Death at Pompeia's Wedding

by Rosemary Rowe

  I nodded. There did not seem to be anything to say.

  ‘However, he has brought this case to me and I suppose that I must deal with it as best I can.’ He had been pacing up and down the room, but he stopped in front of Redux and looked thoughtfully at him. ‘Now, I know you, Libertus, though I must confess I find your story this time rather thin – but who is this would-be purchaser of precious silver goods, with a taste for finery and fancy cuffs? And what was he doing at the dead man’s home with you?’

  The question seemed to be addressed to me again, so I replied explaining how Redux had been showing me the way and how he got to the apartment first.

  ‘So, he had the opportunity to be there on his own?’ The commander was still talking exclusively to me, as though Redux was a mute, and Redux was doing little to prove the opposite.

  I nodded. ‘Though, to be just, it wasn’t his dagger that was sticking in the corpse.’

  That roused Redux into speech at last. ‘I did not kill Antoninus!’ He sounded drained and sad. ‘He would have deserved it, he was cruel and devious, and getting rid of him would be a service to the state. But I did not do it. When I got there, he was already dead. I can’t prove that, of course, except I scarcely had the time – and you can see for yourself that there’s no blood on me. Surely you would have expected it, if somebody was stabbed.’

  The commander looked thoughtful. ‘That isn’t always so. When a knife is left inside a wound, it doesn’t always spurt. Though the tribune seems to think that it was poisoned anyway and it killed the victim instantly. Was that your impression? Did he look as if he’d made an effort to defend himself?’

  Redux shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about such things. You’d better ask Libertus, he’s the expert, I believe. I am a simple trader, and that takes up all my time.’ He sounded petulant.

  ‘Yet you accompanied Libertus halfway round the town, when – by your own admission – you’d gone back to work?’ The commander folded his arms across his breastplate again. ‘Were you not afraid of losing trade while you were out?’

  Redux had the grace to look very much abashed. ‘I was supposed to be at a wedding anyway, today. No one was expecting to find me at my desk.’

  ‘Or Antoninus either?’ the commander said. ‘It’s a riddle, isn’t it? Yet somebody must have known that they would find him at his home – and, what is more, that he would be alone. Now who could possibly have known that – except the pair of you? And Libertus, I am including you in this.’

  Seventeen

  For the first time since we had reached the garrison I felt a surge of fear. When I had suggested that the tribune bring us here, I knew the commander would remember me – as indeed he had – but I thought my record (and my patron’s name) would have protected us from unpleasantness. But it was clear that this was no token interview. The commander had been sharp with Redux, certainly – subjecting him to pointed questioning and generally making his suspicions clear – but somehow I hadn’t expected him to take that tone with me.

  That last remark had shown me how badly wrong I was. The commander was harbouring serious doubts about my involvement in the day’s events – and I could not blame him, on the face of it.

  I swallowed. We could still hear the soldiers down below, forming up and rattling their javelins on their shields. It was a sound designed to be threatening and unnerving to the enemy, and it was certainly successful in unnerving me.

  I was seriously wishing I’d consented to the jail – where a bribe or two, and an appeal to rich acquaintances (like Gracchus for example) will usually secure one’s comfort overnight – and buy the time to send for witnesses. But if I could not persuade the commander of our innocence, I had no illusions about how unpleasant the next few hours might be. He was not a man to shirk his duty, as he conceived of it. If he could treat a tribune with conspicuous disdain – a young man of patrician birth, with the protection of the Roman army at his back – how would he treat those under suspicion of a heinous crime?

  ‘Well, Libertus?’ the commander said again. ‘What have you to say? It seems to me to be unusual for a wealthy citizen to be alone with no attendants when expecting guests.’

  That was true, of course – and all I could do was offer an excuse. ‘Redux tells me that the dead man always sent his slaves away whenever he had private business to conduct,’ I blurted, knowing that I sounded like the schoolboy telling his tutor that the dog had gnawed up his homework on his copy-tablet.

  The commander turned to Redux with an unsmiling face. ‘So you have had dealings with the man before?’ I had forgotten how acutely perceptive he could be. ‘And what was his business exactly, citizen?’

  Redux said nothing. I could have shaken him. This was no moment to evade the truth.

  The commander thought so too. ‘I advise you not to be obstructive, citizen. I have means of dealing with people who refuse to answer me. And understand that I can find the information anyway, in time, simply by making enquiries elsewhere. And we have soldiers searching his documents right now. So, have you anything to tell me about him, citizen?’

  Redux had turned even redder than he’d been when he was out of breath. He gave me a look which said – as clearly as if he’d spoken the words aloud – that this was my fault for having insisted that the tribune brought us here. He turned to the commander, and said reluctantly, ‘I hear he made a business out of making threats. Obtaining information that was dangerous to a man in public life, and demanding money not to pass it on.’

  The commander went back to his stool and picked up the writing tablet again. ‘So he sent you this, Libertus, summoning you to him? But you have rubbed the message out? I think I shall keep this tablet for a while.’ He put it into a compartment in his desk. ‘And you have no idea what he might want with you? Some kind of “private business” as your friend might say, since Antoninus had sent away his slaves?’

