The Chariots of Calyx

Chapter Seven

I had hoped for some reaction from Fulvia, but it was Prisca, the ageing slave-woman, who gave herself away. She turned the colour of a terracotta vase and dropped the folded garments in a fluster.

‘Don’t answer him, mistress!’ she cried, before Fulvia’s warning look could stop her. ‘He can’t know anything about Fortunatus. None of us would ever have said a word.’

That was as good as a confession. I looked at Fulvia. ‘So I take it that Annia Augusta was correct? The name of Fortunatus does mean something to you?’

She looked from me to the maidservant and back again, then gave a helpless shrug. ‘I see that it is useless to deny it now. Very well, citizen, I admit the truth. The name does mean something to me, and the owner of the name still more.’

‘Good mistress. .’ The slave-woman stepped forward, twisting her hands in her tunic girdle and looking anguished. ‘Don’t tell him. Have a care. .’

‘Be silent, Prisca!’ Fulvia motioned away her would-be counsellor. ‘You have said too much already. However, since the truth is out, thanks to your runaway tongue, there is no longer any point in dissembling. Do not look so stricken. Perhaps it is as well the facts are known, and I should prefer the citizen to learn the story from my own lips, rather than hear a distorted version from someone else. Besides, Monnius is dead, and finding the man who killed him is of more importance now than my reputation.’

That was prudent, I thought, especially since much more than her reputation was at stake here. I wondered if she realised how much circumstances contrived to make her seem a likely accomplice to murder.

It seemed not. She turned to look at me directly, white-faced but dignified. ‘So I must throw myself on your discretion, citizen. I am a young woman, and my husband was old, ugly and. . importunate. Violent sometimes. But he was rich and powerful, and, in his way, he loved me. He never would have let me go, alive.’

‘He was a brute, citizen,’ the maidservant burst out. ‘I have known this poor lady pace the corridors for hours, weeping, when he’d done with her. She thinks I didn’t know it but I did. Poor lady — no wonder she wanted a bit of tenderness now and then.’

‘Be silent, Prisca,’ Fulvia said. She looked at me, not dropping her eyes as modest Roman matrons do, but squarely and frankly as if inviting understanding. ‘But she is right, citizen. I did, I confess it, once or twice seek consolation elsewhere.’

‘So,’ I said, still pursuing my own thoughts, ‘Fortunatus did come to this house?’

She held my gaze. ‘Many times, citizen. At my husband’s invitation first — Monnius was a devotee of chariot racing — and then, increasingly, at mine.’

‘Without your husband’s knowledge?’

She did lower her eyes then. ‘Sometimes, citizen.’

Again it was Prisca who rushed headlong into speech. ‘Well, citizen, what if she did — who in the world could blame her? You do not know what a monster Monnius was. Always out gambling or drinking or making his hole-in-the-corner deals somewhere, coming home at all hours stinking of wine, women and garlic — reeling round the floor, sometimes, violent with drink — and then demanding his wife. I’ve stood by this bed with a lamp in one hand and a vomit bowl in the other — he always insisted on light when he came in here — and he would treat her so roughly. He’d summon her into his bed, sometimes, in the middle of the night, and do it all again. I have seen her covered in bruises from his so-called attentions. It brought tears to my eyes to watch it-’

‘Prisca! Enough!’

But the slave-woman was determined to defend her mistress, and she would not be silenced. ‘Forgive me, lady, but the citizen should know.’ She turned to me. ‘I’ve served my mistress since she was a tiny girl, and no one ever cared for her like I do — but it was shameful, what Monnius did to her. And then the next day, in he’d come, with one of his gifts of silks and necklaces, trying to wheedle round her and promising the earth. And pawing her all over with his great hairy hands, ready to start again. What wonder if my poor mistress sought a bit of comfort with a young, good-looking man? Why, I could tell you. .’

‘Prisca!’ Fulvia said again. ‘Leave us. Now. At once. Wait in the corridor, and hold your tongue. How dare you speak of your master in this way? And in front of the pages too?’

For a moment I really thought the old maidservant was going to defy her mistress once again. But in the end she merely sighed, sniffed, and took herself off as instructed, still muttering beneath her breath, ‘Well, the serving boys would only tell you the same thing.’

I saw the lads exchange glances. ‘Would you tell me the same thing?’ I asked them.

Again that uncomfortable exchange of looks. Then the older of the two said, unwillingly, ‘There were rumours, citizen, in the servants’ hall. That is all. If Lividius Fortunatus did come here when Caius Monnius was out, we never witnessed it ourselves.’

I understood the message perfectly. I have been a slave myself. Like all good servants, these two had seen nothing and heard nothing, and would have remained conveniently blind and deaf if the charioteer had burst in every night stark naked with a band of pipers. As to relations between Monnius and his wife, the boy had simply evaded the question. I wondered how much the pages really knew. If my patron, Marcus Septimus, had been here, no doubt he would have arranged to have the boys flogged to sharpen their memories. However, I let it pass. I have found the technique unreliable — Marcus has sometimes been misled when witnesses, in order to stop the torturer’s lash, have suddenly remembered things that never happened at all.

