76 BCE - Summer, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius Curio
There were so many servants at House Crassus that a separate kitchen had been built inside the barracks. Most of the slaves ate there; those of us who slept in the main house took our meals in the kitchen, but even we had to eat in shifts. We drifted into cliques based on seniority, and most of the original household were the first to eat after the family. Nestor chose to eat in the outbuilding.
At supper soon after the Vulcanalia, Tessa mentioned that she was experiencing some tingling and numbness in her feet and legs and asked if anyone else had noticed anything similar. Betto immediately cried “poison!” exclaiming that he, too, had been feeling the same sensations in his feet. He made it his personal duty to poll the rest of the house and to everyone’s surprise discovered that three others shared these symptoms. Sabina examined each one but could find nothing amiss. She rubbed salves on their feet and told them to return to her each evening. After the incident with Pío, everyone was as skittish as an unblooded legionary. Crassus sent Tertulla and the children to Baiae. They had just purchased a vacation home on the hill overlooking the bay, and while
dominus
did not think they were in any danger, the new villa did require furnishing and decorating, a task at which he was as hopeless as Tertulla was proficient.
Within three days everyone but Tessa had improved. Although the temperature was hot throughout that week, it seemed she was always perspiring. Her tunic was drenched every time I saw her. Sabina recommended bed rest, but Tessa refused. There was too much to do, too many bouquets to cut and arrange. Besides, she said, she had no real pain; toward the end she even cut herself with her clipping shears and didn’t know she was bleeding till she spied the drops painting her toes and the rich earth.
•••
You must know by now that it was Sabina’s jealousy that threatened Tessa. The healer was the most intelligent woman I had ever met, but she was also arrogant. Perhaps she believed she could act with impunity. If one believes there is no risk, it is easy to gamble everything of value.
•••
When she lost the sight in her left eye, Crassus stepped in and insisted she take to her bed. He told Sabina that if Tessa’s condition did not improve by morning, he’d be forced to call in outside help. Sabina admitted to
dominus
that Tessa must have been poisoned. Her condition was grave, but she would do all that she could. When he heard this, Crassus put the entire estate on alarm: no one could enter or leave without his knowing.
By then of course, it was too late. Now that she lay abed, she was too weak to leave it. Sabina asked that she be brought to the clinic; Crassus himself carried her there in his arms. In the night she wet the bed four times; it hardly mattered for the bedding was already soaked through with her sweat. Tessa’s heart raced, then slowed, and her breathing became erratic. The healer gave her
theriake
, a Greek antidote for poisoning. It was her own formula of herbs and spices ground with opium into olive oil. She worked through the night, joined by many of the
familia
, including Crassus, who stood vigil with the young gardener.
Conspicuous by his absence was Ludovicus.
Something Livia had said to her mother when we came upon her in the western wood kept nagging at me. When Sabina asked her what is found in short supply at the main house but is lavishly abundant in the forest, Livia replied “people.” Her tone was mocking, of course, but it set me thinking. There was something else the healer could find a great deal of out at the boundaries of the estate: privacy. Almost in that same moment, I realized why the priests’ hoods had seemed so familiar, yet somehow menacing. My uneasiness grew.
It is an effortless matter to draw conclusions from a narrative that takes you by the hand as I have done, but to believe the unthinkable in the midst of events that swirl about you in a confusion of emotion and distress, that, I hope you will see, is a more challenging task. Yet I curse myself for my slow-wittedness. I could not change the outcome for Sabina, for the law of Crassus is unforgiving. I could not recapture the look in Livia’s eyes that died on that day of judgment. But I might have saved a life.
It was the night that Tessa died. All of us, myself included, believed that Sabina labored frantically to revive the gardener. But I had to know. I summoned Malchus, told him to don socks as well as his heaviest
caligae
and meet me at the tool shed. There we collected shovels and rakes, and with lanterns raised high headed to the western wood. It was easy to find the spot, for as we approached it stood out from its surroundings, natural in aspect, but unnatural in fact. A patch no larger than three by six feet was covered with a layer of moss, twigs and bark made to resemble the rest of the forest floor. We raked this aside; I warned Malchus to let nothing touch his exposed flesh.
We found nothing, except merely circumstantial evidence: Sabina had planted something here, then removed all manifestation that she had done so. This was enough to report to Crassus, but would I do so? Could I do anything that would reshape me into a wedge between mother and daughter? And that, in Livia’s eyes, would be the least of my crimes should I continue down this path. I was almost ready to take relief from our failure when Malchus said he thought that perhaps Sabina merely wanted to plant some flowers. Why do you say that, I asked him, since I had told him nothing of my suspicions. He pointed deep into the hole where he had been digging. We lowered our lanterns and there at the bottom lay a single, battered, purple bloom.
“Don’t touch it!” I said as Malchus reached for it. I put on a pair of gloves, exhumed the flower from its intended grave and dropped it into my belt pouch. One itch had been scratched satisfactorily, for the flower’s hooded shape was a perfect mimic of the priest’s cowl.
The gods, now intent on guaranteeing my undoing, laughed as they brought my own eyes to our next discovery. As we hurried away with our prize it was I, not Malchus, who chanced upon a small, pale glow beside a mossy granite outcrop. We delayed our race back to the house to investigate. The lanterns illuminated the destruction of any hope for me to remain in denial: a single daisy, its short green stem flat and mangled, its white petals and yellow heart crushed and lifeless.
•••
“Seize her!” Malchus shouted as we burst into Sabina’s clinic. The legionary’s inertia answered his own command as he crashed into the healer, knocking her to the floor. I slapped the spoon out of Tessa’s mouth, but she swallowed involuntarily.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Crassus shouted, grabbing the sleeve of my tunic amidst the shouts and screams of those present.
