‘Yes. Pomponia’s husband works, but he gets in low company and drinks it all away. Every time Niger went there with a purse, he was supposed to warn them it was the last time.’
‘Hopeless.’ Every time someone says this is the last time, it impresses spongers less and less. Even I was seeing the wealthy Julia Terentia as a soft touch, though we had never met. ‘Then Terentia procured further work for Niger, with the Callisti. Let’s discuss that, Galeria.’
‘He should never have done it. The election work was all right, but then it went wrong on him.’
‘You mean, the strongbox? He thought not paying for it would damage his reputation?’
Galeria shook her head. ‘He was upset, yes. But he could have told people the Callisti had had a disagreement among themselves, so it wasn’t his fault. I said no one would care – well, he was only obeying their orders. But something much worse had happened. Something to do with the old man. Niger was going spare. He said he just didn’t know what to do for the best.’
‘Over what, Galeria?’
‘There were two things, really. First, Albia, when he was asked to go and see that body – you know, the one that was found in that strongbox …’ Her voice faltered. ‘The box where some villain put my Niger afterwards.’
I helped her out, as she bit back tears: ‘The Callistus family asked him to go to see whether the first corpse was their father. Niger said not, although I can tell you for certain that it was Valens. So what happened? Did Niger accidentally get it wrong? Was the body too degraded to recognise?’
Galeria was quick to defend him. ‘Well, be fair, Niger didn’t know the father well. He only met him once. And he told me that body was horrible. He could hardly bear to look at it.’
‘But?’
‘Niger was dead set in his mind that something else had happened. He had already been to their estate to see if he could find out why Valens had disappeared. He came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. So he was convinced the old fellow had just bunked off for a few days, in his litter, taking his escort slaves, maybe a tryst with some secret girlfriend.’
I balked at that. Nothing had ever suggested Callistus Valens had had a mistress − or that, if he had, he needed to keep it hidden from his family. Some men like the thrill of leading a double life but everyone said Valens was a dear person. I doubted whether his relations would interfere.
Galeria saw my doubts. ‘Or a gambling party? Men in a barn, playing with counters for a lot of money?’
‘Two problems there, I think. The Callisti all like a flutter, but they generally bet on chariots. More importantly, at the time Valens was perturbed that they were short of cash, after their election efforts went bottom-side up. Valens doesn’t sound like a man who would play games of chance, with meaningful stakes, at the same time as he left his lads desperately trying to recoup funds.’
‘Well, then. My Niger was very soft-hearted. He didn’t want to have to tell those relatives that corpse was their father, not when it was in such a terrible state. If he had said it was, they would have rushed down there. He didn’t want them to look at it. And he wasn’t sure. Albia, he really was not sure.’
I managed not to show what I thought. Did Niger, the soft-hearted idiot, never think that the missing man’s absence would eventually need an explanation? The Callisti would have to find out one day that Valens was dead.
‘He should have just told them, shouldn’t he?’ Galeria quavered woefully.
‘If he recognised the dead man, I think so.’
‘The point is, he couldn’t tell for certain. The funeral director hadn’t bothered to do up the corpse nicely. He was all green and blue and bloated. Only afterwards – and this is the second thing, Albia − someone else said something to him, so poor Niger realised it must have been Valens.’
I sat up slightly. ‘Who said what?’
Galeria saw how significant this was. ‘A man he knew, Albia. Talking about the strongbox at the auction. After Niger bid for it, this fellow came up and got talking to him, then made a peculiar joke. He said that the Callistus brothers had just bought back their father’s sarcophagus, hadn’t they? Niger told him to be more sympathetic, and the man said he’d been told Callistus Valens had had it coming to him. He had had it coming for years and now he had paid.’
I tried to stay calm. ‘Who was this man? Who was Niger talking to?’
