Junio, however, had noticed my expression and grinned too — with obvious relief. ‘I confess that I have been worried myself, though I should have known you were tougher than a badger. You have had the whole villa in an uproar. Marcus was almost ready to read a second funeral oration tonight.’
Even my scrambled brains detected that something was amiss with that. ‘Tonight?’
Junio took the goblet from me and somehow contrived to press my hand as he did so. ‘My dear friend and master, the sun has been to bed and risen again since you were carried here yesterday.’ He sounded genuinely upset. ‘Andretha has had slaves burning herbs by your bedside and bathing your face with water ever since. Marcus was ready to send for the army physician, but Faustina here is skilled with herbs. She has bathed your wounds and I. .’ he released my hand and grinned again, ‘I said that spiced mead would revive you, if anything could. And it did. Between us, as you see, we have robbed Charon of one passenger tonight, at least.’
This time I did manage to struggle upwards and support myself on an elbow. I had forgotten Crassus. ‘And the other passenger,’ I said. ‘What of him?’
Junio’s grin broadened. ‘Germanicus, master? Much as he was,’ he said, with a cheeky twinkle. ‘I fear he is beyond the help even of spiced mead.’
I would have smiled at his impudence, but my head deterred me. His words, though, had given me cause to think. ‘Spiced mead,’ I said slowly. ‘Or Faustina’s herbs either.’
I turned to the slavegirls. One was slight, fair and blue-eyed, with delicate arms and a slim, shapely body. The other was rounder, older, with heavy breasts and darker features, her long, dyed red-brown hair tied back in a golden braid. ‘Which of you is Faustina?’
I shouldn’t have needed to ask, except that my mind was still functioning slowly.
‘I am, excellence,’ the darker girl said. Of course! That lock of hair in Rufus’ pouch.
I summoned a smile. ‘Thank you for your care.’ A slavegirl, my sluggish brain was thinking, with a knowledge of herbs and a motive to detest her master. Enough to poison him, perhaps? And then put him in the furnace, to disguise the signs? ‘I should like,’ I said, ‘to speak to you, alone.’
They misinterpreted. Even Junio threw me an astonished glance. The other slaves withdrew instantly, of course — Andretha had obviously left instructions that my every whim was to be obeyed — but I saw the looks they exchanged. They must have extraordinary illusions, I thought, about my powers of recovery.
‘I am at your service, excellence.’ She stepped forward, wary but resigned, in the manner of young slavegirls everywhere. ‘What is your desire?’
‘I wish to talk to you,’ I said, ‘about your master’s death.’
Her relief was visible. It was hardly complimentary, perhaps, but I was secretly amused. Her whole being relaxed. ‘Is that all? We can talk, of course, but there is nothing more I can tell you.’
I sat up, warily. My head swam and the blood rushed in my ears, but I felt I lacked authority, lounging awkwardly on a bed while the girl stood before me. Besides, despite that blow on my head, the last few moments had set my thoughts in unexpected directions. I needed to look directly at her face; from where I had been reclining the image of those dancing hazelnuts was too disturbingly vivid.
I dragged my gaze reluctantly to her eyes. They were dark and defensive. ‘I am sure you answered all our questions, then,’ I said, ‘but I have discovered some new ones, since we spoke. For instance, at the feast of Mars, when Rufus left the others at the procession, did he go to meet you?’
She hesitated. ‘So you know of that? I am surprised he told you.’
I forced myself to think clearly. ‘He didn’t. Not in so many words. To do so would have implicated you. But Rufus is a poor liar.’
‘He is no liar. He is scrupulously truthful.’
‘He did not tell us that he had left the parade.’
She looked at me frankly with those dark, brown eyes. ‘Did you ask him that? Directly?’
‘No,’ I conceded. It was true. All Marcus had asked was whether Rufus had attended the procession, and come and gone with the others. All of which, presumably, he had done. When I had asked him direct questions, he had answered frankly, or skilfully evaded answering at all. ‘No, I suppose not,’ I said again. I was beginning to have a new respect for Rufus.
She smiled. ‘There you are, then.’
I was beginning to wonder what other information I might have obtained if I had asked the right questions. ‘So that, if he tells me that he did not touch his master. .?’
‘He did not touch him. I would swear to that.’
Even then I needed to spell it out for myself. ‘“Did not touch” — those were his words. Could he, do you believe, have killed by other means?’
She coloured and looked away. ‘I do not understand.’
‘You lie, Faustina,’ I said gently. ‘Even if he does not. You understand perfectly. There are ways of killing a man without touching him. Poison for instance.’
‘Poison!’ She was shocked and shaken. Whatever she had been thinking, it was not that. ‘No, Rufus did not poison him. I’m sure.’ She believed that passionately, if I am any judge of humankind.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what did he do?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. No. Not really. He did not murder Crassus. You have my life on it.’
‘But he wished him dead?’
There was a pause. Then, reluctantly, ‘Yes. He did. But which of us did not?’
I said gently, ‘And you, Faustina. Did you wish him dead?’
She paused, then said, in a voice unsteady with anger, ‘I have prayed for his death a thousand times. Rufus was not alone.’
‘You had the means, Faustina,’ I said. ‘You are skilled with herbs, so Junio says. You learned that skill from someone. Someone in the house?’
‘It is nothing, the merest rudiments. She had no time to teach me more.’
‘She?’ There were few females in the villa. Faustina’s mother perhaps, or one of the older slaves? Surely not the other dancing girl? But ‘had no time’ — in the past tense? My fuddled brain made a leap of understanding. ‘It was Regina,’ I said, with sudden certainty. ‘Regina taught you what you know? She was an expert with potions.’
I did not know that, but it seemed a likely guess. In the circumstances, I was proud of my deduction.
I had hit the mark. Faustina raised her eyes to mine. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘what of it? Many a countrywoman is an expert in the properties of plants. Regina is famed for it. Ointments and potions, balms and salves — she can make them all. She has a whole chestful of dried herbs, and little jars and phials. Everyone came to her. She even gave Paulus a salve for his bruises. That was how she met Germanicus, she told me. He came to her to buy an infusion of herbs against the toothache. Her cures are good. She gave me berry leaves to ease the pangs of childbirth — better than all the midwife’s charms and tokens. Without that brew I think I might have bent the bar they gave me to strain upon.’
It took me a moment to digest this news. ‘You have a child?’
The dark face darkened. ‘Had a child.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Almost three moons ago. It is dead, of course. Eliminated at birth.’
I felt a pang of sympathy. Had Gwellia, I wondered, ever borne a child to some wealthy master, only to have it killed or exposed at birth? It is one aspect of the Roman law I have no stomach for, this denial that a newborn baby is human. I murmured something sympathetic.
‘What would you expect?’ she said bitterly. ‘Germanicus would hardly take it up.’
‘Take it up’ literally, she meant. Even a man’s own wife must present her newborn child, and the father must accept it as his by lifting it up from the ground when it is shown him. If he does not, he rejects it, denies it legal existence, and it is left to die. A slave baby is often not even accorded the dignity of a quiet death. It is the master’s property already, since he owns the mother, so if it is not required as a ‘pet’, it is likely to be disposed of by drowning, like an unwanted puppy, or fed to the hounds.