Marcus looked uncomfortable. It was hard to know if Lucius’s question was the result of drink, or an attempt to trap someone into indiscreet remarks for the benefit of a pair of listening ears – in which case the penalty might very well be death.
‘Caesar’s prowess in the ring is well known everywhere,’ my patron said, evading the moment skilfully. ‘I hear that he once transfixed an elephant?’ He signalled for the
crater
-bearer to fill the cups again, and as he looked up he saw me standing there. His face grew furious, but he raised his cup to me. ‘Libertus! So you have deigned to honour us? I was concerned lest some accident had befallen you. I could not believe that you would choose to come so late, when it is a question of honouring the dead.’
There was a deathly hush and all eyes were turned on me. I bowed my head. ‘Your pardon, Excellence. I meant no disrespect. Your orders for the provision of a carriage went astray. I have brought the commander of the garrison – he will vouch for me.’
Lucius looked scornful. ‘So not only is this man insolently late, he brings an uninvited guest with him! Such behaviour would never be tolerated in Rome.’
His intervention was quite fortunate. Marcus looked furious at this public slight, and forced a smile at me. ‘I’m sure the citizen has reason, as he says. Libertus, I think that you’ll find there is space for you somewhere on the couches in the corner of the room. There are only seven diners on the table over there. We were rather expecting your son to come as well. The servants will find some bread and meat for you – we were about to be entertained by Atalanta on the lyre, before we moved on to the sweeter course.’ He waved a hand towards the vacant places as he spoke. ‘Lucius was telling us about events in Rome.’
Once Marcus had accepted me the awkwardness passed. People were beginning to chatter among themselves again, and slaves were already appearing with a dining wreath, and a bowl of water to wash my hands and feet. The only sane thing was to take my place. But I looked at Lucius and said, in the clearest tones I possessed, ‘I would be more interested to hear him talk about what happened here.’
There was a gasp around the tables at this impertinence. ‘Libertus!’ Marcus was white with anger. ‘You forget yourself!’
‘But I remember Aulus. He was your gatekeeper. Poisoned in this very household while you were out today.’ I had fixed my eyes on Lucius and I stood my ground.
There was an awful silence. The diners held their breath. Even the
crater
-carrier was standing statue-still. Marcus was looking shaken.
‘Libertus,’ he said, with careful gentleness, ‘I know you are concerned. But all the wine this evening has been tasted by a slave. If the poisoner is waiting he cannot strike tonight. There is nothing in the house that I did not provide.’
‘Ask Lucius, patron. That isn’t quite the case.’
Lucius was frowning. He got slowly to his feet. ‘Cousin! I protest! This is preposterous! You know that I brought no provisions to the house – and certainly I haven’t ordered any since I have been here. You would have heard of it – the servants would have known.’
‘Just as they knew that you had been out to the gate and given fresh instructions to Pulchrus and your slave, the day that your luggage and the snake act went away? Because you must have done. Pulchrus would never have abandoned escorting the cart, and gone the steeper way to town, unless he had explicit orders to do so, and then he would have wanted to alert his master to the change of plan. And I think that is exactly what he did. I thought that you’d killed Aulus because he’d spoken to the girl, but I realise there were other reasons why he had to die. He saw you give fresh orders – he mentioned it to me. Said you were fussing around the luggage cart, changing your orders until the moment they left. You must have had a dreadful fright when you found out Aulus was a spy – and that I’d been asking questions about what he might have seen.’
I could feel the eyes of the whole room fixed on us, but Lucius managed to look simply pained. ‘Kill Aulus? This is monstrous, cousin. Have the man locked up. Something has obviously afflicted his brain. How could I kill Aulus? Especially poison him? All the provisions in the house are yours. You know I have brought nothing of that kind of my own.’
‘Not even the little flasks in your
lararium
?’ I said – and knew from the way he paled that I was right. ‘I should have thought of it when I first saw you pouring liquid on the altar fire. You said yourself the offering would have no force unless you provided the wherewithal for it. And yet you were using a jug of Marcus’s when I arrived at first – though you contrived to break it, so no one could discover what it had contained, and what you were trying to dispose of on the flames.’
He had recovered now. ‘Cousin, you provided me with a jug of Rhenish when I went to bed. So it was my wine I offered, for all practical purposes.’ He looked around the assembled diners for support, like an advocate in court. He knew he’d scored a point.
