Saturnalia(31)

I shook my head. “Clodia, what you say is true enough of Sempronia and the elder Fulvia and a few others. They are just unconventional and have a taste for low company and are public about it. I happen to know from personal experience that you are capable of murder.”

She held my gaze for a few seconds, then lowered her eyes. “I had no reason to poison Celer. He wasn’t a bad husband, as such things go. He didn’t pretend that our marriage was anything more than a political arrangement, and he allowed me to do as I pleased. After the third year, when he was satisfied that I was not going to bear him any children, he no longer objected to any men I cared to see.”

“He was a model of toleration.”

“We would have reached an amicable divorce soon anyway. He was looking for a suitable woman. I wouldn’t have killed him for his property. He left me nothing, nor did I expect him to. I had no reason to kill him, Decius.”

“At least now you’re not pretending that you don’t care whether I believe you.”

“It isn’t that I prize your good opinion. Do you know the punishment for venificium?”

“No, but I’m sure it’s something awful.”

”Deportatio in insula,” she said, her face bleak. “The poisoner is taken to an island and left there, with no means of escape. The island chosen is always exceedingly small, without population or cultivated plants, and with little or no freshwater. I made inquiries. Most last only days. There is a report of one wretch who lasted several years by licking the dew from the rocks in the morning and prying shellfish up with her bare fingers and eating them raw. She was sighted by passing ships for a long time, howling and raving at them from the waterline. She was quite a horrid sight toward the end, when her snaky white hair almost completely covered her.” She was quiet for a few moments, sipping at her Massic.

“Of course,” she added, “that was just some peasant herb woman. I would not wait to be carried off. I am a patrician, after all.”

I stood. “I will see what I can do, Clodia. If someone poisoned Celer, I will find out who it was. If I find that it was you, that is how I will report it to the praetor.”

She managed a very small, tight smile. “Ah, I can see that I’ve snared you with my feminine wiles again.”

I shrugged. “I’m not an utter fool, Clodia. When I was a child, like most children, I burned myself on a hot stove. That taught me to be wary of hot stoves. But while I was young I still burned myself through incaution. Now I am careful of approaching even a cold stove.”

She got up laughing. Then she took my arm and led me from the room. “Decius, you are not as adept at striking down your enemies as a hero should be. But you may just outlive them all.”

Hermes met me at the door and an aged janitor let us out. Apparently the beautiful youth was just for show. This one wore a plain bronze neck ring and wasn’t even chained to the doorpost. As usual I refused a torch, and we stood outside for a few minutes, allowing our eyes to adjust. In a sense, Clodia’s words have proven to be prophetic. I have outlived all of my enemies but one. The problem is, I outlived all my friends but one as well.

“Did you learn anything?” I asked Hermes as we made our way back toward the Subura.

“There’s hardly a slave in the place who was there when Celer died. Clodia didn’t like his slaves because they weren’t pretty enough, and she sent them off to his country estates. Most of them she bought since he died. Some of her personal slaves were there at the time, but it was like the two of them lived in different houses and their staffs didn’t mix much.”

“Well, you can’t expect slaves to speak readily about a murder in the house.”

“Can you blame them?” Hermes asked. “I think they’re happy that Clodia is the suspect, because if she weren’t, it might be one of them. Then every slave in the house might be crucified.”

Rome has some truly barbarous laws, and that is one of them.

The moonlight was tolerable and the route was familiar. We would simply work our way downhill to the Suburan Street and thence continue downhill into the valley between the Esquiline and the Viminal, where my house lay. I was steady enough, having moderated my intake of wine for a change. In such a place and in such company I knew better than to incapacitate myself. I wasn’t truly worried about being poisoned, not much.

It was not terribly late. Here and there people wended their way home from late parties, their torches winking like lost spirits among the narrow alleys and tall apartment buildings. A fat man passed by us, weaving, supported on each side by a slave boy. An ivy wreath sat askew on his bald head, and he sang an old Sabine drinking song. I envied someone who could carouse so carelessly these days.