Venus in copper

Chapter LII

She was there. Sitting at my bedside in a clean grey gown with newly pinned hair. Sipping something from a beaker, thoughtfully.

The changed light told me it was the next morning. Every part of me that had been swollen yesterday had now become stiff as well. Helena did not ask if I felt better; she could see I was worse.

She looked after me, in her sensible way. Petronius had supplied her with painkilling cordial, ointments and wads of lambswool; she had already mastered the medical regime. Anyone who had ever had charge of a baby understood my other needs.

When I was lying still, recovering from being cleansed and dosed, she sat on the bed and held my hand again. Our eyes met. I felt very close to her.

'What have you got to smile at?'

'Oh, any man feels a special attachment for the girl who washes his ears and empties his chamber pot.'

'I see this hasn't stopped you talking nonsense,' Helena said.

I was woken next by the parrot having one of its shrieking fits. A good scream several times a day seemed its way of taking exercise. Chloe's throat must have had the best toned-up set of muscles in Rome.

When the antisocial mobster finally shut up, Helena came in to see me.

'I'll suffocate that voice box!' I had never had to endure the full performance before. I was horrified. 'The old lady upstairs will be complaining -'

'She already has!' Helena informed me. 'I met her when I took back the bowls your sister borrowed for the fish supper. I was getting on with her quite nicely, but the bird stopped that. I feel sorry for the pathetic old thing; she has a running feud with the landlord; he keeps trying to winkle her out. Ranting at you is her only joy in life-I suppose I'll be like that one day…'

It must have been a couple of hours since I was last awake. Helena now had a different beaker; hot honey, which she shared with me. While I was still recovering from the effort of sitting up to drink it, someone knocked.

It was Hyacinthus. He had brought with him the scullion I remembered from the Hortensius kitchen. I glanced at Helena in desperation; I could never cope with this.

Nothing disturbed Helena Justina, once she deemed herself in charge. She patted my bandages. 'Didius Falco has had a slight upset as you can see.' The gods only know what I looked like. The visitors were crowding against the doorframe, completely quelled. 'There's no need for you to have a wasted journey; we'll fetch some stools into the bedroom and you can talk to me instead. Marcus will just lie still and listen in.'

'What happened to him?' Hyacinthus whispered.

Helena replied briskly, 'He tripped over a step!'

The washtub princess was called Anthea. She was three-foot high, and looked about twelve, though Helena and I agreed afterwards that we reckoned her secondary function had been warming the chef's bed. Her miserable life had given her a bad complexion, a sad face underneath it, a depressed outlook, chapped hands, and probably sore feet. Her threadbare scrap of a tunic barely reached down to her reddened knees.

I lay there and listened dreamily while Helena Justina tried to tease information out of this poor little mite: 'I want you to tell me everything about the day of the dinner party. Were you in the kitchen all the time? I expect there were plenty of pans and ladles to wash, even while Viridovix was just preparing the food?' Anthea nodded, proud to have her importance recognised. 'Did anything happen that you thought seemed peculiar?' This time the girl shook her head. Her dry, colourless hair had an annoying way of constantly falling over her eyes.

Helena had apparently remembered the entire party menu, because she mentioned most of the dishes. She wanted to know who stirred the saffron sauce for the lobsters, who jointed the hare, who folded over the halibut pancakes, even who tied the damned dessert fruit onto the golden tree. Hearing it made me so queasy I only just held out. 'And was the lady they call Severina in the kitchen at any time?'

'From about halfway through.'

'Talking to Viridovix?'

'Yes.'

'Did she help him at all?'

'Mostly she sat up on the edge of a table. Viridovix used to get very excited when he was working and hot; she was keeping him calm. I think she tasted some gravies.'

'Was it a busy period? So you could not pay much attention?'

'Yes, but I did see her whisking the egg whites.'

The pot-scourer had a sniff sometimes, caused by neither grief nor a nasal infection; wrinkling her snitch merely added variety to her empty life. 'Sometimes eggs take ages don't they?' Helena chirped; she was more patient than I would have been. 'It's a good idea to pass the bowl around-what were they being used for?'

'A glaze.'

'A glaze?'

'It was her idea.'

'Severina's?'

'Yes. He was too polite to argue, but Viridovix thought it wouldn't work.'

'Why? Was the glaze spread on something the people were going to eat?' Helena asked, her dark eyes narrowing.

'No; just a plate.'

'A plate?'

'No one ate it. It was to decorate a plate.'