  It did look suspicious when you thought of it like that. The rattle of the javelins had stopped abruptly now, and in the sudden silence my words seemed very loud. ‘He was looking for promotion to the council, I believe. He may have wanted to ask me to put in a word for him, once he discovered I was Marcus’s protégé. That’s all that I can think of, I swear on all the gods. Or perhaps he had some information about someone else, which he was hoping to pass on to me – for a reward, perhaps.’ My throat was dry and I was gabbling.

  Redux gave a bitter little laugh. ‘You could not have afforded his prices, citizen.’

  The commander was instantly on his feet again. ‘So you know what they are? You must have paid them, Redux, to know a thing like that. Antoninus obviously had some kind of hold on you. I think you’d better tell me what it was about.’ Redux said nothing, and the commander came and stood within an inch or two of him. ‘I assure you it is easier for you to tell me now, than make me send for someone who’ll persuade it out of you.’

  It was a threat and Redux looked appalled. He took a step backwards. ‘But I’m a citizen!’

  The Roman followed him, standing even closer than he was before. ‘But Antoninus was a candidate for local government and Honorius was a senior magistrate. If these deaths are connected, it is a state affair. The law permits extraordinary measures in such a case.’ He stressed the word ‘extraordinary’, and my blood ran cold.

  Redux was as pale as he’d been red before. In the last few moments all his fire had gone. He looked beaten and defeated. He took a deep breath. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I suppose it hardly matters now, in any case, since both men are dead. It was something concerning Honorius himself – a little business deal that I had made with him. I sold him a statue – it was very fine. The thing is, it was not quite honestly obtained – and Honorius may have known it, but he went ahead anyway.’

  ‘It was stolen?’ The commander sounded shocked – not at the idea of theft, I guessed, but at the idea of Honorius conniving in the deal.

  Redux swallowed. ‘Something of the kind. Natural
ly it wasn’t shipped here in its proper form. It was covered in a rough clay cast that looked like something else – a sort of clumsy copy of the original. I had no part in that side of things, of course. I simply arranged for it to come from Rome, and Honorius bought it from me in the normal way. Of course it was a risk, and the price reflected that. When he got it home he took the coating off and revealed the marble that was underneath. I saw it in the inner courtyard at his house today.’

  I nodded. ‘I think I know the one. Minerva, isn’t it? I marvelled at the craftsmanship when I first noticed it.’

  Redux gave me a murderous glance. He clearly blamed me for our predicament. ‘I told him it was dangerous to put the thing on show. Anyone with half an eye could see the quality – and naturally the statue has been missed from Rome, though admittedly it is unlikely that they’d seek it here.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’ the commander snapped. ‘Not the Imperial Residence?’ He sounded as if he could not believe the import of his words.

  ‘I don’t know and I didn’t want to know,’ Redux protested, but it was clear he did. ‘Zythos arranged it when he was in Rome. I just sold the statue as it was when it arrived and no one can prove that I did otherwise.’

  It was my turn to groan inwardly by now. Stealing from the Emperor was a capital offence – and Commodus had perfected some interesting deaths for people who had recently offended him. One bald man, for instance, who had spoken out of turn had been smeared with honey, had worms stuck to his head, and been tied to a post and pecked to death by crows – or so rumour had it. What would he do to someone who had stolen treasures from his house?

  The commander had more pressing questions on his mind. ‘And Honorius knew its provenance?’

  ‘I think he must have done, to pay that price for it – though I have no proof of that. But somehow Antoninus managed to find out that I had made the sale. And he demanded a huge sum from me – far more than the profit that I would have made, in fact. I had to pay, of course. The Emperor has spies in this colonia, as he does everywhere. If the stolen statue could be traced to me . . .’ He trailed off, obviously realizing the awful truth of this.

  ‘But how did Antoninus come to learn of it?’ the commander’s voice was grim.

  Redux shook his head. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. I’m not even certain exactly what he knew, except that the statue had been shipped from Rome – and that Zythos had been responsible for arranging it. He had some paper that proved it all, he said – and if I refused to pay, he threatened to take it to the magistrates. He would never let me see the document close to, though he held it in his hand and used to taunt me with it when I went to visit him.’

  ‘And you couldn’t find it when you searched the papers on his desk today?’ I said.

  I think that Redux had half-forgotten me. He whirled now with sudden fury on his face, and I thought for a moment that he would lay hands on me, but all of a sudden his shoulders drooped and he said, sullenly, ‘You realized that I was doing that? Well, I won’t deny it. I did look for it. But it wasn’t there – nothing that could possibly relate to any part of it.’ He looked discomfited. ‘I wish I’d had the chance to look inside the scroll jars, too – though it was only written on a little piece of bark.’

  ‘Like the ones that he was working with?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. But when I first got there and found him lying dead, I was too shocked to think of anything like that. I didn’t think of searching through the items on the desk until you were with me – and then I couldn’t do it openly, of course.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you that burnt things on the brazier?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t know that anybody had. I suppose you might be trusted to notice such a thing.’

  ‘Answer the question,’ the commander snapped, and I was coward enough to feel relieved. I’d become part of the interrogation now.

