Venus in copper

It must have been a couple of hours since I was last awake. Helena now had a different beaker; hot honey, which she shared with me. While I was still recovering from the effort of sitting up to drink it, someone knocked.

It was Hyacinthus. He had brought with him the scullion I remembered from the Hortensius kitchen. I glanced at Helena in desperation; I could never cope with this.

Nothing disturbed Helena Justina, once she deemed herself in charge. She patted my bandages. 'Didius Falco has had a slight upset as you can see.' The gods only know what I looked like. The visitors were crowding against the doorframe, completely quelled. 'There's no need for you to have a wasted journey; we'll fetch some stools into the bedroom and you can talk to me instead. Marcus will just lie still and listen in.'

'What happened to him?' Hyacinthus whispered.

Helena replied briskly, 'He tripped over a step!'

The washtub princess was called Anthea. She was three-foot high, and looked about twelve, though Helena and I agreed afterwards that we reckoned her secondary function had been warming the chef's bed. Her miserable life had given her a bad complexion, a sad face underneath it, a depressed outlook, chapped hands, and probably sore feet. Her threadbare scrap of a tunic barely reached down to her reddened knees.

I lay there and listened dreamily while Helena Justina tried to tease information out of this poor little mite: 'I want you to tell me everything about the day of the dinner party. Were you in the kitchen all the time? I expect there were plenty of pans and ladles to wash, even while Viridovix was just preparing the food?' Anthea nodded, proud to have her importance recognised. 'Did anything happen that you thought seemed peculiar?' This time the girl shook her head. Her dry, colourless hair had an annoying way of constantly falling over her eyes.

Helena had apparently remembered the entire party menu, because she mentioned most of the dishes. She wanted to know who stirred the saffron sauce for the lobsters, who jointed the hare, who folded over the halibut pancakes, even who tied the damned dessert fruit onto the golden tree. Hearing it made me so queasy I only just held out. 'And was the lady they call Severina in the kitchen at any time?'

'From about halfway through.'

'Talking to Viridovix?'

'Yes.'

'Did she help him at all?'

'Mostly she sat up on the edge of a table. Viridovix used to get very excited when he was working and hot; she was keeping him calm. I think she tasted some gravies.'

'Was it a busy period? So you could not pay much attention?'

'Yes, but I did see her whisking the egg whites.'

The pot-scourer had a sniff sometimes, caused by neither grief nor a nasal infection; wrinkling her snitch merely added variety to her empty life. 'Sometimes eggs take ages don't they?' Helena chirped; she was more patient than I would have been. 'It's a good idea to pass the bowl around-what were they being used for?'

'A glaze.'

'A glaze?'

'It was her idea.'

'Severina's?'

'Yes. He was too polite to argue, but Viridovix thought it wouldn't work.'

'Why? Was the glaze spread on something the people were going to eat?' Helena asked, her dark eyes narrowing.

'No; just a plate.'

'A plate?'

'No one ate it. It was to decorate a plate.'

Under pressure the scullion was starting to look angry and confused. I was about to issue a signal, but Helena moved on anyway. 'Anthea, can you tell me how long Severina stayed with you, and what happened when she left?'

'She stayed all the time.'

'What-during the dinner?'

'Oh no; not that long. Until the party had started. Just started,' she repeated, shoving that hair out of her eyes again while I gripped my bedcover.

'Then what?' Helena queried pleasantly. I think she knew I was getting annoyed.

'Severina sighed a bit and said she was feeling poorly so she would go home.'

'By then all she had done was taste some things, talk to Viridovix, and decorate a plate?'

'She inspected the dishes before she went.'

'What happened about that?'

'Nothing. She said it all looked lovely, and Viridovix should be proud of himself.'

If Helena was feeling the strain of this interview, no one would have known. 'So Severina left, then Viridovix went up to the triclinium to oversee the carvers. Did anyone except your own household servants come into the kitchen after that?'

'No.'

'Did you ever see any of the dinner guests?'

'They might have gone past to the lavatory. But I was busy by then.'

'None of them came in, for instance to say thank you for the splendid food?' I choked with mirth, echoed by Hyacinthus. Helena ignored us. 'Anthea, in your house where are the prepared dishes kept while they wait for the bearers to take them upstairs?'

'On a table by the kitchen door.'

'Inside the room?'

'Yes.'

'Could anyone have tampered with them without being seen?'

'No. A boy has to stand by the table to keep off the flies.'

'Ah! I expect there are quite a lot of flies in your house,' Helena allowed herself to jibe sarcastically. She had run out of questions for a moment.

'There was one thing,' Anthea broke in, almost accusingly. 'Severina and Viridovix were giggling about the cakes.'

Helena stayed calm. 'These were the bought pastries which had come up to the house from the cakeseller Minnius?'

'One was a very big one.'

'A special one!' Helena exclaimed.

'Yes, but it can't have been the one that poisoned the master-'For the first time Anthea was carried away by what she had to impart. 'I know about that cake; no one else does! Severina said it was going to cause a quarrel, because everyone would fight to snatch it off the plate. She said she would take it away, and keep it for Hortensius Novus to have afterwards in his own room by himself-'

Helena's head spun in my direction. We were both holding our breath, and even the runabout tensed, realising what this tale implied. But the scullion, having built up her big moment, deflated us. 'He never ate it though.'

She sat, enjoying the anticlimax she had caused. Helena murmured 'How do you know that?'

'I found it! After the dinner was over, when I was scraping scraps from the big gold plates so I could wash them. I saw that in one of the slop buckets. I remember, because at first I was going to pick it out again and eat it, only it was all covered with wet onion peel. I don't like onions,' Anthea added, as if she would have eaten the cake regardless, but for that.

'I wonder,' pondered Helena, 'who can have thrown the cake away?'

'Nobody knew. I was mad; I called out, what miserable rat dumped this good cake in here? I would have belted them-but no one knew.'

I roused myself. 'Anthea, had all the other cakes been eaten when the serving dish came back?'

'I'll say. We never see pastries sent back to the kitchen in our house!'

'How were they served-on the vine leaves Minnius sends them wrapped in?'

'No; just on a platter. I washed it,' she added bitterly. 'Not a crumb left; not a crumb! I nearly didn't bother to wash it at all.'

I fell back on my pillow. The cakes had to be a false lead. Most people present must have eaten one, and none of the other diners had suffered ill effects.

Helena said quietly, 'Falco's tired. I think you must leave now-but you have been of immense help. Viridovix will be avenged, I promise you.'

She was shepherding them out, but that brain of hers was still reasoning rapidly for as they went I heard her ask Anthea whether the platter the cakes had been served on was the one with the egg white glaze.