The baby was naked, apart from a bracelet of very tiny beads. Now I had captured him he busied himself trying to eat it. I had seen his loincloth back in the basket, where I left it for the same reason that this vigorous infant had squirmed out of it; he had needed changing.
His elder brother and sister were dressed in matching tunics that had probably been cut from one worn adult garment. It was neatly done. No fraying. Hems a good length, not so long as to trip them up, even though infants in poor families need to grow into their clothes. An existing length of braid had been incorporated into the boy’s. Both wore amulets to protect them against the evil eye. They were barefoot. They had dark eyes, with dark curls, so even by the handsome standards of Roman children, they were exceptionally sweet. That would help them in life; from what I knew of recent history, I was glad of it.
One of the things my father had warned me off when he was training me to be an informer was interviewing children. You are heading for strife from their guardians. You can never believe anything they tell you. The twisted ethics that will govern their adulthood are in evidence from when they are six months old. A few nasty monsters may even accuse you of filthy practices.
“I know,” said Falco at the time. “You will think, None of this applies to me. I know what I am doing. Listen to your wise old pa: don’t try it.”
That was more than ten years ago. I had learned in the meantime that, whatever the subject, if he gave advice I should listen. He was certainly right that I would think no sensible rules were relevant in my case.
I should be fine here. I knew two of these.
“Hello again!”
They had forgotten. They looked shy and anxious. Still, everyone had told me they were lovely children. I left them space to run away if they were scared.
“Not playing Dacians today! You are in your own clothes, not those beautiful outfits I saw you showing off to Quartilla the other day. You know what I mean—the costumes for when you are being prisoners’ children on the float in the parade…”
They neither remembered me nor wanted to be reassured. My knowing about the Triumph was not enough. Things were already sticky with the elder two, though I was convinced I would soon win them over. If any passing pervert can woo an infant to go off with him, holding his horrible hand trustingly, surely a nice lady they had met before was no problem?
It was the baby who ruined it. The villain decided to take against me. He began bouncing in my arms, flinging himself around with bruising results. Then he started screaming.
The other two picked up the idea. Soon they were also crying as if utterly heartbroken. Anyone would have thought I had done something dreadful to them.
The old biddy who must have been minding them turned up at a run. She snatched the baby. He clung to her as if he had been rescued from unspeakable doom. His brother and sister flew to her, clinging to her tunic, subtly increasing the level of their tears and terror. Since she now had her hands full, she kicked out at me with her battered sandals.
I tried to explain, but she wasn’t having it. I was seen off. I found myself out in the street alone.
Well, that would teach me. Father was right. Don’t try it.
LIII
Hey-ho. Start a new game of soldiers. At least I had learned something useful. Since I recognised the children, I knew where their hardworking mother was currently employed.
I headed to the Diribitorium. That meant I must turn back across the bottom of the Vicus Longus and through the decayed tangle of republican buildings that has since been swept away, then once again up the Vicus Argentarius. I seemed to be criss-crossing through the same streets interminably today. I was tired of this. In fact I felt tired altogether. I hired a chair. It took longer than walking but I could rest, which meant I could think.
The journey was dire. In fairness to my bearers, the streets were stuffed with official traffic for the Triumph. It paid no heed to the normal laws about wheeled vehicles; this upheaval was for the Emperor, so get out of the way. All the paraphernalia that I remembered Tiberius once cursing was now being finally assembled, both human and inanimate: “Musicians, dancers, masses of incense and strewing flowers. Each full of potential for chaos. Two white oxen to be sacrificed. Spare white oxen for when the originals get tired. Medics to stretcher off people who collapse. Law-and-order located at suitable points for unavoidable arrests…”
With half a day to go, this stuff was already causing chaos. We had to negotiate the carts trundling incense and flowers. It seemed too early to bring the strewing flowers, which would be brown when they were finally chucked at the procession, though those carts were dripping as if buckets of water had been thrown over them. These were lopsided, axle-dropping transports with horrible drivers. The best must have been mustered somewhere ready for the procession.
Open wagons carried musicians and dancers: half-naked, painted, ribald creatures, who seemed already drunk or drugged. Reeking of low morals and weird sickly perfumes, while they travelled towards their early assembly points they rattled sistrums at pedestrians, then twanged stringed instruments mockingly if the pedestrians shouted back. I never saw white oxen. I did hear lowing above the clamour, plus neighing, braying, barking, swearing and occasionally screaming. Anything that called itself a law-and-order detail was standing at a bar counter, watching but keeping out of it. Exhausted pickpockets, taking their break, went over to have a drink with them.
I was lurched into the Vicus Pallacinae, then gave up. Beside a long line of decrepit shops, many with their shutters closed, I stopped the bearers, paid them off, then walked. At the crossroad with the Via Flaminia I could hardly move for men erecting scaffolds upon which sightseers would perch to view the coming procession. Some eager idlers were hanging about already, to make sure the seating matched their requirements. As they demanded extra space for their aunties, I cut off into a large open area where once Rome’s armies would gather; an altar to Mars was sited there. Poor old Mars, Rome kept him busy. We must give him more war than even he wanted.
