A Capitol Death

by Lindsey Davis

  Apparently not. He said he had been at his mother’s house. She and her abominable lover would both vouch for that.

  Leaving wails of outrage rising like steam from a volcanic geyser, I abandoned the janitor to his indignation while I went in to question the dead man’s deputy.

  VIII

  The caretaker’s hut was a single room, fully furnished—what my father calls a bed-and-bucket bunk-up. The bed was a narrow cot; there was no bucket. Instead, since every state employee was entitled to one luxury to show how lucky he was, working for such a compassionate emperor, the caretaker of the greatest temple outside Greece had been allowed a very small table with a short leg.

  Egnatius, the new transport man, leaned on the janitor’s wonky table as he waited his turn irritably. Another wide-bodied, hairy-legged, self-righteous layabout, he managed to be both truculent and smug. His earth-tone tunic had two sleeves, to show he was a level up from menial.

  Gabinus had taken squatter’s rights; Egnatius now owned them as a self-claimed inheritance. He was sleeping in the janitor’s bed, using his bowl and beaker, petting his cat (or more likely kicking it), while defiantly refusing to be ousted. However, that was no reason for him to keep the place decent. His crumbs were on the table and his mud was on the floor. His piss would have been in the chamber pot, but there wasn’t one.

  As soon as I came in, he told me he would not be kicked out by any two-quadrans female who tripped up the Clivus Capitolinus with the purpose of dislodging him. His voice was hoarse from snarling at people.

  I stayed calm. I told him again what my real purpose was. “You want to be careful how you fill Gabinus’ boots,” I said. “It looks as if he was shoved off the Rock. What guarantee you won’t be sent flying down after him?”

  I would not normally threaten a witness straight away. I like to get to know them first. It helps me choose which picturesque death to suggest. Be apt. It does twice the damage.

  Egnatius seemed to have taken over his forebear’s objectionable manner too. “Get lost, bitch.”

  “All charm! Of course, you may end up pitchforked off the Rock simply by public demand.”

  “Why’s that?” They never can resist.

  “It could be you who shoved Gabinus.”

  For a moment the transport man boiled with the same umbrage that had so loudly overcome the caretaker. He was sufficiently intelligent to read my steady manner. I watched him think, then pause. I won’t say he changed, but rather than storm in, he waited.

  If he had killed Gabinus, I reckoned this Egnatius would have planned his actions with care. If he did do it, I felt I stood little chance of breaking him.

  “You took over his job,” I said. While he thought about that too, I organised a seat for myself. There was only one stool; Egnatius was firmly plonked on it. With one hand I swept the remains of a horrible breakfast off the tiny table, then from my satchel I removed a clean napkin which I spread on a corner so I could perch myself on that. An ample woman could not have done it.

  I made sure my pose was not provocative. I adopted the style of an unpleasant spinster aunt. “Don’t bother offering me the stool. I wouldn’t want to sit where you may have farted.”

  I always found it best to establish that a hostile witness was not about to encounter what he expected from an aedile’s wife. Egnatius would gradually work out that it must be a rather unusual aedile who had sent me to poke around. He might even spot that Manlius Faustus had taken an unusual wife.

  I spoke quietly. “You installed yourself in Gabinus’ job, so if somebody killed him, you are the prime suspect. If this case had gone to the vigiles, you would be in a cell right now, shredded by their whip-man—even if you are innocent, as you maintain. If the Praetorians had bothered with their lovely no-questions-asked procedure, you would be queuing outside a lion’s cage, waiting for a big ferocious beast to eat you. So think on. If you want to keep your liberty and life, this is up to you, Claudius.”

  “My name’s Egnatius.”

  “Claudius Egnatius, help me, if you want to help yourself.” Calling people by the wrong name is an old ploy, often productive.

  “You are a very annoying woman.”

  “So my family tell me. They love me for it. Even you will love me, I imagine, if I clear you of this very serious charge.”

