Death at Pompeia's Wedding (11 page)

I nodded. When I thought about it, I could understand. In her position I might well have thought the same myself. I handed her the cup.

Maesta stepped forward. ‘Half of it will do, now that she is calm. I made it very strong . . .’ But it was far too late. Pompeia had already swallowed every drop.

Ten

Maesta looked from me to the girl in some alarm. ‘She shouldn’t have done that, citizen. I made it very strong. It was intended to calm her frenzy as well as make her sleep.’

Pompeia gave her a beatific smile. ‘Well, for once, it didn’t taste too bad. And you needn’t worry. It’s having no effect – I thought from what you said I’d be fast asleep by now.’ But even as she spoke her speech was slowing down and I thought I noticed the telltale lack of focus in her eyes.

I turned to Maesta sharply. ‘What did you put in that?’

Maesta was wailing in that keening tone again. ‘Nothing, citizen – or nothing that you would not ordinarily expect. Just the root of mandrake and white poppy juice, though I did add a few wild poppy heads as well. Wild poppy is a sovereign remedy for frenzies of all kinds, especially hysterias proceeding from the womb. Galen says—’

‘You have read Galen?’ I was incredulous. ‘How did that come about?’ Galen had been physician at the court when Commodus’s father Marcus Aurelius wore the imperial purple, and his works had been admired throughout the empire. But a copy of a book like that was very rare indeed – even an extract was a hugely expensive luxury. It could take days for an amanuensis to copy out the text – even if you could find a version that you could copy from – and a skilled scribe would charge you dearly for his services; and then there was the price of ink and bark-paper, or even costlier parchment, to take into account. ‘I know the public medicus in Glevum has access to a scroll, but I would be surprised if there was a private copy in the whole colonia. And how many vintner’s wives could read it if there were?’

Maesta was wilting under my questioning and her former pompous manner had all but disappeared. ‘My family were not always merchants,’ she explained. ‘Grandfather was a surgeon with the army, long ago, but he had only daughters so the tradition lapsed. He came to live with us when he was very old. He used to terrify us children with his tales – how some poor soldier had his guts ripped out and grandfather covered them in olive oil and put them in again then sewed the wound with grass, and how the patient had lived for days and days.’

She looked at me to see if I was satisfied, but I did not smile. ‘I’m surprised he taught a girl.’

She shook her head. ‘He didn’t – at least not directly, citizen. Grandfather kept his instruments and things until he died and then my father sold them in the marketplace. But we still had his herb box and a piece of rolled-up bark where he’d copied some of Galen’s work. The theories were amazing: how there is blood, not air, in all the arteries, and how the four humours teach us what herbs to use as cures. I was always interested in that sort of thing – more fun than the weaving and spinning I was taught – and I used to sneak it out and look at it by oil light when I was supposed to be asleep.’

‘But you could read it?’ Not many women of her age and class were as literate as that, even if they were Roman citizens. I had assumed until this moment that she had learned the use of herbs the way most women learned them – at their mother’s knee – but it seemed she had a much more systematic grasp.

She smiled defiantly. ‘My father didn’t have me taught to read, of course – we were not wealthy enough to have a private tutor at home – but I learned from my brothers when they went to school. They hated it – the teacher would beat them every day – but I would make them read the tombstones by the road outside the town, and I would copy them till I could do it too. I soon worked out how letters represented sounds.’

I confess that I was quite impressed by this account. Maesta obviously had a lively intellect. I would treat her cures in future with more respect, I thought.

I was going to ask her a little more about all this – in particular what other herbs she had provided for this house – when I was interrupted by a sudden clatter behind me from the bed. I whirled around. I had almost forgotten Pompeia’s sleeping draught, but it had clearly taken dramatic and complete effect. The girl had drooped back on the pillows, fast asleep, and the rattle was the metal goblet falling from her hand on to the floor. Pulchra was already on her hands and knees retrieving it from underneath the bed.

Maesta walked over to the sleeping girl and raised one eyelid up. Pompeia made a little groaning noise and stirred but did not wake.

