‘Understatement!’ Laurentina chortled frankly. ‘Everyone knows how much she interferes. At the moment she’s determined that both my sister Terentia and I will leave our husbands.’ Terentia, the rich one, was now the only one of the four sisters I had not met. ‘According to Mother we should marry them, make them dependent on us, then leave them in the lurch. We’re all constantly nagged about it. At least Mother will leave Pomponia alone now she has escaped from Aspicius.’
‘So tell me about that. I gather he’s handsome but given to fights. Did she leave him because he frightens her?’
‘Oh, he does! Mind you, he’s always been the same so we can’t see what’s different this time.’
‘The baby,’ I deduced. ‘Do people realise where she has gone into hiding?’
‘It’s pretty obvious – especially since that fool Vibius made his public pronouncement and told the whole world. His wife will beat him up over that, now she is home with him.’ Laurentina saw my expression. ‘Julia Optata will be furious he was so stupid.’
‘All a sorry story of friction!’ I commented. ‘But you and Volusius Firmus have found genuine happiness?’
Laurentina groaned with relief. ‘I can’t tell you how it felt to come to a house full of peace and good feeling! I will never give that up. Vibius suits me fine.’
‘And your sister Terentia feels the same about her husband?’
‘She can do as she wants, of course. She has money. Mother never forgave her for going off and finding herself a millionaire first time round.’
‘I did hear a snide rumour that her second husband sponges off her?’
‘He’s a joke. Still, what if he does cost money? She can afford it and he is what she wants. He drinks,’ snapped Laurentina, swigging wine herself. ‘Perhaps he guzzles to obliterate the fact that our terrible mother is endlessly trying to get his dear wife to leave him while, actually, he is attached to my sister and cannot bear to lose her. Everyone is so sure he cares only about Terentia’s money that they don’t see his loyalty. He truly loves my sister and she him. Is that so unbelievable? That was why she married him. In our family some of us treasure love. We have seen what happens without it. My mother,’ Julia Laurentina announced, as formally as a trial judge, ‘is an unforgiving, brooding, vindictive, manipulative bitch. She never forgets a slight and devotes herself to working against those who offend her, stand up to her, or boldly ignore her.’
I was thoughtful. So here we had a situation in which two of Verecunda’s daughters (Laurentina and Terentia) had defied her and were sticking with their marriages while a third (Pomponia) had just given up on a man who seemed a threat. What about the fourth? ‘Does your mother want Julia Optata to leave Vibius Marinus?’
Laurentina shrugged her shoulders. Her white stole descended and she replaced it gracefully, paying more attention to it than to me.
‘That could explain some tension in their house,’ I speculated. ‘I’ve heard Julia Verecunda called the mother-in-law from Hades, excuse me saying so. Julia Optata has not been forgiven for making a happy second marriage?’
Laurentina then bestirred herself. She flashed me another of those wry glances. ‘That assumes you think she and Vibius are happy!’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I know what she’s like.’ Much as I wished it, she did not elaborate.
I sat quiet, nursing a wine cup, which I did not drink from, while my companion slumped, lulled by funeral wine. Eventually I reminded her of her secret suspicions the first time I saw her. ‘Julia Laurentina, you feared from the start that the strongbox body might be your fatherin-law, didn’t you?’
‘And wasn’t I right?’ she snarled, more her previous snappy self.
‘Were you aware Valens had an enemy?’
‘Everyone loved him.’
‘Yet somebody went after him. Someone lay in wait and hauled him back to Rome. Whether they intended to kill him is uncertain, but they did, after which they stuffed him into that chest to rot. So somebody really did not love him.’
Julia Laurentina gave me a wide-eyed unpleasant stare. ‘Oh, Flavia Albia, do you say somebody hated him?’
I almost felt she was taunting me for some error on my part, even if it was simply my ignorance. ‘Do you know who? Are you protecting them?’
‘No.’
‘No idea even who it might be?’
Her answer was to stand up and leave the table, becoming impossibly high and mighty. ‘This is my fatherin-law’s funeral. I suggest you stop your vile theorising right here.’
