I sat down gratefully and did as she had said, willing to delay bad news as long as possible, while Minimus tended to my every need. How much longer would I have the luxury of slaves and home-cooked food like this?
I glanced at Minimus. He had been given a great bowl of stew as well. I was not hungry somehow, but he wolfed his down, and — seeing the disappointment of my wife — I forced myself to eat. It was fragrant and delicious and I did not speak a word until there was not a morsel remaining on the plate. Just as I was mopping up the very last of it, my adopted son Junio came into the house.
I told the story then, trying not to dwell too much upon the threat to me.
Junio and Gwellia listened carefully, and did not interrupt — except to ask for every detail I could recollect. I was grateful for their help. I had encouraged Junio to do this many times, and he had an aptitude. He often saw things I had not seen myself, and Gwellia had a gift for spotting discrepancies from a female point of view. This time however, they seemed mystified.
‘Let’s go back to basics,’ Junio said. ‘Who would stand to profit by Honorius’s death? Pompeia does, I suppose. Not Helena Domna, she has lost her home, and will only have her own allowance to live on from now on.’
‘And not Livia either,’ Gwellia put in. ‘She’s worse off than before. If she wanted to be rid of him, she only needed to sue for a divorce. They are not so difficult to come by nowadays — any good lawyer could have got her one. She has been dutiful and Honorius is cruel — he has shown that by executing his own daughter in that way. She would have got her dowry back intact, and the freedom to do anything she liked. As it is, she gets a guardian and shares the estate with Pompeia and the child. She’ll need the guardian’s permission to do anything at all.’
‘So it rather depends on who the guardian is,’ I said. ‘If it is Gracchus, he might have a motive, I suppose. And the doorman, too. He was hoping for his freedom, and Honorius might have been standing in his way. But how could they have murdered anyone? Or Miles, the son-in-law whose wife Honorius killed? He had a grievance, but he wasn’t there.’
‘Redux?’ Gwellia put in. ‘He had a private grudge concerning Zythos, it appears. But how could he have brought poison to the house? Which brings us back to Antoninus, possibly. Suppose that Livia is right — there really was poison in that garum and Honorius somehow tasted it today. Somebody realized that and killed the murderer. They might even have filled the amphora up again. That makes a kind of sense. It could even have been Livia herself — she seemed anxious that no one else should taste it afterwards.’
I made a doubtful face. ‘But why should Honorius begin that garum today? It was a small amphora and they had many guests.’
‘Well, he was tasting all the wedding wine,’ she said, obviously unwilling to let the theory go.
‘Of course he was,’ I murmured, and then stopped with a frown. ‘But, come to think of it, why was he doing that? It isn’t usual for hosts to test the wine when it has come directly from the vintners only hours before. Did something happen to make him question it?’
‘And why did he taste the wine himself, in any case?’ Junio was sounding interested and excited now. ‘Most people would have someone do it for them, wouldn’t they?’
‘As Helena Domna did, in fact!’ I said triumphantly. ‘Junio, you’re right. Did he ask the servants to taste the wine at all? Do you know, Minimus?’
There was no answer. The slave boy was sitting on the upturned pail which served him as a stool, and his empty bowl was still balanced on his lap, but he had slumped forward, his ginger head leaning upon his arms.
For an awful moment I felt my blood run cold. ‘Minimus!’
But my voice had roused him, and he slowly stirred. He opened one eye drowsily, then pulled himself upright, obviously horrified to realize where he was. ‘I’m sorry master — I was fast asleep. There has been so much to see and do today. It won’t occur again. What can I do to make amends to you?’
He clearly feared a beating, but Gwellia caught my glance. ‘You can rinse these dirty bowls for me, then smooth the straw and spread the blanket out to make your master’s bed. Then, I suggest that you should go next door into the servants’ sleeping room and go to bed yourself. You’ll be wanted first thing in the morning, so I understand. Your master has enough concerns without your carelessness.’
Junio smiled. ‘And I must go back to Cilla. She’ll be waiting up for me. She would have come to see you, father, but she’s not been well. I’ve been away from her all day — working on that pavement you started yesterday. I haven’t even had the time to go into Glevum and open up the shop.’
‘Poor Cilla! What’s the matter?’ I was all concern. Junio’s young wife had been a slave of ours, and had always been the picture of robust good health.
Gwellia nudged me sharply. ‘Nothing serious. But he should get back to her. Maximus, you can take a brand and escort him up the path.’ Junio’s roundhouse enclosure was very close to ours.
My son turned at the doorway. ‘Shall I come with you tomorrow, father, when you go into town? It seems to me that you could do with my support?’
‘If you would like to and if Cilla’s well enough,’ I said. It was as close to begging as dignity allowed. ‘There are several things that you could do for me.’
And he was gone, with Maximus holding a torch to light his way. Minimus murmured a blessing and withdrew, leaving my gentle wife and I alone. The evening rituals of the household seemed precious suddenly.
I helped her with the fire, raked the ashes over the clay pot in one half of it, so that the bread would cook in the embers overnight, and banked the other half with slower-burning logs, not only to warm the roundhouse, but to ensure that we still had a means of cooking when the morning came. Then I lay down on the bed that Minimus had prepared and Gwellia drew the covers over me, settled down beside me and blew the tapers out. A moment later her soft breathing told me she was fast asleep.
I was grateful for the comfort of her sleeping form, but I could not rest. My mind was too full of the worries of the day and fears about the morrow. It was not just the murders — though, Jove knew, they were sufficient problems in themselves — but there were little questions which niggled at my brain. That writing tablet for example, and the way that Livia and Redux had both been shocked by it. Livia’s astonishment was explicable enough, but could I really believe that Redux had merely been anxious for his friend? Antoninus had clearly possessed that writing block — he’d used the thing to send a note to me. Had Zythos bribed him with it, in exchange for silence over some misdeed? Was it about that statue, that it worried Redux so? I was sure the information was in that writing block, but for the life of me I could not work out what it was. And my future might depend on it.
In the end I got up quietly, so as not to wake my wife, and groped my way to where Maximus had folded up my clothes. I fumbled in the pouch and found the writing block. The ivory of the cover glimmered at me in the dark, and when I opened it I could just make out the paler colour of the wax. Of course, the new wax which had replaced the thin and damaged piece! Why had I not thought of that before?
I hurried over to the glow that was the hearth, and lit a taper from the burning wood, shielding it by placing it inside a wooden bowl, so that its light did not disturb the house. Then I placed the trivet on the hottest section of the fire, and carefully balanced the open writing tablet on the rim of it.
I was so excited by my new idea that I was not alert, until a voice behind me made me whirl around. ‘Master!’ Minimus was standing in the entrance, watching me. ‘What are you doing?’ He padded towards me, rubbing bleary eyes and I saw that he was tousle-headed and barefoot, with only his thin under-tunic on. ‘Are you trying to destroy that lovely thing?’