The space was crammed: vehicles, groups of bored soldiers, roped-off enclosures with stored materials of many kinds, people in normal clothes still trying to go about their daily life, fanciful people who had dressed up in peculiar costumes, foreigners whose odd, brightly coloured attire probably felt normal to them. I stopped to brace myself before forcing my way through.
A wall of heavyweight monuments faced me. Coming up from the river beside Tiber Island were the Theatre of Marcellus and the Porticus of Octavia, with the Circus Flaminius behind them, then the Theatre and Crypt of Balbus and another grand porticus that contained a small temple, behind which lay the Theatre of Pompey. Further on were the Diribitorium and Saepta. All of these mighty works had been destroyed by the terrifying fire nine years before when Titus was emperor. All had been magnificently rebuilt by Domitian.
Taken with his dramatic reconstruction of the temples on the Capitol above, no critic could deny that he had grandified his city with generosity, not to mention skill and taste. Even if the aim was enhancing his own reputation, our tyrannical ruler’s achievements were fine. Some were at his own cost. Perhaps he deserved thanks, even acclaim. I only wished I had not heard rumours that he was coming home even crueller than before.
A double triumph? Once he settled back among us, some people had no idea what we were in for.
* * *
Inside the Diribitorium, the uproar was louder. Everyone was even more frantic than last time. Everything I remembered seeing had altered immensely. Floats were finalised. Half were standing ready on the flatbed carts that would carry them. Nobody was clearing away their equipment yet, but as I passed among the weary workers I sensed there was nothing more they could do. Variation orders for finishing touches, dropped on them by finicking administrators who had no idea, would not happen. Time had run out.
Only the costume-makers were still madly stitching.
With some of the fake captives having last-minute fittings, my
visit was ill-timed. As she demanded that they stood still while she adjusted pins, Quartilla looked flustered; she made no pretence of welcome. When she discovered I wanted to meet Naevia, I was viewed as an utter menace.
“Can’t you leave her alone?” She pushed a Chattian warrior on his way. He was sucking a thin salami stick and eyeing up a Dacian maiden.
“I need to talk to her. I am sorry to do this. I know she has a lot to endure. I understand you were protecting her before, but it is best if things are brought into the open.”
Storing a needle by pushing it through the shoulder of her tunic, Quartilla disagreed. “Albia, her husband died, her brother died, she has no money and she’s pregnant! I need her. She needs the work I’ve given her.”
“The Triumph provides, but once it’s over, people are stranded?” I acknowledged the difficult truth.
“Too damned right. God knows how Naevia will manage then. Don’t upset her any more, or I’ll kill you.”
I said sourly there had been enough killing.
I could not see this ending well. Sometimes my work is hateful. If I started suggesting to Naevia that her brother had murdered her husband, the woman would despair. I would not blame her.
Visibly reluctant, Quartilla pointed her out. I went over and introduced myself. I ought to have spotted her myself: even though she was so short of money she had a long black veil up and over her hair for mourning, like a priest making a sacrifice.
Naevia was sitting on an upturned barrel, speeding her way around a hem that needed shortening. Her stitches were neat, stabbed through the cloth with skill, though her fingertips were red raw from plying a needle too much. She was a sweet-faced, worried-looking, tired young woman. Although her eyes were puffy from constantly crying, she must be striking to look at normally. I could see why Gabinus had hung around, even after he had little use for her.
On edge even before she knew who I was, her wide eyes blinked too much in the shadow of that veil. Her strain confirmed everything I had heard of her misadventures. If there were no physical bruises, I could still see she was a defeated soul, running out of strength. From what I knew of her life, its future outlook was grim.
I said I was sorry for her losses. I only wanted to help by finding out who had caused her grief. She showed no reaction, so I simply started. When I gently pried about the morning when Gabinus died, she said she was working here with the others; Lemni came to tell her. When I tried asking about the night before, when Gabinus encountered Suza, she blanked the subject. Instead she kept talking obsessively about losing her husband. It had been terrible trying to organise his unexpected funeral. He had left her no money. Not that there was anything different in that.
What about the night her brother was killed? She was at home with her children. Next day it was Larth who told her what had happened to Lemni; Larth was, Naevia said, extremely kind to her from then on. He and his wife had promised some financial help with funeral costs, so she could be freed from the moneylenders. Otherwise she had no idea how she was going to manage, even if her other brother helped her out. He had his own life to lead, and now there was a lady friend …
She had nothing to tell me that I did not already know. Two people close to her had died. In any situation like this, I had to look at relatives. But it was clear this woman had neither wanted nor conspired in either of the deaths. Why would she? Naevia was now in even more trouble than before. She had been left in greater poverty, facing much more loneliness.
“Are you named Naevia Gemella? Is Gemellus your twin?”
Almost fearfully, she nodded. “He hasn’t done anything!”
“I never said he had. And what about Lemni—that cannot have been his birth name?”
“No, but everybody called him that because of the work he did. He was Naevius. I must have Naevius on his memorial stone, but it will seem very strange.” She was obsessing about memorials to keep herself sane. Once the plaque was in place, she was likely to fall apart.
