The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (33 page)

She kissed me. “You really are a big stupid lump, sometimes.”

“Stupid, am I?” I kissed her back.

“Only sometimes.” For a while we were too busy for talking.

Eventually she said, “I’ll tell you someone who
is
jealous of Lady Cleopatra. Her cousin Phoebe.”

“Her cousin? Oh yes, the attractive dark girl. Some sort of poor relation, isn’t she?”

“That’s right. She’s got looks, but no money. Her maid says she more or less threw herself at Marcus in Alexandria, but he ignored her. Still, if Cleopatra ever pushes her Mark Antony too hard, he won’t have to look far for a sympathetic admirer.”

The banquet began, and I can’t deny Cleopatra looked truly like a queen, as she reclined on her couch next to Marcus. The necklace of pearls glowed against her lovely fair skin, and there was plenty of skin showing, because her white gown was cut fashionably low. She used face-paint, but it was very discreetly done, enhancing her big luminous eyes.
Her fair hair was bound with a sort of gold diadem. If the real Queen Cleopatra looked half as radiant, it explains a lot about the way Mark Antony carried on – not to mention old Julius Caesar.

Watching from my table in the far corner, I saw what Amanda meant about the cousin not being happy. Phoebe looked beautiful and she had expensive clothes and jewels; but her brittle smile and over-ebullient manner told anyone with half an eye that she was trying just a bit too hard. She was sharing Sabinus’ couch, and he was doing his best to make her relax, but without much success. And she was drinking more than was either ladylike or sensible.

She wasn’t the only one either. Antony and Cleopatra were knocking back the wine at a fair old rate. Well, why not? It was their party. Lady Cornelia didn’t drink much, and neither did Sabinus – and neither did I. A drunken bodyguard is as useless as a wax javelin. And I knew I’d have a chance to make up for it later.

When everyone was suitably mellow, Marcus’ mother signalled for quiet, and delivered a few well-chosen words of greeting and congratulation. They didn’t go on for long, thank the gods. Young Marcus rose to his feet and read a love-poem he had written “to the Queen of my heart”. Everyone applauded warmly – it wasn’t a bad poem really – and then as Marcus sat down, his Cleopatra arose elegantly from her couch and started to speak.

“I’m overwhelmed by your kindness,” she simpered. “Especially from my Lady Cornelia – my new mother to be! – and my darling Mark Antony. And tonight I’m going to prove just how great is my love, as great as the love that bound our famous predecessors.”

She suddenly lifted the beautiful pearl necklace right over her head and held it out in front of her so that it gleamed in the lamplight. “This most wonderful gift is a symbol of our
union. I’m sure you all know how the great Queen Cleopatra showed her feelings for Mark Antony – by providing him with the most costly banquet ever seen, and the most precious drink in the world.” She looked down at her elaborate silver wine-goblet, half full of red wine. “Wonderful wine – such as we have tonight – with just a little something added.”

She gave a strong tug and snapped the necklace. There was a collective gasp – everyone realised what was coming. Everybody knows the tale of how Cleopatra had a bet with Mark Antony, and how she won it . . . But surely this silly child wasn’t going to . . .

Marcus looked half-amused and half-baffled, as she held the broken necklace in one hand, careful not to lose any pearls. Then slowly, dramatically, she took five of them off their thin cord, and dropped them one by one into the silver goblet. The plop that each one made as it splashed into the wine resounded like a drumbeat in the horrified silence.

“And now,” she cried out, triumph showing in every curve of her face and every syllable she spoke, “I’ll drink a toast – to my darling Mark Antony, and to a love that will last for ever!” She laid down the necklace, lifted up the goblet, and drank.

But she didn’t drain the cup; she took a good swallow, and then lowered the goblet and turned to Marcus, smiling into his eyes. “Now you, my dear,” she said. “Drink to me, and to our love.”

Marcus was looking perplexed and rather hurt, as well he might. The pearls had cost him a consul’s ransom; presumably he’d only been able to afford them on a promise of riches to come after the wedding, and he can’t have expected his magnificent gift to be abused like this. A stronger man would have put a stop to the nonsense, but he wasn’t the one to resist her now, in front of all the family. He stood up and took
the goblet. “To our love, my Queen Cleopatra,” he declaimed, and he drained the lot.

I caught a glimpse of his mother’s face, disapproval written all over it, and Sabinus was looking furious. There’d be ructions in the family’s private rooms tonight, for sure.

