‘And who is it that thus commands?’ asked Locusta, lifting up to her visitor a face which would have had some traces of beauty but for its hard wickedness. ‘It is not to everyone that I supply poisons. Who knows but what you may be some slave plotting against our lord and master, Claudius? They who use me must pay me, and I must have my warrant.’
‘Is that warrant enough?’ said Agrippina, showing her the signet ring.
‘It is,’ said Locusta, no longer doubtful that her visitor was, as she had from the first suspected, the Empress herself. ‘But what shall be my reward, Aug—’
‘Finish that word,’ said the Empress, ‘and you shall die on the rack to-morrow. Fear not, you shall have reward enough. For the present take this;’ and she flung upon the table a purse full of gold.
Suspiciously yet greedily the prisoner seized it, and opening it with trembling fingers saw how rich was her guerdon. She went to a chest which lay in the corner of the room and, bending over it with the lamp, produced a small box, in which lay some flakes and powder of a pale yellow colour.
‘This,’ she said, ‘will do what you desire. Sprinkle it over any well-cooked dish, and it will not be visible. A few flakes of it will cause first delirium, then death. It has been tested.’
Without a word Agrippina took it, and, slightly waving her hand, glided out of the cell. Acerronia awaited her, and Pudens again went before them towards the apartments of the Empress and her ladies.
CHAPTER IV
THE CRIME
‘Une grande reine, fille, femme, mère de rois si puissants.’—Bossuet, Oraison Funèbre d’Henriette de France.
‘Boletos ... optimi quidem hos cibi, sed immenso exemplo in crimen adductos.’—Pliny, N. H. xxii. 46.