Death at Pompeia's Wedding (24 page)

‘I should have realized that it was something of the kind. Maesta said that one of the victims hadn’t died at once, but that the dose should have been strong enough to kill an ox. She had an explanation which I doubted at the time. But of course, the poor wretch didn’t get the full amount. Your mother had abstracted some of it. Maesta actually told me that she’d died soon afterwards.’

‘She did not mean to make him suffer,’ Pompeia said. She had screwed her two hands tightly into fists and was staring down at them, as though she was physically holding on to her self-control. ‘My mother never intended to be cruel.’

‘Then tell me. Make me understand.’ I sat down, without permission, on the stool that Maesta had used.

‘I suppose I might as well, since you know anyway . . .’ She let her hands relax and moved her gaze to me. ‘It was clear that the doses were very strong indeed – because too little hemlock may not kill at once. They were to be distributed on successive days. My father came back and told us how the first two men had died, and how they had not even finished what had been poured for them. When my mother learned that, it gave her a way out. She had these phials of so-called love potions – she emptied one of them, and put the poison in, and topped the criminal’s container up again – probably with the other philtre she had saved. It should have been enough to kill him anyway. She only drank a mouthful and she died within the hour. It was just that the last criminal must have been a giant.’

I stared at her. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘She left a letter, for Honoria and I. We found it in our clothes chest after she had gone, with the remainder of the poison phial. In case we needed to escape ourselves, she said. Of course we didn’t realize how bad things had become. And naturally it was never mentioned at the funeral, or anywhere else as far as I’m aware – my father simply told us that she’d died.’

‘But you think he knew that she had killed herself?’

‘I’m not sure that he did. Certainly he never admitted it to us, and of course, he never found the phial. Died of a broken heart, the servants said. Only the steward knew the truth, and he could hardly tell, since he was the person who had let her out.’

‘She must have been desperate.’

‘I believe she was. It was the love potions that caused it – according to her note. She tried to put them in my father’s food, and he accused her of attempted poisoning and trying to affect his mind with sorcery. She was not allowed to speak to us: he told us she was ill. He locked her in her room – this one, hence the bar across the door – had her beaten, and threatened to exile her for life. He was about to bring a case to court – and his word would always have carried against hers. But she bribed the steward and he let her out, one evening when the rest of us were busy with a feast. And then she found the poison – and you know the rest. Of course, she must have been unhappy for a long time earlier, or she would not have needed the love potions at all.’ She looked at me at last. ‘Can you see why I’m determined not to marry Gracchus, now?’

‘Yet you didn’t resort to drinking the remnants of the phial? To make your own escape, as your mother might have said?’

She gave a long, defeated sigh. ‘Oh, but I did. I actually did. Honoria had left it with me when she went away, and the night before the wedding – when all else had failed – I screwed up my courage and drank the contents down. But either it was too diluted or time had weakened it. It had no effect. It made me a little queasy, but that was all it did.’ She got up suddenly and paced around the room, picked up the stolas and began to thrust them roughly back into their box.

‘It must have been distressing,’ I said, with sympathy, ‘to brace yourself to die, screw up your courage to take the fatal step, and then find that you are very much alive.’

She stuffed the stola violently away. ‘With the added consolation of feeling slightly sick.’ She turned to me. ‘You know I even wondered if my father had found out, and had changed the contents of the bottle while it was in my care. But I can’t see how he can have done. It was a secret between Honoria and I – we couldn’t help our mother, so we never mentioned it. Besides, Honoria had already met Miles by that time. It was her dowry – and she loved him. What else was there to do?’

‘You never sought redress. Not from your grandmother?’

‘What could we say to her? My father was not actually guilty of a crime – not under the law he cared so much about. He would simply have turned his anger on to us – disinherited the pair of us, so Honoria said.’

‘And you would have minded that?’

‘Not the lack of luxury – I would not have cared – but how could we have made a living if he’d cast us out?’