Marcus sat down, and a buzz of rather subdued conversation started up around the room. I felt a bit subdued myself, but at least I could relax now the surprise was over.

Suddenly Marcus began to choke. His whole body shook with it. Gods, I thought, perhaps he’s swallowed a pearl. They would take some time to dissolve completely in the wine; maybe one had caught in his throat. He flopped back on the couch, dropped the wine-cup, and tried to throw up, but nothing came out. Then he doubled over, clutching his stomach. His face was a horrible grey colour, his eyes staring out of his head, still with a slightly baffled air. I jumped up to go to him, but by the time I reached him he was dead.

For a couple of heartbeats we were all statue-still. Everybody was appalled, his mother especially, half-risen from her couch, her features frozen in horror. Cleopatra looked amazed, and then terrified. She was the first to move; she bent over Marcus, straightened up again, and shrieked out, “No! Oh, no!”

She put her head in her hands and began to wail. Her cousin Phoebe was sobbing noisily, and before long half the women in the place were crying too.

“Rufus!” It was Sabinus, beckoning me a few paces away from his brother’s body. “Rufus, did you see all that? What a ridiculous, outrageous thing to do! To make Marcus drink that concoction – surely she must have realized it might poison him? All that nonsense about Cleopatra . . .” He tailed off, too angry to speak, and then he growled, “By the gods, if she poisoned him on purpose . . .”

“I doubt that she did,” I said. “Why would she? She was
all set for marriage and living happily ever after. I don’t like the lady, sir, any more than you do, but I can’t see her killing your brother deliberately. Out of foolishness, now that I
could
believe.”

He looked at Marcus’ grey face, then went to him and closed his eyes. At the same time a couple of Cleopatra’s maids appeared beside their mistress, and half-led, half-carried her from the room. Sabinus angrily watched her go, then turned back to me.

“Maybe he choked on one of the pearls?” he suggested. “They couldn’t have dissolved in the wine that quickly, surely?”

“No, they couldn’t.” But I’d seen the way he had clutched at his belly. Still, easy enough to check. The goblet lay on its side under the table, and I bent to pick it up, but haste made me clumsy and it rolled away as I touched it, spilling out dregs of red wine and several pearls. They skittered across the mosaic floor, and as I tried to catch them, the performing monkey from the entertainment suddenly leapt past me and grabbed one in his small fist. His master was close behind, and snatched the animal up, holding him tight and making him drop the pearl.

“ ’Scuse me, my lord,” he murmured in his broken Latin. “Bad monkey! Not to touch!” He tapped the little animal sharply on the nose.

I swore at the pair of them as he darted away, and counted the pearls. Five. Marcus had not swallowed any.

“So the mixture itself must have killed him,” I said. “I still don’t think it was deliberate though.” But deliberate or not, something about the mixture of wine and pearls had been poisonous enough to kill a grown man. Did that mean the legend about Cleopatra drinking her pearl to amuse Mark Antony was false? Surely Chloe believed it was true; she’d even swallowed some of the wine herself, before demonstrating
to the world how easily she could make Marcus do any stupid thing she wanted.

There was a commotion at the Lady Cornelia’s couch, and I saw that the old dame had fainted. Sabinus grasped my shoulder, pressing it hard. “I must go to my mother. Find out what happened here tonight, Rufus. I want to know if she did this on purpose, or if it was just a tragic stupid accident. So use that head of yours.”

The next few hours were chaos. The old lady soon recovered from her faint, but she took to her bed, leaving my patron in charge of the arrangements for mourning his brother, the ritual cleansing that the priests had to carry out, and the hundred and one other tasks that need attention when someone suddenly dies. Soon the house resounded with the keening notes of the mourners. They grew louder as I made my way through the atrium, where the body was being laid out, and diminished again as I headed for the suite of rooms that Chloe and Phoebe and their entourage were using.

I must admit I wasn’t looking forwards to the next step. “Find out what happened,” Sabinus had ordered, but it was a great deal easier to say than do. I could talk to Chloe, and she couldn’t deny that she had been the instrument of Marcus’ death; we’d all seen him take the cup from her. But she’d presumably deny that she’d intended it, even if . . . I hesitated outside the door, trying to think of the best approach. Then fortune smiled on me; Amanda came hurrying along the corridor, carrying a tray with an earthenware flask and a small cup. She paused and smiled at me.