  “What charge? There is no charge—”

  “Skip it. You will be charged with murder, unless you give me cause to see someone else as a more likely suspect. Start now. Who had your colleague annoyed so much, they might have killed him?”

  “Gabinus committed suicide.” I glared sternly, eyebrows raised. “Didn’t he?” Egnatius quavered.

  “A witness says no.”

  “What witness?”

  “Somebody public-spirited who came forward. Very believable. Until the killer is apprehended, their identity will be protected.” It struck me I had better warn Valeria Dillia to start keeping quiet.

  Egnatius was weakening. I saw a froth of nervous spittle at the corner of his mouth.

  “Now listen, Claudius—”

  “I said—”

  “So you did. Give me your three names.”

  “Titus Flavius Egnatius.”

  A palace freedman of Vespasian’s era, going by his position and age. I made a point of writing the name on my note-tablet. I could always squash it out later. I added a scribble that he could not read, though he tried hard: all-round idiot.

  “So, Titus Flavius Egnatius, let’s get to it. Why would Gabinus kill himself? You worked with him, did he seem depressed? Don’t say he did. Come off it, I’ve only been investigating this for a day, yet I am sure he had no reason: he enjoyed throwing himself about in a job he thought important, and with a double triumph coming up he was at the peak of his career. Not to mention the money,” I scoffed. “I guess there is a big bag of gold for whoever titivates the chariot?”

  Egnatius, not as intelligent as he thought, made the mistake of boasting about the stupendous reward for pimping the Emperor’s ride. Very gently, I pointed out that he, now he had snatched the job, had put himself in line for this bonanza. Cursing, he saw he had marked himself as the man with a motive.

  I won’t say I had Egnatius eating out of my hand. But from that point he began to answer, even though he did it cagily.

  First, I asked about the sought-after job he held. I said this would help me put together a picture of the victim. I knew it would provide an insight into Egnatius too.

  The transport brief for the Triumph was two-fold: beasts and the vehicles they had to pull. Horses and oxen were collected temporarily in fields on the outskirts of Rome, but immediately before the big day they had to be brought into the city and stabled. Stabling was a nightmare because of all the visitors flocking to Rome. “No matter how often we tell an inn-keeper his place is requisitioned, they just take no notice. Then we turn up with our horseflesh but, bloody heck, there is no room.” I nodded. It would be no good earmarking a billet, only to find the stalls filled with five Sicilians’ mangy mules and a bad-tempered ox from Veii.

  “Fodder’s a problem?” I asked.

  “Not a problem,” he replied tetchily. “Just needs to be organised.”

  “And you can requisition merrily?”

  Annoyed by my questions, the man just growled. Still, I was a daughter and a wife. I knew that scenario.

  Gabinus, and now Egnatius, had to ensure he collected enough animals for the procession. Because it took so long, relays were needed, stationed in side-streets along the route. Nosebags would not suffice; the teams would need a proper respite. Crack squads of grooms had to be ready for discreet and speedy changes.

  Security was vital too, so whenever a cart stopped for some reason, citizens could be stopped from jumping on it to steal its cargo of weapons, jewels, drinking vessels, statues or mechanical curiosities. I knew that at our family auction house they were preparing to sell many lots that had “fallen off” triumphal carts. My father was chipper with
expectation, honing his spiel that anything foreign-looking was “a superb copy, almost as good as the real thing, heavily inspired by our recent triumph.”

  “Loading up on procession day must take a long time,” I suggested. Being related to auctioneers teaches you a lot about this.

  “Our lads have loading the fancy freight down to a fine art.”

  “Mainly good positioning and tying on tight?”

  Egnatius ignored me. “It’s the floats we loathe.” Among the carnival sights that would sway through the streets were representations of towns, forests, rivers, battle-sites—or, at least, battles Rome had won. Along the Danube frontier there had been terrible defeats in recent years. The floats would not be carrying reproductions of the governor of Pannonia being beheaded during an incursion, or Praetorian guards suffering ambush and massacre at Tapae, near the Dacian stronghold. “The idiots make the flats and models top-heavy. Half the time they are impossible even to lift onto the carts.”

