The Chariots of Calyx

Chapter Twenty-one

Our appearance at Monnius’ house occasioned quite a stir.

The excitements of the funeral preparations — the comings and goings of priests, mourners, pipers, augurers and slaves — had drawn the usual little gaggle of onlookers and curious passers-by, who were being entertained when we arrived by an ancient itinerant viper-tamer. He had evidently seized the opportunity to set out his stall before a captive audience and was coaxing a less than impressive performance from a lethargic snake in a basket.

‘Drugged,’ Annia Augusta hissed at me, as she descended from her litter and prepared to follow her slave into the house.

The viper-tamer glared at her, but the crowd had lost interest in him anyway. I was lying on a carrying bed borrowed from the palace — my first attempts to climb into an ordinary litter having been conspicuously unsuccessful — and when that was borne along the street and up to Monnius’ door, with Junio trotting obediently alongside, everyone on the pavement turned to stare. Not surprisingly perhaps, people being more accustomed on the whole to seeing bodies carried out of a house of death than into one, but it made me feel very conspicuous. Even the appearance of a pair of city councillors, in their chalk-whitened robes, come to pay their official respects to the corpse and carrying a model of a corn officer’s mobius as a grave-offering, passed almost unnoticed in comparison.

My unusual litter caused almost as much consternation inside the house. As soon as we crossed the threshold, Lydia came hurrying out to meet us. She was wearing a different robe of faded black today, even more unattractive than the last, and was in her usual state of nervous indecision.

‘Oh, dear madam,’ she exclaimed, wringing her thin hands. ‘I got your message from the palace, that the citizen was arriving on a bed. I have been in such a quandary wondering what to do. Where can we put him, do you think? I thought of the triclinium at first, but the servants are preparing for the funeral feast and the priest has already purified the room. It would all have to be censed and sprinkled again. Poor Monnius’ body is in the atrium. Obviously the litter can’t go here.’ She shook her head. ‘Should I find somewhere in the annexe, do you think?’

During all of this she addressed not a word or glance in my direction. I felt like a piece of awkward furniture, for which space has unfortunately to be found. It was as if the cloak and tunic had rendered me invisible, like a character in a fable. She would never have ignored me in this way if I had been wearing my toga. Even Junio caught my eye and grinned.

Annia Augusta could be placating when she chose. ‘My dear Lydia, do not distress yourself so much. The citizen’ — she stressed the word — ‘is hurt but he is not incapable. Monnius’ study seems the obvious place.’

‘But is it big enough? It will not take the carrying bed. The Egyptian writing table is in there already, and a stool. And all those documents. .’

I was struggling upright on my pillows to protest that although I could not comfortably walk, a stool would suit me splendidly, when Lydia began wailing again. ‘We have had such problems since you left, with Fulvia. You cannot imagine, lady citizen! Crying and wailing and insisting — insisting! — that the undertakers bathe and anoint her servant’s body too. I tried to protest — it wasn’t fitting, I told her — but she simply tossed her head, and said it was her house now, and her money, and she would do as she pleased. Of course, it isn’t even true — the house was promised to my Filius. Everyone knows that Monnius changed his will. She’ll enter a querela in the courts, and then. .’ She broke off, snivelling.

I motioned to my bearers to put me down. The carrying bed was in the way in the corridor, but I could hardly expect them to stand here, holding me all day; and this conversation was too interesting to miss. They put me down and Junio and one of the bearers helped me unsteadily to my feet, while Lydia pulled a linen handkerchief from her sleeve and sniffed into it.

‘Oh, Lydia!’ Annia Augusta was less patient now. ‘Of course she won’t contest the will. Fulvia is headstrong but she is not stupid. No one would benefit from a querela except the imperial treasury, she knows that as well as you do. Don’t upset yourself. We’ll see this citizen settled in the study — he’ll need to speak to all the slaves this time — and then you can take some strengthening cordial and I will speak to Fulvia myself.’

I was mentally applauding this intelligent approach, but Lydia let out a doleful cry. ‘But Annia Augusta, you don’t understand. Fulvia has been impossible. She came out here, making such a scene, demanding honours for her stupid slave when the men were here to make Monnius’ imago! She interrupted them while they were doing it.’ She dabbed at her pink nose and watery eyes again.

Annia’s lips pursed at this and I saw her ample bosom heave with indignation. I was not surprised. I had heard of funeral masks, though one rarely sees them in Britannia. It used to be the custom in Rome, however, that magistrates — and only magistrates — were honoured with a wax mask at their death, moulded on their dead features and displayed thereafter in the family atrium as a perpetual tribute to their memory. Monnius, whether because of his position or of some earlier tenure as a magistrate, might have a claim to similar distinction and someone (I suspected Annia herself) had given orders that it should be done. In interrupting the creation of the mask, Fulvia had been guilty of dreadful disrespect.

But worse was yet to come. ‘A dreadful omen! If only you’d been here, Annia Augusta. I hardly knew what to do. I had the priest of Jupiter called at once, to offer a propitiatory sheep. We had to abandon the lamentations and leave poor Monnius to the servants, while we attended the sacrifice and were sprinkled with the blood to cleanse ourselves. Even then all the purification rituals had to be done again. I even had to change my robes — my best black stola — and now I shall have to attend the funeral in this!’