She was not sober. There could be several reasons for that: she was simply a lush; she was covering some personal unhappiness; or she did not want to face up to what had happened to Callistus Valens. I thought the latter. But she did not intend to tell me, and I would not break her resolve. She was correct: this was not an occasion for me to persist.
However, she suddenly turned back to me. ‘One thing is certain,’ she announced dramatically. ‘If we ever know who caused the death of Valens, this family will deal with them!’
I acknowledged the bravado with a cool nod. In my business, you hear things like that at funerals all the time.
53
Not long afterwards, I left discreetly. I had shown my face. I had returned the rings. There seemed little chance of shedding more light on the death of Valens or the subsequent murder of Niger.
As I rode Patchy slowly back along the Via Appia, thoughts of Titus Niger gave me pause. Was it possible the surviving Callisti believed Niger had had some involvement in what happened to Valens? If they had such brooding suspicions, what happened to Niger himself could be the result. They would want to avenge their father. The three Callisti were hefty men who knew their minds and would not shirk a duty. I could entertain the idea that they might have killed the agent. It would be appropriate retaliation to incarcerate his body in the strongbox that had once contained their much-loved head of household.
Why would they distrust Niger? Perhaps because, like me, they noticed him talking to Puce Tunic at the auction. Racking my brains, I thought they had left the scene after that, not before. Niger was a relatively new employee for them, untried at best, and Primus had distrusted Niger’s report after viewing Valens’s body. If the Callisti suspected Puce Tunic of involvement in Valens’s death, they might view Niger’s speaking to him as proof of collusion. From what Galeria had told me, there had been no collusion, but the Callisti had not heard her story and, anyway, they were hot-headed.
Keen to solve this puzzle, I realised I was close to the villa of Claudius Laeta. It was evening, though not late. It seemed a perfect opportunity to call and see whether he had sent that persistent man to me at Fountain Court.
I was to be cruelly disappointed. The great double doors to the fine retirement villa were now swathed in dark garlands. Two sombre cypress trees stood at either side of the entrance. I knew before I knocked what the story would be. Claudius Laeta, the mighty imperial freedman, had gone to the gods of his own accord before Domitian could require it of him prematurely. He had lost his feud with the upstart Abascantus. He would be unable to assist Faustus and me. For Tiberius Claudius Laeta, there would be no more plotting.
54
My father’s old crony had remained meticulous in his final illness and, though unable to write, he had summarised everything he had discovered, leaving a long message for Faustus and me in the charge of his son. He, too, was an imperial freedman, working in a secretariat. The slaves at the villa, who obviously respected their late master more than his son, sneakily gave me detailed instructions for finding Junior in his workplace lair, even though he had tried to put me off.
I had to go to Domitian’s Palace. At least I knew the Emperor was not there, but still abroad. He rarely lived in Rome, preferring his fortress villa out at Alba Longa. That had not stopped him having another wondrous complex created for him here by the great architect Rabirius. I had to leave Patchy at a cryptoporticus gate and climb the steep Palat
ine on foot, through a long covered corridor. At least with the Emperor away, the Praetorian Guards were relaxed. My father had many a tale of having to bribe or bully his way past them, but today they were so relaxed I never saw any.
People came to the Imperial Palace to gawp at its inventive rooms with their exquisite décor. The crowds left behind dust and detritus to be swept up from the multicoloured marble. That meant I could borrow a broom and slide myself into the bureaucratic areas. The Palace slaves wore white, so my funeral outfit came in handy. All you have to do is keep your head lowered and look miserable while you continue very slowly sweeping. Everyone thinks you are a domestic slave. They don’t even lower their voices while discussing their best friend’s adultery. They pay over bribes right in front of you. If I had wanted to assassinate Domitian, I could have gone all the way into his bedroom and done him in with the borrowed broom.
I had good directions and soon found my way to the right office. It was a massive space with similar polished marble to that in the public rooms, but had comfortable loungers for bored bureaucrats to snooze on. I swept around these noble reading couches conscientiously before emitting a gentle cough, leaning my broom against a stupendously ornate scroll cupboard, and telling the lone occupant who I was.