“Rufus, thank the gods! It’s awful in there – like a nightmare. All Chloe’s people are terrified, saying she’s poisoned the master and she’ll be putting the blame on one of them. And as for Chloe herself – first she was as sick as a dog, and you can imagine the drama . . .”

“Sick, you say? Is it serious?”

“Not really. I suppose the wine’s made her ill, but at least she didn’t drink enough to kill her, like poor Master Marcus. The wine was poisoned, presumably?”

“It was the pearls and wine that made a poisonous mixture,” I said. “That’s what Sabinus thinks, and so do I. The point is, did Chloe know it would happen like that? I need to talk to her. Is she in a state to see me?”

Amanda shrugged. “I expect so, if you insist loudly enough. Use the Lady Cornelia’s name, I should; that’ll scare them all. And make it quick. I’ve got some medicine here to make her sleep, something the old lady’s doctor has made up for her. She’s hysterical, howling the place down like a child that’s lost its favourite doll.” She sniffed scornfully. “She keeps saying ‘I didn’t mean to kill him’, over and over again. He’s dead just the same, poor boy.”

“I don’t think she did mean to,” I answered. “After all, she drank the wine herself before she gave it to him. If she’d known it was poisonous . . .”

“Yes, that’s true,” Amanda conceded. “And originally she meant to drink it all herself.”

“You knew she was going to make that silly scene? You knew
beforehand
?”

“Oh, yes, all the servants did. She’d been planning it for ages, that’s why she made him buy the pearls. She went on and on about it, going over what she’d say, how it was so romantic . . . we were all sworn to secrecy on pain of a serious flogging, so I couldn’t tell you. But she was determined to drink it all herself. She never mentioned making Master Marcus drink any. That must have been a sudden whim, not in the original plan.”

“Unless she was being really cunning, and planning to poison Marcus but telling you all she would be drinking the mixture . . . no, that’s too far-fetched. Why would she kill a
man who adored her, when she was all set to marry him? Still, it’s a funny way to treat a fabulously expensive present from your lover. Didn’t she like the necklace?”

“Oh, she loved it. The way she stroked it and played with it and kept it safe . . .”

“Kept it safe?” I repeated. “I wondered about that. Granted she didn’t poison the drink on purpose, could the pearls have had some kind of dirt on them, picked up from the shop where they were bought, or from someone handling them?”

Amanda shook her head. “None of us were allowed to touch them. Cousin Phoebe offered to polish them once or twice, but Madam said she was too rough, and after that nobody but Chloe herself went near them.”

The door into Chloe’s suite opened abruptly, and Phoebe stood there. She’d been crying, which made her lovely face look ugly and hard.

“Amanda! Don’t stand gossiping, girl. Hurry up with that sleeping-draught! My poor cousin’s beside herself. She must have some medicine to calm her down.”

“Coming, my lady,” Amanda stepped through the door; I followed, and Phoebe was too preoccupied to stop me.

I don’t often go into ladies’ private apartments and, whenever I do, I feel like a bull in a glassware shop, several sizes too big and clumsy for the delicate furniture and feminine frippery all around me. I took refuge in being brusque and to the point, and said, “Where’s the Lady Chloe?”

“In her bedroom,” Phoebe answered, noticing me now. “And who might you be, barging in here without a by-your-leave?”

“Lady Cornelia sent me to ask after your cousin,” I said.

The lie worked. “Oh, I see. It’s not a good time, but . . . how is her ladyship?”

“She’s recovered from her fainting fit, but she’s in extreme distress over this whole tragedy. She’s ordered me to enquire after Lady Chloe, and get to the truth of what happened.”

“I’d have thought it was obvious, even to a stupid hulk like you,” she retorted, tossing back her dark hair and fixing me with an angry stare. “My poor cousin wanted to make a romantic gesture, and it went tragically wrong. The pearls somehow poisoned the wine. The story of Queen Cleopatra and her banquet is so well known, nobody questioned that it’s true. Obviously it can’t be.”

“That’s certainly how it seems,” I agreed, softening my tone a bit. “But I still would like to talk to your cousin. Please. Won’t you ask her if she’ll see me, just for a little while?”

“It’s all right, Phoebe.” Chloe herself appeared from one of the inner rooms and came towards me. “I’ll see him if I must. Ah – you’re one of Marcus’ brother’s people, aren’t you?”