Enemies at Home: Falco: The New Generation - Flavia Albia 2

by Lindsey Davis

  Libycus piped up. ‘It was not cooked food, just bits. We collected a few comports from the kitchen. The leftovers. Myla had scraped it together for us on serving dishes, that’s what Amaranta meant.’

  ‘Ah, a cold collage to mix and match …’ My favourite meal.

  ‘The master had never minded his slaves taking unwanted food,’ Libycus stressed, looking anxious.

  ‘I suppose, Libycus,’ I said encouragingly, ‘that was why you personally came home, after you went out and saw your two friends?’ He was eager to embrace the suggestion – and he was faking when he did so. Myrinus and Secundus had told me he was afraid to stay out longer, in case his master wanted something.

  I was still thinking about how a group of slaves could take over the best space in the house and enjoy themselves there. How they did it, apparently, while terrible events happened right next door …

  ‘We were not doing any harm,’ Amaranta assured me, pleadingly. ‘The same thing used to happen in our old house, before Mucia Lucilia was married. She knew what went on. At our house, Onesimus used to arrange it, then he would be with us.’ I knew that Mucia’s steward was still a slave. ‘Just a meal, Albia. People have to eat.’

  ‘So you want me to accept that this nightly gathering was habitual?’ I was not intending to cave in too easily.

  ‘Well, some of us had only been at that apartment for two days.’

  ‘Yes, some of you came when Mucia Lucilia was married … So this kind of meal after hours was not yet a ritual for the conjoined households, but could have become one? You wait until your master and mistress retire for the night. Then you collect somewhere. Eat, drink a little too, if Amethystus can liberate a flagon from the household supplies. I imagine you would only be able to talk very quietly; no laughter, no music, no noisy tiffs.’ So very unlike dinner in most Roman families! ‘Passing bowls around in virtual silence. Not letting spoons knock on pottery. Putting things away and washing up afterwards extremely gently – but making sure you do it, so the mistress doesn’t take exception in the morning. Then you all went creeping off to bed, as if the house had never had its second life.’

  I was embellishing because it made no difference. It all sounded so normal – yet even if this had been a ritual in the making, surely it never happened on the night the couple were killed, not while they were already lying dead on their bed.

  Roscius was not my only source. Their description failed to fit what I had been told by that other witness: Fauna, who lived upstairs. She had told me of commotion, alarm, voices shouting, people running around with lamps. At what point did that happen? The slaves would not know about Fauna and her husband, standing on stools to look down at the courtyard.

  ‘So what is the sequence of events?’ I asked, suddenly addressing Phaedrus.

  He jumped, but managed not to look shifty. ‘We had our meal and that is when the robbers must have come. We found the silver missing and the dead bodies afterwards. When we came out and went to tidy up quietly, like you said.’

  I surveyed him, unimpressed. ‘According to you, the robbers never knew you were all in the oecus, and by the time you emerged, they had been and gone?’

  ‘Must have done.’

  ‘So what happened to the silver and who killed Aviola and Mucia?’

  ‘The robbers did both. Took the goods and murdered our master.’

  ‘Your word against theirs, Phaedrus.’

  ‘They are criminals and we are loyal slaves of a good master.’

  I let Phaedrus think I had swallowed it. ‘So when they deny it, the robbers are lying? As Chrysodorus said to me earlier, “that is what professional criminals are bound to do”?’ All three slaves nodded hard. ‘Well then. You were invisible in the oecus, a place where nobody would ever expect slaves to be, so the robbers missed you. They must have crept around so surreptitiously, you never heard them. But Phaedrus, according to your version, there is one big flaw.’ The tall blond porter realised what I was going to say while I was still speaking; I saw it in his eyes. ‘What happened to your colleague, Nicostratus? When do you say he was attacked?’

  Quick-witted Amaranta moved into the conversation smoothly. ‘He was not with us. We had saved some food for him. Phaedrus was going to relieve him after he had finished, then Nicostratus would come across for his bowl.’