‘But this was not that jug,’ I muttered doggedly. ‘You expressly told Colaphus not to bring you that – so I imagine we will still find it in your sleeping room if we look. This was a big, coarse drinking jug of the kind the servants use, just like the one they sent me with the funeral wine today. I say that the one you broke was used for Aulus’s lunch. No doubt the kitchens can confirm it – the pieces will be lying in the rubbish pile somewhere. Nor do I believe that there was only wine in it.’
‘This is quite scandalous. You have no proof of that.’ But he was breathing hard and that telltale pink was round his nose again – a sign that he felt guilty, as I now realised, or was about to be discovered in a lie.
I pressed my advantage. ‘And you knew that he was dead. I was half aware that something was peculiar at the time. There was a little niggle worrying at my brain, and now I realise what it was. The whole time he was missing you spoke of him in the past, as though you were certain that he wasn’t coming back. And when I told you that I’d found him, you guessed that he was dead before I’d had the chance to tell you that he was.’
Lucius was clearly shaken but he kept his calm. ‘Cousin, are you going to listen to this burbling all night? The man is a menace – I have told you that before.’
I saw Marcus hesitate and glance towards the burly slaves beside the wall. I burst out to Lucius – before he quite convinced his cousin to have me hustled off – ‘So you deny that you killed Aulus? And that you had Marcus’s messenger waylaid and killed, so that the clever mimic you hired could take his place for you?’
Lucius sat down again, the picture of contempt. ‘And why should I do that?’
‘So that you could arrange for your cousin to stay with your relative, instead of visiting the governor’s palace as he planned? I’m still not certain why you wanted that. I think it must be so that you could poison him as well – and possibly his little family too.’
The Roman had turned as white as linen by this time, but he still contrived to sneer. ‘And no one would have noticed? Come, be rational!’
‘I think you’d planned to blame it on the snakes – no one could ask questions if vipers had got loose, especially in the narrow confines of a ship. Why else were you so anxious to employ the snake-charmer? Everyone said the act was very poor. But of course that didn’t matter – that was not the point. You had already made arrangements with him for an “accident” – no doubt offered to pay him very well. But then you discovered that our vipers here don’t have the venom to finish off a man – thanks to the intervention of my wife. Is that why you wrote a letter to that house tonight?’
I paused. It was the officer who made the point for me. ‘Be careful how you answer – we have stopped the messenger. The letter will be returned tomorrow to your cousin here – quite properly, since it was travelling under his private seal.’
Marcus was looking at his cousin in dismay. ‘But why? For money? It would come to you, I suppose, once my poor father died, if my heir and I were conveniently disposed of in this way. My mother would inherit, and you’d be her guardian, since you would be the nearest agnate male. But I can’t believe it of you.’
There was a shrug of the patrician shoulders as Lucius replied. He had the Roman gift of stoicism, which they so admire. ‘Then don’t believe it, cousin. Of course it isn’t true. Did you ever hear such a confection of lies in all your life? Do you seriously believe that I would go out to the gate and get Pulchrus to write that little note to you just so that I could have it sent back to you later on, to convince you that Puchrus had arrived in Londinium safe and sound?’
Marcus looked sorrowfully at me and shook his head. ‘I agree! It is preposterous. For once, Libertus . . .’
But I interrupted. ‘What little note was that?’
Marcus frowned, impatient. ‘A note to say Pulchrus had ridden on ahead, to arrange accommodation for the party in advance. It was in his handwriting – I knew the script at once. Of course, now you draw my attention to the fact, the words are rather ambiguous, I agree, and could just as easily have been written here. But, Libertus, why on earth should you imagine that? Why would Pulchrus write a letter while still outside the house?’
‘Because he’d had new orders – and he would not deviate from your instructions without informing you. I think that Lucius persuaded him to write the note to you by telling him that you were busy at the time. I think it’s possible that he dictated it – then sent it on to Londonium to be sent back to you.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘The messenger was quite certain who had given it to him.’
‘A man in Pulchrus’s uniform who behaved like Pulchrus. That mimic was obviously very good indeed,’ I said. ‘But, patron, think of this. How did Lucius come to know about that note at all – or that it was Pulchrus who had written it? As I understand it, it was delivered to you in the town, and the commander here was with you when you broke the seal. Just as you broke the seal of your mother’s letter from Rome, which brought the news about your father’s death. Yet Lucius knew about the contents of that, too, by the time you got home.’
