoned her. Why, Fausta?’
‘Because I had no more money! The partial payment I had given her in advance was all I had. She came here looking for the balance, but I had nothing to give her, not even a token payment. I stalled her for as long as I could; I told her I was sending a slave to fetch the money for her. In fact, I dispatched the fellow to the Subura to finish off Rupa. The slave I sent was a big, burly fellow, a former gladiator like Birria. I thought he’d have no trouble, but it seems that Rupa was more than a match for him.’
‘That was the dead body I found when I woke! Rupa killed him – there in the room while I lay unconscious. Cassandra left Rupa to watch over me. When your man arrived, there must have been a struggle, and Rupa broke his neck. Then Rupa must have panicked. He gathered up everything in Cassandra’s room and ran off.’ Everything, I thought, except her biting stick, which he must have dropped or overlooked.
‘So far as I know, the mute is still in hiding,’ said Fausta.
‘And even as I woke, Cassandra was here, in this house . . .’
‘Waiting with me in the garden. When one of the slaves brought in a cold porridge for the midday meal and served a portion to each of us, Cassandra suspected nothing.’
‘What poison did you use?’
‘How should I know? I bought it from a fellow who’s been in that sort of business a long time; Milo used to go to him occasionally. Painful, or painless, he asked me. I told him I didn’t care so long as it was guaranteed to work quickly. But it didn’t. The poison acted very slowly. We both finished our porridge and put the bowls aside. Nothing happened. I began to think I had misjudged the dose, or perhaps I’d even given her the wrong portion. Had I poisoned myself? I sat there imagining a burning in my gut as I watched her, unable to take my eyes off her, waiting to see the first sign of distress on her face. Finally – finally! – the poison began to take effect. At first she merely felt ill. She said she thought something in the porridge had disagreed with her. Then a look came over her face – shock, panic – as she realized what was happening. She screamed and threw her empty bowl at me and ran from the garden. I tried to stop her. We struggled. I tore her tunica. She escaped and ran from the house. Birria went after her, but she lost him. He didn’t know which way she’d gone.
‘I was frantic with worry. Who might she see before the poison finished her? What might she tell them? Finally, later that day, I heard the report of her death in the marketplace. She died in your arms, I was told. Had she told you what happened? Surely not, because hours passed, then days, and you did nothing about it. Still, I was torn by doubts. That was why I dared to come to see her funeral pyre. You were there. So were Calpurnia and some of the other women who had known Cassandra. Everyone saw me, yet no one reacted. That was when I knew for certain that no one suspected I had killed her. I watched her burn, and I was finally satisfied that I had gotten away with it. At last I could turn my thoughts to Milo and wait for the delicious news of his destruction.’
I shook my head. ‘I thought it was Clodia! I thought Clodia would stop at nothing to destroy Marcus Caelius, but in the end she was desperate to save him – from himself! And I thought that you would do whatever you could to stop Milo from carrying out such a mad scheme, but your only desire was to see him destroy himself.’
‘Paradoxes amuse you, don’t they, Finder? I told you, I’ve no patience with playwrights’ devices, similes, metaphors, and such. Ironies and enigmas displease me even more. But I do know when the final act is over.’ Fausta reached for the pitcher on the table beside her and filled the cup to the brim. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you a cup as well,’ she said, lifting it to her lips.
I gave a start and reached for the cup, but too late. She had swallowed the contents in a single draught.
Fausta put down the cup. Her eyes glittered. She blinked and swayed slightly. ‘The poison merchant promised me that this one would act much more quickly and without . . . too much . . . pain.’ She grimaced. ‘The liar! It hurts like Hades!’ She gripped her belly and staggered out of the room, into the portico off the garden. ‘People will say I did it out of grief. It’s an honourable thing for a widow to take her own life . . . after her husband dies in battle. Sulla’s daughter shall bring no shame to his memory!’
Fausta collapsed to the floor. Birria, who had been pacing the garden, gave a cry and rushed to her. He knelt and scooped her up. Her eyes were open, but she was as limp as a sack of grain in his arms, already dead. He threw back his head and let out a howl. Tears streamed down his face. ‘No!’ he cried. He stared up at me. ‘What have you done to her?’
