Chapter XXI
76 BCE — Summer, Rome Year of the consulship of Gnaeus Octavius and Gaius Scribonius Curio
There were so many servants at House Crassus that a separate kitchen had been built inside the barracks. Most of the slaves ate there; those of us who slept in the main house took our meals in the kitchen, but even we had to eat in shifts. We drifted into cliques based on seniority, and most of the original household were the first to eat after the family. Nestor chose to eat in the outbuilding.
At supper soon after the Vulcanalia, Tessa mentioned that she was experiencing some tingling and numbness in her feet and legs and asked if anyone else was experiencing anything similar. Betto immediately cried “poison!” exclaiming that he, too, had been feeling the same sensations in his feet. He made it his personal duty to poll the rest of the house and to everyone’s surprise discovered that three others shared these symptoms. Sabina examined each one but could find nothing amiss. She rubbed salves on their feet and told them to return to her each evening. After the incident with Pio, everyone was as skittish as an unblooded legionary. Crassus sent Tertulla and the children to Baiae. They had just purchased a vacation home on the hill overlooking the bay, and while dominus did not think they were in any danger, the new villa did require furnishing and decorating, a task at which he was as hopeless as Tertulla was proficient.
Within three days everyone but Tessa had improved. Although the temperature was hot throughout that week, it seemed she was always perspiring. Her tunic was drenched every time I saw her. Sabina recommended bed rest, but Tessa refused. There was too much to do, too many bouquets to cut and arrange. Besides, she said, she had no real pain; toward the end she even cut herself with her clipping shears and didn’t know she was bleeding till she spied the drops painting her toes and the rich earth.
You must know by now that it was Sabina’s jealousy that threatened Tessa. The healer was the most intelligent woman I had ever met, but she was also arrogant. Perhaps she believed she could act with impunity. If one believes there is no risk, it is easy to gamble everything of value.
When she lost the sight in her left eye, Crassus stepped in and insisted she take to her bed. He told Sabina that if Tessa’s condition did not improve by morning, he’d be forced to call in outside help. Sabina admitted to dominus that Tessa must have been poisoned. Her condition was grave, but she would do all that she could. When he heard this, Crassus put the entire estate on alarm: no one could enter or leave without his knowing.
By then of course, it was too late. Now that she lay abed, she was too weak to leave it. Sabina asked that she be brought to the clinic; Crassus himself carried her there in his arms. In the night she wet the bed four times; it hardly mattered for the bedding was already soaked through with her sweat. Tessa’s heart raced, then slowed, and her breathing became erratic. The healer gave her theriake, a Greek antidote for poisoning. It was her own formula of herbs and spices ground with opium into olive oil. She worked through the night, joined by many of the familia, including Crassus, who stood vigil with the young gardener.
Conspicuous by his absence was Ludovicus.
Something Livia had said to her mother when we came upon her in the western wood kept nagging at me. When Sabina asked her what is found in short supply at the main house but is lavishly abundant in the forest, Livia replied “people.” Her tone was mocking, of course, but it set me thinking. There was something else the healer could find a great deal of out at the boundaries of the estate: privacy. Almost in that same moment, I realized why the priests’ hoods had seemed so familiar, yet somehow menacing. My uneasiness grew.
It is an effortless matter to draw conclusions from a narrative that takes you by the hand as I have done, but to believe the unthinkable in the midst of events that swirl about you in a confusion of emotion and distress, that, I hope you will see, is a more challenging task. Yet I curse myself for my slow-wittedness. I could not change the outcome for Sabina, for the law of Crassus is unforgiving. I could not recapture the look in Livia’s eyes that died on that day of judgment. But I might have saved a life.
It was the night that Tessa died. All of us, myself included, believed that Sabina labored frantically to revive the gardener. But I had to know. I summoned Malchus, told him to don socks as well as his heaviest caligae and meet me at the tool shed. There we collected shovels and rakes, and with lanterns raised high headed to the western wood. It was easy to find the spot, for as we approached it stood out from its surroundings, natural in aspect, but unnatural in fact. A patch no larger than three by six feet was covered with a layer of moss, twigs and bark made to resemble the rest of the forest floor. We raked this aside; I warned Malchus to let nothing touch his exposed flesh.
We found nothing, except merely circumstantial evidence: Sabina had planted something here, then removed all manifestation that she had done so. This was enough to report to Crassus, but would I do so? Could I do anything that would reshape me into a wedge between mother and daughter? And that, in Livia’s eyes, would be the least of my crimes should I continue down this path. I was almost ready to take relief from our failure when Malchus said he thought that perhaps Sabina merely wanted to plant some flowers. Why do you say that, I asked him, since I had told him nothing of my suspicions. He pointed deep into the hole where he had been digging. We lowered our lanterns and there at the bottom lay a single, battered, purple bloom.
“Don’t touch it!” I said as Malchus reached for it. I put on a pair of gloves, exhumed the flower from its intended grave and dropped it into my belt pouch. One itch had been scratched satisfactorily, for the flower’s hooded shape was a perfect mimic of the priest’s cowl.
The gods, now intent on guaranteeing my undoing, laughed as they brought my own eyes to our next discovery. As we hurried away with our prize it was I, not Malchus, who chanced upon a small, pale glow beside a mossy granite outcrop. We delayed our race back to the house to investigate. The lanterns illuminated the destruction of any hope for me to remain in deniaclass="underline" a single daisy, its short green stem flat and mangled, its white petals and yellow heart crushed and lifeless.