There were so many waiting that a queue had formed, and a street musician was walking up and down, trying to earn a few brass coins by entertaining them. His raucous singing was an affront to the dead, and very soon a slave came out to order him away. It was the lugubrious doorkeeper of the day before.
I pulled Minimus quickly out of sight. ‘I don’t want him to see us. We’ll try the other way — in through the stables and the kitchen, if we can.’
It was not as easy as I had hoped that it would be. The stable hand was very loath to let me pass. ‘I am responsible for guarding the back gate, and this is no place for strangers. Especially after what happened yesterday. It is more than my life is worth to let you through.’
I sighed. I should have thought to take my toga off — with just a tunic I might have been taken for a slave — but just as I thought that we’d be turned away, the steward from the house came bustling in.
‘We need a bale of straw to strew outside the gate and muffle. .’ he began. Then he caught sight of us. ‘Citizen! What are you doing here again? The queue for mourners is around the front.’
‘And I don’t want to join it, for the moment anyway. I’d hoped to speak to Pompeia, if she’s awake again. I tried to come this way to avoid the crowds,’ I said. He looked uncertain, so I tried flattery. ‘This stable slave is rightly dubious, but I know that you are able to vouch for who I am.’
It worked. The steward smiled, and obviously decided to postpone his present task. ‘Follow me then, citizen. And your servant too — unless he would rather go and wait upstairs?’
Minimus caught my eye and fiercely shook his head.
‘I will take him with me. We shan’t be very long,’ I said, rewarding him for his useful trick with wax the night before. Though if he had been Junio, I thought, he would have seized the chance to go upstairs and hear the servants talk, but as it was he simply tailed along. The steward led us past the kitchen block, and through the back gate into the courtyard garden of the house.
He skirted past a massive stone Neptune with a trident, and stopped outside the room I’d been to yesterday. The bar was back across the door again. ‘This has been turned into Pompeia’s room,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find her in.’ He tapped discreetly on the door, removed the bar and opened it a crack.
Pompeia was sitting on the bed. She was no longer in her wedding finery, but in a dark-coloured stola which quite suited her. When she saw the steward her face lit up at once. ‘Pentius. .’ she murmured, then realized we were there. The smile vanished instantly and she was plain again.
‘Lady, this citizen would like a word with you.’ His manner was perfectly correct, but I noticed that he had turned rather pink around the ears. ‘May I show him in? And do you require a maid as chaperone, or will his manservant suffice?’
‘Oh, let him in alone. What difference does it make? I couldn’t be in more disgrace than I already am.’ He obeyed her, and shut the door again. She turned to me. ‘You know they’ve locked me in? They wouldn’t even let me join in the lament without a pair of slaves to keep an eye on me. On Helena Domna’s orders, naturally!’ She did not look tragic or emotionally distressed — she looked and sounded simply murderous.
‘That does sound unreasonable,’ I said placidly. ‘Does she still believe that you caused your father’s death?’
She glowered. ‘She claims that I would try to run away.’
‘And would you? Even if you could not have taken all your things with you?’ I gestured to a little stack of wooden crates, clearly packed ready for her new home yesterday, but now brought back into this house again. A pile of stolas had been half-pulled out of one, presumably in search of the mourning clothes she wore.
My question surprised her into a small smile. ‘I suppose I might have done, since no other method works.’ The smile faded. ‘You know she’s going to make me marry Gracchus after all? I wish I’d taken poison like. .’ she tailed off, confused.
‘Like your father?’ I was momentarily startled by the thought, but her bitter laugh convinced me that my guess was wrong. Suddenly I remembered what Maesta had confessed. ‘Or like the convicted criminals that avoided worse, by drinking hemlock of their own accord?’
‘Ah! The convicted criminals. . of course. That is what I meant.’
But it wasn’t. I could read it in her face. I searched my mind, and suddenly things settled into place — like pieces of mosaic that make a pattern suddenly. ‘It was your mother, wasn’t it? She was so unhappy she committed suicide. How did she manage it?’ But even as I asked, I knew what it must be. ‘She took some of the poison that your father had — for those convicted criminals — and swallowed it herself?’
She didn’t answer but she scarcely needed to. It was clear from the expression on her face that I was right.
‘I should have realized that it was something of the kind. Maesta said that one of the victims hadn’t died at once, but that the dose should have been strong enough to kill an ox. She had an explanation which I doubted at the time. But of course, the poor wretch didn’t get the full amount. Your mother had abstracted some of it. Maesta actually told me that she’d died soon afterwards.’
‘She did not mean to make him suffer,’ Pompeia said. She had screwed her two hands tightly into fists and was staring down at them, as though she was physically holding on to her self-control. ‘My mother never intended to be cruel.’
‘Then tell me. Make me understand.’ I sat down, without permission, on the stool that Maesta had used.
‘I suppose I might as well, since you know anyway. .’ She let her hands relax and moved her gaze to me. ‘It was clear that the doses were very strong indeed — because too little hemlock may not kill at once. They were to be distributed on successive days. My father came back and told us how the first two men had died, and how they had not even finished what had been poured for them. When my mother learned that, it gave her a way out. She had these phials of so-called love potions — she emptied one of them, and put the poison in, and topped the criminal’s container up again — probably with the other philtre she had saved. It should have been enough to kill him anyway. She only drank a mouthful and she died within the hour. It was just that the last criminal must have been a giant.’
I stared at her. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘She left a letter, for Honoria and I. We found it in our clothes chest after she had gone, with the remainder of the poison phial. In case we needed to escape ourselves, she said. Of course we didn’t realize how bad things had become. And naturally it was never mentioned at the funeral, or anywhere else as far as I’m aware — my father simply told us that she’d died.’
‘But you think he knew that she had killed herself?’
‘I’m not sure that he did. Certainly he never admitted it to us, and of course, he never found the phial. Died of a broken heart, the servants said. Only the steward knew the truth, and he could hardly tell, since he was the person who had let her out.’
‘She must have been desperate.’
‘I believe she was. It was the love potions that caused it — according to her note. She tried to put them in my father’s food, and he accused her of attempted poisoning and trying to affect his mind with sorcery. She was not allowed to speak to us: he told us she was ill. He locked her in her room — this one, hence the bar across the door — had her beaten, and threatened to exile her for life. He was about to bring a case to court — and his word would always have carried against hers. But she bribed the steward and he let her out, one evening when the rest of us were busy with a feast. And then she found the poison — and you know the rest. Of course, she must have been unhappy for a long time earlier, or she would not have needed the love potions at all.’ She looked at me at last. ‘Can you see why I’m determined not to marry Gracchus, now?’