  “How did Gabinus get along with those people?” I already knew what the answer would be.

  “He couldn’t stand them. And they bloody hated him.”

  I wondered how many of these carpenters, swag-sewers, scenery-painters, glue-pasters and overall set-designers there would be, but I could not face asking. Reading my mind, Egnatius grinned.

  I braced myself. Do your job, Albia. “Any particular bugbear?”

  Egnatius gave me a name. Successus. A painter who specialised in towns. “He’s a failure!” And Spurius, who did rivers. “He’s a leftover.”

  Then there was Quartilla, a costume-maker, who would be dressing the various captives in typical Chattian or Dacian daywear. Egnatius gave no details on her.

  He did mention Lalus, a gilder, who had to polish the pictorial elements of the special chariot. According to him, a trouble-maker.

  “Is responsibility for this chariot yours overall?”

  “Of course it’s bloody ours,” Egnatius sneered. “It’s a vehicle, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry. I just thought a special chariot might be assigned a special chariot-manager.”

  “It is. That used to be Gabinus and now it’s me. Normally we’re at the palace looking after imperial litters and carriages.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He lost interest in being tetchy with me, as he went off into a rant of his own. “Bloody Domitian wanted elephants. An elephant quadriga—I ask you! Typical.”

  I raised my eyebrows as if sharing his disgust at the crazy idea. “Well, Egnatius, I have seen them on old coins, so it has been done. But getting them to stand abreast to pull must be demanding. Don’t elephants really like to walk one by one in a line?”

  Egnatius looked at me in astonishment. The concept of an educated woman, who absorbed curious knowledge, was completely new to him. He thought I was taking the fish-pickle.

  “Well, we just told the poncy messenger to go back wherever he came from and remind all the crackpots he found there that when Pompey the Great tried to have an elephant quadriga it got stuck in the Triumphal Arch. Pompey Magnus had to climb off his chariot and wait for horses.”

  “Ouch! Nobody wants a repeat performance … So you are doing white horses?”

  “Nice couple of teams from the racing stables,” Egnatius confirmed glumly. “Just hope none of them gets colic. I’m up to my eyes with worry. I don’t suppose you know this, Flavia, but Julius Caesar nearly came to grief once. He was driving past the Velabrum when the axle on his chariot actually broke. What a nightmare. I have to have wheels and a spare axle standing by. Just in case.”

  I did know.

  No point telling him.

  Nor did I mention that I loathe being called Flavia.

  * * *

  “You are giving me a good picture of this highly important job you do,” I said, lashing on the flattery. “So was Gabinus good at it?”

  “He knew his stuff.”

  “Really, or bluffing?”

  Grudging at first, Egnatius felt obliged to correct my scepticism: “He was all right. He seemed as if he couldn’t organise a wine festival in a vineyard, yet somehow it would all happen. I have to hand that to him.”

  “And how did he treat you? I imagine that, as his deputy, he relied on you heavily.”

  “He was poisonous with me.”

  “I am sorry to hear it.”

  “No, he was like that with everyone.”

  “You didn’t enjoy working with him?”

  “I loathed him,” Egnatius told me with feeling. “I’ll tell you straight, I’m laughing my boots off that the filthy swine is dead. But I never killed him.”

  IX

  Before I left Egnatius, I tried to screw more names from him. I said I had heard Gabinus was one for the women, also that he was regularly visited by peculiar types who came on business. His successor looked vague about the women, while implying the business contacts formed no part of his inheritance. I wondered.

  * * *

  Remembering my mental note to warn Dillia to be discreet, I made my way down from the Capitol precinct via the Clivus Capitolinus. At the top of the Forum, I walked past the Porticus of the Consenting Gods, then the Temple of Saturn and the Temple of Peace, to pass back around the prison and the base of the Tarpeian Rock for one further look. Carrying on, I bought a drink at a stall, sipping it slowly while I thought about progress. I handed back the beaker, then retraced my steps to the crowded apartment where the old woman lived.

