“You would, being not only vulgar and Roman, but male. Carry these.” She handed me her purchases and quickly added a half-dozen others. I thought she had forgotten her mission to locate Ascylta, but Julia had a rare ability to divide her attention. While she was trying to decide between a scarlet scarf and a purple one, she spotted a garish tent covered with floral designs.
“Let’s try that one,” she said, walking away and leaving me trying to juggle all her junk. I bought the red scarf in order to wrap them all up. I caught up with her at the entrance to the tent. “You stay out here,” she said. “If it’s the woman we’re looking for, I want to speak with her alone for a while. I’ll call you when I need you.” She pushed the door covering aside and went in.
When Julia didn’t come out for several minutes, I decided that we had found our woman. I wasn’t used to dancing attendance in such a fashion and I fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering what to do. When I left Hermes this way, he usually sneaked off somewhere for a drink. I always upbraided him for this habit, but now it seemed like an excellent idea. I was looking around for a promising booth when Julia called to me to come inside.
The woman was neither old nor young. She wore a coarse woolen gown about the same shade of brown as her gray-shot hair. She sat amid the usual baskets of dried herbs and jars of unguents.
“Good day to you, sir,” she said with a thick Oscan accent.
“Decius, this is Ascylta,” Julia told me, although by that time I scarcely needed to be informed. “Ascylta is a wise woman. She is learned in the lore of vegetation and animals.”
“Ah, just the lady we have been looking for,” I said, unaware of how much Julia had told the woman.
“Yes, but you are not here for my herbs. You are the senator who is asking about Harmodia.”
“She guessed,” Julia said, smiling sheepishly. “But we’ve been having a nice talk.”
“You people don’t need to wear your fine clothes for us to know who you are,” Harmodia said. “The way you talk is enough. The highborn people send their slaves when they just want herbs for the household. They come personally only for poisons or abortions. No woman brings her man along when she wants to get rid of a child.”
“A wise woman indeed,” I said.
“You are not an official from the aedile’s office,” she said. “Why do you want to know about Harmodia?” To these market people the aediles were the totality of Roman officialdom.
“I think that she sold poison to someone, and I think that the buyer had her killed to silence her. I am looking into the death of a most important man, and I have been warned not to look into her death. My life has been threatened.”
She nodded gloomily. I studied her as closely as I could, trying to remember whether I had seen her out on the Campus Vaticanus. I tried to picture her without her clothes, her hair streaming wildly, dancing frantically to the music of pipe and drum. She did not look familiar, but there had been so many.
“It is Furia and the Marsi and the Etruscans who want you to stay away, is that not so?”
“It is,” I said. “Was Harmodia one of them? I know that she was from Marsian country, but was she a member of their … their cult?”
Her gaze sharpened. “You know about that, do you? Aye, she was one. Some say she was their leader, and now Furia has taken her place as high priestess.”
“Do you know whether Harmodia sold poisons?” I asked.
“They all do. The strigae, I mean, not honest saga like me. It isn’t such an uncommon trade. Usually, it is a wife who wants to rid herself of a husband who beats her or a son impatient for his inheritance. Sometimes it is just someone who is tired of life and wants a painless way to die. Everyone knows it is dangerous to sell to the highborn, to the people who talk like you two. That is what brings the aediles down upon us. But many are greedy. Harmodia was greedy.”
“How greedy?” Julia asked.
Ascylta seemed puzzled by the question. “Well, everyone knows that the highborn can afford to pay better than others. A seller will charge them ten, twenty, even a hundred times what they would demand from a peasant or a villager. To one who would inherit a great estate or be rid of a rich, old husband to marry a rich, young lover, the money is trifling.”
“I understand,” Julia said. “What I meant was, do you think Harmodia was greedy enough to be dissatisfied with even an exorbitant price for her wares? Might she have heard of the murder and demanded money for her continued silence?” Once again, my wisdom in bringing Julia along was vindicated. I had not thought of this.