Rosemary Rowe - The Chariots of Calyx

‘She was playing the part of the distraught mistress. Ruthless,’ I put in. ‘I knew she had a heartless streak — I once saw her force her page to taste a potion. Of course, she knew that it was only water — she put it there herself — but the poor little lad did not know that. Yet he drank it for her. She seems to have inspired that kind of loyalty. And by making Prisca taste her food thereafter, of course she made it easier to poison her — and claim Prisca’s death as proof that she was in danger herself.’

‘Poor Prisca,’ Lydia lamented. ‘All that poison-tasting too. I’ll sacrifice a pigeon for her tomorrow.’

‘And there’s another thing. Why should a woman who has been attacked with a knife seek to defend herself by installing a poison-taster, rather than, say, a bodyguard? But Fulvia contrived to make it seem quite logical. Like that arm of hers — scratched just enough to make a lot of blood. We never saw the wound. And it was her left arm — most people raise their right hand to defend themselves. She was right-handed; I saw her tie her belt. I should have noticed at the time, but somehow she charmed me too.’

Annia’s maidservant chose that moment to return with her handful of salt and her little bowl of coals. She stopped at the doorway, while the undertaker’s assistant hovered behind her with a bowl of water and a bunch of herbs. Annia Augusta looked at me. I nodded.

‘Go to the lady Fulvia’s cubiculum ,’ she said. ‘Purify the room and prepare her for burial at once — she will accompany her husband to the pyre.’

‘But surely. .’ Lydia began, ‘now we know. .’

‘My dear Lydia, what is to be gained? Monnius’ murderer is dead. What could be more fitting than to burn her on his pyre? She was attacked when Monnius was killed, and since has died of her wounds. That is all that anyone need know — except the governor, of course. There will be no trial, there is nobody to charge. Let us resolve the matter, once and for all. You think that might be permitted, citizen?’

I nodded. ‘It would put a stop to rumour and unrest. I think His Excellence would approve. Some things remain to be resolved, but this is the funeral of an official, so soldiers will accompany the cortège — I do not foresee any difficulty there. Let the slave-boy close his mistress’s eyes and mourn her. There is no one else to do it. Unless. .’ I looked at Fortunatus.

He looked away, and shook his head. The maidservant bowed her way out of the study, followed by the undertaker’s man. A moment later, from Fulvia’s room, there was the scent of burning herbs and the pageboy’s faltering voice began a heartfelt, sobbing lament.

‘Now, if you will pardon me,’ I said, ‘I will return to the governor. He will be awaiting my report, and there are matters on which he may wish to act.’ I looked from Annia Augusta to the floor, and saw her look of consternation. My surmises were correct, I thought. ‘Send my slave after me when he arrives.’

‘But,’ Lydia protested, after a moment’s pause, ‘I don’t understand. If there was no intruder at the feast, who was it who stabbed Fulvia again?’

‘You have just answered that question for yourself,’ I said. ‘I suspected it before, and now I’m sure. Annia Augusta knows the answer too — that’s why she’s raised no question of her own. You did it, Lydia. How else would you have known that she’d been stabbed? We told you Fulvia was dead, but no one mentioned knives.’

She pitched forward in a graceless faint. Fortunatus caught her before she hit the floor.

‘Well, pavement-maker, welcome. Prepare him a place there, slave.’ Helvius Pertinax, resplendent in a coloured dining robe, gestured graciously to a triclinium couch. He helped himself from a tray of pork and leeks, which a small servant-boy was offering to him, and gestured capaciously to me to do the same. ‘A simple meal — I hope it meets your taste.’

I rose from my kneeling position and sank down on the proffered couch, glad of an opportunity to recline. I was exhausted, but damnably hungry, and Pertinax’s ‘simple meal’ smelled like ambrosia to me. In my old toga, bathed and shaved, I felt like a human being once again.

A long time later, the governor turned to me. ‘Glaucus has been captured, did you hear? Unfortunately, dead. The soldiers who arrested him had lost too much money on the chariots, I fear. They may have been a little over-exuberant.’ He held out a goblet to his serving-boy, who filled it to the brim with watered wine. ‘I hear you have done well today. And it was a domestic murder after all, not a political one. That news is doubly welcome.’

I had waited for this moment. Like any civilised Roman, Pertinax preferred philosophy to business as a topic of dinner conversation. Until the spiced fruits were cleared away, he had been discoursing learnedly on Homeric verse. Now, though, he had signalled he was ready. I outlined to him the events of the day.

He heard me out, gravely and courteously, nodding from time to time. When I had finished he said, ‘So Lydia betrayed herself, in the end.’

The servant filled my goblet in its turn. ‘I had my suspicions before then, but that slip about the stabbing confirmed them. I was sure that it was someone in the villa. The statue had not been pushed behind Monnius’ door, it had been propped up on the wooden bowl and pulled over by that cord. It was very top-heavy, so it was not hard to do, although it must have created quite a crash. She has described it to me since. She went into the passageway, shut the door as far she could, then pulled the cord behind her. She hoped it would come free as the statue fell, but it didn’t, so she stuffed the end back through the crack, and latched the door. The statue prevented anyone from entering the room, which was what she intended. She hoped to rescue the cord again before it was discovered, but if not it was Fulvia’s anyway, the girdle cord she always took off when she went to rest.’

Pertinax sipped his wine, and picked up a pickled nut. ‘So it was someone in the villa. But why were you so sure that it was Lydia?’

‘She went to Fulvia’s room, she told us that, with the potion she had prepared. A sleeping draught, of course, although she denied it later. Probably in the goblet rather than the flask, since she was so ready to drink from that herself before Annia Augusta stopped her — but in any case it would have done her little harm.’

Pertinax nodded. ‘She might even have smashed that drinking glass herself, to deflect suspicion. But it did not deflect you, my friend.’

I smiled under his praise, but honesty prompted me to add, ‘But who else could it have been, Excellence? All the slaves adored Fulvia, as we know. Fortunatus was not in the house. Annia Augusta was here with me when her daughter-in-law was killed, and Filius was sulking in his room. There was no one else. Lydia, of course, believed the story of the intruder and did not see the risk.’

‘So that is why she chose to use the knife? I wondered why she did not opt for poison. It seems an easier way, for a woman with her skills.’

‘She thought that poison would be traced to her, and she might have been blamed for Prisca’s death as well — although, as it turned out, she was wrong in that. If Fulvia had been poisoned like her maid, I might have believed she really had been at risk all along and that I was completely wrong in my suspicions. Then the truth might never have been discovered. But Lydia thought the story of the visitor was real.’

‘So she tried to draw your attention to that window?’

‘That was a mistake. Monnius’ shutters were slightly open, but she could not have known that, unless she opened them herself. By custom they should have been closed — and yet she mentioned the window-space specifically. And another thing. I knew that whoever stabbed Fulvia must have been covered with her blood. That pointed to Lydia as well. It was that, and not the sacrifice she offered, which spattered her clothes and made her cleanse herself. Of course, the breaking of the imago gave her an excellent excuse.’