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.’