The Germanicus Mosaic

Chapter Seventeen

‘Rufus?’ I must have sounded as startled as I felt. Rufus, the scrupulously truthful! It was the last thing I was expecting.

Marcus looked smug. ‘I had Andretha announce this morning that if anyone named the culprit I would grant unconditional pardon to the rest of the household. I thought it might sharpen Andretha’s memory, but I need not have worried. Rufus came to me almost immediately and confessed. I had him locked in the librarium.’

‘The librarium?’ I echoed, and heard Marcus sigh. I was beginning to sound like a schoolboy practising rhetorical intonation. I resolved to stop repeating everything he said, and tried to look more intelligent than I felt.

There was a punishment cell, elsewhere, Marcus explained, but he had ordered this as a temporary measure. Rufus was to be taken back to Glevum in chains. ‘Crassus was a veteran and a citizen, after all,’ Marcus said, almost gleefully, ‘and there is always a shortage of convicted criminals for the entertainments.’

It would be a pity to waste the opportunity for winning popular acclaim, he meant, by simply bringing in the torturer to flog Rufus to death. There would doubtless be a hearing, of sorts, before he was thrown to the wolves and bears.

I nodded. ‘May I talk to him?’

Marcus looked reluctant. ‘Is that necessary, now? The matter is settled, and I am anxious to get back to Glevum,’ he said fretfully. ‘There is the matter of the sale of the villa to be negotiated. I may offer for it myself, and Lucius will have to be consulted.’

The question of the murder was settled to his satisfaction, perhaps. I was not so sure. I thought quickly. ‘Surely, excellence, he should be consulted about Rufus, too? After all he is the owner of him now. He should at least be informed.’

Marcus frowned. I was afraid for a moment that I had overstepped myself, but he gave a rueful smile. ‘True!’ he said, smacking his palm with his baton in that characteristic way which showed his irritation. ‘Oh, Mercury! I had overlooked that fact. Though Lucius is a Christian; they have these sympathetic ideals. He will be unlikely to object to my amnesty. As the nearest relative he might even apply to deal with the boy himself, flog him and have him sent to the mines, perhaps, or trained up as a gladiator instead of going straight to the arena. All right, Libertus, you speak to Rufus. Persuade him not to appeal to his new master. Persuade him that the bears would be a better fate.’

It might even be true, I thought. The beasts were savage, but they were quick. A sentence to the mines would mean a lingering brutal death, especially for a lightly built musician of Rufus’ sensibility. Even with the gladiators there might also, given Rufus’ girlish good looks, be humiliations of a more intimate kind. It occurred to me, for the first time, that Rufus might already have suffered something similar at Crassus’ hands. Or not his hands, perhaps. What a man did with his slaves was his own affair, but it would help explain why Rufus hated his master enough to murder him. Presumably he had murdered him, since he had confessed. But when, and how, and what about Daedalus?

I didn’t like it at all.

I put on my toga to conduct the interview. They had left Rufus in the dark, and when they opened the librarium door for me the sudden light blinded him for a moment. He was sitting huddled on the mosaic floor, his chained neck roped to his shackled hands, and his hands to his ankles, so that he could not attempt to stand, or even raise his head at my approach. I felt a pang of sympathy.

I had worn such bonds myself, they were of the kind commonly used in the slave market, and although it was more than twenty years since I had been captured, chained and sold, I remembered only too vividly how painful they could be. The single rope that links each set of shackles is drawn uncomfortably taut, so that the captive can only sit in one position and the slightest movement tightens them. I knew from experience how cruelly the iron chafes with every least attempt to ease the limbs, and how swiftly agonising cramp sets in. I wondered vaguely where Marcus had obtained the fetters, and then realised that Crassus probably always kept unpleasant chains of that kind somewhere in the villa.

I left Junio to wait outside and heard the door lock behind me. I set my candle on the wall-spike, but even so without a window-space the room was very dark. Rufus looked up at me, pale but defiant in the candlelight. Someone, I noted, had given him a thrashing already. There were weals on his arms, and a thin stripe of blood coloured the shoulder of his tunic. Andretha, I guessed, furious at his own close brush with execution.