‘She did it to herself,’ I said, pointing to the doorway and the little tripod table just inside.
Birria spied the pitcher and the cup. For a long moment he stared into Fausta’s lifeless eyes. Finally he released her. I heard a slither of metal as he pulled his short sword from its scabbard. I started back, but the blade was not for me. Kneeling over Fausta, he turned the sword against his belly and braced himself. A look came over his features such as one sometimes sees on the face of a gladiator in the arena at the end – a look at once resigned and defiant, contemptuous of life itself.
Birria drew a last breath and fell onto his sword. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he let out a gasp. Blood poured from the wound and trickled from his lips. He pitched and heaved for a moment, then stiffened, then collapsed across the body of his mistress.
XIX
‘Egypt!’
Bethesda delivered this pronouncement in much the same fashion that she had announced her previous, sudden insights into a cure for her illness. How she arrived at these revelations, where the knowledge came from, and why she trusted it, I had no idea. I only knew that where once she had uttered, ‘Radishes!’ and the household had gone on an expedition in search of radishes, now she uttered, ‘Egypt!’
A trip to Egypt would cure her – that, and only that.
‘Why Egypt?’ I asked.
‘Because I came from Egypt. We all came from Egypt. Egypt is where all life began.’ She said this as if it were a fact that no one could possibly dispute, like saying, ‘Things fall down, not up,’ or, ‘The sun shines during the day, not at night.’
I had thought she might say: Because Egypt is where we met, Husband. Egypt is where you found me and fell in love with me, and Egypt is where I intend to reclaim you and purify you of the transgression you committed with another woman. But that was not what she said, of course. Did she know about Cassandra? I thought not; she had been too preoccupied with her own illness.
Did Diana know? Not for certain, perhaps, but Diana had to suspect something. So far, she hadn’t confronted or questioned me. If she had suspicions, she kept them to herself – more for her mother’s sake, I suspected, than for mine. What was done was done, and the important thing was to keep peace in the household, at least until her mother got better.
‘I must return to Alexandria,’ Bethesda announced at breakfast one morning, and not for the first time. ‘I must bathe once more in the Nile, the river of life. In Egypt I shall either find a cure, or I shall find eternal rest.’
‘Mother, don’t say that!’ Diana put down her bowl of watery farina and gripped her stomach. Had her mother’s words upset her digestion – or was Diana, too, falling prey to some malady? She was nauseous as many mornings as not. It seemed to me that a curse had fallen on all the women in my life.
This was the first time that Bethesda had explicitly mentioned the possibility of dying in Egypt. Was that the real point of the journey she insisted on making, and was all her talk of a cure a mere pretence? Did she know that she was dying, and did she wish to end her days in Alexandria, where her life had begun?
‘We can’t afford it,’ I said bluntly. ‘I wish we could, but—’
There was a noise at the front door, not a friendly or respectful knocking, but a loud, insistent banging. Davus frowned, exchan
ged a guarded look with me, and went to answer it.
A moment later he returned and spoke in my ear. ‘Trouble,’ he said.
‘Stay here,’ I said to the others, and followed Davus to the foyer. I looked through the peephole. On my doorstep a pair of hulking giants flanked a small ferret of a man in a toga. The ferret saw my eye at the peephole and spoke up.
‘It’s no good hiding behind that door, Gordianus the Finder. A man can avoid the day of reckoning for only so long.’
‘Who are you, and what are you doing on my doorstep?’ I asked, though I knew already. Since the annihilation of Caelius and Milo, the moneylenders and landlords of Rome reigned supreme. Any organized resistance to them had evaporated. Trebonius was said to favour creditors quite blatantly now in any negotiation he brokered between them and their debtors; those who had sought relief before the stillborn insurrection had received much better deals than those who were seeking relief now.
‘I represent Volumnius,’ said the ferret, ‘to whom you owe the sum of—’
‘I know exactly how much I owe Volumnius,’ I said.
