Murder in the Forum

by Rosemary Rowe

  Octavius misinterpreted my irritation. He raised his head wearily. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said. ‘Since you have found it, I suppose I must confess. I put it there. Last night after the banquet. Before Phyllidia arrived. Is there . . . was there . . . anything in it?’

  This was, in the circumstances, a difficult question to answer. Whatever the woeful object had been, it was hard to image anything ‘in it’. I said carefully, ‘You put it there, Octavius. Should there have been anything in it?’

  He buried his head again. ‘So it was empty! I should have guessed. Oh, merciful Venus – I should have prevented this. Well, I suppose there is no help for it.’ He straightened up, looked me directly in the eye, and got slowly to his feet. Then he stretched out his two hands, wrists together, like a captive waiting to be bound. ‘Very well, Libertus, you are too sharp for me. You had best deliver me to the magistrates. I confess it. I murdered Felix – slipped poison into his goblet and threw the phial on the midden-heap. Here.’ He thrust his hands towards me again. ‘Call for a slave and have me bound and taken.’

  I looked at him for a long moment. ‘Why did you do it? Because he would not let you marry Phyllidia?’

  ‘Marry her? He would not let me look at her. And he half ruined me, besides.’ There was enough venom in the voice to have killed Felix twice over. ‘Killing Felix was not a crime, it was almost a public duty.’

  ‘I see. In that case . . .’ I went to the door. ‘A slave here!’ The servant trotted obediently into the room.

  Octavius swallowed and shut his eyes, his hands still outstretched.

  ‘Take it away,’ I said to the slave, indicating the water bowl. He did so, casting a startled look at Octavius as he went.

  There was a silence. Octavius opened his eyes. ‘You didn’t . . .’

  ‘No,’ I replied gently. ‘And neither, I think, did you. At least, not in the way you pretend. You were late arriving at the feast, I seem to recollect. When, exactly, did you manage to slip the poison into his drinking vessel?’

  Octavius gulped, reddened, and gulped again. ‘I had help,’ he said sullenly. ‘That is . . . one of the servants . . . I did it before—’

  He might, indeed, have told me the truth then and there and saved us all a lot of trouble later, but at that moment the door opened and Phyllidia arrived, accompanied by the fish-featured serving woman. Octavius leaped to his feet, like a startled sentry dozing at his post.

  ‘Phyllidia, I have confessed.’

  Phyllidia paled. ‘Confessed?’

  ‘I poisoned Felix, and threw the phial away.’

  ‘Octavius! Surely . . .? You poisoned him?’

  ‘This citizen found the phial,’ the young man said, running a hand through his receding hair. ‘So naturally I had to tell him.’

  Phyllidia turned to me. ‘Is this true? My father was poisoned?’

  I could personally have poisoned Octavius at that moment. There would be no keeping the secret now. The aged maidservant was gaping like a dead carp, but there was little I could do about it.

  I did my best. ‘There is a rumour to that effect. Of course, most people have paid no attention to it. Perennis Felix choked on a nut, in front of witnesses. But if what Octavius says is true . . .’

  Phyllidia said, ‘Octavius! Why?’ just as he exclaimed to her, ‘But surely . . .?’

  The old woman pursed her lips. ‘I knew it!’ she declared, in tones of vindicated triumph. ‘I told my master that some of the poison was missing. But he wouldn’t listen. Thought he knew best as usual. He even refused to pay me for the information.’

  ‘What information is this?’ Marcus had come in through the interconnecting door from the next room. ‘What have you discovered, Libertus? I heard that you were looking for me.’

  ‘It is my information, most revered Excellence.’ The old crone was almost prostrate in her grovelling. ‘Octavius has just brazenly confessed to poisoning my master. I heard him do it. Yes, and the citizen here found the phial. And I can tell you where Octavius got the poison. From this ungrateful daughter. My master Felix sometimes dealt in poisons – infusions of hemlock and the like. It was intended for the courts, for those condemned to hemlock, but he would also provide it, at a price, for people sentenced to more painful deaths. And Phyllidia found it out, the last time he visited the house. She must have done. I told him there was poison missing, but he was too trusting. And now, you see, they have poisoned him – this pair.’