‘He wouldn’t say,’ sighed Galeria. ‘Afterwards, talking to me, he felt the man knew more than he should do – he must have been there at the murder. Apparently he was that sort of man. Very strong. Handy with his fists. Up for any crooked scheme, if it would make money. Niger said there was nothing we could do about the situation so he didn’t want me to know any more. It was safer if he didn’t tell me who the man was.’
But I knew who it was. Our staff at the auction had witnessed that conversation. I remembered them telling me they had seen Niger talking to the man in the puce tunic.
That bastard had looked suspicious all along. All afternoon I had worried about what he was up to. I’d watched him bid for The Boy with a Thorn in His Left Foot as if that accounted for his presence. Then he never paid for it. All along, his real interest must have been the strongbox.
‘The thing is,’ said Claudia Galeria, ‘my Niger had a conscience. He was always very straight. I worry that he might have gone to see the man again, and maybe the man didn’t like to be asked about it.’
I believed it. Puce Tunic was stupid to have made his veiled comments to Niger but killers are often stupid. Perhaps, later, he regretted what he had said. He would certainly have seen his mistake once an anxious Niger turned up and tackled him. Cornered and threatened with exposure, a man who had finished off Valens might well kill Niger to silence him. After which he had lacked imagination to think up a new solution and just stuffed the second victim into the same strongbox as the first.
That left me with the urgent question: who was Puce Tunic?
51
There was nothing useful I could say until I discovered more evidence. I agreed to write a notice in the Forum requesting information.
As we drafted out wording, first briefly describing the victim, I mused on how different physically this couple had been. Galeria had now lost weight, presumably through grief, but she remained heavy in the body. I reckoned she ate to fend off troubles. Despite mundane appearances, her life had been a constant swivel between outward complaisance and inner anxiety.
Niger, on the other hand, had been so thin because he lived on his nerves, a man in a precarious profession, yet he had been good at it and was probably more secure than he let himself admit. When we first met, I had thought Galeria mouldered at home in ignorance of his work, but it was clear today that Niger had brought worries to share with her. He had only refused to name the man who knew about the murder of Callistus Valens because of the obvious danger to her.
Would that man see my notice?
I took Galeria with me. I let her watch me select a decent place and carefully chalk up our request: Titus Niger, negotiator, fifty years old, slim build, found lately in the Porticus of Pompey, murdered. For information leading to his killer, his grieving friends will show their gratitude. Contact Flavia Albia, the Eagle Building, Fountain Court, the Aventine.
I remembered that his face was covered with acne scars, but I omitted that as a courtesy.
My original notice about Strongbox Man had been rubbed out by some apothecary to make space for his advert for virility pills. Rome contained quite enough virility.
After Galeria left me, I cleaned the wall and, as if scrawling arena graffiti, I wrote in different handwriting (I have several): Defaulter in puce tunic, I know you and where you live! The threat was meaningless, but it might shake him up.
I had not signed the notice, an omission that probably contravened civic regulations. It also seemed best not to leave a contact address. Apart from thwarting any advert-monitoring aedile, I did not want the killer turning up at my ap
artment. Rodan would probably let him in and serve him wine and almond biscuits.
I had not yet finished adorning public monuments. I do like to be thorough. I amused myself creating other anonymous works of art on behalf of Sextus Vibius. Faustus had not asked me for poster mischief, but he was an innocent. I played rough. The campaign was ending and we needed to turn screws. I discovered wall art came naturally to me.
Have a drink with Dillius, but be careful, he’ll want several!
Arulenus Crescens is the aedile for us, says the guild of good-time boys.
But he doesn’t pay up! sighs the eunuch Veronillus.
All the Forum purse-snatchers are supporting Trebonius Fulvo.
Some vicious rumour-monger had written Marinus misses his wife – or does he just miss thumping her? I scrubbed that out and chalked instead the subtly suggestive, Salvius Gratus is getting married: does his new wife know what I know about him? Dodge the fallout from that, supremely pompous brother of most annoying Laia!
