Rosemary Rowe - Death at Pompeia

‘It’s all lies and conjecture. I deny it all.’ Livia looked round wildly, but there was no escape. She was effectively imprisoned in her place. The central table was in front of her, and the two couches that we others sat on barred the route on either side. She sank back despondently on to her couch again, and added in a bitter and reproachful tone, ‘Citizen Libertus, I am surprised at you. I did my best to help you when you were in trouble yesterday, but you repay me by alleging that I killed Honorius. And what about Antoninus? Are you going to claim that I murdered him as well?’ She seized the drinking cup and drank it at a gulp.

‘You certainly had a motive for wishing he was dead. And you felt yourself in sudden danger the other day, of course, when Antoninus came to see your husband late at night. By your own admission you listened at the door — but you told me that it was very difficult to hear. I think you heard the name of Zythos mentioned several times. You didn’t know about the stolen statue of Minerva, then, and you thought that Antoninus had betrayed your love affair. Pulchra, didn’t she come and tell you something of the kind?’

Pulchra had turned pink about the ears. ‘Well, I can’t deny it, citizen. She was so upset, poor lamb, she hardly closed her eyes and slept a wink all night. If I’d had Maesta’s sleeping potion then, I would have given it to her.’

‘Instead of to Antoninus, as you actually did?’

The whole room had turned silent and was looking at me now.

Pulchra glanced about her. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Of course you do. It was a clever plan. You didn’t have the poison, you’d already used that up. You gave it to Honorius that morning, didn’t you? I don’t know whether Livia knew what you had done, but you got that poison from Pompeia’s room — not hard to do when you are packing up her things — and put it into that jug of watered wine, after your mistress had sipped it and pronounced it odd, of course. It did occur to me to think of this before, but you assured me then that you’d tasted it yourself. But of course you hadn’t — I had just your word for that.’

There was a sudden scuffle from behind the chair as Pulchra tried to make a run for it. Redux and Gracchus jumped up as one man, seized her bodily and pinned her to the wall.

‘So you admit it?’ Helena Domna cried. ‘Wretched woman. I’ll have you flayed for this.’

‘Pulchra?’ Livia’s voice was almost a childish tearful cry. ‘Why did you do it? I told you it was mad.’ She turned to me. ‘It’s my fault, citizen. I was the one who told her about the poison phial. I heard about it from Honoria — and of course I told the maid, as I told her nearly everything. Have mercy, citizen. She used it, not from malice, but to save me from disgrace, and poverty and divorce, or — worse — from sharing Honoria’s awful fate. I always said that Pulchra would protect me with her life.’

‘And so I would have done,’ the servant said, then broke off with a gasp as Redux took her arm and twisted it behind her.

‘So you can tell us about what you did to Antoninus too.’ For an effete and overweight young man he sounded threatening.

Pulchra said nothing. He yanked the arm again.

‘You went there, Pulchra,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Livia virtually told me that you did. She said that she’d arranged to have the garum taken back — and who would she have sent on any message except you? And you had the clever notion of the sleeping draught. I thought of it last evening when I saw my slave asleep — in just the same attitude that Antoninus was. What did you do? Slip it into his drink of wine?’

Gracchus did something with his knee and Pulchra yelped again.

‘Oh, don’t hurt Pulchra!’ Livia exclaimed. ‘It was my doing as much as it was hers. I agreed that she should use the phial. It wasn’t meant to kill him — just put him to sleep, so he couldn’t talk to anyone and let my secret out. I thought he was intending to do that, naturally, when I heard that he’d asked you to call round later on, especially when Helena Domna told me what the note was written on.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Ironic. I thought Antoninus was making a hidden threat to me — and for different reasons, she thought just the same.’

‘Well then, Pulchra,’ Gracchus snarled at her. ‘You heard what Livia said. She was as much responsible as you. Will you make a full confession, or shall we start on her?’

Livia looked defeated, but Pulchra raised her head. ‘It was my doing, citizens. Mine and only mine. It’s true that my mistress knew about the sleeping draught, but making someone fall asleep is not against the law. I managed to slip it into his water jug — I offered to fill it at the fountain for him while he dined — and after a little while it seemed to take effect. He wandered to the study, sat down and seemed to doze. But I wasn’t certain how long the dose would last, so when he had been nodding for a little while, I took his dining knife and stuck it in his ribs. He didn’t shout or struggle, just gave a little groan and even then I wasn’t absolutely certain he was dead. He didn’t seem to bleed much, but I didn’t dare to stay. I tipped away the water, emptied out the jug and stole back down the stairs into the street again.’ She looked at me, and there was almost the faintest glimmer of a smile. ‘It must have been after the doorkeeper had been. I noticed the decoration on the clock as well.’

But I was struggling with a notion of my own. ‘His knife,’ I muttered. ‘Of course it was his own. I should have noticed that there wasn’t one on the table with the food. Who eats bread and cheese without a knife?’

‘And Honorius?’ Gracchus used his knee to good effect again. ‘Did your mistress collude with you in that?’

‘I told her to ask him to taste the wedding wine. That’s all — I swear by all the gods. She had her sickness medicine before she came downstairs, and said — as usual — that it tasted foul and she wanted something to take the taste away. So I went and got it and took it up to her. She had a little and then she went downstairs. I had the poison ready, and I put it in the jug. Then I took it to Honorius. Of course, I carried it, like I always did — he was busy greeting the wedding guests by then — and Honorius drank it like a lamb. He actually told me that it tasted fine, and I had to persuade him to go and try the new amphorae as he’d promised to. I didn’t tell the mistress what I’d done till after he was dead.’

Helena Domna gave a disbelieving sniff. ‘You ask me to believe this? That my son took a cup of drink from you, and drank it without question because you asked him to?’

I raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Just as you have just partaken of watered wine and dates. The steward brought them, and you accepted it.’

She reddened and put her drinking cup down hastily. ‘Steward! Leave the room! And fetch that doorkeeper — we’ve already waited far too long for him.’ I realized that she’d hardly noticed that the steward had been there — and must have been listening to much of what had passed. Such is the peculiar position of a slave.

A moment later, though, the man had reappeared. ‘Madam?’ His face was ashen. ‘They have found the doorkeeper. He was in the servants’ quarters. He had hanged himself.’

Helena Domna gave a bitter laugh. ‘Then he’s escaped my vengeance. How dared he act like this. Betraying our household, when he was our slave?’

‘Exactly, madam,’ I said. ‘That is what you see. A slave, a mere possession, not a man at all. No matter that he may have been on duty half the day, you sent him out on extra errands when he is relieved, with no thought of how he was to eat or when he was to rest. He was simply a tool for you to use. And your son was just the same — promising freedom which he never gave. Did it not occur to you, the fellow might have dreams? He was saving for his slave price, were you aware of that? And no doubt Antoninus paid him handsomely, at first. Even the pageboy noticed how much cash he had.’