Maesta nodded. She was visibly relieved. ‘She will be all right. She is still half-conscious though it was a heavy dose – the sort of thing my grandfather would use before he wanted to cut off a limb. But Pompeia is a big girl, and it was not too much – though I could only guess what quantities to use.’ She nodded to the slave girl who’d been there when I arrived. ‘Keep a close watch on her. She will sleep all night – until past noon tomorrow, if I am any judge – and she may be very thirsty when she wakes. See that a jug of water is kept beside the bed.’ She went back to the stool and picked the basket up. ‘And now, I think, I may fairly claim my fee. My patient is sleeping – as I claimed she would. So if someone will escort me to Helena Domna now, I will take my payment and then I will go home. My poor husband must already be wondering where I am.’

I nodded. ‘Pulchra can take us both,’ I said. ‘My business here has been concluded too. I need to go back to the atrium and collect my slave.’ And I could talk to Maesta on the way, I thought. I wanted to ask her more about that wedding wine and perhaps, if I could work around to it, whether her husband had any grievance against Honorius – or, indeed, if she had any quarrel of her own. I would have to word my questions very tactfully, of course, but it occurred to me that she was a great deal more likely to talk to me in the present circumstance than if I had simply called on her at home. I knew that her husband held me in contempt.

Pulchra, who had picked up the cup by now, put it on the table and came across to us. ‘Of course, I will escort you to the atrium at once.’ She opened the door to let us both pass through, and I stood back to let Maesta lead the way. As I did so, I saw Pulchra signal with her eyes. It was obvious she wanted something.

‘What is it Pulchra? You wish to talk to me?’

I was speaking softly, but she placed a finger on her lips and shook her head. She indicated Maesta, who was by now outside, and already in the act of turning round to say, ‘Is there some problem? I have no time to waste!’ The vintner’s wife was smoothing down the dark-red stola as she spoke, with small impatient gestures, and the old sour look was back on her face.

Pulchra looked urgently at me, and feeling that I must offer some covering excuse, I muttered, ‘I was wondering if we should replace the bar across the door.’

Maesta managed a tight-lipped smile at this. ‘It will not be necessary now. I have told you, citizen, she will remain asleep and anyway it seems the frenzy may have passed.’ She turned away and set off towards the atrium, obviously impatient to be on her way.

My heart sank. Maesta clearly felt more confident again, now that she was no longer anxious about her sleeping draught. Or perhaps it was the strong smell of lavender which had restored her to her old disdainful self – a group of slaves was busy in the central area cutting swathes of aromatic branches to lay around the corpse. Whatever the reason for the change of mood, I thought, it was unlikely I would get much more information out of Maesta now.

I tried. I attempted to fall in beside her as she walked, and said conversationally, ‘You have provided decoctions for this house before?’ She only walked a little faster and did not answer me, so I pressed the point again. ‘You were talking about something you gave Pompeia for her warts?’

She flounced and I thought for a moment that she’d ignore this too, but then she muttered, ‘Nothing that any seller of simples would not have given her. Bruised leaves of hartshorn to lay upon the place, and a weak decoction of briony and wine to cleanse the liver and drive away any evil humours from within. I’m not sure she ever took that, after the first dose – it is quite fierce and bitter, and Pompeia is strong-willed. But the hartshorn alone was enough to move the warts. Pompeia had been afflicted by them from a child.’ She was striding along the path around the courtyard all this while, but brought herself up short and stopped to glare at me. ‘Is all this important, citizen?’ She stood aside to let a slave pass with a pail.

‘Maesta,’ I said gently, taking the liberty of addressing her by name, ‘there has been a poisoning in this house today. It is important to know what potions we might legitimately find.’ I saw her redden with embarrassment. I risked another question. ‘By the way, who paid you for all that? It wasn’t Pompeia – she told us that she had no money of her own. And it was not Helena Domna – she was quite surprised today to learn that you had any skill with herbs. So who was your customer? The lady Livia?’

