‘My mother-in-law was not available,’ she said. ‘She has insisted on being the first at the lament, and of course it was impossible to interrupt her there. She will not be pleased to find I’ve come here in her stead, but perhaps I can offer the confirmation your require. I did not see the message, but I heard of it. Would that be evidence enough?’
I shook my head. ‘The real question is about what was written in the note. You see, Antoninus had invited me to visit him today and actually specified the time that I should come. I was found in what looked like guilty circumstances at his apartment, shortly after his dead body had been found.’
‘No one told me that.’ Suddenly she was standing very still. ‘But it is certain? Antoninus is dead?’
I nodded. ‘And not long before I got there, by the look of it.’
‘I see!’ She looked wildly around the room, and then composed herself. ‘It seems there was a curse upon our wedding feast! Well, citizen, at least I can confirm what you said about the note. Helena Domna made a point of telling me that Antoninus had invited you. You were to call on him at the ninth hour she said — and of course that was after the wedding was postponed, so you could not have planned beforehand to go and murder him. Is that what is required? I could even identify the writing tablet that was used, I think. I understand it was unusual, and my mother-in-law described it vividly to me.’ She gazed around the guardroom as if to look for it.
The commander shook his head. ‘That will not be necessary. You have said quite enough to verify that Libertus was telling me the truth. I do not think we’ll need to detain you very long. Just one question more. Can you confirm that your wedding guests were not required to bring a knife?’
She shrugged dismissively. ‘They would not have needed one. Our household makes a practice of supplying them. Why do you ask that? Did Antoninus have one with him when he died?’
The commander raised an eyebrow at me. ‘In a manner of speaking, you might say so,’ he observed.
Any irony was clearly lost on her. ‘Well, I suppose he would have eaten when he got home again. Few of our guests remained to take refreshment after my poor husband died — and Antoninus was amongst the earliest to be gone.’ Her voice was wavering,
‘Then. .’ The commander gestured to the door.
She pulled the veil across her face, as if to leave and beckoned Pulchra to accompany her. Then all at once she seemed to change her mind. She whirled around again. ‘Oh, Jupiter! I suppose, I shall have to tell the truth. It will only come out in questioning, if you speak to anyone. I was very foolish, I can see that now. But now he’s dead!’ She clapped both hands against her face. ‘Oh gentlemen, I’m very much afraid that I occasioned it. .’ She tailed off, and then said in some distress, ‘I’m sorry, citizens.’ She looked as if she was ready to collapse.
The commander took her arm and led her to the stool, poured out a little of his own jug of wine and lifted the pewter goblet to her lips. It was not until she’d raised the netting from her face and taken a good swallow that he spoke again. ‘You occasioned it, you say? What do you mean by that?’
She shook her head. ‘I think I might have. .’ She reached for the cup herself and took another sip. ‘You know he had private dealings with my husband, I suppose?’
I saw Redux stiffen, and he glanced at me. He was thinking about that statue, that seemed very clear. ‘What about?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘He never told me that. I only know that quite a lot of coins were changing hands and they would spend a long time closeted alone. Antoninus was always spoken of as though he was simply an ambitious friend and he always brought a gift of some kind when he called — as people do when they want patronage — but I tell you, citizens, I didn’t trust the man. My husband always seemed terse and preoccupied whenever they had met.’ She took another furtive swallow of the commander’s wine. ‘I sometimes wondered if Antoninus was actually a spy, whether for the Emperor or Honorius himself. He used to call on my husband very late sometimes.’
‘As he did last night, for instance,’ I put in quietly. I was not sure where this was leading, but I was interested.
She put the wine cup down and looked at me, surprised. ‘I don’t know how you know that, but indeed that’s true. GS I tried to find out what he’d come about, but he would not say. They were closeted together for an hour or two, and I confess I stood outside the door and tried to listen in, but I could only catch a muttered word or two. Then my mother-in-law found me and I had to go away. But he was there — and that’s the point, you see.’
The commander glanced at me. ‘I don’t see at all. What has all this to do with how he died?’
‘Well, when he came it seems he brought some garum as a gift — the most expensive kind that you can only get in Rome. The usual present for my husband, I suppose. I found a small container of it in his room today and knew at once it was not one of ours.’
‘You didn’t mention any such amphora earlier,’ I said rather sharply, ‘when I was asking about your husband’s death?’
She seemed to feel that I had been severe, because she rose and went to gaze at the goddess in the niche — as if to ask forgiveness from the deity. When she spoke her voice was quavering. ‘I did not really know of it, until you’d left the house,’ she said. ‘Helena Domna found it, and mentioned it to me. With all the preparations for the wedding feast today, I had not been in the room, but she went in to get some grave goods from his private chest to lay around his bier. She brought it out to me.’ She paused again.
‘And. .?’ the commander prompted.
She took a long deep breath before she said, ‘I have never cared for Antoninus, and I sent it back. I did not want to seem to be accepting gifts from him. Can you understand? It was a signal that I did not want him calling at the house when I was vulnerable and on my own.’ She turned to face us, and there were tears upon her cheeks. ‘But then when I heard that he was lying dead. . well, you can imagine what I thought. It would be a kind of dreadful justice, wouldn’t it, if Antoninus died from eating his own poisoned food. The same food that had poisoned my husband earlier?’
‘But Antoninus wasn’t-’ Redux had begun, but I interrupted him.
‘Surely the garum was unopened, though? You would not have sent it back to him half-used? And how could anything your husband ate last night possibly have affected him so suddenly today?’
She looked startled for a moment, then she gave a nervous laugh. ‘You are quite right, of course. It was stoppered, and it was obviously full. So Honorius could not have tasted it today — I wondered for a moment if he might have done. Well, there you are, I have confessed my foolish act — I thought that I should tell you at once, while I was here.’ She raised her limpid eyes to me and smiled.
I was still wondering if this might be relevant. ‘You are quite sure that it was Antoninus who brought it?’ I enquired. ‘It could not have been a gift from someone else?’
‘I’m as certain as I can be, in the circumstance. The doorman confirms that he arrived with it. And I am sure, Libertus, that he would tell you the same thing, if you care to come and speak to him again. And now. .’ She was visibly shaking with what might have been relief. ‘If there is no more that I can help you with, perhaps I might go home.’ She tailed off and broke into little breathless sobs, until Pulchra bustled forward.
‘There, there, madam. Do not distress yourself. This is not your doing. It will be all right.’ She patted Livia’s hand and murmured to her, as though she were a child.
The commander was clearly embarrassed by this emotional display. He was a military man, and not used to female ways. He gave an awkward cough. ‘Madam citizen, your servant is quite right. You obviously haven’t heard how Antoninus died?’