Enemies of the Empire

Chapter Twenty-three

It was some time before I let her go.

When I did, she drew back her head and looked up at me with a quizzical expression in her eyes. ‘I should have realised that if you were investigating some affair on Marcus’s behalf, you would have time for very little else. So that woman from the wolf-house is connected with this Plautus business, then? What happened? Did he make an enemy of her pimp or patron in some way?’ She scanned my face. ‘Cross him in business and get murdered for his pains? I hope you’re being careful, husband, if that is the case. These brothel-keepers can be very dangerous. But it must be something of the kind. Plautus can’t have been a customer of hers; he lived too far away.’

‘I’m sure there’s some connection, but I don’t know what it is. I’m positive she was following him round Venta the first day I arrived.’

‘Perhaps. .’ my wife began, and then — as she took in the force of what I’d said — ‘Round Venta? What do you mean, “round Venta”? The man’s been dead for more than half a moon.’

‘Not nearly as dead as you suppose,’ I said, and I found myself pouring out the story of all that had occurred. It was the first time that I’d had the chance to tell a wholly sympathetic listener. She didn’t pour scorn on anything I said, or interrupt, but heard me out in silence — although, since she looked dismayed to hear of my ordeals, I spared her the worst details of the horrors of yesterday. ‘So much has happened in the last few days,’ I finished, ‘it seems a lifetime since I got here.’

Gwellia was frowning, but the frown was not for me. ‘And you saw Gaius Plautus in the street? After that great funeral he had? No wonder you sent Junio to his house.’ She gave me a sideways little glance. ‘I went up there with him myself, you know. I’d met the widow once or twice before — Sabrina, she’s called — and it seemed not unreasonable to call and offer my sympathy on her husband’s death. If you were up to something, then I wanted to help. I could talk to her more freely than young Junio could — though he did talk to her about the pavement, as you suggested — and chatted to the servants too.’

My wife is a resourceful woman, but I chided her. ‘You might have put yourself in danger, doing things like that.’

‘Don’t you think I feel the same way about you? Anyway, that’s what I did — and she was glad to see me, I believe. Of course she’s still in mourning and she has done it properly — torn clothes, scratched cheeks and ashes in her hair — and since the funeral she hasn’t left the house. Full of how it’s her fault that he met his death. If he’s alive, I’m sure she doesn’t know.’

‘Oh, he’s alive, all right,’ I said. ‘I saw him in Venta with my own two eyes, and he’s not a man you’d easily mistake.’

She shook her head. ‘That poor woman. I was going to say “his widow” but of course she’s not. I don’t think she liked her husband much but she seemed genuinely in a state of shock — kept saying that if she had gone out to their country house with him that night, the accident would never have occurred. She’s spent a fortune on sacrifices to the gods to make propitiation for her guilt — and all for nothing, if he isn’t dead.’ Suddenly she paused and looked appalled.

I knew what she was thinking before she spoke the words.

‘So who was on that pyre if it wasn’t him?’ she said, asking the same question I’d asked myself. ‘There must have been a corpse. Sabrina was telling me that she’d spent a fortune on embalming oils and herbs, and hiring the best funeral arrangers in town — she was terrified her husband’s spirit would return to haunt her if she didn’t do it right. Anointing women, professional mourners and musicians, litters, everything: even a priest to see the body was ritually washed and dressed while the whole household kept up the lament. She had them coach her eldest son to lead the eulogies, although he’s barely old enough to be a man.’ She broke off. ‘Oh, I forgot. You know all that, of course. You were at the funeral yourself. You must have seen him. He was laid in state.’

‘And what I saw was a dead man decorously draped in linen cloths, because his head was crushed,’ I said. ‘I assumed that it was Plautus, because they said it was — and so, I suppose, did everybody else. If you attend a funeral, you don’t expect the corpse to be a fraud. The funeral arrangers wouldn’t know the difference. But you’d think his wife would notice, wouldn’t you?’

Gwellia shook her head. ‘I’m not so sure she would,’ she said. ‘If they called me to your workshop in the town one day and the servants brought out a body of your height and build — your age, your colouring and with your clothes and shoes — and said that they had found you crushed to death, I think I would assume that it was you.’

‘Even if you didn’t recognise my face?’

‘Because the skull was crushed to fragments and the features gone?’ She had turned comfortingly pale at the very thought of it. ‘I wouldn’t want to dwell on that for long. I’d look to see the scar of the slave-brand on your back, but apart from that why should I question it? Who could think clearly after they’d had a shock like that? And who would suspect it was a hoax? Or imagine that their husband would connive at it? I’m sure Sabrina didn’t. And he didn’t have a slave-brand she could know him by. She was shocked. She just went through the motions in a kind of daze.’

I nodded. ‘You may be right. Maybe Plautus had no special identifying marks, apart from that scar across his face. No moles on his shoulders or anything like that.’