Annia frowned. ‘Just because she intervened? I hardly think. .’

Lydia shook her head. ‘She did more than that, most honoured madam. Thanks to her interruption, the mask was dropped. It had only just been finished, and it broke. Think of that!’ She deployed the handkerchief again. ‘Poor Filius — what an augury for him! Although he is too young to understand — poor boy, he was at first inclined to laugh. That was the shock, of course. But when we had to go and change our clothes, and sprinkle perfumed water on our heads and fast the whole remainder of the day, he saw how serious it was. We almost thought the funeral would have to be postponed. And all this for a wretched slave, who could be washed for burial just as well by any servant in the house, and could have waited in the yard until after the ceremony was over — the slaves’ guild won’t come for the body till tomorrow night.’ She gave a helpless sob. ‘Oh, Annia Augusta, if only you’d been here.’

‘Well,’ Annia Augusta said robustly, ‘I’m here now, and it seems you handled matters very well. Now, attempt to control yourself a little — I will send a little cordial to restore you, presently. But we are being discourteous to this gentleman. I have brought him here to find the truth about this poisoning and if it is to be done before the funeral he will have to begin.’

Lydia gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Ah yes, the poisoning. Another terrible omen, citizen. Do you not agree?’

‘I do.’ Especially for the old nurse, I thought wryly, but all I said was, ‘We shall avenge her spirit by finding the culprit.’

At the mention of spirits Lydia rolled her sheeplike eyes, then fixed them lugubriously on me. ‘You have your suspicions, citizen?’

I had no clues whatever, although I didn’t want to admit that. I said, with an attempt at solemnity, ‘I suspect everyone.’

Lydia turned to Annia Augusta and let out a doleful wail. ‘He suspects everyone! Oh, madam citizen. .’

‘Do not be foolish, Lydia,’ the older woman said sharply. ‘The citizen does not mean you! Obviously not — you were performing the lament at the time, in full view of everyone.’

‘But Filius. .’

‘I can assure the citizen that it wasn’t Filius either — he was with me from the time Prisca herself brought the bread and water to us in the annexe until after her body was found.’ She turned to me. ‘I kept him deliberately under my eye — I did not want him wandering into the kitchens and being tempted to break the ritual fast.’

I nodded. In Annia’s position I would have feared the same thing. ‘The other servants will no doubt vouch for that?’

‘Oh, Minerva. .!’ Lydia began, but Annia cut her off decisively.

‘Oh, Lydia, for the love of Mars! Don’t wail! Of course the citizen must confirm my story. And we cannot keep him waiting any more. Besides, we are blocking the passageway — those councillors will finish their lamentations any minute and they will be wanting to leave. I will accompany the citizen to the study and go and have a word with Fulvia.’

She suited the action to the word and began to lead the way. I waved aside the carrying bed and followed her on foot, assisted by Junio and one of the bearers who had brought me here. The other three removed the litter hastily, while Lydia trailed behind us, still protesting feebly.

Annia gave instructions as she walked. ‘This citizen has been hurt — he needs a stool at least,’ she motioned to a slave, ‘and no doubt the kitchens can provide some dates and wine for him, even if we cannot partake of them. Or,’ she turned her head to look at me questioningly over her shoulder, ‘perhaps he would prefer a little cordial tonic too?’

I ceased my stumbling walk to murmur that I would be much obliged. I am, as Junio was well aware, no great enthusiast for sweet fat Roman dates and thin sour Roman wine, but the idea of rest and refreshment was becoming increasingly attractive.

‘The distilled water of wild poppy flowers, I think,’ the older woman said briskly. ‘That is a strong remedy for frenzies and a wonderful restorative besides. I’m sure I have some in my bedchamber. I think I may even take a little myself.’ She nodded to her handmaiden, who was attending her, and the girl set off to the annexe at a trot.

‘But Annia Augusta, madam citizen.’ Lydia’s voice was again a wail. ‘The augurer insists that we must fast. No meat or drink of any kind until after the funeral, and then the first thing we eat after the graveside rituals must be the flesh of the sheep that was sacrificed. Otherwise, who knows what trouble will befall this house.’

Annia was losing patience, I could see. ‘To take a medicine is not to break a fast,’ she snapped, ushering me at last into the study, where I sank down on a welcome stool. ‘But you are right about one thing, Lydia. That story of the broken imago. Fulvia may be Monnius’ official widow, but it was most improper of her to interrupt his funeral rites in that way. All that fuss, and for a slave-woman, too! She had no right to do it, and I shall tell her so.’

Lydia flapped her bony hands. ‘Well, most honoured citizeness, you may try.’ She had turned an unattractive shade of puce. ‘We have all of us attempted to speak to her — Filius, myself, the priest of Jupiter, even the servants. But she insists that someone is trying to kill her. I have tried to reason with her, but the death of her nursemaid has only confirmed her opinion.’ She shrugged her bony shoulders under the dark cloak. ‘But you will see for yourself. She will spoil the whole funeral, if she continues. She has barricaded herself into her bedchamber and refuses to come out.’