I squatted on the pavement beside him, glad of my toga to moderate the chill on my own extremities. ‘So,’ I said, conversationally, ‘you murdered Crassus, did you? Did you do that alone, or with Faustina?’

The effect was much as I had hoped. A bright spot of red flared on each pale cheek. He tried to lift his chin defiantly, but the cruel chain constricted him. He said, in a strangled voice, ‘Faustina had nothing to do with it. Nothing. She knew nothing about it.’

‘So,’ I continued, in the same casual tone, ‘you administered the poison and put him in the hypocaust unaided?’

That flush again. ‘I did not say that.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘So you did have help? Which part did you perform? It was clever of you, in so little time. Aulus saw you at the South Gate halfway through the festival.’

He lifted his head and almost choked himself again. It was cruel, I thought, to question him like this, but I had to learn the truth before there was another innocent killed. ‘I did not do it with my own hands,’ he said. ‘But I brought about the killing. I paid to have him dead. That is enough.’

‘You paid?’ That explained why Rufus had no money, despite the fact that Andretha had seen him given coins. ‘Whom did you pay? Someone in the villa?’

He tried to shake his head and winced with pain. ‘I cannot tell you that. I have sworn an oath, before the gods.’ He looked at the long pale hands shackled at the wrists. ‘I did not expect that his death would be so quick. I — ’ His voice broke. ‘I thought that it would answer everything. But it has not. It has made things worse. Faustina and I would have been separated, perhaps for ever — you cannot know how that feels.’

I thought of Gwellia, but I held my tongue.

‘Marcus told us you had made progress with your investigation. I could not stand by and watch Paulus blamed. It was not his fault. If he used a poisoned razor, he was forced to do it.’ He managed to turn his head and look at me. ‘He told me, you see, about the novacula — that you had found it covered with blood, and that you suspected him.’

‘You think the blade was poisoned?’ I doubted it myself. Given Crassus’ appetite, I guessed the fatal dose had been disguised as food or drink, and probably swallowed eagerly as a result.

‘If the blade was poisoned, it was not Paulus’ fault. He was a tool, no more. An instrument of stronger forces. He had no choice.’

I thought about that, turning a hundred theories in my brain. One thing, though, I was certain of. ‘That may be,’ I said. ‘All the same, you did not confess to protect Paulus. You are a brave young man, but you are not quite a fool. I am an old man, but I am no fool either. There is only one person for whom you would willingly give your life. What has Faustina done, that you suspect her so?’

He glowered in the candlelight, but did not answer.

‘Well.’ I got to my feet. ‘There are ways of discovering.’

That did it. ‘No — ahh!’ (as he pulled his neck). ‘No. I told you, she knew nothing of my plan.’

‘Then you believe she had a plan of her own? Or, she had the poison.’

That moved him. ‘Libertus, you must believe me. You must protect her. She did not do it, I know she didn’t. She could not have done it, she didn’t leave the procession. But. . Crassus was poisoned. I believe it was aconite — it had all the signs. One quick dose, and the man is dead.’

‘And Faustina had aconite? How does one persuade a man to eat a poisoned herb? Disguised in a meal, yes. But there was no sign of that.’

He looked at me hopelessly. ‘When Regina was here, she had a chest of herbs. She made decoctions from them, dried them, made them into philtres. She gave some to Faustina.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Berry leaves for child-pangs, something else to stop the flux. Faustina told me.’

‘She did not tell you everything,’ Rufus replied. ‘She did not take the second medicine. I do not believe it was for the flux at all. Regina came to the slaves’ quarters one day, from the furnace room. She had been drying aconite. Too dangerous, she said, to use the kitchen fire; one bunch of that in place of cooking herbs would kill us all. She was decocting it into a phial. “In the right hands and the right dose,” she said, “this can do miracles. Has done and will again. We shall see if Crassus refuses to marry me now.” And then she laughed. Laughed.’ He paused, as if the memory were painful to him.