  Libycus took this up: ‘The robbers bashed him when they came in, exactly as we have always said. We all thought he was on duty at the front, and if he made any noise when the thieves got in, we never heard a sound.’

  ‘Just like you never heard a squeak from Aviola and Mucia – even while they were murdered right next door? One wall between you and that horrific crime – I shall have to check how substantial and soundproof it is! … Are you still saying, Phaedrus, that you found Nicostratus lying in the corridor, so that was when you discovered the crimes and raised the alarm?’

  ‘That’s right.’ No; according to what Roscius told Faustus and me, that was wrong.

  ‘So, Libycus –’ I turned suddenly to Aviola’s body slave, ‘– you must have come home before the thieves struck? Nicostratus let you in before anything happened? Yes?’

  Libycus had a wild-eyed moment, but nodded.

  I was terse. ‘Frankly, that fails to fit the timing I had from your two friends. You are supposed to have seen Aviola to bed – helped him out of his party clothes and so forth, blew his precious nose nicely − then you went out. Secundus and Myrinus told me you spent a lot of time with them, and it was very late when you left.’

  He had no answer, merely muttered that I must have misunderstood what his friends said.

  We were going around in circles. I could not see what these slaves hoped to achieve here. All they seemed to want to say was that the thieves had been unaware of them because they were closeted in the oecus. It was a good-sized hall, and I could accept that their presence went unnoticed if they were behaving very quietly. But they failed to shake my belief in what Faustus and I had been told by Roscius.

  The slaves still maintained the robbers carried out the crimes. For that to be true, Roscius must be a robber, a killer and a blatant liar. He was a habitual denier of his gang’s guilt, yet I still felt he had told the truth about that night.

  39

  I returned to the apartment, to find cypress bushes either side of the front doors and a corpse in the atrium: Polycarpus. Although he lived upstairs, the Aviola executors must have allowed him to be presented to mourners here. He was lying on a simple bier on the marble table, which at least meant that table had a function sometimes. He had been dressed in a plain white toga, and placed with his feet towards the door.

  There was a strong smell of incense but I was glad to learn from Dromo that the funeral was to be tonight. According to strict tradition, it should take place on the eighth day after death – but tradition tends to be ignored at the height of summer. Don’t start complaining about the decline in religious observance. You try living for a week with a dead body lying in your house, in the middle of June in Rome.

  I love the potential of a funeral. I had missed seeing Aviola and his bride going to the gods, but when their steward was cremated, I made sure I was right there. For an informer it can be vital. While people have to stand for hours watching a corpse burning, something in the insidious scent of the oils – and their boredom – is apt to loosen tongues. Even if they say nothing, the way people behave can be revealing.

  I went upstairs and spoke to Graecina, who was getting ready. I helped arrange her veil, and since someone had to pay for this funeral, I asked how she was placed for money; she told me the family had savings tucked away. She and Polycarpus had been careful to provide for the future. (I noticed she said they had made financial plans together.) They had been an up-and-coming family, but were mindful how easily they and their children could be ruined by fate. It was clear, however, the widow and children would not face immediate hardship after their loss.

  What they did need was social support.
That was being provided by Galla Simplicia. She had even suggested Graecina might like to work for one her daughters. I did not mention that Polycarpus had told me the daughters were spoiled. Graecina was a free woman and had the right to quit if she found she hated the position.

  Since tonight’s event was private, she also had control over who came to her husband’s funeral. Myself, I would have liked the slaves to be brought from the aediles’ office. I wanted to observe reactions. I offered to make overtures to Manlius Faustus, who could certainly have arranged it had there still been time. Graecina refused, I think because they were so closely associated with the deaths of Polycarpus’ master and mistress. She understood that there could be no accusation of them being involved in killing her husband, yet she was obviously prejudiced. If, as I suspected, Graecina started life working in a bar, her own background would be regarded as shameful; it was interesting that she chose to look down on slaves. Everyone needs someone to despise.

