Death at Pompeia's Wedding Read Online Free PDF

here, and somehow Honorius must be present then. We need his hand to sign the contract – though the dowry is arranged. What exactly happened? Is he seriously hurt?’ She turned to my servant. ‘Speak up, stupid boy!’
    Minimus looked demurely at his sandal straps. ‘The steward told me to say “accident”, as being more polite, though perhaps that does not quite describe it properly,’ he said. ‘It appears that your son was sampling the wine—’
    ‘You are not going to tell me that he sampled too much and contrived to have a fall?’ She shook her head. ‘My son Honorius would not do a thing like that. And he always takes wine watered, as I taught him to – even when he is simply tasting it.’
    Minimus replied simply, ‘Madam, I’m afraid that it is rather worse than that. Perhaps there was something the matter with the wine. Or possibly the water that he put into it. At all events he was taken very sick and almost collapsed on to the floor.’
    ‘Well, it can’t have been the water – that comes from our own well, and the whole household has been drinking from it half the day. But I don’t understand how it can have been the wine. That was delivered only this morning from the wine merchant. Oh! And here’s the very man that it was purchased from.’
    The sour-faced merchant and his wife had just appeared from the front door, looking even more sour than they’d looked earlier, and accompanied by the lugubrious doorkeeper himself.
    ‘A thousand pardons, Helena Domna,’ the attendant said, ‘but here is Lucianus Vinerius and his wife. I fear they have been kept waiting at the door for far too long . . .’
    Helena Domna – since that seemed to be her name – was scowling so much that he stopped and stared at her in some dismay. Then obviously sensing that something was amiss, he attempted to excuse what he had done. ‘I have been gonging for several minutes for a slave, but nobody has answered, so in the end I brought them in myself.’ There was still no answer and he hurried on. ‘But I must hasten back, if you’ll excuse me, citizens. There are shouts and cheers already in the street – I think the bridegroom’s procession must be almost here.’ And he bowed himself backwards down the passageway.
    Helena Domna watched him out of sight, and only then did she address the rest of us, though there was a sarcastic note in the cracked voice as she said, ‘Lucianus Vinerius – and Maesta too, of course. I am sincerely happy to find you here at last. I only wish the circumstances were happier, that’s all. It seems that my son Honorius has been taken ill, after tasting one of the new wines he bought from you. I’m sure you’d wish to be the first to know – and perhaps you have some suggestion as to what we should do now? We may require a medicus to find an antidote, no doubt you would be anxious to assist us with the cost?’ There was no question about it, she was half-threatening them.
    Vinerius looked wary. ‘Taken ill?’ he said.
    Minimus stepped forward. ‘Very ill indeed, from what I understand. One minute he was talking to the steward in the court, and the next he had turned pale and collapsed on to a stool. Someone came up to the slaves’ room with the news, and we all went running down. By the time I got there his speech was very slurred and he was seeing imaginary things.’
    The wine merchant exchanged glances with his wife, a look which said as clearly as if he’d uttered it aloud, That sounds like simple drunkenness. Then Vinerius spoke. ‘What sort of things? Pink hippogriffs, I suppose?’
    Minimus raised his eyes and looked at him steadily. ‘He seemed to be seeing people who were dead, or so the steward said. Somebody called Miles – I think I heard that name. But that was not the worst. A moment later he said his legs were numb. His face turned crimson and he was retching hard. The steward fetched a feather to start him vomiting, but Honorius was almost fainting