‘Do you? Most people have difficulty calculating the interest that accumulates. They almost always underestimate the amount. They don’t understand that if they miss making even a single payment—’
‘I haven’t missed a payment. According to the agreement I made with Volumnius, the first instalment isn’t due—’
‘—until tomorrow. Yes, this is merely a courtesy call to remind you. I presume you will have the first instalment ready for me, first thing in the morning?’
I peered out the peephole at the faces of the ferret’s two henchmen. Both had hands the size of small hams and small, beady eyes. They looked too slow and stupid to be gladiators. Their sort was good for only one thing, overpowering and intimidating victims smaller and weaker than themselves. The sum of their brainpower combined was probably below that of the average mule, but they could probably follow simple orders from the ferret – ‘Break this fellow’s finger,’ say, or, ‘Break his arm,’ or, ‘Break both arms.’
‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Payment isn’t due until tomorrow. You’ve no right to come harassing me today.’
‘Harassing you?’ said the ferret, flashing a wicked smile. ‘If you call this harassment, citizen, then just wait until—’
I slammed shut the little hatch over the peephole. The noise it made was as feeble as I felt at that moment. ‘Go to Hades!’ I shouted through the door.
I heard the ferret laugh, then bark an order at his henchmen to move on, then the sound of their footsteps receding.
Davus frowned. ‘What are we going to do if they come back tomorrow?’
‘If they come back, Davus? I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.’
We returned to the dining room. Bethesda looked at me expectantly. Diana, I noticed, looked first to Davus to ascertain his expression, and only then at me; further proof, if any was needed, that she was now more his wife than my daughter. That was only proper, but still it irked me. Hieronymus was eating the last of his farina very slowly and looking glum. Androcles and Mopsus, having risen and eaten before anyone else, were in the garden, where I had assigned them some tasks to work off their morning burst of energy. Through the window I could see them squabbling and pelting each other with pulled weeds, oblivious to the crisis in the household.
I opened my mouth to speak, but what was there to say? False words of reassurance? An abrupt change of subject? Or perhaps a resumption of the previous subject, namely the hopelessness of Bethesda’s demand for a journey to Egypt? At that moment, nothing would have pleased me more than the prospect of a trip to Alexandria, or to any other place, as long as it was as far from Rome as possible.
I was spared from having to speak by an abrupt knock at the door. ‘Not again!’ I muttered, stalking back to the foyer. I didn’t bother with the peephole but threw back the bar and pulled open the door. Even the ferret and his henchmen wouldn’t dare to attack a Roman citizen on his doorstep on the day before a loan came due. Or would they? I wondered if I could gouge out the ferret’s eyes before the two giants had time to disable me . . .
‘What are you doing back here?’ I shouted. ‘I told you—’
The man on my doorstep stared at me blankly. I stared back at him just as blankly, until I recognized him. He was the personal secretary to Calpurnia who had called at my door previously.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, in a very different tone of voice.
‘My mistress sent me. She wants to see you.’
‘Now?’
‘As soon as possible. Before—’
‘Before what?’
‘Please, follow me and ask no questions.’
I looked down at the old tunic I was wearing. ‘I shall have to change.’
‘No need for that. Please, come at once. And you might want to bring a bodyguard with you, for later.’
‘Later?’
‘To walk you home safely. The streets are likely to be – well, you’ll see.’ He smiled, and I had a glimmer of what he was trying to tell me, or more precisely, what he was trying not to tell me.
‘Come along, Davus,’ I called over my shoulder. ‘We’ve been summoned by the first woman in Rome.’
The slave led us across the Palatine Hill to the large house where Calpurnia was residing in her husband’s absence. Even before we reached the house, I could see that the surrounding streets were busier than normal. Messengers were fanning outward from the house while men in togas were converging upon it. There was a sense of excitement, of a charge like lightning in the air. It intensified in the forecourt of the house, where men in small groups talked in hushed voices while slaves scurried to and fro. I recognized several senators and magistrates. Trebonius and Isauricus stood together off to one side, surrounded by their lictors. Something important had happened. The eyes and ears of all Rome were becoming trained upon this house.
