'He barely met her. We held a couple of formal family dinners to which the woman was invited as a courtesy; she was introduced to him. That's all.'
'No infatuation on one side or the other, a flirtation that you might have been unaware of at the time?'
'Certainly not. Scaeva was a man of spirit, but we could always rely on him for proper behaviour.'
I wondered. The Veleda I remembered glowed with lustrous assurance. We had looked at her and gulped. It was more than a queenly figure and pale gold hair. To win the trust of suspicious, belligerent tribesmen took special qualities. Veleda made the Bructeri believe fighting Rome was their only destiny; moreover, she persuaded them they had chosen this for themselves. She used strength of mind and strength of purpose. She was cloaked in an aura that went way beyond the fake mystery of most fortune-tellers and charlatans. She was brilliant, enthralling-and, when I met her, she had been desperate for intelligent male conversation. If she had been a prisoner for months, she would have been desperate again.
Veleda had been quick to share her thoughts and dreams with a 'promising young man' when we provided one. The young man I saw vanish up her tower with her had cast aside 'proper behaviour' without thinking twice. I did warn him to watch himself, but he rushed at the chance to be close to her.
Afterwards, Justinus had carried the pain of leaving Veleda behind for five years, and I saw no reason to think he would ever be free of her. So had Scaeva been captured in the same subtle spider's web?
Quadrumatus Labeo had finished with me, whether or not I had finished with him. His dream interpreter had arrived.
'Nightmares since the murder?'
The senator looked at me as if I was cracked. 'Such consultations aid rational thinking. My man calls daily.'
So the dream therapist governed his every act. I kept my gaze neutral. 'And did you consult him about whether to allow Veleda to stay here?'
His expression sharpened. 'I assure you, Falco! I maintained scrupulous security.'
I took that as an admission.
The dream therapist had a cold. He was wiping his nose on the sleeve of his star-spattered knee-length tunic as he brushed past me, heading after his dignified client to the inner sanctum. We were not introduced. I would know him again, though. He looked straight from the Chaldees, right down to the long hooked nose, peculiar cloth head-dress and air of having caught a disease from over-friendly relations with his camel. As exotic enhancement, he wore soft felt slippers with curly toes that had foully moulded themselves to the shape of his feet; he was a martyr to bunions, by the look of it.
His name was Pylaemenes. The house steward told me. To my surprise the slaves here seemed indifferent to the man; I had reckoned they would be hostile to an influential outsider-especially one of distinctly foreign appearance whose robe hem needed tacking up but who was probably paid zillions.
'We are used to all sorts,' shrugged the steward, as he took me to find the slave who discovered the body.
This was a distraught waif of about fifteen, now trembling in the corner of his cubicle, hugging his knees. When I entered the bleak compartment, a typical slave cell which he shared with another, he showed me the whites of his eyes like an unbroken colt. The steward picked up a thin blanket and draped it over him, but it would clearly slide off again.
As a witness the lad was useless. He would not speak. It looked as if he did not eat. If nothing was done soon, he was a lost soul.
What could anyone expect? The steward had told me about him. He had been a cheery, useful teenager who then found himself alone in a room with a headless corpse. Born and bred a house slave in a home of refulgent luxury, where the owners were obviously civilised people and he was probably never chastised by more than wounding sarcasm, this was his first meeting with crude death by violence. Pools of still-warm, spreading blood, in one of which he had accidentally stepped, had horrified him out of his wits.
He was the flute boy. His double flute sat on a ledge in his cell. He had gone to entertain Gratianus Scaeva with music while the young master was reading. I guessed he would never play again.
'Does Quadrumatus Labeo have a personal doctor? Someone should take a look at this lad.'
The steward gave me an odd look, but said that he would mention it.
Next, I was taken to meet Drusilla Gratiana.
The noble Drusilla was a typical senator's wife: an ordinary woman in her forties who, because she was descended from sixteen generations of senatorial stiffs, believed herself exceptional. The only thing that made her different from a fishwife slitting open fresh-caught mullet was her spending budget.
Drusilla Gratiana had papery skin, a suspicious expression, a twenty-five-thousand sesterces pearl necklace bestowed on her by Quadrumatus, four children of whom one daughter was betrothed last month, a troupe of pet dwarfs, a corn warehouse she inherited from her uncle, and a drink habit. Some of this I had extracted from the steward, the rest was obvious. She was draped in red-purple silk, which two pale maidens kept tidy while a seventy-year-old wardrobe mistress constantly supervised. My mother would have made a friend of this black-clad crone. Her contempt for me was immediate. I did not imagine the malignant attendant had seen Veleda as an ornament to the household either.
'We are expecting Cleander,' barked the wrinkled and beady-eyed creature. 'You'll have to be quick!'
I ignored her. I addressed her mistress direct in a cool, calm voice that was meant to establish my credentials as a man of refined manners. It irritated all the women in the room. 'Drusilla Gratiana, I offer my condolences on your brother's dreadful fate. I regret any disturbance I have to cause to your household. But I must confirm exactly what happened, so I can bring the perpetrator to justice.'
'As Phryne says: be quick then!' Mistress and maid worked as a team. Just my luck.
'Who is Cleander?'
'My lady's doctor.' I was told this by the black-clad Phryne, angrily of course.
The noble lady and her freedwoman were bound by thirty years of complicity. Phryne had decked out Drusilla Gratiana as a bride; she knew all her secrets, not least where she kept the wine flagon; there would be no bumping Phryne out of the way. She was owed too much. She wanted to control Drusilla; she would stick around.
I cleared my throat. 'I'll try to be brief, then… Were you close to your brother?'
'Of course.' Apart from the fact that Drusilla spoke rather dreamily, with a husky toper's voice, that told me nothing. Gratianus Scaeva could have lived with his sister because they were devoted or because he was a social liability who needed to be kept under tight control. The relationship between the siblings could have been anywhere on a spectrum between incest and outright loathing. Nobody intended me to find out.
'Yes, I assumed that-because he lived with you. Was he your only brother, by the way?'
'I have two others and two sisters. Scaeva happened to be unmarried.' So now I had it: of his five married brothers and sisters, Drusilla Gratiana had the richest spouse and the most comfortable home. Gratianus Scaeva knew how to sponge.
'Not found the right girl yet?'
Drusilla gave me a nasty look. 'There was nothing wrong with him, if that is what you are implying! He was only twenty-five and perfectly normal, though not strong. He would have been a wonderful husband and father; all that has been taken away from him.' I won't say she cried. It would have spoiled her careful face makeup. Besides, I was a lout and she was too proud to give way.
I wished I had brought Helena Justina for this. Even the old bag in black would have been impressed by her.
'This is bound to be painful, but I need to ask about how you found your brother's head, please.' Drusilla Gratiana whimpered and looked faint. Phryne shuddered, making a big show of it. 'Was there any particular reason why you went into the atrium, or were you just passing through normally on your way somewhere?' With a struggle, Drusilla gave a slight nod that indicated the latter. 'I'm sorry. This is unacceptably hard for you. I won't ask you any more.'