Death at Pompeia's Wedding (10 page)

I looked around me now. There was nothing much to see. Except for a table and the stool – neither of which looked as if they properly belonged – there was nothing in the sleeping room except the bed, at all. No rugs, no cupboards, no chests of clothes – no sign of perfumes, combs or jewellery.

I turned to Pulchra. ‘This is Pompeia’s room?’ I asked her, in an undertone.

She whispered back. ‘It used to be her mother’s room, in the last days of her life. They put Pompeia here because it’s easier to bar – there is nothing of her own in her old room anyway. Everything is packed and waiting at the gate. It was due to be taken to the bridegroom’s house, of course, once he had walked her in triumph through the town.’

I nodded. I could imagine that. If we ever saw a bridal possession in the street Gwellia invariably wanted to stop and watch. You could always tell the house that they were heading for – the threshold would be hung with greenery and draped in fresh white cloth, and once the new bride had anointed the doorposts with symbolic oil and fat and tied a piece of woollen fillet round each one of them, the groom would pick her up and carry her inside to prevent her from tripping on the step. All this to prevent bad omens for their future life, but Gracchus would now have to take the decorations down – and as an augury, I thought, that must be even worse.

I did not voice these dreary thoughts, however. I spoke to the servant with the drinking cup. ‘Pompeia’s things will be brought back, no doubt?’

The slave girl nodded. ‘As soon as the immediate arrangements for the funeral have been made. She will need to change into some different clothes, even if she is not to help with the lament.’

The figure on the bed gave a convulsive sob at this. The servant made another attempt to give the girl the cup, which almost resulted in the liquid being spilt, and that brought Maesta hurrying over from her perch.

‘Can you persuade her to drink it, citizen? If Helena Domna comes and finds her still awake, she’ll send for the steward and make him force it down her throat. It could choke her if she struggles, and then they will blame me. My husband will be furious that I suggested this at all. He says that we are in quite enough trouble as it is – if it does turn out that there was any poison in the wine.’

I looked at her. She was quite dishevelled now. Her rich wine-coloured stola was hanging all awry, the greying hair was straggling from its fashionable combs and her stout face had taken on a mottled purplish tinge – which rather matched her under-tunic and her leather shoes. The haughty, sour expression had deserted her and she looked terrified.

‘Helena Domna knows that I have come to speak to her,’ I said, ‘so she will not be displeased to learn she’s not asleep.’ But I took the cup and motioned the slave to move away.

Pompeia seemed to sense that I had taken it away. She raised her head a little, and looked round at me.

‘I don’t want to speak to anyone. I want to be alone. Just go away – all of you – and leave me here until they come for me.’

‘Who is going to come for you, Pompeia?’ I enquired.

She rocked back on her knees and scowled up at me. Her face was red and swollen under the saffron veil, and the pathetic bridal plaits had been torn undone. She looked so miserable and angry that I felt sympathy for her.

‘I suppose they’ll kill me, after what I’ve done. Or send me to some island and leave me there to die.’

‘But what have you done, exactly?’ I kept my voice deliberately gentle as I spoke. ‘You said you killed your father, but I don’t believe you did. I don’t see how you had the opportunity today.’

She seemed almost disappointed at my cool response. ‘I made it happen – and that’s all there is to that. So let them come and get me. I don’t care any more. In the meantime, you don’t have to stand there watching and gloating over me. And I’m not drinking anything that woman has prepared. How can I be sure that it isn’t poisoned too? Somebody clearly wants our family dead.’

‘So it wasn’t you that put wolfsbane in your father’s wine?’

She gave a shivering sniff and glared at me. ‘Well, of course, I didn’t do it personally. Where, by all the gods, would I get wolfsbane from? And when did I ever have the chance to do anything alone? But – I am telling you – it was my fault all the same.’ Her voice was coming in little gasping sobs.

‘You mean you paid someone to do it?’ Pulchra’s voice was sharp.

Pompeia flung her a look that would have withered stone, and said, with the same little catches in her breath, ‘I had no money. How could I do that?’

