Rosemary Rowe - Death at Pompeia

‘But not today?’ I murmured, looking at the single table and the stools around the walls.

She flashed me that little rueful smile again. ‘Today was the exception. This wedding had to be at home and there were too many guests to seat them formally. We were going to have the slaves bring little folding tables in. Even then I had a job to talk Honorius into it. He thought it was ill-omened. And perhaps it was!’ She paused for a moment at the entrance way and glanced around the decorated room. ‘But you can see now, citizen — I’m sure — why Redux, despite his connection with the family, would not be the proper man to ask to close my husband’s eyes for him and call upon his soul.’

And with that, she joined the waiting slave and went back to the hall, leaving me alone among the empty chairs.

I watched her go, but didn’t follow her. In fact I deliberately stayed behind and bent down to pick up the scattered petals from the floor, where there was a fine mosaic of the seasons laid at the dining end. It was not my place to do so, in a household full of slaves, but I was half-hoping that one of them would come in after me and I would be able to learn the servants’ view of what had happened in this house today. Besides, Livia had given me a lot to think about and I wanted a little time to consider what it meant.

Had Redux somehow contrived to murder Honorius to avenge the honour killing of his friend, when the legal process offered no redress? That much was plausible. But how could he have put poison in the wine? Or had there been some other method of administering it? Perhaps I was wrong in thinking there was wolfsbane used at all — there were other poisons which would have the same effects — though surely only aconite would have killed so instantly?

I was collecting the flower-fragments as I mused, but I hadn’t gathered more than one or two of them before I was interrupted by a puzzled small voice from the door.

‘Master?’

It was my own slave, little Minimus. I straightened up and saw him standing at the entrance to the room, clutching the ill-fated wedding platter in one hand, and my cloak in the other. When he saw what I’d been doing he put those down at once and came across to pick the petals up himself.

‘You should have called me, master, not scrabbled on the floor,’ he chided, collecting up the scattered remnants in a trice and rising, flushed and panting, to put them in my hand. ‘I knew you must be in here but I couldn’t see you from the door. I brought your belongings. Everyone has left. I’m sorry, master, no one at all has stayed behind as you requested them — most people didn’t even stop to drink the wine. After Pompeia’s outburst they were all eager to be gone.’

I nodded and put the broken petals on the tabletop. ‘Antoninus among them. I am aware of that.’

I must have sounded sharp, because he looked chagrined. ‘I didn’t see him leave. I’m sorry if I should have prevented him from going. I thought of asking people to stay back to talk to you but I wasn’t sure who you would want to question. I did approach one citizen — that decurion that Honorius spoke to last of all — but he said you wouldn’t need him now, because there was no mystery. I suppose he thought that with Pompeia saying what she did. .?’ He made a little helpless gesture with his hands. ‘I could hardly compel an important man against his will.’

‘It can’t be altered now.’ I picked my cloak up from the stool where he had put it down, and shrugged it round my shoulders in a careless way. ‘But I would like to have had a word with him, and Antoninus too — and a man called Redux who was with him in the hall. I suppose I shall have to try to find out where they live.’

‘Redux the trader, are you speaking of?’ Minimus brightened up. ‘I know where you can find him, master — or I think I do. He has a warehouse down beside the dock, trading with the ships from Hibernia and Gaul. I was talking to his slave upstairs, before the steward came to tell us that Honorius was ill.’

I looked at him with sudden interest. Perhaps the boy was not so useless after all. ‘A warehouse full of what?’ I said aloud — wondering if Redux dealt in wine at all.

Minimus was proud to show off what he knew. ‘Everything from Glevum roofing-tiles to Celtic woollen cloth. Anything that’s cheap from the locality. He buys it in when there’s a glut, and keeps it for a while, then either sells it on again when prices rise or exchanges it aboard the trading ships for things you can’t get here, like pickled anchovies and olive oil or even foreign slaves.’

‘And so makes a profit?’ I was struggling to fasten the cloak around my neck.

He rushed across to fix it with a shoulder-clasp. ‘Making a small fortune out of it, I hear. At least till recently. But according to the slave that I was talking to, Redux had a partner who died quite recently and since that happened things aren’t going so well. He doesn’t have the instinct that his friend had, it seems, for knowing what to buy and when to sell. But he’s still got the warehouse. I could show you where, I think. The slave was boasting about how big it used to be, and how it was sited right beside the docks.’ He fussed about me, settling my cloak-folds neatly into place with a care that my poor garment scarcely merited, then standing back to admire his handiwork.

‘Since you have brought me my cloak so diligently, you could take me there before we leave the town.’

‘Immediately, master, if you wish to set off straight away. Or I’m sure the offer of refreshment will still stand. Most things, of course, are being put away until the funeral feast — the sweet cakes and the wedding dishes that the kitchen had prepared — but you could still have fruit and watered wine before you leave, if you desire.’

I realized that he would not have dreamed this offer up himself — nor taken the initiative to bring the cloak to me. ‘Helena Domna sent you?’ I enquired. ‘To hint to me that it was time to go?’

He grinned. ‘In fact it was the lady Livia,’ he said. ‘Though only when she came out to the hall and found out that her mother-in-law had already organized the slaves and had them starting to clear the atrium. She had even sent the steward out to fetch the embalming women and arrange the bier — and of course she hadn’t consulted anyone at all. Her daughter-in-law was not best pleased, I fear, but Helena Domna insisted that she’d been forced to act because the household needed to begin the mourning rites as soon as possible, otherwise it was a dishonour to the corpse.’

‘That was really a rebuke to Livia, I suppose,’ I said, ‘because she was with me and wasn’t there to make the arrangements for herself?’

‘Exactly, master. But of course, it all needed to be done and there wasn’t much the poor lady could do except agree. Though she said to tell you that you’d be welcome to come back, once Honorius’s body is prepared for burial and laid out in the atrium in state.’

I nodded. ‘A good many people will be calling then, no doubt, to pay their homage and help with the lament.’

‘Oh, and the chief steward will be starting that, and closing the eyes and calling on the soul. I had to promise that I would tell you that. She seemed to think that you would want to know.’

‘In the absence of a suitable male relative,’ I said thoughtfully. It was a confirmation that Redux had not been approached for the task.

‘But doesn’t Livia have a guardian under law?’ Minimus enquired. ‘You’d think Honorius would have named one in his will. She doesn’t have three children so I thought she needed one. And — come to think of it — since Pompeia hasn’t married after all, won’t she be requiring a legal guardian too, now that her father’s dead? But perhaps there is no will. I know there was talk that Honorius was going to call for witnesses and nominate Marcus as a beneficiary. I heard it talked about when I was serving them one night.’