'Painful?' I asked hopefully – while noticing that Zosime had a blunt sense of humour and had remembered Pa's name after I briefly introduced him. I had another good witness here – if she was willing to give. 'It's the same tool that vets use to castrate horses, in my opinion.' Pa blenched. When he left in a hurry, Zosime sat down, but kept her cloak folded in her arms as if she did not anticipate a long stay either. Skinny and underweight, she had small hands with elderly fingers. Her face was sharp, inquisitive, patient. Thick and healthy grey hair was centrally parted on top of her head and then pulled into a clump on the back of her neck. She wore a plain gown, cord belt, openwork shoes of a workaday fashion. No jewellery. Like many ex-slaves, particularly women, who subsequently make a life for themselves, she had a contained yet competent manner. She did not push herself forward, but nor did she give way to anyone. I reminded her of her previous interview with Helena Justina. Then I ran through what she had told Helena about visiting Veleda, diagnosing a need for rest, and being dissuaded from further visits to the house. 'I assume you treated her further when she came to the temple?' It was a try-on. Zosime gazed at me. 'Who told you that?' 'Well, you didn't, that's for sure. But I'm right?' With a hint of anger – aimed at me – Zosime sniffed. She looked like my mother poking through a basket of bad cabbages. 'She came. I did what I could for her. She left shortly afterwards.' 'Cured?' The woman considered her answer. 'Her fever had abated. I cannot say whether it was remission or a permanent recovery.' 'If it's just a remission, how long before the trouble returns?' 'Impossible to predict.' 'Would it be serious – or fatal?' 'Again, who knows?' 'So what's wrong with her?' 'Some kind of contracted disease. Very like summer fever – in which case, you know it does kill.' 'Why would she have summer fever in December?' 'Perhaps because she is a stranger to Rome and more vulnerable to our diseases.' 'What about the headaches?' Just one of her symptoms. It was the underlying disease that needed curing.' 'Should I worry?' 'Veleda should worry,' Zosime reproved me. She was helpful – yet she was not helping in real terms. None of this took me forwards. 'Did you like her?' 'Like…?' Zosime looked startled. 'She was a patient.' 'She was a woman, and in trouble.' Zosime brushed aside my suggestion that Veleda had special status. 'I thought her clever and capable.' 'Capable of killing?' I asked, looking at her narrowly. Zosime paused. 'Yes, I heard about the Murder.' 'From Veleda?' 'No, she never mentioned it. Quadrumatus Labeo sent people to ask me if I had seen her, after she fled his house. They told me about it.' 'Do you believe Veleda killed Scaeva?' 'I think she could have done, if she wanted to… But why would she want to?' 'So, when they told you about it, why didn't you ask for her version?' 'She had already moved on.' 'Where to?' 'I cannot say.' Could not say, or would not? I didn't push it; I had other things to ask first. I noted that 'moved on' suggested choice rather than panicked flight. 'So how long was she at your temple? And did anybody visit her?'
'Just a few days. And no one visited, not to my knowledge. But she was never treated as a prisoner while she was with us.'
So anybody could have called on her… Ganna, for instance. Probably not Justinus, but you never know with men who are in love with their romantic past. His parents and wife had been watching him, but any man who reaches twenty-five unscathed has learned how to dodge domestic scrutiny. 'Did she ever mention Scaeva at all?' 'No.' This was as much hard work as moving a very large dung heap with a rather short shovel. I tried a new tack. 'Tell me about what you do at night among the vagrants. I heard you took Veleda around with you?' 'She came with me once. She wanted to see Rome. I thought it was an opportunity to test how well she had recovered.' 'See Rome? Any particular part of the city? An address?' 'Just in general, Falco. She sat on the donkey, and rode behind me while I toured the streets. I look for huddles in doorways. If there are slaves or other vagrants in difficulties I tend them there, if I can, or else take them back to the temple where we can care for them properly.'
"Bringer of death".' 'I beg your pardon?' I was referring to Zoilus, the ghost-man who swooped about on the Via Appia. 'Why would someone call Veleda – or you – a bringer of death?' 'For no reason -' Zosime was indignant. 'Unless he was drunk or demented. ' 'The runaway slaves have seen Veleda with you -' 'Didius Falco, I am known for my charitable work. Respected and trusted. The slaves may not always accept help, but they understand the reason it is offered. I am shocked by your suggestion!'
'The other night,' I recalled, ignoring the rhetoric, 'I saw someone with a donkey approaching a man near the Capena Gate. A vagrant lying in a doorway. A dead man.'
'I go to that area,' Zosime admitted stiffly. She would not acknowledge the incident with the corpse. She had the same build as the hooded person I had seen, however. I wished now that I had waited to see what that person did when they found the body. 'If he was definitely dead, he had passed beyond our temple's help. We do arrange funerals for patients who die while they are with us on the Island, but I am discouraged from bringing home corpses.' The way she said 'discouraged' implied rows with the temple management. I could envisage Zosime as a troublesome employee. I sensed a history of conflict at the temple about her night-time good works. People there, especially her superiors who were trying to balance budgets, might disapprove of actively seeking extra patients – patients who, by definition, had no money themselves and no affectionate family or masters to weigh in with funds for treatment. 'Are you absolutely sure, Falco? Was the man you saw merely motionless, asleep – ' 'Oh I know death, Zosime.' She gave me a level stare. 'I imagine you do.' It was not a compliment.
XXX
Distant noises intruded. Screams of delight announced that Helena's father, the senator, must have arrived and was being mobbed by my daughters. Camillus Verus understood how to be a grandfather: with uncritical love and many presents. He never knew quite what to make of Favonia, a gruff, private child who lived in her own world, but Julia, who had a more open character, had been his delight since birth. Every time he came he taught her a new letter of the alphabet. That was handy. In ten years, when she became besotted with love-poets and silly novels, I could blame him.
I let Zosime go, still feeling that she knew much more than she was telling. It was good to see my father-in-law but we kept lunch short. He had come straight from his captive son and had yet to report on the visit to Julia Justa and Claudia.
'There's not much to say. My boys never find a problem with leisure, enforced or otherwise. The prisoner is lolling around on cushions, reading. He wants me to send Greek plays.' Justinus had had a passion for an actress once. We had all been perturbed, though compared with the mess he was in now, that seemed a normal vice. I did wonder if the current devotion to literature was a bluff, to lull the Spy into a false sense of security, but in fact all the Camilli were well-read. 'His host doesn't have much of a library. Must get bribed with other commodities… I didn't see Anacrites, fortunately.' 'For you?' 'For him!' growled Decimus. 'Maybe we should try bribing him?' Helena suggested, taking up her father's unexpectedly cynical attitude. 'No; we'll stick with the Roman virtues: patience, fortitude – and waiting for a good chance to beat him up on some dark night.' That was supposed to be my line. It was interesting how Anacrites could so easily reduce even a decent, liberal man to a cruder morality. Helena and I had plans too, and as soon as we could politely leave her father (who was enjoying his grandchildren to the extent of getting down on all fours to play elephants), we set off for the Quadrumatus villa.