A Pattern of Blood

Chapter Twenty-two

Perhaps I had still spoken too soon. The colour died from Julia’s cheeks and she looked helplessly at Sollers. He turned away and began to busy himself with his cupping vessel, brushing out the ashes from the bell and rinsing it carefully with vinegar from a stoppered jar. At last he spoke.

‘This citizen deserves his reputation, Julia. He sees to the core of things, as Quintus told us that he would. I think you should explain your fears to him.’

‘Your fears, lady?’

She looked at me, as beautiful as ever, and took a deep breath. ‘Fears, yes. Of Flavius. Of course I will have protection now, with Marcus as my legal sponsor, but I did fear my former husband after Quintus died. He would have tried anything to get me back: the courts, bribery, abduction even. He did that when I was at my brother’s house, and he would have done it again. Even when Quintus was alive, Flavius never gave up. He had even turned to sorcery. He always claimed that Quintus used spells to lure me away — as though his own clammy hands, his drunkenness and his disgusting breath were not enough to drive any woman away — and he tried to use the same methods to win me back.’

I nodded. I recalled overhearing Flavius in the garden the first time I heard him speak. He seemed to think then that his own natural charms were so irresistible that Quintus Ulpius must have used supernatural ones. ‘There are laws against things like that,’ I said, as he himself had said at the time.

She gave me a wry look. ‘Indeed there are, but Flavius did not trust the law. In this town, he said, the law was in the hands of the decurions. The courts would find for Quintus every time, and Flavius would have to pay a fine. He was right, of course — they would have decided that, but not for the reasons Flavius believed.’ She held out her bruised arm to her maidservants, who folded down her sleeve again as she spoke.

‘And so?’

‘And so he turned to sorcery himself. He kept sending me “tokens”, as he called them, to bring me back to him. Most of them were paltry things. He must have thought they had magic qualities; he cannot have supposed that they would induce me to return otherwise. He used to get Rollo to bring them to me — he frequented the bathhouse on purpose, when my husband was in the hot room with his friends, and gave them to the page while he was waiting to massage his master. Rings and brooches and oils and perfumes. At first I sent them back, but in the end I simply threw them away, and forbade Rollo to speak to him again.’

‘But he did speak to him. Yesterday.’

She was dissatisfied with the drape of the sleeve and she motioned to the slaves to do it again. ‘So it appears,’ she said. ‘Poor boy. Of course he couldn’t refuse, once Flavius was a guest in this house. Any more than I could refuse to allow Flavius to stay, once Marcus had commanded it.’

I nodded. I had said much the same thing to Rollo myself. I asked, ‘If Rollo had gone to Flavius last night, would he have reported that to you afterwards?’

‘Of course he would. His first duty was to this household. In any case, I imagine that Flavius wanted him to come to me — to bring me one of his tiresome trinkets. He had tried to send it once before. Yesterday, while I was in my inner room putting colour on my lips, someone came to the outer door asking for me. I told my maids to say I wasn’t there. But Flavius wouldn’t give up. He had a recent superstition from a sorceress: he was to have two matching items carved from one piece of bone, and give one part to me. When the two pieces were reunited, he believed, we would be reunited too.’

‘How do you know this?’ If I had been Flavius, I thought, I would never have told her of my supposed spell.

‘Rollo warned me about it, some time ago. That was why I would not touch any gift from Flavius. But when I saw you with those two wax tablets, I thought for a terrible moment that he had succeeded.’ She smiled. ‘I cannot believe that any human power could make me return to Flavius, but I mistrust sorcerers.’ She looked at the medicus, who was now putting the last of his salve pots on the shelf. ‘Although Sollers has always mocked me for my fears.’

He smiled at her. ‘I put my faith in remedies and the gods, not in the foolish spells and charms of warty old women who think themselves diviners.’

It was my turn to pale. ‘ “Warty old women”?’ I repeated. ‘Are you saying that Flavius went to that old soothsayer in the market? How do you know that?’

‘She told me so herself, when she waylaid me that night. She seemed to feel that it was a sort of advertisement, and it would make me listen to her. “An advisor to the wealthy”, she called herself. “They all come to me, citizen”, she told me. “Rich men like Flavius and decurions’ sons.” She was very proud of it.’

‘She told you this the night of the chariot races?’ I asked. ‘The evening that Quintus was set upon and stabbed?’

‘She did. .’ Sollers began, but Julia interrupted him.

She had jumped to her feet. ‘You think Flavius arranged that too? He arranged that the woman should take Sollers aside so that my poor husband could be attacked?’