Under pressure the scullion was starting to look angry and confused. I was about to issue a signal, but Helena moved on anyway. 'Anthea, can you tell me how long Severina stayed with you, and what happened when she left?'

'She stayed all the time.'

'What-during the dinner?'

'Oh no; not that long. Until the party had started. Just started,' she repeated, shoving that hair out of her eyes again while I gripped my bedcover.

'Then what?' Helena queried pleasantly. I think she knew I was getting annoyed.

'Severina sighed a bit and said she was feeling poorly so she would go home.'

'By then all she had done was taste some things, talk to Viridovix, and decorate a plate?'

'She inspected the dishes before she went.'

'What happened about that?'

'Nothing. She said it all looked lovely, and Viridovix should be proud of himself.'

If Helena was feeling the strain of this interview, no one would have known. 'So Severina left, then Viridovix went up to the triclinium to oversee the carvers. Did anyone except your own household servants come into the kitchen after that?'

'No.'

'Did you ever see any of the dinner guests?'

'They might have gone past to the lavatory. But I was busy by then.'

'None of them came in, for instance to say thank you for the splendid food?' I choked with mirth, echoed by Hyacinthus. Helena ignored us. 'Anthea, in your house where are the prepared dishes kept while they wait for the bearers to take them upstairs?'

'On a table by the kitchen door.'

'Inside the room?'

'Yes.'

'Could anyone have tampered with them without being seen?'

'No. A boy has to stand by the table to keep off the flies.'

'Ah! I expect there are quite a lot of flies in your house,' Helena allowed herself to jibe sarcastically. She had run out of questions for a moment.

'There was one thing,' Anthea broke in, almost accusingly. 'Severina and Viridovix were giggling about the cakes.'

Helena stayed calm. 'These were the bought pastries which had come up to the house from the cakeseller Minnius?'

'One was a very big one.'

'A special one!' Helena exclaimed.

'Yes, but it can't have been the one that poisoned the master-'For the first time Anthea was carried away by what she had to impart. 'I know about that cake; no one else does! Severina said it was going to cause a quarrel, because everyone would fight to snatch it off the plate. She said she would take it away, and keep it for Hortensius Novus to have afterwards in his own room by himself-'

Helena's head spun in my direction. We were both holding our breath, and even the runabout tensed, realising what this tale implied. But the scullion, having built up her big moment, deflated us. 'He never ate it though.'

She sat, enjoying the anticlimax she had caused. Helena murmured 'How do you know that?'

'I found it! After the dinner was over, when I was scraping scraps from the big gold plates so I could wash them. I saw that in one of the slop buckets. I remember, because at first I was going to pick it out again and eat it, only it was all covered with wet onion peel. I don't like onions,' Anthea added, as if she would have eaten the cake regardless, but for that.

'I wonder,' pondered Helena, 'who can have thrown the cake away?'

'Nobody knew. I was mad; I called out, what miserable rat dumped this good cake in here? I would have belted them-but no one knew.'

I roused myself. 'Anthea, had all the other cakes been eaten when the serving dish came back?'

'I'll say. We never see pastries sent back to the kitchen in our house!'

'How were they served-on the vine leaves Minnius sends them wrapped in?'

'No; just on a platter. I washed it,' she added bitterly. 'Not a crumb left; not a crumb! I nearly didn't bother to wash it at all.'

I fell back on my pillow. The cakes had to be a false lead. Most people present must have eaten one, and none of the other diners had suffered ill effects.

Helena said quietly, 'Falco's tired. I think you must leave now-but you have been of immense help. Viridovix will be avenged, I promise you.'

She was shepherding them out, but that brain of hers was still reasoning rapidly for as they went I heard her ask Anthea whether the platter the cakes had been served on was the one with the egg white glaze.

Hyacinthus called out that he would see me on Thursday if I was able to attend the funeral, then he led off the little washer-upper. (Another thing Helena and I agreed afterwards, was that if we were right about Anthea's relationship with Viridovix, Hyacinthus had probably taken her over now.)

At the outside door I heard the runabout mention to Helena that downstairs in the street there were two men prominently watching our block. Rough types, he said.

Helena went into the living room alone. She would be thinking about what Hyacinthus had just said, not wanting to worry me. I heard her battering something in a bowl to take her mind off it.

Eventually she reappeared. 'Omelette for dinner.'

'What's that?' She was holding a dish covered in a thin layer of wet white froth.

'Egg white. I think if it's left it will set on the dish. It doesn't look much. But I suppose if it was Severina's own idea she could have convinced herself it resembled a decorative bed of snow.'