I should have thought of that. Girls of her status were not brought up to work, and they had no skills that they could offer in the marketplace. They would have had to sell themselves as slaves – and, since Pompeia was so plain, she might not have found a buyer, even then. Perhaps that’s one reason the mother took her life – in order to protect them from a fate like that. If she’d been exiled and disgraced, the father was entitled to disown the daughters too. ‘So you stayed here and kept silent. And then your father brought another woman to the house? You must have hated her.’

Pompeia looked surprised. ‘Oh, you can’t object to Livia, she didn’t choose her fate. In any case, she’s more like one of us. She was always kind to me – protected me from Helena Domna when she could – and she was really great friends with Honoria you know. Even when my sister wed and went away to live, she was always writing to ask Livia to come. Wanted her there when her first child was born – even called the girl Lavinia as a kind of compliment.’ She sat down on the box.

‘So Livia did go there? I had the impression Honorius went alone.’

‘He did do, sometimes, but often she went too. I was never permitted to accompany them, of course – though I should have loved to see my sister’s house. It was a fine one, so everybody says, with handsome frescos in the dining room, and a proper little walled courtyard at the back – even if it was right next door to an inn. Honoria’s bedroom looked out on a tree – she used to lie in bed and watch the blossoms grow when she was expecting Lavinia, she said.’

But I was hardly listening. A startling possibility had just occurred to me – something which might hold the key to everything – but I did not want to alarm Pompeia by expressing it. ‘But you have never been to visit her yourself?’ I improvised. ‘I suppose your grandmother would not approve of that? Too much expense for a girl of no account?’

She gave a rueful smile. ‘My sister used to write me letters, though – and so did Livia when she was away. Miles would get them brought up by some passing wagon. Helena Domna disapproved of course, so we used to get the doorkeeper to keep a watch for them and smuggle them to me.’ She clenched her fists again. ‘But that’s all over now. Honoria is dead. Is all this important, citizen? If it isn’t, I think I’ve had enough of questioning.’

‘You’ve been more help than you imagine,’ I said truthfully. ‘Thank you for daring to confide in me. I’ll do my best to be worthy of your trust.’

‘I’ve talked too much. You won’t tell anyone?’ She tugged my toga sleeve.

‘I cannot promise that. But I won’t tell anyone unnecessarily. Will that be good enough?’

‘Then I hope Helena Domna doesn’t have to know. She’s my custodian and she hates me as it is – I’ll be lucky if she even sends me any meals.’ She turned her head away. ‘What difference does it make? She’ll make me marry Gracchus, and I might as well be dead.’

‘She can’t do anything before the will is read,’ I pointed out. ‘And then you’ll have a guardian—’

She interrupted me. ‘And that’s likely to be Gracchus, or so Livia thinks.’ She brightened. ‘But he mightn’t need to marry me, in that case, I suppose – he would still have the money, which is all he wants. Though Helena Domna would be furious. And,’ she added, sounding positively cheerful at the thought, ‘I don’t suppose he’d let me marry anybody else.’

Especially not a freed slave, I thought suddenly – remembering the way she’d said the steward’s name and the warmth with which she’d smiled at him. It would have been entirely impossible, of course – a freeborn woman cannot marry her own slave, even if she decides to set him free. If she does so, she becomes a slave herself – and a man in slavery cannot marry anyone. Poor Pompeia – her case was desperate.

So all I said was: ‘Your grandmother may have some questions to answer herself. And if I am to ask them, I had better go. I think I know now, what the questions are, but unless I get some answers I will be in jail by noon.’

‘Then you are lucky, citizen. I am imprisoned now,’ she murmured.

It was true, and I felt truly sorry for her as I went outside, and allowed my waiting slave to put the bar back across her door.

Twenty-Two

The bar was heavy and it took a moment for my slave to heave it into place. When he had finished, he gestured to the Neptune and made a wry grimace. ‘Master, I’m glad you’ve come. I haven’t dared sit down. I had the feeling it was watching me.’

It was a relief to laugh, but I knew what he meant. This was a house of secrecy and spies. The feeling was made all the more oppressive by the distant wail of the lament and the insistent plangent twanging of a lyre. I found that I was moved to whisper, as I said, ‘Have you seen anyone since the steward left?’