I shook my head. ‘I know that he did not. But someone did. And I know who. Although he does not yet know that I know it.’ They were staring at me, turned to stone as if they had come face to face with Medusa herself.

Sollers mastered himself. ‘Then who. .?’

I debated for a moment before I answered him. Then I made a decision. ‘It was Maximilian,’ I said at last. There was a stir of astonishment among the maidservants, who instantly suppressed it.

Sollers stepped forward urgently, his face alert. ‘I thought as much. I told you so before. I have always suspected that young man. He needed money. Quintus was threatening to disinherit him. He was left-handed, too. Perhaps you should search his quarters, citizen. Who knows. .’

I nodded. ‘An interesting suggestion, medicus. I may do that, later. But there has been a new development. Lupus has been arrested. We knew already that Lupus had bloodstains on his sleeve, and now it appears Mutuus saw the old man go into Quintus’s room yesterday after Maximilian left.’

‘He did?’ Julia was wide-eyed, and Sollers looked genuinely shocked.

‘He did. The case seems definite. Marcus has already called the guard.’

‘But you do not believe it?’ Sollers said. ‘That Lupus killed him?’

‘I could believe that Lupus did it, given the evidence, but I do not understand why he would take such an appalling risk. Why now, of all times? What is so different now that he should suddenly make such an attack?’

‘Perhaps it has something to do with Mutuus,’ Julia said. ‘Lupus was very attached to him. He never forgave Quintus for wresting him away. He has been heard to say it in the council, I understand — that Quintus had a handsome son already, and did not need to steal someone else’s.’

‘Handsome?’ I echoed with a smile. I thought of Maximilian — the tousled hair, the tall figure, the close-set eyes, the petulant young face. I suppose to an old skeleton like Lupus he might seem good-looking. Not much like his father, Junio had said. Like his mother, perhaps? The dowerless woman who had lost her looks and been put aside when the child was small?

And suddenly I made a connection. The piece that did not fit the pattern fitted unexpectedly into the border.

‘Julia,’ I said urgently, ‘tell me quickly. How old was Maximilian when his mother was divorced?’

She gazed at me as though my wits were addled.

‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘this is important. I would not ask you otherwise. Try to remember, did Quintus ever speak of it?’

She was still looking bewildered. ‘I believe,’ she said, ‘that Maximilian was quite a child. Four years old, or five. No more. Quintus had the woman put away, and then she caught the pox. She died a year or two ago.’

‘She died?’ I said. ‘You are sure of that?’

‘So Quintus said. Maximilian was distraught. He felt that Quintus had betrayed his mother. They quarrelled bitterly about it.’

‘He put her away,’ I repeated, ‘and then she caught the pox. In that order.’ I turned to Junio. ‘Come, Junio, there is something we must do. And quickly, before it is too late. I want to go back to the market and find this soothsayer. I think she may hold the key to everything.’

‘But citizen,’ Julia murmured. ‘The funeral. .!’

‘At what time does the procession start?’ I asked the question of Sollers. ‘As soon as it is dark, as usual?’ I have had occasion previously to deplore the Roman preference for interring their dead by torchlight, but tonight the arrangement had advantages. There was still an hour of daylight left, at least, enough for me to make my enquiries and still return in time for the procession.

‘But master,’ Junio said urgently, ‘you should eat something first. The evening will be long before the banquet, and you have eaten nothing since this morning. I at least have had a honey cake.’

Julia was in instant consternation. ‘Citizen, a thousand apologies. I have not considered food. The household, of course, is fasting for the day until the funeral banquet. Allow me to send one of my slaves to get something for you.’ She gave me one of her beautiful smiles. ‘A little fruit, perhaps, and wine? I am sure we could find some quickly. And since Marcus has eaten already, you shall have the finest tray.’ She lowered her lids. ‘It is a very handsome one. My husband had it brought especially from Rome.’

And then at last I understood, and a trickle of cold fear ran down my back, so physical that I feared my toga would be dampened. Of course. Twice I had seen that ‘handsome’ tray, and twice Marcus had been served upon it. Naturally it would have been given to him last night as well. It had not come to me.

In exchanging Rollo for Mutuus to bring my supper, Maximilian had not exchanged the trays. Those had still gone to their original destinations.

I had been wrong in my self-satisfied deductions. If Rollo had been poisoned by the food he ate, that poison had not been intended for Marcus. It was intended for me.

Someone was trying to kill me.