“You are a good sister, and Gemellus will be a good brother to you now. People want to help you, don’t worry.”
It was trite, but what else could I say to her?
Her co-workers were watching. They sent her little supportive looks, implying that if I was pressing her too strongly, they would make me leave. Naevia was liked; she was loved; many in her circle tried to protect her. Perhaps that would give her the strength she needed, if she could only see it.
I did not suggest to Naevia that Lemni might have killed Gabinus. I saw no point.
The theory is, check everything, question everybody, push them if they seem reluctant. Sometimes, though, it is the wrong thing to do. Sometimes even an informer has to have a heart.
* * *
I was ready to leave. Seamstresses swooped around Naevia, gathering her into a safe huddle. Quartilla marched me to the edge of the vast hall. It must have looked as if she was seeing me off the premises. In fact, once she recognised that I had not been hard on Naevia, she softened towards me. Before parting, I did tell her my suspicions that Lemni had killed his brother-in-law. Quartilla nodded, though she said nothing.
Then I remembered something. I fetched out the strange piece of metal I had picked up on the Arx, just after we found Lemni’s body. “As an expert in dress, would you have any ideas about what this is? I found it near a crime scene.”
The well-padded woman with that air of competence took my find in her hand. She turned it over and over with gentle fingers. Inquisitively, she pulled at the single thread of fabric that remained caught in it, peering closer. “Brown. That’s a big help! You’ll get in a pickle, trying to match that.” She gave me back the metal object. “This is an aglet.”
“What’s that?”
“A sheath on the end of a lace to stop it fraying.”
I saw that she was right.
“When it was new, it would have been crimped together with pliers…” Quartilla cocked her head, looking wise. “A shoelace would probably be leather, not fabric. This is probably off someone’s garment that they close down the front, not with brooches. My guess would be, it has eyelets. Metal eyelets would make their ties easier to push through, especially with aglets on them.” She touched the single fibre again. “Look after that, if you might want to match it. It’s been in the wars,” she pointed out. “This poor little aglet. Somebody tugged so hard they ripped it off and opened up the metal.”
“The lace itself wasn’t there. Not where I found this. I would have seen it.”
Quartilla laughed ruefully. “All a bit foreign, if you ask me. Most people use a fibula for cloak-fastening. Or if they have ties they just dip the ends in wax. Much cheaper. This is like something I could have put on my Dacians and Chatti. Bit fiddly, though. Foreign,” she reiterated, “or else it comes from some poser who loves metal. Buckles and toggles. Lugs and loops. Any kind of grommet. Stupid male embellishments.” She gave the aglet a look of derision. “The military!”
Then she said it for me: “That isn’t going to help you much, is it, Flavia Albia? Not with the whole of Rome awash with soldiers!”
LIV
I came out of the Diribitorium into streets that were choked and impassable. With no interview follow-ups beckoning, I wanted to go home. It was still only mid-afternoon, yet I felt I had been out for hours. Then, as I set off glumly walking, I heard cries of “Make way, please! Make way, you bastards!” I recognised the voices, with their easy-going attitude that if people did not move of their own accord, they would be barged aside and no compensation paid for broken ankles.
As I turned, I found a familiar conveyance running me down. It was a heavy litter in neutral colours, of such great age it had been used by my grandfather, that unrepentant rogue Didius Favonius, also known as Geminus. I think it was old when he was given it, as some shady payment in kind. Heaven knows what he had done to receive something like that. He used to loll inside on the beaten-up mattress, behind the sagging curtains, pretending to impress customers with his
standing in society. As an auctioneer his standing was so low, nobody was fooled.
The webbing had failed and his bearers were little better. Geminus had let them take the strain when he was tired or tipsy of an evening. They brought him home, either to his house by the Aventine or his big spread on the Janiculan. They rolled him indoors over the threshold; if anything remained in any flagon he left behind in the litter, they were allowed to drink it. That only added to their liverish pallor.
I hailed them. They were glad to pause. My father owned this monster now. It was being humped to his house, Grandpa’s old one, though Falco was not with it since he had been called urgently to the Capitol. Some disaster involving geese, I learned. The sickly bird had died. The goose-boy was distraught. Pa had run off to help him get through it.
Even without him, the litter was lurching heavily. Father had filled it with valuable stock that he wanted removed from the Saepta during the Triumph tomorrow. This booty was being taken to his house on the Embankment for safety. I asked the bearers how much I would be paid for not telling the Aventine Guild of Cat Burglars. They grinned, replying that I might as well pop up for a ride because the weight was already killing them. More would make no difference. I could grab any vases that tried to slide off.
I had to climb in over strongboxes, then fight a bunch of faux Greek statues for a place on the pillows. As they and I snuggled intimately, I pondered my case. Leaning my notebook on a naked nymph’s backside, I went through my evidence. One treasure was a bust of Homer but he turned a blind eye.
Gabinus was murdered. At least I could say I believed my witness: his fall from the Rock was not suicide. I thought it most likely Lemni had pushed him, in which case I could understand why. So long as Larth, an important figure, continued to give his friend an alibi, I would never be able to prove it.
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