  Marcus turned to the girl. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ the old woman burst out. ‘She brought a phial of it with her. She thought I did not know it, but I did. I am too sharp for her. Last night, I discovered it – she sent me away for water, but I spied on her through the door crack. I saw her unbind it from around her waist, under her clothing.’ She gave Marcus a wheedling smile. ‘That is the information, Excellence. That must be worth a sestertius or two.’

  Marcus looked at her with distaste and then turned to me. ‘Well, Libertus? What do you say?’

  ‘I say,’ I said carefully, ‘that this is true. And, since the woman saw the phial last night, it cannot have been used to poison Felix.’

  Colour came back to Phyllidia’s face, but Octavius looked drained. ‘In that case . . .?’

  Phyllidia looked at him sadly. ‘My poor, poor Octavius,’ she said. ‘I know you did it for me. But there was no need, in the end. And now see what you have done.’

  ‘Citizen,’ Octavius cried, turning to Marcus, ‘it was a mistake . . .’

  ‘Indeed,’ Marcus said dryly. ‘A bad mistake.’ He turned to his slave, who had been listening, open-mouthed, at the doorway. ‘Send for the guard. I’ll have this young man under lock and key. In the meantime, secure him somewhere in the house. He has confessed to a murder. You agree, Libertus?’

  I nodded. ‘I agree.’

  Two burly slaves were by now approaching the door, and Marcus handed Octavius over to them. He turned to the young woman. ‘And you, Phyllidia. You were carrying poison. Do you confess it?’

  She looked at him coldly. ‘There is nothing to confess. I did not bring it in order to kill my father.’

  Marcus frowned. ‘Then why?’

  ‘If my father had lived, and forced me to marry you, I should have taken it myself.’ Her voice trembled. ‘As it is, I shall be spared the necessity. Now, with your permission, Excellence.’

  Marcus was looking at her, stunned, but he nodded in dismissal and she left the room.

  The old crone edged nearer. ‘And me? Do not forget me, Excellence.’

  Marcus glanced at her with contempt. ‘And you! You set out to offer false witness against your mistress. That is a punishable offence. I shall not forget you, never fear. Take her away, you can lock her up too.’

  I have never heard my patron speak with such fury. Perhaps it was not surprising. The idea that someone would genuinely rather die than marry him must have struck a terrible blow to his self-esteem. His expression did not soften until the guards had left the room, taking their captives with them.

  Marcus turned to me. ‘I congratulate you, Libertus. You have achieved a swift conclusion to this business.’

  ‘You think so, Excellence?’

  He looked affronted. ‘I suppose you are going to tell me that Octavius did not murder Felix after all?’

  ‘I think he is acting most suspiciously, Excellence, but I am not sure that he administered the poison.’

  Marcus frowned. ‘But the phial you found . . .’

  ‘I did not find a phial, Excellence. I did not even suspect a phial until the young man himself mentioned it. We have no evidence against Octavius except his own word. And he is a citizen. Perhaps it would be unwise to commit him to the jail. He may appeal to the Emperor.’

  ‘Then why did you agree to his arrest? I have enough problems with Commodus, without risking further rebukes.’ Marcus’s youthful face was flushed.

  I considered my reply with care. ‘I thought he shou
ld be locked up here, Excellence, before he caused any further problems for you. If you had not imprisoned those two, rumour that Felix was murdered would have been all over Glevum before nightfall. Now, even if any rumours do get out, it will seem that you have the murderer under lock and key.’

  Marcus looked doubtful. ‘That is all very well, but I am not Felix, to enjoy imprisoning the innocent.’ It was true. My patron dislikes injustice, and he was tapping his baton dangerously.

  I said, ‘Besides, Excellence, I presume the woman is right. There is a phial of stolen poison somewhere, and Octavius knows that there is. Why else would he have concluded that I had found it?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  A brief silence followed this exchange. I knew better than to speak again. Marcus does not like to be confronted with the obvious.