  Graecina seemed to have made most of the funeral arrangements herself. She was organised. I wondered whether she had learned from Polycarpus, or whether that was always her character and he had liked it in her.

  I managed to get some rest before the formalities started. I could have done with more. Informers have to be tireless, and work is unpredictable. You sometimes find nothing to do with yourself for a week, then you have a day that never seems to end. This was to be one of those.

  Graecina wanted a ceremony with ‘nice people’, so she did invite Galla Simplicia, plus Galla’s cousin and all three of her children. The pregnant Valeria did not stay to the end, but both she and her husband thought it right to show their faces at the start. Mother’s Boy and the younger sister did stay. They were pleasant; even he behaved to the widow with good manners. Though Galla Simplicia had complained about the difficulties of bringing up children single-handed, she seemed to have done a good job.

  Graecina was accompanied by her own young children, of whom there were two, a shy little boy and a girl who whimpered ceaselessly, though who could blame her? Both were only infants; they would never see their father again and must be terrified of the change that would devastate their once-settled lives. They found the walk to the necropolis too long and standing for several hours at the tomb tired them even more.

  Present when we left the house was a large number of neighbourhood associates of Polycarpus, people in trade whom he had known and dealt with in the course of his work. They may not have fitted Graecina’s definition of ‘nice people’, but they all spoke of her husband with respect. I was there, shadowed by Dromo. Of the Aviola household, there was no time for anyone to return from Campania, so we were only graced by Myla, who attached herself to the procession as it was leaving, possibly unasked. She walked at the back, beside Graecina’s slave, Cosmus.

  As we made our way, under cover of the racket from a couple of hired musicians, I took the opportunity to ask Dromo how he had managed when I told him to make friends with Cosmus.

  ‘No use. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me. He’s peculiar.’

  I scoffed that that could be said about many people.

  ‘Who? You mean me?’ demanded Dromo, his field of vision as always confined to his own world.

  ‘No, the sun does not revolve around you, Dromo. I meant generally, there are a lot of odd people.’

  I refrained from saying that rebuffing Dromo could be seen as sensible. Even so, Dromo gave me a sideways glance, as if by now he reckoned he could work out what I was thinking.

  When he believed I was looking the other way, he turned around and made a rude gesture at Cosmus. Cosmus gave back as good as he got. Myla aimed a smack at Cosmus; I would have done the same to Dromo, but he had sidled out of reach. There were about two years between those boys, but otherwise I could see little difference.

  No, that was wrong. I noticed, with interest, my attitude had altered. In an insidious way, through my dealings with Dromo he had become ‘mine’. Both young slaves behaved equally badly, but I felt more lenient towards him. I didn’t even own him.

  This must have been how the idea developed that slaves should be considered part of a family.

  The chosen necropolis was the nearest to the Esquiline Gate, but since the city boundary had shifted with time, we had to go out, cross the Fifth Region, and pass onto the Via Praenestina. As the bier passed the Second Cohort’s station house, Titianus and a group of his men marched out and joined us, looking sombre. It was neatly choreographed. They must have had a watchman looking out for the procession. The vigiles like going to funerals. It’s a day out. Titianus was not the type to come in the hope of spotting something useful.

  I was constantly looking for clues, of course. However, I never noticed any, or none I could interpret. At least I knew I tried.

  We sent Polycarpus in a haze of myrrh to whatever gods he had honoured. He may have had none at all, but everyone has gods imposed on them at their funeral. This is the divinities’ revenge for lack of belief.

  When at last the flames died down, the ashes were gathered by none other than Marcus Valerius Simplicianus. Initially surprised, I realised it was proper. Aviola’s long-lashed son and heir had assumed the position of head of household; that made him patron to his father’s steward, and under his mother’s eagle eye, he carried out the necessary formal duties. He did it with due care. He conducted a sacrifice on a portable funeral altar. He made a polite speech, perhaps written by Sextus Simplicius for him, judging by the anxiety with which the cousin listened to its delivery.