The slave ushered us through the forecourt, up the steps, and into the house. The guards recognized him and allowed us to pass without question.
From the buzz of excitement outside, I expected the inside of the house to be a veritable beehive, but the hall down which the slave led us was surprisingly empty and quiet. We emerged in a sunlit garden where Calpurnia, seated in a backless chair, was dictating in a low voice to a scribe. At our approach she looked up and made a sign for the scribe to withdraw. At another sign, the slave who had escorted us also vanished.
‘Gordianus, you came very quickly.’ With a raised eyebrow she took note of my shabby tunic, and I knew I should have taken time to put on my toga, no matter what the slave had said.
‘Your man indicated that the summons was urgent.’
‘Only because, in a few moments, all Rome shall know. Once the word is out, there’s no telling how people will react. I assume that most people will be as overjoyed as I am – or will pretend to be.’
‘You’ve received good news, Calpurnia?’
She drew a breath and closed her eyes for a moment. She had not yet repeated the news often enough to have become inured to it. When she opened her eyes, they glittered with tears. Her voice trembled.
‘Caesar has triumphed! There was a great battle in Thessaly, near a place called Pharsalus. Pompey’s front lines gave way; then his cavalry broke and fled. It was a complete rout. Caesar himself led the charge to overrun the enemy’s camp. Some of their leaders escaped, but the engagement was decisive. Almost fifteen thousand of the enemy were slain that day, and more than twenty-four thousand surrendered. Caesar’s forces lost scarcely two hundred men. Victory is ours!’
‘And Pompey?’
Her face darkened. ‘Even as Caesar was leading his men over the ramparts into the enemy’s camp, Pompey fled from his tent, threw off his scarlet cape to make himself less conspicuous, mounted the first horse he could find, and escaped through the rear gate. He made his way to the coast and boarded a ship. He appears to have headed for Egypt. Caesar pu
rsues him. That’s the only bad news, that Caesar can’t yet return to Rome. But that was to be expected. Caesar will have to settle Rome’s affairs in Egypt and elsewhere before he can at last come home to rest.’
For a long moment, I took in the momentous nature of what Calpurnia had just told me. Waves of emotion passed through me. Like her, I experienced a trembling in my throat, and tears came to my eyes. Then doubts and questions intruded on my thoughts.
Could it really be over? With a single battle, was the war truly ended? What of Pompey’s naval fleet, which had always been superior to Caesar’s and which was still presumably intact? Who else besides Pompey had survived, and how easily would they give up the fight? What of Rome’s other enemies, such as King Juba, who had annihilated Curio and his expedition in Africa? What of Egypt, which was engaged in its own dynastic civil war? Calpurnia spoke of settling affairs there as if the job involved tools no more complicated than a broom and a dustpan, but when had anything to do with Egypt ever been that simple? Would it really be such a trivial task to track down Pompey, as if he were an escaped slave? If and when Caesar trapped him, did he intend to murder Pompey in cold blood? Or would he bring him back to Rome as a prisoner, parading him in chains behind his chariot in a triumphal procession, as he had done to Vercingetorix the Gaul? Doubts shadowed the news Calpurnia had given me, but I said nothing of them. How many of the men in her forecourt were entertaining the same questions, and how many would feign jubilation and leave their doubts unspoken – for the time being?
‘Remarkable news,’ I finally managed to say.
‘Is there nothing you wish to ask? No one you wish to ask after?’
I thought for a moment. ‘What of Domitius Ahenobarbus?’ He was one of Caesar’s fiercest enemies. At the outset of the war, he had lost the Italian city of Corfinium to Caesar, botched a suicide attempt, and been captured. Humiliated by Caesar’s pardon, he made his way to Massilia – where his path crossed mine – and took command of the forces resisting Caesar’s siege. When Caesar and Trebonius took Massilia, Domitius Ahenobarbus had escaped once more, to join Pompey.
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