“Where are your emetics?” I demanded of Sabina, who was still pinned to the floor by red-faced Malchus.
“She’s too weak,” Sabina said with an emphasis meant only for me. “You’ll kill her.”
“Give her water. Now, master, for the love of Flora, if you want her to live. As much as she can drink.” Crassus released me and nodded to Eirene who ran to fetch a cup and pitcher. “In the old school room,” I called after her. “It’s closer.”
“For gods’ sake, man, let the woman up,” Crassus said. Malchus pulled Sabina roughly to her feet. “Gently, Malchus,”
dominus
commanded. “I will know what this is about before anyone is maltreated. No one is accused of anything. Yet.”
I knew the words must come but they lodged in my throat, a lump of ruined futures.
“Alexander!” Malchus urged.
“I accuse,” I shouted, as if volume were needed to regurgitate the unspeakable. Unable to look at my old friend, I stared at the floor at Crassus’ feet. “I accuse Sabina of attempting to murder this woman.”
The silence that followed was interrupted only by the rasping of Tessa’s breath. Eirene returned. I raised Tessa’s damp head and the tearful scullery girl brought the water to Tessa’s lips. The little she managed to get down made her choke.
“You’ll kill her,” Sabina repeated.
“Eirene, step away. Let no more be done. Alexander, I have no reason to doubt you, but if you have maliciously kept Sabina from administering to Tessa, so help me .... Both of you, go with Malchus. He will keep you safe and separate till morning. The rest of you, except you, Betto, go to your quarters and pray to our
lares domestici
to preserve this woman. Betto, fetch another guard, stay by Tessa, do nothing but watch over her. We will let the gods decide if she lives or if she dies.”
Just before dawn, the gods chose death. Tessa’s shallow breath rose to a gasp, then stopped. Crassus sent a rider to Ostia to notify her parents and to pay their owners more than the man and woman’s worth for allowing them to come to Rome for a few short days to collect the body. While we waited, Crassus held court.
•••
The day was grey but looked unlikely to rain upon us. “The accuser shall speak first,” announced Crassus from his seat in the
tablinum
. He had turned it to face the peristyle where the household had gathered, standing, at my request, on the gravel paths, avoiding the few decorative patches of lawn. Livia sat by Sabina. I would have given anything to have had a private moment with her, but there was no opportunity; the first words she would hear from me would be those that condemned her mother.
“
Dominus
, if I am upheld in these proceedings, we must replace all the soil in our flower beds. To prove to you why we must take this extraordinary measure, I have asked Malchus to bring these three strays, bitches in fact, from the streets.” The
familia
murmured, and I was fairly certain I heard Nestor, scrawny and hateful, ‘there’s only one dog I see up there ought to be put down.’
“Keep them at a distance,” Crassus said to the guards holding them by short, rope leashes. “I’ll not have fleas infesting the
domus
.” I emptied the contents of my belt pouch onto a table just below where Crassus sat. With a tweezers, I raised the drooping purple bloom for all to see. “In Greece, we call this
lykotonon
, ‘wolf killer.’ Hunters rub their arrows on its petals, its leaves, its stem, but mostly on a ground up paste made from its root.”
“How is it,” Crassus asked, “that a young Athenian philosopher comes by such knowledge?”
“
Dominus
, Aristotle was succeeded by Theophrastus, acknowledged even by Romans as the father of botany. I have read
De Causis Plantarums
, and have seen with my own eyes the carefully guarded corner of the Lyceum gardens devoted to
aconitum napellus
. It is beautiful, but deadly.”
I instructed the guards to force the dogs to sit on disparate patches of ground throughout the peristyle. Nothing happened. “I expected this,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Now the flower beds.” The dogs were moved. “Make sure they sit; do not let them lie down.”
“What difference can that make?” Crassus asked.
“I want to be certain their genitals come in contact with the soil. You see,
lykotonon
need not be ingested to be poisonous. It can be absorbed through the skin.” The dogs looked wide-eyed and terrified, but otherwise unremarkable.
“Enough, Alexander. Get to the point. We understand that you are claiming Tessa was poisoned from contact with this flower, evidence of which is dramatically and overwhelmingly non-existent. But even if you are correct, what proof do you have that Sabina had anything to do with it? Tessa was not the only one with symptoms.”
“My toes were numb,” Betto called out.
“Mine too,” cried another.
“Because you stopped to smell Tessa’s handiwork,” I said. “As you leaned in, your toes touched the soil on which Sabina had sprinkled the pulverized root of aconitum. The effect would not be lasting. But Tessa trod those beds barefoot day after day.
Dominus
, may I speak with Sabina?”
“You may.”
“Sabina, are you in love with Ludovicus?”
“No. Definitely not.”
Why should she help? “Let me rephrase. Is Ludovicus your lover?”
“Again, no.”
“
Was
he your lover?” Silence. “Shall I ask him? He’s standing just to your left.”
“We have shared a bed, yes.”
I turned again to Crassus. “I came upon Sabina during one of my walks in the woods at the western end of the estate.” At least I could leave Livia out of this tragic narration. “She would not let me inspect the blue and purple flowers she was growing there. She intimated they preferred shade, but I know for a fact that
lykotonon
will thrive in full sun as long as it is irrigated well. The only reason, then, to plant it so far from the house was if she did not want anyone to know she was growing it. And when I first approached, she dropped what I at first thought was a bundle of rags, but which now I surmise must have been gloves with which to handle the lethal plant. Do you deny it?”
“I do not,” Sabina answered.
“But,” Crassus said, “you have still not established that she was growing this
lykotonon
.”