Chapter 25
Kallias had been counting the hours until he’d return to Lea on Wednesday evening.
He couldn’t stop thinking of her and the fact that she loved him.
Finally— finally—the hour arrived when he and Sextus tidied up the workroom for the day, then headed for the exit together.
As they walked, Kallias quizzed Sextus on the healing properties of various plants, pleased with the young man’s quick and correct answers.
As they rounded a corner, they came within earshot of the narrow passage that led to the dining room, an alternate route through which servants ferried food and drink from the kitchens.
A strange noise caught Kallias’s attention—not the usual clamor of music and congenial conversation in a crowded dining room, but shouts of panic, and then a loud crash.
“What was that?” Sextus asked in consternation.
Kallias paused. Something was amiss. Was it just the rowdiness of a party, or something more sinister? “I’m not sure.”
Instinct urged him to quicken his pace and make for the exit before he could get swept up in whatever was happening, but a sinking sense of dread held him back. If the emperor asked for him and found him missing, things would not go well.
Before he could decide whether to stay or leave, a white-faced servant raced down the passage from the dining room.
The young woman stumbled to a halt when she saw them.
“Sir,” she gasped, struggling to catch her breath.
“I was just coming to find you. It’s the lady Drusilla—something’s wrong! She’s been poisoned!”
A bolt of alarm shot through Kallias. Could this be true? Was Drusilla in danger?
His mind immediately summoned the potential remedies he had at hand—purgatives, charcoal to absorb the poison, several other herbs and decoctions—but everything depended on what she had actually ingested.
“I must fetch the proper supplies,” Kallias said to the maid. “I’ll be there straightaway. Sextus, come with me.”
Kallias turned around and ran back to his workroom, throwing open the door and grabbing several jars and bottles off his shelves and giving quick instructions to Sextus to fetch some other items. In the back of his mind, he worried about Lea—this might disrupt his plan to see her.
What would she think if he didn’t show up tonight?
But if Drusilla was in danger, that had to take precedence.
Sextus gathered everything into a satchel as Kallias directed. He wore a worried frown, but he didn’t panic or fuss, which gratified Kallias. He briefly debated sending Sextus home, but Sextus would need to learn how to manage fraught situations like this.
Once they had the essentials, Kallias beckoned Sextus to follow him, and they raced down the corridors until they reached the dining room.
Gesturing for Sextus to stay near the doorway, Kallias quickly took stock of the scene. The room was empty apart from Gaius, Drusilla, and a collection of wary guards and nervous servants. The other dinner guests must have either been expelled or fled.
One of the low tables had been toppled, spilling food and dinnerware onto the floor.
Drusilla sat upright on a couch, a hand pressed to her cheek, looking anxious but not as unwell as Kallias had feared. Gaius paced in a tight, frenzied circle before her.
Kallias made straight for Drusilla, but Gaius intercepted him. The emperor’s shaking hands grasped Kallias’s arms in a bruising grip. “You have to s-s-save her,” Gaius hissed. “If anything should happen to her—”
Kallias decided not to let him finish that sentence. “Allow me to examine her.”
Gaius released him, and Kallias knelt next to Drusilla’s couch. “What ails you, my lady?”
“Just give her an antidote!” Gaius barked.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Kallias said, careful to keep his tone as calm as possible. “I must determine the nature of her symptoms and what she may have consumed.”
Drusilla twisted her hands in her lap. “All of a sudden I started feeling hot, especially my mouth, and then I began to itch.”
Now that Kallias was closer, he noticed some red patches on her face and neck. Her lips, too, appeared reddened and swollen.
Kallias signaled to one of the servants. “A lamp, please.” The servant ran off.
“Is there any other discomfort?” Kallias asked. “Does your stomach pain you?”
Drusilla shook her head. “I-I feel a trifle lightheaded, but that’s it.”
Kallias’s mind flicked through what poisons might cause such symptoms, which seemed blessedly mild. It was odd for there to be no stomach pain, but perhaps she had only consumed a small quantity. “No one else at the dinner party displayed the same ill effects?”