‘You think Regina poisoned Germanicus because he refused her?’

He looked away. ‘Not personally, no.’

‘You think Faustina administered the poison for her?’

He could not answer that. ‘I know Regina gave her a tiny phial of something. Faustina wore it hidden on a thong around her neck. I thought nothing of it, at the time. I thought it was for the flux, as she said.’

‘But now you do not think so? When did you change your mind?’

‘This morning. I had not seen her alone since Crassus died. You know how it is between us, so I will not pretend. We had only a few moments. She slipped off her tunic — and the phial was gone.’

I nodded. A phial threaded on a leather thong. I had a good idea where that phial was now — under my pillows, where I put it when Aulus gave it to me. I didn’t say that to Rufus.

He was still explaining. ‘I asked her about it, and she laughed. A strange laugh. I knew there was something wrong. She told me she had used the potion for my benefit. Now Germanicus was gone we could rejoice, she said. Whoever killed him deserved our heartfelt thanks. She was talking wildly. If anyone had heard her utter such sedition it would have been certain death, but she did not seem to care. It frightened me. When I pressed her, she turned on me. She denied poisoning Crassus.’ His voice trembled. ‘She accused me of plotting his death myself.’

‘Of which you are completely innocent?’ I said. ‘Notwithstanding your confession?’

He sank back into a huddled heap again. ‘What does it matter now? Libertus, she did not kill him. She would not lie to me.’

‘If you believed that, young man,’ I said, ‘you would not be sitting here in chains.’

He set his face. ‘I brought his death about. I am as guilty as if I poisoned him myself. I paid. I knew that Germanicus would die — I did not know how, I swear to that. I did not dream that it might endanger Faustina. I did not pay enough, I suppose. A richer man might have made a better bargain. If I delay, she will be suspected. She is an expert with herbs, and if I noticed that the phial was gone, others might do so too. I could not have her accused. You have your culprit — let it go at that.’

‘And what about Daedalus,’ I said. ‘Did you pay to have him killed?’

‘Daedalus?’ He was so surprised he almost hanged himself. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then perhaps you can explain how you knew that he was dead, three days before his body was discovered in the river?’

There was no mistaking the genuineness of his reaction. He said sadly, ‘You have found Daedalus?’

‘The guard found him,’ I said. ‘He had been stabbed and robbed.’

‘A cut-throat, then? Poor Daedalus. I knew he was carrying money. Yes, I feared the worst. He was no coward. He would not have run away, and if Crassus had freed him as he promised, I would have heard. Daedalus promised to go to Lucius and beg him to buy us.’ He looked at me, as fully as his bonds would allow. ‘We had high hopes. Crassus would have promised his brother anything to keep him away from here — he didn’t want the world to know there was a Christian in the family. Daedalus was a friend. When I didn’t hear from him I knew that he was either imprisoned or dead.’

I looked at him, a small, pathetic, manacled scrap in the candlelight. His childlike faith in friendship was rather touching; an echo of the old Celtic ways. ‘Yes, he is dead,’ I said softly. ‘Now, are you going to tell me where you went during the procession, and whom you paid to have Crassus killed? You know Marcus could have you tortured?’

A little moan of terror escaped him, but he stiffened himself. ‘I cannot tell you, citizen. I cannot. Marcus will have to do his worst. I will be killed, I know that. But if I am certainly to die, I dare not also die cursed. I have sworn an oath of silence to the gods. And the gods repay. See how Crassus perished!’

I thought of all the legends of my people — the warrior hero with his lute refusing to stoop to cowardice. I wished that I could promise this brave, misguided youth that I could spare him additional lashes at least, but I knew that I could not. I had made my own compromises long ago. It was the price of survival. I said, ‘Then I must leave you. Faustina loves you. Do not despair.’

It was not much in the way of reassurance, but it was the best I could do. When I came out into the colonnade, the sunlight must have hurt my eyes. I found that they were smarting.