Rosemary Rowe - Death at Pompeia

The page looked sheepish. ‘Madam, excuse me, but I do not know. He was just about to tell me when his servant came.’ He flinched as if he expected an angry blow for this, and when none came he burbled on again. ‘I have not seen his invitation scroll because in fact I did not escort him in. I found him waiting outside the atrium.’

She turned to me now, jabbing the fan handle almost in my face. ‘So, he was walking unaccompanied around my house, was he? And where did he get that silver platter from?’

‘Madam, it was a present from His Exc-’ I said, just as Minimus began to tug my sleeve.

‘Master, it really is important that you come. There’s no time to be lost.’

This time the rap was very sharp indeed, and left a weal across my servant’s face. ‘Is there no limit to your insolence? I shall send for the household guard and have you flogged. And as for you. .’ She glared at me. ‘I shall summon the doorman and see you are removed. I don’t know what my son Honorius will say when he learns of this intrusion on a day like this.’ She turned back to the page. ‘Where is your master, anyway? I thought he went out with the steward to select the banquet wines.’

The boy looked sheepish. ‘Forgive me, lady, but again I do not know. I haven’t seen him since he sent me off to find the walnuts, a little time ago-’

Minimus astounded me by breaking in again. ‘Your pardon, madam, but I know where he is.’ She turned to him, eyes flashing, but he persevered. ‘Let me give my message and you will understand. If Honorius is your son, then what I have to say concerns you very much. He was the victim of this accident. Two of his slaves have taken him and laid him on his bed.’

The skin beneath the careful face paint paled visibly. ‘Great Mars! What accident was this? No, don’t answer now. Wait a minute!’ She turned to the invited guests, who had given up pretending and were listening openly. ‘Citizens and ladies,’ she said with dignity, ‘will you pardon me. A slight hitch has arisen, which I must attend to straight away. Please continue to talk among yourselves — and, slaves, you may begin to serve the sweetmeats now. Please forgive me, I shall not be long.’ As she spoke she shepherded us out into the hall, where she addressed us in an urgent undertone.

‘Now, then, what accident was this? And on his daughter’s wedding day, as well! What a dreadful portent! The guests will be distressed, and the bridegroom might cancel if he hears of it and we would lose a strong alliance with a wealthy family.’

I gulped. I know that Roman society considers it good form to keep one’s private emotion under strict control, but her apparent lack of feeling quite astonished me. If I had heard such news about my adopted son, I would have insisted on being taken to his side at once, at the risk of offending Jupiter himself. She seemed less concerned about the welfare of her son than about the effect upon her guests.

She was still frowning thoughtfully, and when Minimus made a sign as if he wished to speak, she silenced him with an imperious hand. ‘Do not interrupt me when I’m trying to think. I am deciding what it is best to do. My son is receiving good attention, I suppose?’

Minimus had learnt his lesson with the fan. He contented himself this time with a nod.

The woman inclined her own head, as if satisfied. ‘Then perhaps it need not come to cancellation after all. If we need a medicus, we will send for one. But we must act speedily. The bridegroom will be here, and somehow Honorius must be present then. We need his hand to sign the contract — though the dowry is arranged. What exactly happened? Is he seriously hurt?’ She turned to my servant. ‘Speak up, stupid boy!’

Minimus looked demurely at his sandal straps. ‘The steward told me to say “accident”, as being more polite, though perhaps that does not quite describe it properly,’ he said. ‘It appears that your son was sampling the wine-’

‘You are not going to tell me that he sampled too much and contrived to have a fall?’ She shook her head. ‘My son Honorius would not do a thing like that. And he always takes wine watered, as I taught him to — even when he is simply tasting it.’

Minimus replied simply, ‘Madam, I’m afraid that it is rather worse than that. Perhaps there was something the matter with the wine. Or possibly the water that he put into it. At all events he was taken very sick and almost collapsed on to the floor.’

‘Well, it can’t have been the water — that comes from our own well, and the whole household has been drinking from it half the day. But I don’t understand how it can have been the wine. That was delivered only this morning from the wine merchant. Oh! And here’s the very man that it was purchased from.’

The sour-faced merchant and his wife had just appeared from the front door, looking even more sour than they’d looked earlier, and accompanied by the lugubrious doorkeeper himself.

‘A thousand pardons, Helena Domna,’ the attendant said, ‘but here is Lucianus Vinerius and his wife. I fear they have been kept waiting at the door for far too long. .’

Helena Domna — since that seemed to be her name — was scowling so much that he stopped and stared at her in some dismay. Then obviously sensing that something was amiss, he attempted to excuse what he had done. ‘I have been gonging for several minutes for a slave, but nobody has answered, so in the end I brought them in myself.’ There was still no answer and he hurried on. ‘But I must hasten back, if you’ll excuse me, citizens. There are shouts and cheers already in the street — I think the bridegroom’s procession must be almost here.’ And he bowed himself backwards down the passageway.

Helena Domna watched him out of sight, and only then did she address the rest of us, though there was a sarcastic note in the cracked voice as she said, ‘Lucianus Vinerius — and Maesta too, of course. I am sincerely happy to find you here at last. I only wish the circumstances were happier, that’s all. It seems that my son Honorius has been taken ill, after tasting one of the new wines he bought from you. I’m sure you’d wish to be the first to know — and perhaps you have some suggestion as to what we should do now? We may require a medicus to find an antidote, no doubt you would be anxious to assist us with the cost?’ There was no question about it, she was half-threatening them.

Vinerius looked wary. ‘Taken ill?’ he said.

Minimus stepped forward. ‘Very ill indeed, from what I understand. One minute he was talking to the steward in the court, and the next he had turned pale and collapsed on to a stool. Someone came up to the slaves’ room with the news, and we all went running down. By the time I got there his speech was very slurred and he was seeing imaginary things.’

The wine merchant exchanged glances with his wife, a look which said as clearly as if he’d uttered it aloud, That sounds like simple drunkenness. Then Vinerius spoke. ‘What sort of things? Pink hippogriffs, I suppose?’

Minimus raised his eyes and looked at him steadily. ‘He seemed to be seeing people who were dead, or so the steward said. Somebody called Miles — I think I heard that name. But that was not the worst. A moment later he said his legs were numb. His face turned crimson and he was retching hard. The steward fetched a feather to start him vomiting, but Honorius was almost fainting on his feet, and stumbling so much it took three servants to escort him to his room. They are still at his bedside looking after him.’

Helena Domna drew in a swift, shocked breath but it was Vinerius who spoke. ‘Nonsense, boy. It would take a whole amphora to make a man so sick — and it would have to be taken undiluted too. Honorius would never drink to such excess — certainly not on an important occasion like today. It’s the kind of bad behaviour he would not tolerate!’