“No. Gaius and I, and those nearest us, were all eating from the same platters.”
Gaius hovered near the couch. “This must have been meant for me. When I find out who is responsible for this, they will pay with their lives.”
“Could you show me what you were eating when you began to feel unwell?” Kallias asked Drusilla, eyeing the pile of overturned dishes on the floor. He was beginning to have an idea of what might have happened, but he needed to confirm his theory.
Drusilla pointed to a silver plate. “That was mine.”
The servant brought the lamp, and Kallias used it to carefully examine the remains of food on Drusilla’s plate.
It would have been much easier to assess if the emperor hadn’t overturned the table in a fit of rage, but Kallias did his best. He even tasted a few bites, trying to identify any odd flavors.
“I presume the food was sent to the taster, as always?” Kallias asked, addressing the guards, who were responsible for such safety measures.
A guard nodded. “Of course. The taster is in perfect health.”
“Someone must have added it at the table, then,” Gaius snarled. “One of the servants—I want them all interrogated—”
Kallias raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “That may not be necessary, sir.” He turned to Drusilla. “Have your symptoms worsened at all since you first noticed them?”
Drusilla shook her head.
That was promising, and it confirmed Kallias’s theory. “Is it possible that you accidentally consumed something with walnuts in it?”
Drusilla’s mouth fell open. “Oh! I-I didn’t even think of that. It’s been so long since that happened, and everyone was going on about poison…”
“Walnuts are forbidden from the palace!” Gaius snapped. “If any contaminated your food, it must have been foul play!”
“It could also have been a simple mishap,” Kallias said, keeping his tone as casual as possible so it didn’t sound like he was contradicting the emperor.
He lifted the silver plate, holding it close to the lamp.
“I believe there are some chopped walnuts inside these stuffed dates. In dim light, you wouldn’t have noticed, and the flavor is mild.
That would explain why you were the only one who became ill. ”
Drusilla let out a sigh of relief. “Yes, that must have been it! This is just how I felt the last time I accidentally ate walnuts. There must have been some mistake in the kitchen. Thank the gods.”
Drusilla’s reaction to walnuts was strange, but luckily it had always been mild.
He’d heard other physicians speak of people who ate something perfectly harmless, only to collapse and suffocate moments later.
No one understood what made some foods deadly to certain people and not others; it seemed only explainable as a sort of divine curse.
Not that he would ever dare to suggest aloud that Drusilla had been cursed by the gods, of course.
Gaius did not seem to share his sister’s relief. His fists clenched and unclenched spasmodically. He turned to his guards. “Find out who was responsible for preparing those dates. Bring them to me.”
Two guards saluted and hastened away.
“I do believe it was a mistake, sir,” Kallias said. “No true harm was done. I can prepare an ointment to soothe Drusilla’s skin, but the irritation will fade on its own in due course.”
Gaius ignored him. He paced in a tight circle, muttering under his breath. He seemed entirely too consumed by his own fury and panic to hear reason at the moment.
Kallias glanced toward Sextus, still standing in the shadows near the doorway, and found him watching the proceedings with wide eyes.
Kallias debated sending Sextus away, but before he could, the guards dragged in a protesting man—one of the cooks.
Kallias had once helped him with an ingrown toenail, and he’d found the man to be warm and personable.
The guards threw him to the floor. Kallias winced.
“Please,” the cook begged, his frantic gaze passing from the guards to the emperor to Drusilla. “I swear, on my life, I’ve done no wrong.”
Gaius surveyed him with cold disgust. He thrust a hand at the remains of the stuffed dates. “Tell me. What is that?”
The man stared at the food. “S-stuffed dates? Please, is there some issue with them?”
“Issue,” Gaius spat in contemptuous mockery. “You have adulterated my sister’s food with walnuts.”
The man went white.
“Are walnuts not forbidden within these walls?” Gaius hissed.
