Death at Pompeia's Wedding by Rosemary Rowe Page A

her face. It wasn’t pretty – it could never be that – but it softened markedly, though there was still a hint of fierce determination in the eyes. Perhaps I should not have been surprised at that – most girls would simply have embraced their fate, not tried to enlist the aid of goddesses. Perhaps she had inherited a little of her paternal grandmother’s strong will and stubbornness.
    ‘Very well. If you will undertake to speak on my behalf, I will drink the potion, if Maesta tastes it first. But I don’t want to marry, you can tell them that – especially not someone who just wants my settlement. And if they try to force me, I’ll find another way. I’ll hide the balance scales – someone has to hold them at the ceremony or it will be so ill-omened they won’t let it proceed. Or better still, I will refuse to say the words. They can drag me to the altar, but they can’t make me speak.’
    She might just dare to do it, too, I thought. And without her uttering the ancient formula ‘where you are Gaius, I am Gaia’, the marriage would not stand. I wondered what Gracchus would say if he knew about all this. Refuse to pay me for my efforts, probably – though my contract only said that I must prove her innocent.
    ‘No one will expect you to marry anyone, at least until the mourning period is complete,’ I said. ‘And surely even marriage is better than slow death on a barren island, or permanently being locked up in your room, which is what will happen if they think that you are crazed.’
    She shook her head. ‘I didn’t expect my father to be dead,’ she muttered. ‘I hoped . . . I don’t know what I hoped. Honorius being prepared to change his mind, or some other miracle like that. But I would not have chosen to kill him, citizen. It only puts me into Helena Domna’s hands – whoever my guardian is, she will have the final say – and I am no better off than I was before. It would have been better if Gracchus had been struck. Or my grandmother herself.’
    I stifled a smile at this heartless list. ‘Would that have saved you?’
    ‘I think it might have done. Livia would have spoken for me, I am sure, if I had begged her to. She was quite kind to me, and she was the one person my father listened to. He could not deny her anything at all – not like my poor mother who was virtually his slave.’
    This was a new insight into Livia’s married life. I glanced at Pulchra, but she was staring at the wall with that look of martyred patience waiting slaves adopt.
    Pompeia gave a sigh and bounced herself upright. ‘But what does it matter now? It is all a dreadful, messy irony. Go on then, citizen. Let Maesta taste the sleeping draught and I will drink the rest. Perhaps it would be better if it killed me anyway. And it can’t taste any nastier than the last one that she made.’
    I made a mental note to speak to Maesta soon. I remembered how Helena Domna had pounced upon the fact that Maesta had a certain gift with herbs when there was first concern about Honorius’s health – as if the idea was quite new to her. Yet it was evident that Maesta had made several cures for members of the household here at different times.
    She saw me looking at her and burst out at once, ‘I made that decoction particularly strong – as Helena Domna instructed me to do – and no doubt it will affect me even with a sip. But I will take it, citizen, if you insist on it – though I would be glad if somebody would let my husband know what has happened and why I’ve not come home. Oh, I wish I’d not suggested it. I thought Helena Domna would be pleased and not blame us for the problems with the wine. I even hoped she might become another customer. And now look what I’ve done. But I suppose there is no help for it.’ She reached out her hand to take the cup from me.
    Pompeia surprised us, by saying in a sober tone of voice, ‘If she is prepared to drink it, that is good enough. She would not do it, if there were