I nearly put up Ennius is too fond of his mother but even I declined that one. It was the really polite way of phrasing a really scurrilous insult, but I knew my own mama would be disappointed in me. A good mother’s influence can be very far-reaching. Almost as far-reaching as that of a bad mother, as Ennius Verecundus and his sisters, the four stroppy Julias, undoubtedly had cause to know.
I strolled along to read the Daily Gazette. It told us the usual censored crud: news of far-fetched military victories by Our Master and God in Pannonia, celebrity births and scandalous elopements, relieved only by some wag denouncing on an unofficial pillar the absence of good poetry, worded as if advertising for a lost kitten: Last seen mewing plaintively in the Minervan Games, when shall our hearts be lightened again by cunningly wrought epithets, when thrilled by sweetly scampering meter – all is now flea-ridden flattery and squeaking drivel framed for tyrants. Someone must have listened to one of the Emperor’s praise-your-Master-and-win-a-prize-from-him competitions. This crtitic was so angry about literary standards, he was risking the order to commit judicial suicide. Whoever he was, I could rule out any candidates for magistracies, and that went from plebeian aedile right up to consul.
Feeling surly about public life (hardly an unusual mood for me), I returned to the Gazette. In the individual notices at the end, I saw that the Callistus family had formally announced their head of household’s death. No details of the attack on him were provided. In place of a funeral, they said a memorial would take place tonight, at a mausoleum on the Via Appia. I decided to go home, rest up for the afternoon, then join them for the ceremony. I could take Valens’s rings to give to them there.
52
I spent that afternoon alone in my own apartment. I did a lot of thinking. It was the best kind: when your body lies at rest, good ideas flow into your brain unprompted.
Afterwards, I had the usual outfit dilemma, trying to decide whether the Callisti would favour white or black clothes for funerals. Whoever you ask will always argue about what is supposed to be traditional. I guessed the women would consider white more fashionable (and flattering), while the men would deem dark colours more appropriate on a sombre occasion.
I went in white. I owned no tunics that would qualify as brown or black. The nearest I had was the colour of damson juice and that had spangles on its hem. I had sewn them on myself so could easily unpick them, but why lose good decoration? Since my white gown had once been criticised as too gauzy, I wore a thick under-tunic, so I would be extremely hot. I sent down to the Saepta and borrowed Patchy again.
It was the most crowded funeral I had been to. Half the Tiber must have been empty of boats and boatmen that evening. Everyone who worked on the water must have known Callistus Valens at least slightly and many thought enough of him to trek out to his memorial. With no body to burn, the function was at least short. It took the form of a funeral feast, to celebrate a man for whom admiration and affection flowed freely.
In the sweet haze of meats being barbecued, I hunted for Primus, determined to give back his father’s rings in time for them to be placed in the urn. In fact Primus and Secundus decided to keep one each. They thanked me, Secundus saying it would help to have these memorabilia. The brothers seemed to be friends again. They told me how the funeral director had been so thoughtful he had even included a finger in the ashes urn, symbolically saved for separate burial as is sometimes done.
‘Yes, Fundanus is a kindly man!’ I agreed gravely. ‘No formality is too much trouble.’
A sacrifice had been made on a portable altar. It stood outside a small moss-covered private tomb, decorated with carved ships and oars. Valens’s sons and nephew placed the green glass urn inside in a columbarium compartment, with prayers and brief speeches. Demountable seats and couches rapidly appeared and everyone sat down for a decent tuck-in.
They were a sensible family. Even their smart wives were moving around the company today, making the right noises, letting serious old cronies of Valens bore them silly with reminiscences, comforting anyone who wept. I thought it a shame Volusius Firmus had been prevented from standing as aedile: from the way he was talking to people here, he would have worked hard. Who knows? He might even have been honest.
The young daughter of Callistus Primus, Julia Valentina, was carefully handing round dishes of funeral meats. After she served me, I said to her father, ‘You brought her up well, I can see.’
‘We’re proud of her.’ As usual he cut off further discussion, making an excuse to go and greet someone. Undeterred, I sat down for the meal alongside Julia Laurentina, so I could ask her about the girl.