Maesta paused beside the statue of Minerva in the court, sniffing the wreath of herbs that now encircled it. She would not meet my eyes. ‘I don’t know what business all this is of yours, Citizen Libertus. You are a pavement-maker, not a member of the council or one of the town watch.’ She brought herself up short, and glanced at Pulchra who was standing at my side. ‘But others will doubtless tell you, if I do not. So since you ask me, you are quite correct, I have served this household several times before – both the lady Livia and her predecessor too.’ Her voice softened. ‘Many’s the love potion that I made for her, poor lady, while she was alive – but she could not get her man to drink it, so it did no good.’

Pulchra was standing as no slave should stand, with her arms folded across her ample chest, openly listening to every word of this. When she caught my glance she amended this at once, and adopting a properly submissive pose, she said in a careful, polite and docile tone, ‘Your pardon, citizen. But if you wish to know about decoctions which might be in the house, I believe my mistress has a tonic in her room at this moment – provided by this lady, if I recall aright. It is supposed to relieve the morning sickness and make the child grow strong, but it smells disgusting – that is all I know. And it tastes so nasty that she has to wash it down with watered wine. The mistress opened a new phial of it this very day. I could fetch it for you, citizen, if you would like me to.’ She dropped her voice. ‘That was what I wanted to tell you, citizen. Since there was poison – I thought you ought to know.’

The vintner’s wife seemed unconcerned by this, though I noticed that her cheeks were still ablaze. She was still striding through the statues towards the atrium as she said, ‘Vulvaria – stinking arrach – it is a well-known cure. Send for it by all means. No harm could come to anyone from drinking that. Now, are we going to be announced in the atrium, or not? My husband will be expecting me at the shop by now.’

There was something so urgent in the way she turned her back, and abruptly tried to change the subject, that it made me wonder what else she had to hide. ‘One more question, madam. Those are the only potions you have ever provided in this house? You never concocted anything for the eldest girl, or – of course – for Honorius himself?’

The back of her neck had turned to mottled red. ‘I don’t know on whose authority you ask me all these things, but since you’ll hear it from the slaves, no doubt –’ she turned and glared at Pulchra with such malice that it took me quite aback – ‘I suppose I’d better tell you, though it was years ago and couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what happened today.’

I glanced at Pulchra, but she was staring at the ground. ‘What was it you provided, Maesta?’ I enquired.

She hesitated. ‘It was something I once did for Honorius himself – well, not exactly for himself. He paid me to supply him with hemlock for the jail – a dose for some prisoners who were condemned to death but were permitted to choose the form of execution. You know the sort of thing?’

I nodded. It was not uncommon. It is a privilege awarded by the courts to those of higher rank – and sometimes lesser prisoners, who would otherwise die a long and painful death – to bribe the guards to bring them poison and get it over with. Was hemlock the poison that had been used today? I had thought of wolfsbane, from what Minimus had said, but I am not an expert on these things in the way that Maesta was – and I hadn’t been a witness to the death myself. Hemlock was a possibility – it too can produce that drunken look that Minimus described. ‘Hemlock?’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘And Honorius approved? It does not sound like the sort of thing he’d be in favour of.’

She nodded. ‘He told me that it was right to be severe but within the law one could be merciful. Even a famous Greek philosopher took hemlock, so he said.’

‘When did he ask you this? Some time ago you said?’

Now the news was out, she had relaxed again. ‘Oh, years and years ago – when his last wife was alive. I think he found out that I’d been supplying her – all those wasted love potions which she’d paid me for – and he came to see me on his own account one night. Vinerius was very angry when he heard – he doesn’t really like me selling herbs at all: says a proper Roman wife stays home and tends the house, though he is happy enough to see the money that I make from it. Honorius, in particular, paid very well indeed. He used the hemlock, but there was a problem with one of the subjects, I believe – a tax inspector for the Roman court – who did not die at once, but recovered and had to be thrown to the beasts. The poison should have worked – it was a massive dose – and at the time I could not account for it, but I have found a reason since. I understand that it is possible, if you take tiny doses of poisons every day, in time they will not harm you. You have heard of Mithradites – the ancient king of Pontus who invented
mitraditium
, the antidote to almost anything?’