I had a flash of sudden insight and bent very close to her. ‘I think I understand,’ I murmured softly. ‘You put a curse on him, or something of the kind?’

She looked at me with a kind of gratitude. ‘I knew it would come out somehow, though I vowed I would not tell. But now you know. It’s illegal, isn’t it? You can be put to death for using supernatural means to kill someone like that?’

I took a deep breath. ‘That depends on circumstance,’ I said, though she was right in principle of course. The use of magic to procure a death was still potentially a capital offence. Marcus – ironically – had mentioned it to me, not very long before he went abroad. The law had fallen into abeyance more or less in recent years, but the Emperor’s increasing willingness to see threats everywhere had meant that there had recently been talk of it again. Ambitious councillors and magistrates throughout the Empire – including, unsurprisingly, Honorius himself – had actively argued in favour of reviving it.

I turned to Pompeia. ‘It’s a question of whether you used spells and sorcerers.’ And whether it could be proved that there was a deliberate human agency instead, I added to myself.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing of that kind, citizen. I called upon the gods. I made a secret, special sacrifice and made a vow to Venus that if she heard my prayer, I would remain a virgin all my life. I didn’t want to marry like my sister did, some business contact that my father had picked for me. Or be like poor Livia, bullied and tormented by a mother-in-law who made her days a living misery. I prayed to all the gods that they would deliver me – and so they have done. In this dreadful way! So you see, citizen, it is exactly as I said. I deserve whatever punishment the courts reserve for me. I was responsible for my father’s death.’

There was shocked silence and then Maesta said, ‘Well, there you are then. Best if she drinks that potion I made, and it will give her oblivion at least. Have them bring a slave in, if she doubts that it is safe, and have him take the draught. She will see it only makes you sleep. I have another dose of the same mixture in this phial.’ She produced a woven basket from underneath the stool – it had been hidden by her skirts when she’d been sitting there – and took out another little bottle. ‘I was going to leave it here, in case it was required. They can give her that one, if she would prefer.’

Pompeia turned her tear-stained face to me – she had obviously adopted me as her protector in all this. ‘Don’t let them, citizen. How can I be sure that the mixture is the same – or that the poor servant won’t be murdered too?’

‘I don’t think so, Pompeia. I am here to witness what is happening, and they could not give you poison without my knowing it. Besides, there is a different proposition I could make. We’ll put a little of this poppy juice into another cup, and Maesta herself can have a sip of it.’

Maesta looked startled. ‘And if I fall asleep?’

I shrugged. ‘What does it signify? You were staying here to see that the potion took effect, and you were to be locked into this room with her until it did. If Pompeia goes on refusing to touch it in this way, it might be quicker if you simply had a sip yourself.’ I didn’t add that I was interested to see her reactions for myself. Maesta’s skill with herbs might be important yet. Someone had poisoned Honorius, after all – although it seemed that Pompeia had not – and who better than the vintner’s wife to have access to the wine? Though, admittedly, it was hard to see what her motive might have been. I would have to talk to Maesta – and her husband – later on.

For the moment, though, Pompeia was my chief concern. I turned towards the girl. ‘If Maesta agrees to taste it, then I think that you should drink the rest. It would be good for you to sleep. You do not want them to call a medicus and have him declare you mad, or worse still call the guard and have you dragged away. I am not surprised you hold yourself responsible for this – by your own admission, you called on the gods to help you to thwart your father’s plans. But you did not curse him, or ask them to strike him dead. I don’t think any court could find you guilty – particularly when someone else set out to murder him. And there is no law against praying to the gods.’

She gave a little groan. ‘You really think so, citizen? I made my vows in private – there is no proof of what I said.’

‘It may be that the gods have a sense of irony, but I think this murder was by human hand. I don’t believe your prayer was really answered, anyway. You wanted to be delivered from this marriage, I’m aware, but it was really the married state you wanted to escape – and your grandmother’s still hoping to find a groom for you.’ I didn’t add that Gracchus was employing me, and was prepared to take her as a wife himself.