He shook his head. ‘He was going to tell the family that you were here, he said, but he has not been back. Oh, but here’s Pulchra coming for us now.’

And indeed the stout maidservant was bustling towards us down the court, though her face did not look very welcoming. Her greeting, when she reached us, was not encouraging. ‘The mistress isn’t very happy that you’ve come. She says she did as much as possible for you yesterday. It isn’t right, you know. Interrupting a family during mourning rites.’

‘I am still working to clear Pompeia’s name,’ I said. I didn’t mention that I also had to clear my own. ‘And we now have two murders, not just one, to solve.’

She made an impatient little clucking noise. ‘Well, Pompeia didn’t murder Antoninus, did she, citizen? She was fast asleep and guarded the whole afternoon. She never left the house. Nor did Helena Domna either, come to that – and nor did my mistress – till you sent for her, by which time Antoninus was already dead. The whole of the household are witnesses to that. And you questioned them all yesterday about Honorius. So I don’t know what you hope to gain by coming here like this.’

‘Pulchra,’ I said gently, ‘you love Livia, I think?’

She glowered at me uncertainly. ‘Well, of course I do. I’ve known her all her life. And who wouldn’t love her – Juno bless her little heart? Even her pompous husband thought the world of her.’

‘So you can’t think of anyone who’d tried to poison her?’

The scowl vanished and she stared at me, surprised. ‘Whatever do you mean? Who’d do a thing like that? And how could it happen, in a house like this?’

I nodded sagely. ‘That is what I’m trying to find out. But it occurs to me, that it’s remotely possible. Livia took some medicine in the mornings, didn’t she? Against the morning sickness, I think Maesta said. And she opened a new phial of it, only yesterday. Did anyone handle it but Livia herself?’

‘I don’t think so, citizen.’ She pulled her lips down at the corners in a sort of a grimace. ‘I broke the seal and poured it out myself.’ She looked at me, aghast. ‘You think that Maesta might have substituted poison in the phial? And that Honorius took it by mistake?’ She shook her head. ‘I really don’t see how. The master would never deign to take anything like that – and you could not have missed it. The stuff smelt horrible. Besides, I saw her drink it, and she was quite all right.’

‘And the watered wine that she took afterwards, to take the taste away? I remember that you mentioned that she always needed some.’

She had turned white, as if the notion had shocked her to the core. ‘She did think that there was something a little odd in that – but then she often did, when she’d been taking that revolting stuff. Made me have a taste of it, and Honorius too – though it tasted perfectly all right to me. But she insisted that Honorius should go and test the wine, in case there was something the matter with the batch. He laughed at her, but he did it all the same.’

So that was the solution to that riddle, I thought. ‘And what happened to the jug that she’d been drinking from?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t really know. She sent me out to test the water in the well. The wedding guests were already beginning to arrive. Oh . . .!’ She gave a little gasp. ‘You think it was that wine that might have poisoned him – and not the stuff in the new amphorae after all?’

I nodded. This was a new theory and I was pleased with it. ‘I wondered what it was that made him decide to test the wine – one doesn’t generally do a thing like that. But Livia thought there was a problem – tasted something unusual, perhaps – and she persuaded him . . .’

She seemed pleased. ‘Of course. He would taste every amphora in the house, if she’d requested it. But wouldn’t he have died a little earlier, in that case?’

‘A small dose, especially diluted with water in a jug, might have taken a little while to take effect – and that would still tie in with the events of yesterday.’

‘So you think it was my mistress that the murderer was really aiming at? Dear Jupiter, I hadn’t thought of that. You’re very clever, citizen.’ She frowned. ‘But how can that be right? I tasted the mixture in that jug myself, and so did she – and we’re as alive as you are, aren’t we, citizen?’

She clearly had a point. I shook my head. ‘There’s something missing in my thinking, and I don’t know what it is. But I do think it may have been related to Livia’s medicine. You see now why it is important that I came?’

‘Of course you had to, citizen. I can see that now. I’ll go and tell my mistress what you have just said. Then I’m sure she’ll come and speak to you herself.’ She made to go but I put out a quick restraining hand.