‘The messenger told me verbally, of course.’ Lucius was still defiant even now.
‘But Niveus and I saw you opening a seal.’ That was Atalanta, waiting with her lyre. Like many wealthy Romans, I think that Lucius had half forgotten she were there, or that slave girls were endowed with working eyes and ears. ‘Craving your indulgence, master, but I thought you ought to know.’ She turned back to Lucius. ‘And I saw you talking to Aulus afterwards – in the slaves’ waiting room where he was eating lunch. You told him he could finish the wine that you’d begun, because you didn’t care for Rhenish. I saw you pour it out.’
‘Along with a little something from your
lararium
flask, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Or do you still deny it, citizen?’
Lucius was defeated but he faced me with a smile. ‘Of course I still deny it. I will prove it, too. Slave!’ He motioned to his bodyguard who was standing close to him, staring as though he’d been turned to stone. ‘Go to my sleeping room and fetch the travelling box. I will show you that there is no poison in any of my flasks.’
‘Go with him, Atalanta,’ Marcus said. ‘Make sure he brings it. And the rest of you – please go back to your seats.’ Most of the dining guests had risen to their feet and were clustered in a startled group against the farther wall, shocked as statues and very near as pale.
There was a lot of hurried whispering, but one or two obeyed, and others were beginning to follow suit when Atalanta and the bodyguard reappeared. Colaphus held the
lararium
, which he carried to the front and laid before Lucius on the table-top.
‘You still doubt me, cousin?’ Lucius exclaimed. ‘I’ll soon prove who is the liar here.’ He took the box, produced a key and slowly opened it. I felt the crowd lean forward in their seats, and heard the gasps of admiration at the craftsmanship. Lucius took out the silver flasks – the whole array of them – and poured the contents with a flourish into his drinking cup. Then, rising to his feet, he raised the cup to me, rather as Marcus had done when I came into the room.
There was a titter of amusement around the room at this.
I felt extremely foolish. Was I mistaken after all?
‘Your good health, citizen. I drink to you, and to your imaginative tales!’ He met my eyes, and in that moment I knew what he had done. I might have stopped him, but I let him drink.
It was several seconds before it took effect.
The death of a dignitary at a memorial feast is not usually the signal for a lightening of mood, but strangely tonight that seemed to be the case. I found I was surrounded by cheering citizens, clapping me on my shoulders and congratulating me. I felt like a victorious net-man being applauded at the games – as if I had entrapped my victim in my web and brought him to his knees, and he’d escaped dishonour by falling on his sword. Perhaps, indeed, that was exactly what I’d done.
Someone was pressing a cup of wine on me – it wasn’t Lucius’s, I made sure of that – and others were leading me towards a dining couch. I sank down on it and permitted slaves to take my sandals off and bestow the luxury of washing both my feet. Then it was my patron who was bending over me, personally placing the dining wreath upon my balding head.
‘Libertus! I applaud you. You must sit at my right hand.’ He gestured towards the table where Lucius had sat, and from where his lifeless body was now being hauled away in an ignominious fashion by a pair of slaves. They were treating him as parricides and traitors are traditionally treated – dragged backwards by his heels so that his head bounced on the mosaics as he went, while his proud toga rucked up round his armpits and exposed his spindly legs and leather loinstrap to public ridicule.
I was reluctant, but he led me to the place, then rose and addressed the assembled company. I noticed that the commander was now reclining at the back and that Junio had come in and joined him there.
‘Citizens, councillors, friends.’ Marcus was shaken but he was a Roman through and through, and knew how to disguise his shock with dignity. ‘You were invited here tonight in honour of my respected father – but one of our number has disgraced his memory by scheming against his family and heirs. He has taken his reward!’ There were sporadic cheers and claps at this, but Marcus raised his hand. ‘So, now, I bid you truly to keep this memorial in the way that I know my father would have wished. Please, fill your glasses and drink to our safe deliverance, and we will offer a thanksgiving sacrifice later to the household gods. My slaves will serve you the “second tables” now, and I will call on Atalanta to play for us again. Something a little more lively, in honour of our joy.’