She shook her head. ‘I didn’t expect my father to be dead,’ she muttered. ‘I hoped. . I don’t know what I hoped. Honorius being prepared to change his mind, or some other miracle like that. But I would not have chosen to kill him, citizen. It only puts me into Helena Domna’s hands — whoever my guardian is, she will have the final say — and I am no better off than I was before. It would have been better if Gracchus had been struck. Or my grandmother herself.’
I stifled a smile at this heartless list. ‘Would that have saved you?’
‘I think it might have done. Livia would have spoken for me, I am sure, if I had begged her to. She was quite kind to me, and she was the one person my father listened to. He could not deny her anything at all — not like my poor mother who was virtually his slave.’
This was a new insight into Livia’s married life. I glanced at Pulchra, but she was staring at the wall with that look of martyred patience waiting slaves adopt.
Pompeia gave a sigh and bounced herself upright. ‘But what does it matter now? It is all a dreadful, messy irony. Go on then, citizen. Let Maesta taste the sleeping draught and I will drink the rest. Perhaps it would be better if it killed me anyway. And it can’t taste any nastier than the last one that she made.’
I made a mental note to speak to Maesta soon. I remembered how Helena Domna had pounced upon the fact that Maesta had a certain gift with herbs when there was first concern about Honorius’s health — as if the idea was quite new to her. Yet it was evident that Maesta had made several cures for members of the household here at different times.
She saw me looking at her and burst out at once, ‘I made that decoction particularly strong — as Helena Domna instructed me to do — and no doubt it will affect me even with a sip. But I will take it, citizen, if you insist on it — though I would be glad if somebody would let my husband know what has happened and why I’ve not come home. Oh, I wish I’d not suggested it. I thought Helena Domna would be pleased and not blame us for the problems with the wine. I even hoped she might become another customer. And now look what I’ve done. But I suppose there is no help for it.’ She reached out her hand to take the cup from me.
Pompeia surprised us, by saying in a sober tone of voice, ‘If she is prepared to drink it, that is good enough. She would not do it, if there were poison in the cup.’ She looked at me. ‘I’m sorry, citizen. I have caused a lot of trouble for you and everyone, I can see that — but when my father died suddenly like that, you can see that I supposed that somehow I had been responsible for it. And when I learned that he’d drunk something poisoned, I was afraid myself. I would not put it past my grandmother to order me a draught to save the family the shame of having me arraigned. You know what she and my father thought about the honour of the house!’
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.’