My wife gave me a little wistful smile. ‘Even if he did, I don’t believe Sabrina would have known. She told me once their marriage was arranged — as rich girls’ matches very often are — but that she’d never liked him very much, and he wasn’t really interested in her. He fathered his two sons on her and after that he left her more or less alone — having done his duty by the state. Visited the wolf-houses, perhaps. She wasn’t sorry, either, from what she said to me. He was no gentle husband. I doubt if she could identify his moles.’

It was so different from the intimacy of our own marriage bed that I was moved to take her in my arms again, but at that moment Junio came in carrying a wet cloth in his hand. He looked from me to Gwellia and grinned. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, master, but I’ve got the cloth. I couldn’t get much information from the kitchen staff, but I promised to play the cook at twelve-stones later on. Perhaps I can learn something from him then.’ He winked. ‘Do you want me to clean up that wine?’

He did not wait for a reply, but dived under the table to retrieve the drinking cup, which had rolled there when Lyra let it fall. Gwellia sat down upon the bed to let him pass.

I watched his retreating posterior and smiled. The poor cook had a surprise in store. Junio had been born a slave into a Roman home, where he learned to gamble almost as soon as he could breathe. It was a rare man who could beat him at any game of chance, despite his air of youthful innocence. ‘I only hope the cook won’t stake more than he can afford to lose,’ I teased, as he came back into view. ‘What do you propose to do with all your- What is it, Junio?’

He was sitting on his haunches, with the recovered goblet in his hand, and he was looking doubtfully from me to it. All trace of laughter had vanished from his face. ‘You did say, master, that the prostitute was ill before she drank the wine you gave to her? You are sure it wasn’t that which made her faint?’

‘I’m absolutely sure,’ I said. ‘I did suspect it for a moment, but when I thought it through, I realised she was feeling ill before. Why, what’s the matter? Why did you ask that?’

‘It is just that when I was wiping the splashes behind the table leg, I found some bits of glass. It looks like part of a little phial to me — the sort they use for poisons — though it is hard to know. It has been broken into tiny fragments, see, as if someone had deliberately crushed it underfoot. The pieces were sticking to my cloth — I almost cut my hand. I’ve shaken them into the cup, so you can see.’

He held out the goblet in which he had collected the tiny shards of broken coloured glass. The largest of them was no bigger than the nail on my little finger. It was circular, with a small loop attached, and had obviously once contained a cork. Exactly like the neck of a small phial of the kind used for potions and decoctions, just as Junio had said. It was an alarming find.

Most of the contents of these things are curative, of course — or are alleged to be. However, in any street market or town it is possible to find someone skilled with herbs who will supply you with some lethal draught, provided that you pay them handsomely and swear that you intend to poison rats. Just as they will sell you love-philtres, baldness cures and sleeping draughts — though these are less effective on the whole.

From the shattered fragments in the cup it was impossible to tell what this little phial had once contained, or even how long it had been there — the rooms in a busy mansio are not always scrupulously swept. However, it would be foolish to deny the possibility that Junio was right, and that whatever had been in that phial was added to my wine.

I leaned forward gingerly and sniffed at them and then at the water in the washing bowl, in which Junio had been rinsing out the cloth. I fancied I detected a slightly almond scent. It was so faint that I could not be sure at first, and it was in any case obscured by the wine, but all the same I felt my skin go cold. If I was not imagining the smell — and a second sniff persuaded me that I was not — then someone had intended me to die.

It must have been a hefty dose, as well. Lyra had scarcely tasted it, and it had made her faint. Had she taken a little of my wine to dye her lips, while I was talking to the optio’s slave outside? Could that be what had made her feel unwell? After all, most drugs take a little while to work. But who would have put it there, and why?

The optio had ordered me the wine, but why should he want to kill me? I had done nothing to offend or startle him. And anyway why bother with a phial? Why not just put poison in the goblet?

The serving-boy, perhaps? He had the opportunity, but I could think of no motive for the deed — and why bring the poison to the room, instead of adding it before he came? In fact, though I was reluctant to acknowledge it, there was only one candidate that I could see. One person who had been alone in here when the wine was on the tray, and who had the chance to slip in anything she chose.

‘Lyra!’ I said aloud. It was clear enough when I looked back on it. Lyra, who had panicked when I refused the wine and seemed to be about to send it back — no wonder she suddenly turned pale and asked for it herself. Clearly she had not sipped it, as she’d pretended to — I remembered how she’d hugged it to her chest, and how artistically she’d let it fall and spill by manufacturing a sudden faint. She had feared it would kill the optio or the slave — and then too many questions would be asked. I wondered how she had intended to deal with my own demise: claim that I’d had a seizure of the heart, as a result of my exertions in her arms? She was quite capable of inventing something of the kind: she had shown a remarkable ability for thinking quickly when the need arose. Grudgingly, I had to admire her ingenuity and intelligence.

‘But why ever should she want to murder me?’ I found that I had spoken the last words aloud. ‘Just because I saw her following Plautus in the marketplace? I do have my suspicions about other things, but how could she possibly know about those? I’ll try to find out when I question her. What do you think, Gwellia?’

I turned towards my wife, surprised that she’d said nothing on the subject up to now, and saw that she’d rested her head against the wall, and was drifting into sleep.