The boys had told me something by their very silence, however. They were sympathetic to Fulvia, even when I was trying to find their master’s murderer. That told me a good deal about Caius Monnius. I pressed my advantage.

‘There are other rumours in the household, lady,’ I said. ‘Your mother-in-law blames Fortunatus for this murder, as I expect you know — and she seems at first sight to have reason on her side.’

Fulvia looked at me incredulously. Reason and Annia Augusta were obviously not often bracketed together in her mind.

I shrugged. ‘Consider. Fortunatus wanted you — but you had a husband, so he could not have you. That is a common enough motive for murder. It would have been easy for you to let him in: over the wall, perhaps. I imagine a man of his physical prowess could scale it easily. You could have drugged the wine in advance — you told me that you have an understanding of potions — and he strangles Monnius while the servants are asleep.’

‘And tries to stab me, citizen? You think he would do that?’

‘Perhaps he did it on purpose to divert suspicion. No one would suspect Fortunatus of attacking you.’

‘I see!’ She smiled wryly. ‘You must think me very brave, citizen, to have permitted that. Suppose that he had lost his nerve, or stabbed me in the wrong place in the dark? None the less, I salute you. An ingenious explanation. But not true. Fortunatus did not kill my husband, citizen. Not even without my assistance — and certainly I did not help him or anyone else. Whoever killed Monnius, it cannot have been him.’

I raised my brows at her. ‘You are very certain of that.’

‘I am more than certain. It was a Roman feast-day yesterday, and there is a great five-day chariot-racing spectacular at Verulamium, in honour of the occasion. That is why Fortunatus did not attend my husband’s banquet, as he often does. He was in Verulamium, driving for his colour.’

‘In Verulamium?’ I said, stupidly.

‘All the Londinium factiones have gone there — one of the town authorities struck a bargain with the managers for the Londinium teams to come and race for their colours. He was promising huge sums in prize money besides. Do not look at me so doubtfully, citizen. There must have been a thousand witnesses — the last time Fortunatus appeared in Verulamium there was not a free seat in the stadium and people in the street outside were still fighting to get in.’

I sighed. The neat little mosaic of a theory I had carefully constructed had just shattered into a hundred pieces. If Fortunatus was racing in Verulamium, he could not have killed the frumentarius.

I know a little bit about chariot racing — it is thought of as a Roman institution, of course, but we were racing warcarts on this island before Julius Caesar ever set foot here, and, like every other Celt, I attend whenever my business makes it possible. Of course the races in Glevum are not professional affairs as they are in Londinium — the drivers there are simply members of the college of youth, and the track is a makeshift affair with wooden stakes hammered in to mark the turning points — but the racing itself is no less exciting for that.

Of course it would be a little different in Verulamium. It is a large town — it was once the capital of the local tribes — but I doubted that it had a purpose-built stadium either. No doubt sponsoring a real spectacle, with professionals coming all the way from Londinium, was someone’s way of impressing the populace and winning support for public office. Wealthy patrons of the factiones in every town do the same thing — queuing up for the honour of offering financial support to the colour of their choice, and even sometimes bringing teams from overseas. Presumably it works — entrance to these things is traditionally free, and there are always passionate crowds at even the smallest races.

In Verulamium probably half the town would have turned out, as Fulvia said. I could imagine it: scuffles for seats and fist-fights for the best vantage points in the standing spaces, while the visiting charioteers — with their whole retinue of stable boys, managers, guards and medical attendants — became the idols of the entire community, followed and cheered at wherever they went.

So how could Fortunatus simply have disappeared for the night? It was impossible. He would have been guarded to the hilt for one thing — people stake whole fortunes on the outcome of a chariot race, and there have been too many attempts in recent years to interfere with drivers and horses. Even in Glevum last year we had someone trying to dope the favourite, and stick a dagger between the driver’s ribs. Fortunatus, the most famous charioteer of all, could no more have slipped off for an evening unobserved than the Emperor could have done so himself.

Besides, Verulamium is several hours away even on a good horse in broad daylight. Not even Fortunatus could possibly have raced all day — and it would have been all day, the organisers like to get value for their money — galloped to Londinium in the dark to strangle Monnius and then popped back to Verulamium again in time to start all over first thing in the morning.

So if it was not Fortunatus, who was it? He could have paid someone else to do it, of course — and invited blackmail for the rest of his days. The charioteer was a rich man and the penalties for conspiracy were fearful.

‘In any case,’ Fulvia was saying, breaking into my thoughts, ‘I saw the man. The figure I saw at my bedside was taller and broader than Fortunatus. I assure you, citizen, I would have recognised him.’ She gave me one of those sideways looks again, and sighed. She was delectable. No wonder they nicknamed the charioteer ‘fortunatus’.

A renewed waft of smoke and incense from the next room reminded me of my duty. The undertakers had clearly lit the remaining candles. I said, ‘Then I must thank you, lady, for your help, and apologise for having taken up your time. You must be anxious to prepare the lament.’ To make the ritual washing of her hands and put the ashes on her head, I meant, but the words sounded unintentionally ironic.