'Especially on silver.'

Helena was surprised. 'The dishes were gold!'

'Not all. Anthea said she nearly didn't wash up the cake plate; I saw that, it was a giant silver comport Severina had given to Novus.'

'I still think she was wasting eggs,' Helena muttered, inspecting our own crock doubtfully.

'All right. Tell me instead what the runabout said about men watching the house.' She concentrated on the egg white; Helena did not believe in sharing her troubles with an invalid. 'I think we're safe,' I told her, because I knew who the watchers would be.

'Marcus-'she began indignantly.

'When you go out, march straight up and ask who sent them here.'

'You know?'

'Petronius. He has equipped us with a highly visible vigilante guard.'

'If Petronius thinks that necessary, it frightens me even more!' We stared at each other. Helena must have decided there was no point creating a fuss. 'Did I ask the right questions?'

'You always ask the right questions!'

'The cakes are important, Marcus; I know they are. You could poison cakes individually. But ensuring the right victim took the right cake… I thought it must be the extra large one.'

'I know you did,' I smiled at her.

'That would have been perfect, Marcus! Hortensius Novus was the host. In such a vulgar house I bet they offer platters to the host first; Novus could be guaranteed to grab the best!'

I smiled again. 'Yet Severina took it off the plate!'

'This is a complete puzzle.'

'Perhaps not. It could be that Severina is innocent. Maybe she went to the house, even though she was feeling off colour, because she had realised the banquet could be dangerous for her beloved. Maybe she really wanted to check for anything suspicious in the food.'

'Is that what she says?' Actually, that was one line she had not inflicted on me yet. 'It could be,' Helena retorted bleakly, 'this is just what Severina wants you to think. Do you believe Viridovix knew she was checking for people trying to get at his food?'

'Viridovix was no fool.'

Helena growled. 'Perhaps you were meant to discover the business with the giant pastry; it could be a clever double bluff, while the poison was really somewhere else -'

'Oh it was somewhere else!' We both fell silent. 'If he was poisoned at the dinner,' I said, 'it may rule out any connection with Priscillus. His business rival could not easily snuff him out in his own house.'

'Could not Priscillus have bribed one of the Hortensius slaves?'

'Risky. Slaves fall under suspicion so easily. It would take a large bribe-and then there is a risk that a slave with too much money becomes conspicuous.'

'Not if the slave was Viridovix; and if Viridovix is now dead!'

'I won't believe it was the cook.'

'All right. You met him!' She noticed I was really too tired to go on. 'Are we any further forwards?' she asked, smoothing my bedcover.

I lifted a scratched finger tenderly to her cheek. 'Oh I think so!' I leered at her cheekily.

Helena put my arm back under the cover. 'It's time I fed the parrot; go to sleep!'

'The parrot is old enough to feed itself.'

She was still sitting quietly with me. 'You sound better; it's a good sign when you can talk.'

'I can talk; I just can't move.' Something was on her mind. 'What is it, fruit?'

'Nothing.'

'I know my girl!'

'Marcus, how do you bear the pain?'

'At the time you're being beaten up, you tend to be too busy to notice it. Afterwards, you just have to be brave…' I was watching her. Sometimes Helena's dogged way of tackling life made her close in on herself. It was hard for anyone to reach her then, though sometimes she would turn to me. 'Sweetheart… when you lost the baby did it hurt?'

'Mmm.' Despite the brief answer, she was prepared to communicate. There might never be another opportunity like this.

'Is that why having another frightens you?'

'I'm frightened of everything, Marcus. Not knowing what will happen. Not being able to do anything about it. The helplessness… Incompetent midwives, crass physicians with terrifying instruments-I'm frightened I'll die. I'm terrified that after all that effort the baby will die, and how will I bear it?… I love you very much!' she said suddenly. It did not seem irrelevant.

'I would be there,' I promised her.

She smiled sadly. 'You would find some urgent job to do!'

'No,' I said.

Helena wiped away her tears while I lay trying to look reliable. 'Now I'll go and feed the parrot,' she said.

She made the mistake of looking back from the door.

I grumbled plaintively, 'You're only using that parrot as a handy alibi!'

'Look at the state of you!' Helena scoffed. 'Who needs an alibi?'

Then before I could reach out and grab her she had to run, because a grinding noise announced that the damned parrot was learning to bend open the bars of its cage.

'Oh stop being so wicked and tell me who did it!' Helena roared.

But Chloe only shrieked back, 'Marcus has been a naughty boy!'

Untrue, unfortunately.