His name was Tiberius Claudius Philippus. This was not his own suite; he was borrowing the élite workspace of Abascantus, who was still composting leaves elsewhere in disgrace. ‘Practising?’ I asked satirically. Philippus took it badly. I dragged up a seat with arms and feather cushions, which soon had me sneezing. ‘Is Abascantus ever coming back?’
‘My sources expect him to be replaced by Titinius Capito, an equestrian.’ Domitian was aware that the imperial freedmen, an intelligent bunch, disliked him. He was starting to get round that by appointing new men from outside to high positions. It was a good opportunity for the middle rank – if they liked living dangerously.
‘What do you think of Capito?’
‘I cannot comment.’
‘Oh, you despise him!’
Laeta’s son omitted comment on that too.
He was bony, spare, between thirty and forty. Olive-skinned, he had a long face with a straight nose and fine eyes; I guessed his mother had been a beauty, no doubt an exotic slave who also served at court in some capacity. She could have been a topless wine waitress, but I did not rule out an intellectual role, librarian or correspondence secretary for one of the imperial women.
Philippus wore heavy white imperial livery, even though the Emperor was absent so he could have dressed down. Or dressed up, had he been a party person. Clearly not. He seemed joyless, though I gave him the benefit and called it grief for his father. Ambition, and probably rivalry with Laeta, oozed out of him. That must have been why he was working here alone, when everybody sensible was having dinner.
He began briskly: ‘Now you have come here, despite my imprecations, let us despatch the task.’ He told me his father had wanted me to know the history of the Callistus family.
‘Yes, it looks sweetly intriguing,’ I agreed, deliberately frivolous.
Philippus indicated with a scowl that intrigue was not his medium.
‘Please listen carefully to save me having to repeat myself.’
‘May I take notes?’
‘Why not? Everything is in the public domain. My father had to dig for it, however. I hope you appreciate his extensive work on your behalf, despite his poor health.’
‘He enjoyed research. I expect this little exercise cheered his misery in his last days.’
With a frown, Philippus placed bony elbows on the smoothly polished citron wood of Abascantus’s office table, putting his fingertips together. I broke in to say, ‘My prime consideration is to discover the fate of Callistus Valens, who has died in murky circumstances.’
‘I shall clarify that.’
‘Go ahead, then.’ I beamed graciously. I could pretty well hear his teeth grinding.
He recited what he had to tell me, with no recourse to notes. Being a bureaucrat, he had the good manners to pause if my shorthand lagged behind, though he sneered when it happened.
‘Once there were two brothers, Callistus Valens and Callistus Volusius, also two sisters, Julia Firma and Julia Verecunda. Julia Verecunda passionately wanted to marry Callistus Primus. He never encouraged her, but she pursued him obsessively.’
‘I bet that made him avoid her!’ I interjected. ‘She will not have liked him saying no. She always expects to get what she wants.’
‘Valens rejected her. He married someone else, a thoroughly decent woman, by all accounts, and the couple were extremely happy.’
‘I like that,’ I said gravely, thinking of Manlius Faustus. ‘I like people to find one another and live happy lives together.’
‘You are very romantic, Flavia Albia.’ A criticism, I gathered. ‘Eventually Valens’s wife died.’
‘Well, at least she died happy.’
Even though I kept disturbing his flow, Philippus was forced to smile. He carried on gamely: ‘Julia Verecunda was not merely spurned. She and her sister had never got on. They fought one another from childhood. After Julia Verecunda was rejected by Valens, her sister upset her further. Julia Firma married his brother, Callistus Volusius.’
‘Oh, sneaky! Was that deliberate?’ I wondered.
‘Whether it was or not, they, too, were happy. For Julia Verecunda that must have been even harder to bear. She took herself off and married Ennianus Optatus, generally regarded as mild-mannered.’
‘More fool him for having her. Their son is Ennius Verecundus – the Mother’s Boy candidate for aedile.’
‘Precisely.’
‘So far, so clear.’ And doom-laden, I could already see that.
