Free Death at Pompeia's Wedding by Rosemary Rowe

himself.
    ‘You should have called me, master, not scrabbled on the floor,’ he chided, collecting up the scattered remnants in a trice and rising, flushed and panting, to put them in my hand. ‘I knew you must be in here but I couldn’t see you from the door. I brought your belongings. Everyone has left. I’m sorry, master, no one at all has stayed behind as you requested them – most people didn’t even stop to drink the wine. After Pompeia’s outburst they were all eager to be gone.’
    I nodded and put the broken petals on the tabletop. ‘Antoninus among them. I am aware of that.’
    I must have sounded sharp, because he looked chagrined. ‘I didn’t see him leave. I’m sorry if I should have prevented him from going. I thought of asking people to stay back to talk to you but I wasn’t sure who you would want to question. I did approach one citizen – that decurion that Honorius spoke to last of all – but he said you wouldn’t need him now, because there was no mystery. I suppose he thought that with Pompeia saying what she did . . .?’ He made a little helpless gesture with his hands. ‘I could hardly compel an important man against his will.’
    ‘It can’t be altered now.’ I picked my cloak up from the stool where he had put it down, and shrugged it round my shoulders in a careless way. ‘But I would like to have had a word with him, and Antoninus too – and a man called Redux who was with him in the hall. I suppose I shall have to try to find out where they live.’
    ‘Redux the trader, are you speaking of?’ Minimus brightened up. ‘I know where you can find him, master – or I think I do. He has a warehouse down beside the dock, trading with the ships from Hibernia and Gaul. I was talking to his slave upstairs, before the steward came to tell us that Honorius was ill.’
    I looked at him with sudden interest. Perhaps the boy was not so useless after all. ‘A warehouse full of what?’ I said aloud – wondering if Redux dealt in wine at all.
    Minimus was proud to show off what he knew. ‘Everything from Glevum roofing-tiles to Celtic woollen cloth. Anything that’s cheap from the locality. He buys it in when there’s a glut, and keeps it for a while, then either sells it on again when prices rise or exchanges it aboard the trading ships for things you can’t get here, like pickled anchovies and olive oil or even foreign slaves.’
    ‘And so makes a profit?’ I was struggling to fasten the cloak around my neck.
    He rushed across to fix it with a shoulder-clasp. ‘Making a small fortune out of it, I hear. At least till recently. But according to the slave that I was talking to, Redux had a partner who died quite recently and since that happened things aren’t going so well. He doesn’t have the instinct that his friend had, it seems, for knowing what to buy and when to sell. But he’s still got the warehouse. I could show you where, I think. The slave was boasting about how big it used to be, and how it was sited right beside the docks.’ He fussed about me, settling my cloak-folds neatly into place with a care that my poor garment scarcely merited, then standing back to admire his handiwork.
    ‘Since you have brought me my cloak so diligently, you could take me there before we leave the town.’
    ‘Immediately, master, if you wish to set off straight away. Or I’m sure the offer of refreshment will still stand. Most things, of course, are being put away until the funeral feast – the sweet cakes and the wedding dishes that the kitchen had prepared – but you could still have fruit and watered wine before you leave, if you desire.’
    I realized that he would not have dreamed this offer up himself – nor taken the initiative to bring the cloak to me. ‘Helena Domna sent you?’ I enquired. ‘To hint to me that it was time to go?’
    He grinned. ‘In fact it was the lady Livia,’ he said. ‘Though only when she came out to the hall and found out that her