  At last he said shortly, ‘No doubt you are right, as usual. However, since, as you say, Phyllidia’s phial was not used to poison Felix, it seems that we have shed no further light on the mystery. Unless you have discovered anything else?’

  I told him briefly what I knew. ‘So, Excellence,’ I finished, ‘that is what I have gleaned in Glevum. I am, of course, at your disposal should you wish me to make enquiries further afield.’

  He looked at me coolly. ‘I know you, Libertus. You do not lightly suggest abandoning your workshop. What is it that you wish me to suggest?’

  If I were not such an old man I would have coloured. I had not supposed that I was so transparent. ‘Felix had visited Eboracum,’ I suggested. ‘And Egobarbus and his party came from that direction, too. What took the Celt so many miles from his home? It seems worthy of investigation, at least.’

  He looked at me. ‘That would be a long and expensive journey.’

  I said nothing. If it were less long and less expensive I should have made it myself long ago.

  He sighed. ‘Yet I suppose you are right. It should be investigated. Fortunately I know the commander from the Glevum barracks. He is always sending messengers to Eboracum – and they get there quickly, too. No more than three days sometimes. These military envoys always have the pick of the horses. I will have a word with him: since it concerns Perennis Felix, no doubt even the imperial post can be instructed to stop and make enquiries as they go.’

  ‘Indeed, Excellence.’

  He saw my face and broke into a grim smile. ‘Did you suppose that I would agree to send you? With private transport no doubt, so that you could look for your wife? Well, I am afraid not, Libertus. I cannot spare you – there are matters I wish you to investigate here. I have my own wife to consider now, and she is most anxious that you look into the loss of her slaves.’

  ‘Excellence?’ I had almost forgotten the deaths in Corinium.

  Marcus ran a distracted hand through his short blond curls. ‘I know, Libertus. It is hardly an affair of state. But what can I do? I have been married only for a few hours. I can hardly refuse her. I have made arrangements to send her to my country villa shortly – I am afraid there may be trouble in Glevum when the Emperor learns of Felix’s death – but she insists that she must see you first. It seems she has a high opinion of your abilities.’

  From his tone, I gathered that she had been forceful on the subject. I said meekly, ‘Of course, Excellence, if I can help . . . But there seems little I can do at this distance . . .’

  ‘You know Delicta has brought her gatekeeper with her? She has her own ideas about the killings. She suspects a visitor who called at the house this morning – thinks he was one of a group of out-of-town fraudsters and thieves, come to spy out the house. Found out that she was intending to shop, she thinks, and lay in wait later to kill the servants for what they were carrying. Certainly the caller was a stranger.’

  I nodded. ‘Junio told me so. He said that someone unidentified had come early with a wedding gift.’

  Marcus looked at me wryly. ‘In that case, you know as much as I do. As much as the gatekeeper seems to, for that matter. I had him questioned, while you were out in the town.’

  ‘And did he remember anything?’ I was doubtful. I hoped the man had not been ‘questioned’ too enthusiastically. Since such interrogation often involves flogging, it is not unknown for the victim to remember all kinds of things that never happened at all, just in order to make it stop.

  Not this time. Marcus shook his head. ‘He had nothing to add, beyond the fact that the visitor was cloaked and hooded – though that was not unexpected, with the rain. He did not wear a toga, though, and spoke Latin with a strange accent.’

  I smiled. ‘Conspicuous enough, one would think. Almost as if he was wishing to be noticed.’

  Marcus grimaced. ‘If that was the case he failed. The gatekeeper seems to have been paying more attention to the gifts than to the bearer. Costly bronze bracelets and a length of silk. Doubtless he was hoping for a tip. He didn’t get one. But I am sure he told us all he knew. Even the promise of gold from me was not enough to sharpen his recollections.’

  I smiled more broadly. This interrogation, then, had been of the more gentle kind. Marcus knows my views. Feeble purse-strings can often be as persuasive as the thickest lash, and no more unreliable. ‘But you wish me to speak to him, all the same?’