Laurentina kept a hand on her pregnant belly, fingers spread, to tell the world she was entering the sacred role of motherhood. The fact it was supposed to be a secret made no difference. I politely asked after her health and condition; she recounted the history of three children she had lost, before or soon after birth, then claimed she was being wise this time, while tearing into a charred leg of some funeral roast and washing it down with herb-infused wine.
I picked at a wheat cake. It was flavoured with cinnamon, very delicate. ‘Young Julia Valentina served me this. She is so very shy and sweet, a credit to her upbringing. I can tell how fond of her you all are … Will you tell me about her? I know her parents are divorced.’
Mellowed by drinking toasts to her dead fatherin-law, Laurentina shot me an astute glance, but started without much of a struggle. ‘The marriage failed pretty well instantly. My niece was born after the divorce. Her father claimed her, as you see, though her mother engaged in a bitter battle to recover the child.’
I was startled. ‘Good heavens. That sounds as if Primus snatched the baby.’
‘No, I did!’
‘What?’
Julia Laurentina looked amused by my shock. ‘I had volunteered to be with my sister during her pregnancy and at the birth. Is that what you came digging for?’
It took a moment for her choice of words to strike me. ‘Valentina’s mother is your sister?’ Which one was this?
‘Julia Optata. Surely you knew?’
‘Actually, no.’ I was even more surprised. All I knew was that Sextus Vibius was polite in public to Primus; Faustus had said they had some connection, which he, culpably, never specified. Thanks for nothing, Aedile. That Sextus had a stepdaughter at the Callistus house might have been useful to know.
It was still unclear why his wife rarely saw her eldest child, though bad feeling between Primus and her might be the explanation. It did add colour to the elusive conversation I overheard at Fidenae between Optata and her sister Pomponia. In that, Julia Optata was hankering for maternal contact with her daughter yet, for some reason, Pomponia had warned her not to press for it just now.
‘I gather there is coolness since the divorce, but do you see anything of Julia Optata?’
Laurentina, who lost no opportunity to be unpleasant, was enjoying my unease with the new information. ‘Sometimes she is allowed to visit our house. Primus
gives her a regulated meeting with her daughter. The two have lunch together in the garden, or something on those lines. She claims Primus makes it difficult, though I think he has been extremely gracious. We don’t encourage such meetings but they are by no means forbidden. Valentina is always upset afterwards and takes days to settle.’
‘And what of her mother’s feelings?’
‘Oh, Julia Optata doesn’t speak to me! She still blames me for taking her baby.’
I chewed another wheat cake, catching crumbs in my cupped hand. ‘And why did that happen?’
‘After Valentina was born, Julia Optata was weak and in a sorry state, very low in spirits, lethargic and weepy. With the birth safely over, I was free to return to my husband. Most people thought I helped Primus to ensure a quiet life here. But no. I judged my sister incapable of looking after a child. While Julia Optata was sleeping, I simply picked up Valentina from her crib and carried her home with me. We organised a wet nurse and she has thrived ever since.’
‘A hard decision for you, though?’ I wondered whether the new mother’s convenient sleep had been assisted by potions.
‘No. I shall never apologise for it.’
I considered their wider family. ‘What does your mother say about all this?’
Laurentina laughed softly. Under white veiling, complicated gold earrings tinkled at some movement. ‘She gave me all Hades for interfering. Julia Optata was her eldest and in those days she could do no wrong. Well, not until our father married her again, into the Vibii, who were old friends of his. Mother was furious he did not consult her. Father died not long after. I suspect the sustained venom helped him into the underworld. Mama was equally wrathful that my sister went along with it, so they fell out too.’
‘Vibius Marinus comes in for loathing, merely for being male?’ I asked, remembering how nastily Julia Verecunda had treated him at that encounter in the Forum. ‘I have the impression your mother does little to further her children’s marriages – even where she arranged them.’
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