  The stallholder did not wash the cup, he just shook out any drips and dried it on his tunic hem.

  Mother was right. Never buy drinks in the street.

  * * *

  My witness now had company.

  “Well, well! Valeria Dillia, you sly thing. You didn’t mention you have a follower.”

  “This her?” the follower mumbled to Dillia through his teeth, as he scraped the big outer leaves of a globe artichoke. It was not easy, since he had several front teeth missing.

  He wore civilian dress but had a large sword openly slung around him. He was big, dumb and uncouth, so that and the sword told me: a Praetorian guard.

  “This is me!” I whipped back. I doubted he was Dillia’s son. He had his feet well under her table, though. I decided to set him straight right now. “I am Flavia Albia, wife to the aedile Faustus. My husband has commissioned me to investigate the death of Gabinus. And you are?”

  “This is Nestor,” said Dillia, almost proudly. She was standing beside him as he tucked into the treat she must have specially fetched and boiled up for him. She had provided a small flagon from a wine shop too, though I thought he received the pampering in a rather glum fashion. Praetorians are never much fun, but this one seemed even more morose than normal.

  The artichoke looked fine, though small at the start of the season. At the moment it was all fennel, spinach, figs and grapes. Had this come up from Campania where there are three crops a year? The lucky eater had little bowls of oil and salt. “Nestor is very kindly looking after me since my terrible shock, with what I saw the other day.”

  We all knew she had not been shocked at all. Staring at me defiantly, the Praetorian pulled off the next leaf. The professional bully had enormous ears. When he was in full kit, they would be useful to stop his helmet falling down over his nose.

  “Nestor!” I cried. “Oh, Nestor—I was warned about you!”

  A faint sign of nerves crossed his scarred face, though immediately dissolved. Perhaps those were battle-wounds, but I thought bar-fights.

  “Fame!” He leered, once more self-assured. Then he demanded more anxiously, “Who is saying things about me?”

  I gave him a small mysterious smile as I seated myself daintily on Dillia’s bed. This room was another meagre bunk-up with only one stool. Needless to say, the doting old dame had let the Praetorian have it.

  I saw what was going on here. This must be the guard whom Dillia had met in a bar and inveigled into listening to her story. Instead of shaking her off, he had stuck f
ast. Now she thought it was wonderful to have a big strong lad to look after. He knew how to seem needy. With forty years of taking advantage of people, Nestor was turning up for food and drink on a daily basis. If Dillia possessed savings, he would keep turning up until he had siphoned off her nest-egg. Then he would flit.

  Perhaps I had been an informer too long. Perhaps they were both lonely and had simply clicked. No, get a grip, Albia. He was a classic predator.

  He had already finished the large outer leaves, gathered up the fine inner ones in clumps, pulled out the feathers and gobbled the choke greedily. He ran a fat finger around the oil saucer, licking up the residue. “Now then, Flavia!”

  I applied an interested expression, openly fake.

  He made himself sound, as he thought, helpful and kindly. “You don’t need to worry your little head over what poor Dillia saw on the Rock.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because we, the guards have got this one. Job covered.”

  I sighed. “Wrong, soldier. You, the guards, passed it on to the palace, who had to bring in the aediles, who have turned to me.”

  “Leave it, Flavia. This is my mission.”

  “No, Nestor.”

  “I am going to find out who did that to Gabinus.”

  “No, I shall pursue all the necessary enquiries, which were too difficult for you, the guards. You can stick to what you are good at.”

  I did not say what that was. Intimidation and picking the dirt from between your hairy toes.

  He saw what I was thinking.

  I flashed my annoying smile again. “Now then, Nestor!” I was mimicking his patronising attitude. “It is a relief all round that Valeria Dillia has a noble fellow like you keeping an eye on her. I shall make a note in my report that, without even waiting for an instruction, you have taken it upon yourself to protect this vulnerable citizen. Tell me your cohort?”

  “Third,” he admitted automatically, before he saw that my mention of him in despatches might not be a good idea.