  Marcus’s grin was almost sheepish. ‘My wife wishes it, old friend. I do not know what you can achieve, but I am a married man. I am returning to my apartment, now, in a litter. Delicta is waiting for me. If you would attend us there?’

  I bent my knee and bowed my head. ‘With pleasure, Excellence,’ and Marcus left. I could hear him summoning attendants in the hall. He would take Gaius’s attendants, of course. Marcus had no doubt dismissed his own to wait on Delicta, and my poor slave had not yet returned to the building. When I went to visit Marcus, I should have to walk the streets unattended.

  That would raise a few eyebrows. A citizen in a toga is conspicuous without slaves, but in other respects this arrangement suited me very well. Before I went to meet my patron I hoped to make some enquiries about that missing poison phial, and I could do that most effectively without a clutch of slaves at my elbow. Something told me that if I did not locate it soon, then I would never find it at all. Phyllidia was a determined woman.

  I walked quietly back across the house towards the wooden steps which led upstairs. No one paid the least attention to me. From the atrium the wailing continued unabated, and as I passed I glimpsed the man Tommonius taking his turn beside the bier while the funeral attendants wafted him with burning herbs. He glanced towards me, and I saw his face as I hurried away. He looked consolable at the loss of Felix, I thought.

  I walked upstairs, unattended by any slave and – as far as I could see – unobserved by any member of the household. It was a strange sensation. One becomes accustomed, in big Roman houses, to the constant presence of slaves. It was slightly unnerving to find oneself so unexpectedly alone. Yet presumably Egobarbus had contrived to do the same, last night, in order to divest himself of his cloak and – somehow – his whiskers. And yet it was a rare event. Not for the first time, it puzzled me.

  I was up the stairs by this time. I was not actually creeping about, but naturally I was taking reasonable care that my footsteps were as quiet as possible. I paused for a moment outside the bedroom from which I had seen Phyllidia emerge. There was no sound from within and no answer to my tentative knock.

  I lifted my hand to the catch, and very gently lifted it. The door swung open at my touch.

  I had been half prepared to find Phyllidia there, but the room was empty. Not a woman’s room, despite the little row of ointment pots and powders lying on the wooden travelling chest. The covering on the slatted bed was of coarse wool, although a pair of thick fox skins had been thrown carelessly over the stool, as though the occupant of the room might find the British night chilly and damp after the warmth of Rome. A stained and crumpled stola had been gathered into a pile under the window space, presumably awaiting the ministrations of the fuller, and a belt-ring – oil spoon, scissor
s, ear-scraper and tweezers – lay on the floor beside the bed. There was a tiny travelling altar set up in a niche, with figurines of the goddess of the moon, but otherwise the room was bare.

  I hesitated. I am not by nature a spy, and the idea of searching the room uninvited in the absence of the occupier was not a comfortable one. But the opportunity was too good to miss. I went over to the travelling chest and, setting aside the little containers of cosmetics, gently lifted the lid.

  There was not much in the chest. A few tunics, stolae and linen shifts, a change of woven stockings and a pair of leather slippers, and – to my embarrassment – a hefty corset and a pair of sturdy open-work briefs with frilling at the legs and fancy lacing at the side. There was also a fitted wooden box containing a selection of brooches and decorative hairpins, and another of carved ivory which clearly was intended to contain cosmetics, but of the famous phial of poison there was no sign whatever.

  I was returning the contents to the chest, ready to transfer my search activities to the bedding, when the door opened abruptly and Phyllidia came in.

  I froze.

  Slowly she took off her mourning veil and stood regarding me. She did not look upset as I half expected, but she was clearly furiously angry. Her voice was biting as she said, ‘What are you doing here? Searching my things?’

  Since she had caught me halfway down her luggage it was difficult to deny this. I said, ‘Your pardon, lady. I was looking for the poison phial your servant spoke of.’ It sounded feeble. It is hard for a man to appear dignified when he is clutching a bust-binder in one hand and a woman’s underslip in the other.

  She shut the door behind her with a bang. ‘My father is lying dead downstairs,’ she said, ‘but it seems I am not to be free of his methods. Who paid you to do this? Or are you simply thieving?’