She looked at me gravely. ‘I will lament my husband, citizen, and sincerely too. Monnius was an uncouth bedfellow — I will not pretend otherwise — but he was good to me in his way. If he was suspicious about Fortunatus — and I’m sure his mother saw to that! — he was content to ignore it, provided that I was discreet in public and never showed a lack of compliance when he came to me. In fact, I think the notion sometimes excited him.’

I was on the point of leaving, but that stopped me. I tried to imagine feeling ‘excited’, when I was young, had someone made advances to my beloved wife. I failed. I forced the thought aside, and said, ‘How so?’

She laughed, gaily. ‘Fortunatus is young, rich, strong and famous. He could have any woman he wanted — and he wanted me. I think that made me seem more desirable to my husband.’

‘Because you belonged to him?’ I said slowly. It might be true. Jealousy, and a frenzied imagination, can lead to a kind of furious possession. Most Roman men would have their wives executed, or at least divorced and exiled to some barren island, if even a hint of infidelity had attached to them. Yet as Annia herself had told me, Monnius had brushed aside all his mother’s warnings, and become even more fiercely besotted with his wife. And, I reminded myself, he permitted his first wife to live in the annexe.

‘Exactly, citizen. You understand me, I think.’ She smiled at me again, stirring a little on the bed and showing those uneven teeth. The effect was oddly provocative — like her words. No wonder Monnius and Fortunatus had fallen captive to her charms. I glanced uneasily at the two pageboys, but they just went on wafting the smoke away from under the door, their faces blank as stone.

‘Well, I will leave you, lady,’ I said again. ‘If Fortunatus did not kill your husband, then I must discover who did. And who it was who drugged the slaves last night. If it was not you yourself?’

She laughed. ‘I assure you, citizen, my expertise with herbs does not extend so far. A simple remedy for croup I might manage, or an ointment for bruising, but not a potent sleeping draught! I would never be certain it would work. Indeed, when I want one for my own use — on those occasions which Prisca was telling you of — I have Lydia make me one.’

‘Lydia?’ Monnius’ former wife had not impressed me as a woman of many talents.

‘Oh, indeed, citizen. It is one of the womanly skills in which Annia Augusta continues to encourage her — one of the wifely virtues in which she outdoes me. Annia has taught her everything she knows — only, of course, I could scarcely ask Annia herself. You can imagine what she would say if I requested a sleeping draught.’

I could imagine. ‘And did you ever use one on your husband? To ensure that he slept when Fortunatus came?’ If Monnius had been drugged the night before, I thought, it would explain much about the manner of his death.

‘I never entertained Fortunatus when my husband was in the house, citizen. I have some notion of duty. I used the sleeping potion for myself — when Monnius had been to my bed I sometimes found it difficult to sleep.’

‘And yet,’ I said, struck by a sudden thought, ‘you did not take it last night?’

The playful smile vanished and she frowned. ‘But I did, citizen. I always do. Dear Jupiter, I had not thought of that. The death of Monnius drove it from my mind. I took the potion, yet I did not sleep. You think. .?’

‘That someone used your sleeping draught to drug the servants? It seems a likely explanation. Could Monnius have drunk any of it?’

‘I don’t think so. Why would he drink the watered dregs left out for the servants?’

‘There would not be sufficient in your draught, surely, to drug a whole container full of that?’

She shook her head. ‘There might well be, citizen. It is only days since I took possession of a whole large jar of sleeping potion. I have Lydia make a large amount, once a month when Annia is not in the house, and I refill my little phial every night. But how would anyone find it? I keep it carefully hidden.’ She clapped her hands, and the two lads sprang instantly to life. ‘In the large chest there, under the clothing, you will find the container. Show it to the citizen, boy.’

One of the pages scurried over and was already opening the great carved box for me, removing the garments which Prisca had so neatly stacked there. There it was: a glazed jar, about the size of a small water pitcher, neatly stoppered with a wooden insert. It was wedged firmly into place with folded underlinen, and a small drinking vessel had been packed beside it.

I motioned to the boy and he removed the jar from the chest. From the way he handled it and carried it carefully to me, I could see that it was heavy. I took it from him, and with difficulty removed the stopper. The jug was almost full.

I dipped an exploratory finger into the liquid, and sniffed. I could detect nothing. The faintest smell of herbs perhaps, but that was all.

I turned to Fulvia, who was frowning at me, perplexed. ‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘that someone has refilled the flask with water. If you drank only this, it would explain why you did not sleep last night.’ I handed the container back to the page, and had him pour me some. I was about to take a very cautious sip — not without a certain trepidation — when Fulvia forestalled me.

‘Drink that potion for him, boy. It may not be as harmless as he thinks.’

This was a brutally Roman way of resolving uncertainty. I had no time to protest, however. By the time I had exclaimed ‘No, wait!’ the page, with the dreadful resigned obedience of slave-boys everywhere, had already raised the drinking cup and emptied most of it down his throat.

I gave a heavy sigh. I have never become accustomed to watching a poison-taster at work. There was nothing to do now but wait to see if the draught had killed him.