  Redux gave a shamefaced shrug. ‘I might have thought of setting fire to it, if I had found it, I suppose – but I was far too slow. I told you, I didn’t even manage to locate the document.’

  ‘So it must be still there somewhere?’ the commander said.

  Redux’s plump face looked ashen now. ‘That’s what worries me. I could not find it, even though I searched. I hope it hasn’t fallen into someone else’s hands. Though probably it wouldn’t mean a lot to anybody else. It can only be a note or a receipt, I think – unless he managed to find something indiscreet that Zythos wrote, perhaps to a ship-master or even to the thief. But I can’t imagine why that would mention me, I didn’t know anything about that end of it. Yet the document would ruin me, so Antoninus said. I only wish I knew exactly what it was.’

  ‘I shall have my soldiers search the premises, and bring everything to me.’ The commander rose abruptly to his feet. ‘From what you tell me, an examination of his records should prove educational – perhaps about a number of people in the town. As for you—’

  But he got no further, a sudden clatter of hobnails on the stairs, and the tribune appeared looking flushed and cross. ‘Permission to report? The salver that you speak of has just been brought in now, and the soldier who brought it wants to speak to you. He refuses to part with it without seeing the receipt – he said there was promise of a fee for it. And there is another person asking for you at the gate – a woman with two slaves. The witness that this pavement-maker called on, I believe.’

  The commander nodded. ‘We’ll see the woman first. You can show her up and tell the man I’ll see him afterwards. As quickly as you can.’ And the tribune, to his chagrin, had yet another ignominious descent downstairs to make.

  Eighteen

  I had expected to see Helena Domna at the door but it was Livia who was shown into the room. She wore a long, dark-hooded cloak over her mourning robes, and beneath the hood the veil was double draped across her face – as befitted a new widow in a public place – so one could not see her features; but despite the drapery, the plump little figure was unmistakable. She was accompanied by her pageboy, and by Pulchra too – their tunics now bearing a dark band around the hem and neck. Minimus came in behind them, slightly out of breath.

  ‘This is the person that I spoke of, sir,’ the tribune said, as though the slaves did not exist at all – which I suppose they didn’t in his view of things.

  The commander nodded. ‘Thank you, officer. I will call you if I need you. Wait below.’ And the poor fellow had to trot all the way downstairs again, looking as discomfited as a chastised child. I could almost feel a little sorry for the man.

  Livia stepped forward, and lifted up the veil as if in this dim light she found it difficult to see. The action revealed that she had smeared her brow and hair with dust and ashes, as good widows did, but her face was still attractive, though it was strained and white. In fact, she looked so visibly distressed that even the commander was moved to a kind of awkward gallantry.

  ‘Madam citizen!’ He smiled encouragingly at her.

  She gave an uncertain little smile in return, then bowed her head as modesty required. After a moment she said in a small voice, ‘Gentlemen, I understand that you have asked for me, and so in obedience to the law I’ve come – though I am in mourning for my husband, as I am sure you know, and by tradition I should not leave the house.’

  Pulchra tutted. ‘The poor lamb only had an open litter too – all she could find in time – though perhaps it’s just as well. It meant I saw her passing, in the marketplace. It shocked me, dreadfully.’ She glowered at me. ‘I hope it’s important, now you’ve dragged her here. With her husband lying dead! You’ve only got to look at her to see that she’s upset.’

  ‘Hush, Pulchra!’ It was obvious that Livia was very close to tears. ‘I’m sorry, citizens. My servant means no disrespect to you. I’d sent her to the silversmith to buy this locket ring –’ she held out her hand for me to see the ring that she was wearing on the fourth finger of her hand, the one that sages say connects directly to the heart – ‘and when she saw
me she insisted on accompanying me here.’

  I found it somehow touching that she should wear a mourning ornament like that. Granted that it was becoming the custom nowadays, that ring had been almost the first thing that she’d thought of sending for.

  I smiled at her, and it seemed to give her heart. ‘So citizens, what is it that I can do for you?’

  The commander said formally, ‘Libertus will explain.’

  She turned to me. ‘Of course, I will help you in any way I can, but I am sorry I must ask you to be as swift as possible. I must return to take my place at the lament.’

  She sounded so tearful I was instantly contrite. ‘I’m truly sorry to have dragged you here at such a time. I had expected to have Helena Domna come, if anyone. I was hoping that she would agree to testify on my account. There was a writing tablet which arrived for me today, while I was in your home. Your mother-in-law saw it, and read the message too – so she could have confirmed my own account of it. But I’m not sure you can. I hope we have not taken you unnecessarily away from the rituals which you should perform.’

  ‘My mother-in-law was not available,’ she said. ‘She has insisted on being the first at the lament, and of course it was impossible to interrupt her there. She will not be pleased to find I’ve come here in her stead, but perhaps I can offer the confirmation your require. I did not see the message, but I heard of it. Would that be evidence enough?’

  I shook my head. ‘The real question is about what was written in the note. You see, Antoninus had invited me to visit him today and actually specified the time that I should come. I was found in what looked like guilty circumstances at his apartment, shortly after his dead body had been found.’