“Yes,” the cook admitted. “I know they make Julia Drusilla ill.”
Gaius took a step closer, and the cook, still on his knees, cringed away, shoulders hunched and gaze on the floor. “Did someone put you up to this? Now that my sister has been named my heir, someone wants to kill her? To do away with our entire line?”
The man lifted his gaze to Gaius’s for a moment in shock.
“No! I swear, it was only a mistake.” The cook wrung his hands in despair.
“A bag of walnuts was included in our last food delivery by mistake,” he confessed, hanging his head.
“I didn’t wish them to go to waste, so I’ve been using them in meals for the staff.
We have some new people in the kitchens, it’s possible one of them forgot and used the walnuts by mistake.
But I should have noticed. It was my fault.
Please, my lady”—his attention turned to Drusilla—“forgive me. I never meant to harm you.”
Kallias instantly respected the man for taking the blame; it would have been all too easy for him to sell out one of his underlings.
Gaius’s jaw twitched as he surveyed the cook, and Kallias tensed, a pit growing in his stomach even though he wasn’t the one facing the emperor’s wrath.
“Who delivered these walnuts?” Gaius demanded.
“Ah—er—I believe the merchant’s name is Publius Varus,” the cook stammered.
Gaius shifted his gaze to the Praetorians. “See if his story changes with the proper inducement. We must discover once and for all if this was an intentional act. And find this merchant. I want him at my feet before dawn.”
The guards saluted and dragged the cook away as he babbled fruitless pleas for mercy.
Icy horror crawled down Kallias’s spine.
He spared another glance at Sextus, whose face now bore a frozen expression of terror.
Kallias regretted bringing Sextus here to witness all this, but he hadn’t expected the scene to devolve into an innocent man being tortured.
And possibly a second man, if the Praetorians succeeded in getting their hands on the merchant.
“Sir,” Kallias attempted, forcing his voice to remain even. “I believe the cook that no harm was intended. I fear harsh treatment will accomplish nothing.”
Gaius made a careless gesture. “Slaves only tell the truth under coercion. Besides, no matter what they do to him, I trust you can put him back together again.”
Drusilla shot a grim look at Kallias, then focused on her brother. Her tight jaw relaxed, and a soft, beseeching expression filled her face. “Gaius, would you agree that since I’m the one who has been harmed, I should have some say in their fate?”
“Do you wish them exiled? Killed? Say the word and it’ll be done.”
Kallias flinched.
Drusilla shook her head. “I don’t wish anyone to suffer on my account. I want you to release the cook and call your guards off pursuing the merchant.”
“This was an attempt on your life!”
“Anyone who knows of my reaction to walnuts also knows it doesn’t cause any actual harm. If someone wanted to poison me, they went about it in a very ineffective way.”
“But they caused you harm. They deserve to suffer,” Gaius insisted.
“That may be your decision, but it isn’t mine.” She held out a hand to him, and took it, handling it like it was made of gold.
“It would pain me greatly if I believed any harm came to them,” Drusilla said. “You don’t wish to hurt me, do you?”
Gaius’s lips pressed together. “Are you sure…just a bit of torture? To make absolutely certain no one put them up to it?”
“No,” Drusilla said firmly. “Release the cook. Don’t hunt the merchant. That is my desire.”
Gaius stared at her for a long moment. Then, he gave a reluctant nod. “As you wish.” He signaled to one of the remaining guards, and the man saluted and then left the room.
Thank the gods. As always, Drusilla had managed her brother with an adroit combination of entreaty and authority. He sent a silent prayer of gratitude toward her for sparing two innocent lives from suffering—or worse.
Gaius’s eyes swept from Drusilla to focus on Kallias, his gaze intense. “You are to watch over my sister until I command otherwise. If she doesn’t improve as you have promised, I must be told immediately.”
Kallias’s heart sank as his hopes of seeing Lea tonight evaporated. “Of course, sir,” he murmured, clinging desperately to his tenuous facade of calm. “I will attend Julia Drusilla until she is well again.”