He nodded. ‘It was laced with poppy juice as well, though there was obviously some kind of poison in it too. Something slow acting — so when poor Ulpius got aboard the ship that fateful night, he was half-drugged and already staggering. I was always convinced that there’d been something of the kind, and that’s what made him tumble overboard — Ulpius was far too experienced to have done so otherwise.’
‘It was said that he was drunk.’
‘I always doubted that. I’ve never known him take more than a cup or two of wine, and it was always much-watered even then. Especially if he planned to travel, as he sometimes did, to bargain for a cargo further east. There was not even any storm that night. So when this amphora came into my hands, I decided to invite Genialis to drink a bit himself — to prove my theory, or disprove it once and for all.’
I sat down on a small dividing wall beside a pile of little casks which smelt of perfume spice. ‘How did you come to have it, anyway? I should have thought that Genialis would have disposed at once of any incriminating evidence like that.’
He shook his head. ‘He couldn’t do so, at the time. He sent it as a present to Ulpius, at his house — he made sure it was a night when Silvia did not dine, and of course he was not there to share in it himself — and afterwards the servants simply put it all away and nobody suspected there was anything amiss. I understand he asked about it once or twice, once Ulpius was dead — but he couldn’t draw too much attention to it by insisting it was found. Though, since he had control of what was in the house by then, he could make sure it wasn’t served to anyone by accident. One of the many reasons he took Silvia away. However …’
I saw where this was leading. ‘When they were packing up the contents of the house, it came to light?’ I said.
‘You are percipient, citizen!’ Lucius said. ‘He made sure that he was watching when they loaded up the wine, and when that particular amphora was produced, he seized on it at once and ordered Adonisius to smuggle it outside. He gave instructions to pour away the remainder of the wine, then break up the amphora and leave it on the midden heap — even saying that he’d check there afterwards. He pretended this was simply to prevent the servants stealing wine and getting drunk, since he didn’t want to carry an opened amphora all the way to Dorn. But Adonisius had suspicions that there was something more.’ He paused and looked at me.
‘Go on,’ I told him.
‘So the Syrian spoke to Silvia — of whom he had naturally grown fond — and she saw the implications instantly. She told him to break up the amphora and put it on the heap — so Genialis would find it when he checked — but first he was to put the wine into a different pot and find an opportunity to bring it here to me.’
‘On the promise of freedom, when his master died?’ I said, to show that I was following.
‘Exactly. And we were extra lucky there. Genialis assigned Adonisius to her, in front of witnesses, before he left Bernadus’s country house that day, so now she has a perfect right to free him if she likes, without the need to wait for any legal settlement. She would have tried to do so anyway, I think, even if her guardian had survived the wine — but of course, it was as lethal as we thought. He didn’t want to drink it, but I’d tied his hands and I was holding a blade against his throat …’ He shrugged. ‘It only proved what I’d suspected all along. He killed his half-brother to seize his assets and his wife, so it was a kind of justice — I think you must agree.’
‘Justified revenge?’ I murmured, thoughtfully. ‘That plea might be accepted as mitigation by the courts. But why not take the matter to them in any case? If a man kills his brother, it means exile at the least. That would have solved your problem, without any risk to you.’
He gave me a wry grin. ‘You forget that — unlike you — I am not a citizen. Genialis was a wealthy and influential man. You can imagine what chance I would have had. Besides, until I’d made him swallow what was in the flask I had no proof of anything at all.’ He gave that rueful smile again. ‘Though as soon as I told Genialis what it was, I knew from his face that my suspicions were confirmed. Not that there were any other witnesses to that.’
‘So you lured Genialis out to meet you — where? And when? How did you contrive that you should be alone?’
‘I sent a message back with Adonisius when he brought the jug. That was in the morning of New Year’s Day, while his master was busy with a Kalends visitor and the last of the packing was being loaded on to the cart.’
‘A verbal message?’
‘That would not have worked. I wrote it on a little scrap of bark paper. Adonisius was not to give it to his master then, but to conceal it for a day or two and then produce it as if it had just arrived. I did not sign or seal the note of course — I affected to be one of his gambling creditors. I said that I had information which could ruin Lucius and if he brought ten golden pieces I’d tell him what it was. I knew he’d fall for that. He was not to bring a slave with him — if there was a witness there would be no deal — and he was to burn the message, which he didn’t do of course. I found it on him when I took the purse. I’ve destroyed it now or I could show you what it said. He was to meet me, on the third day before the Agonalia — there is a little wood yard on a corner along the northern road …’
I nodded. ‘I think I know the place. Go on.’
‘About midday, I told him. That was the tricky part. There was a risk that there would be other people on the road at noon. Of course, I thought he would be riding back from Dorn, but as it happened they didn’t get that far. However, with the snow there was no one much about, and that was not a problem when it came to it. The cold was quite a help in fact — it meant I wore a hood and it was not till we’d both dismounted that he realized it was me.’
‘And you attacked him out there on the public road?’
‘Hardly an attack!’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘I’m younger than he is and much fitter too. I simply twisted his arms behind his back, tied him behind his horse, and compelled him down the lane to where the forest starts. There I drew a blade, produced the phial of wine, and the rest I think you know.’ He got up with sudden passion. ‘The man was gambler, a murderer and a cheat, about to force poor Silvia into a loveless match — and incidentally he was going to ruin me. In my place, citizen, what would you have done?’
I stood up too and murmured thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d have cut his corpse in two. Far less take half of it and hide it in the snow, and then pretend that it had been there all along. I presume you were also responsible for that?’
He made a little gesture of despair. ‘None of that had been the plan at all. I was simply going to let him drink the wine and die and leave him lying in the forest where he fell. He rather surprised me by staggering around for what seemed ages before it took effect. I should have guessed, I suppose, from what had happened to Ulpius earlier — but I began to think I hadn’t given him enough. I’d only taken what would fit into a little flask, which I could carry hanging from my belt. But in the end the poison did its work. The trouble was, there was deep snow about and he’d left a lot of footprints while he was stumbling around — and there were my tracks and the marks of both the horses too. I couldn’t leave him there — there was so little traffic on the road that anyone could trace where we had been — and the ground was far too hard to bury anything.’
I remembered how I’d followed tracks like those myself today. ‘So you put him on your horse and brought him home again?’
He shook his head. ‘I did not dare do that. I had no means of covering him up. I went back to the corner where the wood yard was — they supply the warehouse sometimes, and I’d planned to call in with an order anyway, as a reason for being in the area if anyone had noticed I was there. I know they have sacks of sawdust which they sell to inns and I thought I might be able to obtain an empty one. But the owners were not there — they have an ancient mother further down the lane and I suppose that in the snow they’d gone to care for her. So I looked around to see if I could find a hessian bag — but as I did so a rider came along and, of all things, stopped to talk to me. In fact he scared me half to death by asking if I’d seen a purple-striper on the road, riding to Glevum on his own without a slave.’