He stepped back. We both took deep breaths and for a moment lowered our eyes, made shy by the emotion of the moment. I cleared my throat.
"I can't stay long. We need to talk, and quickly. And remember, say nothing that can't be safely overheard. These walls appear to be solid stone, but there may be someone watching and listening even now."
"There's nothing I can't say aloud, Papa. I have nothing to hide."
"Even so…" I thought of the sentiments he had expressed to me in my room the day he saw the alabaster vial, his doubts about Caesar and the suffering that followed in Caesar's wake; if another of Caesar's men had overheard that conversation, might Meto's words have been construed as sedition? Now that he stood accused of outright treason, anything he said against Caesar would be scrutinized in the worst possible light, so I dared not question him further in such a vein.
For the first time I allowed myself to consider the possibility that Meto might actually be guilty of making an attempt on Caesar's life. It made no sense, unless his resentment against Caesar went far deeper than anything he had expressed to me. But might it be that the poison had been intended for Cleopatra, so as to remove her influence upon Caesar, and that the attempt had somehow gone terribly wrong? I gazed at Meto's face, trying to read the truth in his eyes. Was my son a poisoner, and a bungler as well? In the corner of my heart that had once renounced him, a seed of doubt was stirring.
"Apollodorus found the vial on your person, Meto. How could such a thing have happened?"
"I have no idea, Papa."
"It will take a better answer than that to satisfy Caesar."
"Caesar should be satisfied that I speak the truth! After all we've been through together, it's absurd that he shouldn't trust me."
"Perhaps. But think, Meto. Did Apollodorus simply hold up the vial and claim he'd found it on you? Or was it actually on your person?"
He wrinkled his brow. "I remember that he tugged at it, and when I looked down, I saw it with my own eyes, held between two straps attached to my breastplate. I couldn't believe it! It can't have been there when I put on my armor this morning."
"Could someone besides Apollodorus have planted it on you, earlier in the day?"
He shook his head. "I don't see how. But if such a thing could be done without my knowledge, then who knows when it was done or by whom?"
I nodded. "That amphora of Falernian-where did it come from?"
"It was kept in storage on one of Caesar's ships in the harbor, along with his other personal belongings. This morning, quite early, he sent me to fetch it."
"Did anyone know in advance that he planned to drink from it today?"
"I don't think Caesar himself knew. He decided on a whim. He wanted to impress the queen."
"When you fetched this amphora, did you have any reason to believe it had been tampered with?"
"I don't think it had been touched since it was loaded into the ship. In fact, I had a hard time finding it; it was buried in a corner of the hold, behind a number of other items that were seized from Pompey's tent at Pharsalus-folding chairs, lamps, rugs, coverlets, and such. There was no sign that any of the cargo had been disturbed. And when I did find it, I dusted it off, made sure it was the Falernian Caesar had requested, and inspected the seal to see if it was intact; I checked that quite carefully. After that, the amphora was in my possession and never out of my sight. So, if you're wondering if someone knew in advance that Caesar would want to open that amphora today, and if that person somehow put poison in it before it was opened, you can dismiss such a notion. No one could conceivably have done such a thing… except perhaps myself."
"Meto! These walls may have ears. Don't say such a thing, even in jest."
"Why not? If a case is to be made against me, we might as well work out what my accusers will say. And it's true: The person who had the best, perhaps the only, opportunity to poison the amphora beforehand was me. But I didn't. No one did. The seal was intact."
"Seals can be tampered with."
He shook his head. "I understand that you want to consider all possibilities, Papa. But the chain of logic leads directly to the alabaster vial. The vial was there, it was empty, and we know it contained poison." He frowned. "What we don't know is when and how it was poured into the wine, and whether it was poured into the opened amphora, poisoning all the Falernian, or only into the cup that Cleopatra offered to Caesar and then compelled Zoe to taste. Either way, I don't see how it was done without any of us noticing. I broke the seal and opened the amphora myself; I poured the wine into the cup. I can't imagine how the poison could have been added to the amphora; unless, of course, I did it myself."
"Meto!"
"Sorry, Papa. But I did have the opportunity, and I don't see how anyone else could have done it without my knowledge."
"Then perhaps only the cup was poisoned. But when? Think back; let's see if we both remember the sequence of events in the same order. The queen told Merianis to fetch the golden cups. Merianis brought them. The queen showed one of them to Caesar, then held it while you filled it from the amphora. She then presented the cup to Caesar, but before he could drink, she called for the taster. Zoe came. The queen handed the golden cup to Merianis; Merianis poured a bit of the wine from the golden cup into the clay vessel that Zoe had brought with her; Zoe drank from the clay vessel, and quickly succumbed to the poison. Is that how you remember it, Meto?"
He nodded.
I frowned. "But what happened to the wine that remained in the golden cup?"
Meto thought. "Merianis was still holding the cup when Cleopatra went to Zoe. But then Cleopatra called for Merianis, and Merianis put the cup down and ran to her mistress. They talked for a while, too low for the rest of us to hear; then Merianis went to fetch Apollodorus."
"So Merianis put down the cup; but then what became of it?"
Meto shook his head. "It must have been gotten rid of at some point, to be sure no one drank from it. Yes, I remember now! It was after you left the island, Papa, with those men to escort you back to your room. The rest of us remained on the terrace. More men arrived shortly, the ones who brought me to this cell; but before that happened, the queen told Apollodorus to pour the wine from the cup back into the amphora-"
"Numa's balls! Now the whole amphora has been poisoned, whether it was poisoned before or not! The amphora should have been left untouched."
"Does it really matter, Papa?"
"Think, Meto! If only the wine in the golden cup was poisoned, and not the wine in the amphora, then we could prove that you didn't poison the amphora and that the poison must have been added to the cup at some later point-a cup that was never in your possession! But now we have no way of knowing if the amphora was previously poisoned or not, since it's surely poisoned now. This was done at the queen's behest?"
"Yes."
"And Caesar did nothing to stop it?"
"Caesar was busy questioning me at that moment. Neither of us took much notice of what was being done with the cup. But now that you ask me, I remember hearing Cleopatra say something about the cup being polluted, and that no one could ever drink from it again, and I remember seeing Apollodorus empty the cup into the amphora, out of the corner of my eye, so to speak."
"Was the amphora saved?"
He wrinkled his brow. "I suppose so. Yes, I remember seeing Apollodorus replace the cork stopper, after he emptied the cup, and at the same time I was led off, I think one of Caesar's men must have carried off the amphora; so I assume it's in Caesar's keeping. But as you say, we know already that it contains poison, if only because the wine in the cup was poured into it."