I had rather expected that she would be relieved by my reassurance that she was innocent, but instead she looked appalled. ‘But my vow to Venus! I promised on my life . . .’

I grinned. ‘Ah, that is where you are very fortunate. Or you made a very clever bargain with the gods. If you are given in marriage your prayers have not been heard – in which case you are not bound to keep the vow. If you remain single, it will keep itself.’

For the first time I saw the flicker of a smile, and was amazed how it transformed her face. It wasn’t pretty – it could never be that – but it softened markedly, though there was still a hint of fierce determination in the eyes. Perhaps I should not have been surprised at that – most girls would simply have embraced their fate, not tried to enlist the aid of goddesses. Perhaps she had inherited a little of her paternal grandmother’s strong will and stubbornness.

‘Very well. If you will undertake to speak on my behalf, I will drink the potion, if Maesta tastes it first. But I don’t want to marry, you can tell them that – especially not someone who just wants my settlement. And if they try to force me, I’ll find another way. I’ll hide the balance scales – someone has to hold them at the ceremony or it will be so ill-omened they won’t let it proceed. Or better still, I will refuse to say the words. They can drag me to the altar, but they can’t make me speak.’

She might just dare to do it, too, I thought. And without her uttering the ancient formula ‘where you are Gaius, I am Gaia’, the marriage would not stand. I wondered what Gracchus would say if he knew about all this. Refuse to pay me for my efforts, probably – though my contract only said that I must prove her innocent.

‘No one will expect you to marry anyone, at least until the mourning period is complete,’ I said. ‘And surely even marriage is better than slow death on a barren island, or permanently being locked up in your room, which is what will happen if they think that you are crazed.’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t expect my father to be dead,’ she muttered. ‘I hoped . . . I don’t know what I hoped. Honorius being prepared to change his mind, or some other miracle like that. But I would not have chosen to kill him, citizen. It only puts me into Helena Domna’s hands – whoever my guardian is, she will have the final say – and I am no better off than I was before. It would have been better if Gracchus had been struck. Or my grandmother herself.’

I stifled a smile at this heartless list. ‘Would that have saved you?’

‘I think it might have done. Livia would have spoken for me, I am sure, if I had begged her to. She was quite kind to me, and she was the one person my father listened to. He could not deny her anything at all – not like my poor mother who was virtually his slave.’

This was a new insight into Livia’s married life. I glanced at Pulchra, but she was staring at the wall with that look of martyred patience waiting slaves adopt.

Pompeia gave a sigh and bounced herself upright. ‘But what does it matter now? It is all a dreadful, messy irony. Go on then, citizen. Let Maesta taste the sleeping draught and I will drink the rest. Perhaps it would be better if it killed me anyway. And it can’t taste any nastier than the last one that she made.’

I made a mental note to speak to Maesta soon. I remembered how Helena Domna had pounced upon the fact that Maesta had a certain gift with herbs when there was first concern about Honorius’s health – as if the idea was quite new to her. Yet it was evident that Maesta had made several cures for members of the household here at different times.

She saw me looking at her and burst out at once, ‘I made that decoction particularly strong – as Helena Domna instructed me to do – and no doubt it will affect me even with a sip. But I will take it, citizen, if you insist on it – though I would be glad if somebody would let my husband know what has happened and why I’ve not come home. Oh, I wish I’d not suggested it. I thought Helena Domna would be pleased and not blame us for the problems with the wine. I even hoped she might become another customer. And now look what I’ve done. But I suppose there is no help for it.’ She reached out her hand to take the cup from me.

Pompeia surprised us, by saying in a sober tone of voice, ‘If she is prepared to drink it, that is good enough. She would not do it, if there were poison in the cup.’ She looked at me. ‘I’m sorry, citizen. I have caused a lot of trouble for you and everyone, I can see that – but when my father died suddenly like that, you can see that I supposed that somehow I had been responsible for it. And when I learned that he’d drunk something poisoned, I was afraid myself. I would not put it past my grandmother to order me a draught to save the family the shame of having me arraigned. You know what she and my father thought about the honour of the house!’