‘It gets muddier,’ gloated Philippus.
‘I thought it might.’
‘Listen, please, Flavia Albia. The two brothers were well established and well liked in the community. Callistus Valens ran a shipping fleet on the Tiber. Callistus Volusius had a boat-building business, which passed to his son after Volusius and his wife Julia Firma both died. At that point, Julia Verecunda suddenly initiated a thaw. She and Julia Firma had continued to feud until her sister’s dying day, but for a short period Verecunda apparently mellowed. Perhaps losing her sister was the reason.’
‘Or a convincing excuse,’ I scoffed.
‘Mother’s Boy,’ said Philippus, becoming more human as he picked up my nickname, ‘has four sisters. They, and their marriages, are important. To trace their relationships, my father had to draw a chart.’
‘Wonderful! May I see it?’
‘When you leave.’ Philippus had no faith in visual aids. Old school – an idiot. I cursed, but I could wait. ‘When Verecunda had her theoretical change of heart, Valens accepted her overtures. As a result, the Callisti took three of Verecunda’s daughters in marriage.’
‘Three!’ That was surely overdoing it.
‘One daughter was given to the newly orphaned Volusius Firmus and, perhaps more surprisingly, two other daughters married the two sons that Callistus Valens had fathered.’
‘Primus and Secundus,’ I spelled out. ‘This I know. The marriage of Volusius Firmus and Julia Laurentina survived; she is currently pregnant. The other two unions rapidly failed, with unhappy divorces. That may have been caused by Julia Verecunda’s poisonous influence on her daughters.’
Philippus nodded. ‘Cynics think she always intended to cause grief to the Callisti, as a punishment for Valens having refused her.’
I nodded. ‘If so, the most scandalous breakdown will have particularly pleased her: when Julia Pomponia, who was the wife of Callistus Secundus, left him. Ran away and married a hod-carrier, hunky, but trouble. Aren’t they all? A building-site Adonis. One of the other sisters now has to give them cash handouts. They have just produced a child, but are estranged.’
‘Julia Pomponia and one Aspicius,’ agreed Philippus. ‘Callistus Secundus has regarded Pomponia very bitterly ever since s
he deserted him. His brother, Primus, similarly loathes his ex-wife, Julia Optata.’
‘By whom he had a daughter, Julia Valentina. Acrimonious custody battle,’ I said. ‘I have seen the girlie – she looks normal, considering the permanent bad feeling between her parents. Valentina’s mother, Julia Optata, took as second husband Vibius Marinus, the candidate my friend the aedile is supporting. Marinus and Primus seem to have no quarrel.’
‘Unusual in this family!’
‘I don’t know why Primus ended up on such awful terms with Julia Optata. People say they were simply young and ill suited. But I learned yesterday that, understandably, she has never forgiven the Callisti for taking away her newborn baby.’
‘My father tried to look up lawcourt records,’ said Philippus. ‘He found none. Bitter or not, the custody battle must have been settled privately. Nor is there anything in our records to explain the divorce.’
I smiled. ‘And Domitian takes such a keen interest in people’s divorces! Still, they wouldn’t be the first plebeians who don’t believe in lawyers … I am starting to see why your admired father, Laeta, said the election list was too closely interwoven.’
‘My father believed Firmus standing for aedile led directly to the death of Callistus Valens,’ Philippus told me. ‘If you are as quick as you seem, Flavia Albia, you may wonder whether there is still feuding within this complicated family.’
‘Oh, no doubt of it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Clearly, things came to a head during the election campaign.’
Once again I had jumped in, annoying Philippus. ‘The situation became vitriolic. My good father wanted to impress upon you Julia Verecunda’s lasting hatred for Callistus Valens.’
‘I hear you,’ I assured the po-face. ‘Candidate rivalry must have been a nightmare. On one side, the Callisti must have strongly opposed Ennius Verecundus, whose horrible hostile mother is his most visible supporter. She in turn would have opposed Firmus, and also Vibius. Then when Firmus was forced to drop out of the contest it placed Ennius more securely in the running.’
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