  I thought Sextus Simplicius was itching to take over. But this was Rome. A man of twenty-five inherited the paternal role even if he was a swine or an idiot. Valerius did tell a story of Polycarpus carrying him around on his shoulder when Valerius was a child and Polycarpus not yet a freedman; it made a touching anecdote, which the young man recalled with apparent sincerity. I started to have more feeling for these people as a long-established family, a family crushed by the tragedy of having three members murdered.

  In theory it was four members, but I knew I was the only person here who gave a thought to the battered door porter.

  There were grand tombs in this necropolis, though we had gathered by a simpler brick and tile tomb. The ashes were deposited in an urn in a multiple columbarium where the remains of Aviola and his bride already stood in a cubbyhole, among flowers that had only half withered since they were placed there as offerings. At one point, I noticed that Valerius Simplicianus stood alone in front of the larger, more expensive urn that contained his father’s ashes; he raised his hands, praying quietly. If he had been away in Campania with his mother, he must have missed his father’s funeral. I was pleased to see that even an effete playboy could honour his father. His mother noticed too; Galla turned away, hiding her face in her stole, as if even she was surprised and moved to tears.

  Graecina announced she had ordered a large inscription for Polycarpus. She insisted on reciting everything it would say (it was currently with the stone-cutter) and describing alternative wordings that she had considered. She was losing her grip on her emotions. As she laboured, Galla Simplicia went up and hugged her, to rescue the situation. Unable to continue, the widow broke down in floods of tears. Galla’s younger daughter and I distracted the two little children; they came to us willingly then simply clung to our skirts in misery.

  While we all waited, I gazed around the wider scene. Bodies cannot be buried inside the city boundary, so you always have that contrast between the tragic intimacy of the funeral and normal life as it continues nearby. The Via Praenestina was a busy road. As we gathered, many travellers passed on the highway, some on foot, some riding mules or donkeys. Some gawped, yet others seemed quite unaware of what we were doing. Commercial carts were already starting to gather, waiting to be let into Rome when the wheeled vehicle curfew lifted that evening. Occasionally, drivers jumped down to stretch their legs, staring at us curiously. One even relieved himself in full view during the oration.
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  The necropolis was as mixed as they always are, with grandiose monuments for millionaire families lining the main road, but humbler tombs packed in among them. And because people liked to live in the countryside, yet as close as possible to the city for convenience, there were the usual villas backing up against the tombs, built so close they were almost part of the cemetery. They were handsome, spacious places, some no doubt owned by imperial freedmen and women, or simply homes to people who wanted a pleasant rural situation, with guaranteed quiet neighbours.

  I knew that when the Gardens of Maecenas were first created, bodies from the old graveyard had been dug up and reburied here. Broken into higgledy-piggledy pieces by inconsiderate workmen, those long dead bones would have worried me if I lived here. But people can overlook a lot, to gain covetable property.

  Eventually Graecina stopped weeping, exhausted. Her considerate patroness released her, mopped her up, then invited us all to light refreshments back at the apartment.

  40

  The two chairs in the garden courtyard had been joined by more. I was starting to feel obsessed by whether anyone would ever put any of this seating away again. With Polycarpus gone, who was there to insist on it?

  In a room off one of the porticos stood tables with a buffet. It was informal; if Graecina followed tradition (if she could afford to), there would be a proper feast on the ninth day. Tonight, people took up their own bowls then servers helped them to their choice from grand platters. Light, fragrant food was provided, substantial enough for anyone who was hungry after several hours at the cremation (me, for instance) but not too heavy for mourners who were suffering emotionally. When you grieve, it is so easy to get heartburn.

  It was all organised by Sextus Simplicius’ steward, the competent Gratus. Nobody seemed to realise the irony that Polycarpus had been on the verge of losing his own position to the absent Onesimus, and of supplanting this same pleasant Gratus.

  His presence as supervisor, bringing staff from the Simplicius home, made me ponder. When the mourners had been served and he could relax, I approached and asked quietly, ‘Gratus, tell me: was it your staff that Aviola and Mucia borrowed for their dinner on the night they died?’