Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'He didn't,' acknowledged Claudia.

'So I thought. Once again, I had cause to suspect someone else, but the connection with Gnaeus left me uncertain and confused. I went about the business of running the farm, despite the blighting of the hay, despite the deliberate pollution of my well. I proceeded with building the water mill—'

"That absurd contraption!' Claudia snapped.

'Yes, I realize now how frustrating it must have been for you whenever you'd sneak up here on the ridge to look down on my farm, greedy for it, imagining that it could be yours, despising me for having it, doing what you could in your own craven way to drive me of£ and all the while watching the construction of the mill go on day by day, the tangible symbol of my firm intention to stay and make this property my own. How you must have hated it when I invited you to have a look at it after it was completed! How clearly I could sense your loathing, but I thought it was merely for the mill itself. You hid your true feelings well.'

'A woman learns to hide her feelings if she's to get what she wants, without a father or a husband to give it to her and without sons to defend her!' said Claudia.

The bitterness in her voice was startling, and all at once I saw a flint-eyed woman so profoundly different from the jolly, good-natured matron I had known that I was almost frightened, as when a pretty mask drops to reveal a hideous face beneath. For two sleepless nights

I had puzzled over the riddle of how Claudia could have been behind such atrocities. Now I saw another woman behind the one I thought I knew, who proceeded by guile and deceit and kept her anger and appetites hidden. How else could a woman alone have made her way in such a family and in such a world? For the first time I felt the reality of Claudia's guilt.

'I was confused again when Gnaeus offered to buy my property,' I said, 'though now I see it was you who put him up to that He even said so in an oblique way, saying you had told him I was having a hard winter, but I thought that was merely gossip among cousins. In fact you were using him to feel me out before you made your next move, seeing if I'd had enough yet of headless corpses and poisoned water and the harshness of the winter. After his surly offer to relieve me of the farm, I grew suspicious of Gnaeus all over again, especially when, the very day after I ordered him out of my house, a third corpse appeared behind my stable. I was just setting out on a journey; there was no way I could stay to sort it out. That was just as well, perhaps, or I might have attacked Gnaeus without cause.

'The third headless corpse was another of your slaves, wasn't it? You didn't kill Nemo, who died of an illness. Nor did you kill Forfex; Gnaeus did that But this slave you murdered, didn't you, Claudia?'

'Why do you say that?' she said, casting me a sullen glance.

'Because you needed someone on whom to test your poison. You had already tested it once, on a poor old slave of mine named Clementus. He was a witness of sorts on the night that Congrio dropped the body of Forfex down my well. His recollection was vague and muddled, but to a slave like Congrio, guilty of compiling against his master, even old Clementus must have seemed a terrible threat. Congrio had to get rid of him simply, quietly. You supplied him with a poison — strychnos, the deadly nightshade. That accounts for the blue lips, the vomiting, and the slurred speech that afflicted Clementus before he died. I always suspected he had been hurried along. Now I know for certain, for Congrio has confessed everything.

'Still, a poison that kills a doddering old slave may not work on a strong man of forty-seven, so you tried it out on one of your hapless slaves, didn't you, Claudia? How did you pick the poor fellow? Had he been showing signs of laziness, or was he weakened by bad joints, or had he offended you somehow? Or was he simply a good match for me, of about the same size and age, so that you could make sure of an adequate dosage to finish me off?'

She stared into the distance but made no answer:

'Wretched slave, to have such a mistress! Once you'd killed him with your poison — well, there was no use wasting the corpse, was there? Send another signal to Gordianus! A warning of things to come! Again, you removed the head to avoid any possibility of having him recognized, and delivered him via Congrio. Like Nemo, he was discovered by my daughter. Does that make you feel nothing, to know that you gave such a shock to a little girl? I suppose not, knowing what monstrosities you've shown yourself capable of committing.'

Claudia abruptly stood. 'I didn't come here to be judged, by you or anyone else. Your message said you wanted to come to some resolution and indicated that you had a proposition for me. Make it now and spare me your accusations and hand-wringing.'

'Sit down, Claudia. It's a poor murderess who can't bear to hear her crimes recited.'

'Poisoning a slave is not murder!'

'Ah, but kidnapping a freeborn child must surely be a crime.'

'That's enough!' she said, and turned to go. I seized her shoulders and pushed her down onto the stump.

'You swore you wouldn't hurt me!' she shrieked, and pulled out a long, thin dagger. I knocked it from her hand and she covered her face. I looked hurriedly around, but saw no one in the bushes. She had come armed, but alone.

'Yes, Claudia, I swore it and I meant it, though neither gods nor men would object if I were to strangle you here on this spot. You can drop your haughty demeanour; it doesn't suit you. You'll listen to all I have to say, and together we'll arrive at the truth. Nothing can proceed without that, so don't deny it when I say you intended to poison me. Congrio has confessed! You grew impatient. Months passed, intimidation had failed to move me, and so you were finally ready to resort to the murder of a freeborn citizen — ah, but only an upstart plebeian! Did you think that with me gone you could more easily pressure Bethesda and Eco to sell the farm to you? Or would you have poisoned them as well?

'You wanted Congrio to poison me. Your agent kept pestering him, but Congrio resisted. That was a little too much for him, a little too dangerous. Clementus he had poisoned for his own protection, but to murder his master was too grave a sin. And then disaster — Congrio and your agent were indiscreet and let a little girl overhear them. You know the rest. What I don't know is what you could have been thinking when you sent your men to leave Diana in the mine. Were they meant to strangle her and leave her body there? Were they to abandon her alive and let her slowly starve to death? Or would you have rescued her in time and sold her into slavery, sending her to some foreign city on a ship out of Ostia while her parents mourned her for dead?'

Claudia's eyes darted wildly. I stepped closer, making it impossible for her to bolt. 'I said that I wouldn't harm you, Claudia, and I meant it, though at this moment I regret the promise. You should be punished, Claudia — for your duplicity, for your arrogance, for murder, for kidnapping my daughter and making my wife mad with worry. But where would it end? Your cousins have too much bile in them and too much idle time; I should never feel safe if I exacted my just revenge on you. If only one could trust the gods to strike the balance against creatures such as yourself! But I've seen too much of the world to trust justice, human or divine. We make our own justice in our own way, just as you and I are going to strike a bargain, here and now.'

'A bargain?'

'An agreement, Claudia, from which we shall move forward and never look back. My sons won't be satisfied. They think you should be destroyed, like a wild dog. Nor will Bethesda be happy. She would like to pluck out your eyes and make you swallow them. But they will abide by my decision. And my decision is that you should have this farm'