The Grove of the Caesars

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by Lindsey Davis


  I asked if they had invented Thallusa; they denied it. Donatus claimed that if anyone wanted to invent a poet, they would never choose a woman; there was no money in female poets, not even graphic lesbians. He said he had donated the scroll to the Porticus of Octavia after the old librarian became awkward about his connection with the Didymus scandal, threatening to end their rare-works purchases.

  They asked what I intended to do about Tuccia. They imagined I would challenge her, question her, try to persuade her to confess. I saw no hope in that, even though I now believed she had killed people, while persuading herself and everyone else that her patients needed “help to sleep” or “relief from pain.” And Karus was right: she had murdered for gain. Nobody had noticed what she was doing, which fitted my theory that women get away with murder because they are too clever to be spotted. But, then, I also thought such women are too clever ever to admit their crimes.

  Tuccia would deny it all. Illness is easily explained away. Only one person might have witnessed all that had happened to the family. But if we could find that woman, she might be prepared to talk.

  I went to see Ursus.

  * * *

  He was pleased, once he felt sure I had not come to claim credit for his capture of the Pest.

  “No, I’m going to make your career, Ursus. Listen to me and you could end up nailing two multiple murderers in a week.”

  “I’m interested!”

  “This is a woman.”

  “The Seventh are not prejudiced. We will arrest anyone.”

  “And you so often do … The murderer will never admit what she has done, but someone lives in your district who must have watched how she went about it. This witness can tell the full story and it’s in her interests to do it. So, if you are persuasive…”

  “Does a dog lick its vomit?”

  “Ursus, I think this poor soul has run away to hide here in terror. She fears becoming the next victim. Find a scared woman who lost her husband and two dear little children, who is living near the Via Aurelia. You should be able to do that; it’s the really big road, right outside your station-house.” He grimaced at my cheek. “The murderer is Tuccia, the witness is named Callista. Her dead husband was Mysticus, a scroll-seller.”

  “You do love scrolls!”

  “I have an enquiring mind.”

  “You could do this, Flavia.”

  “My household is going to need my attention.”

  “I can find her,” claimed Ursus, grandly, “so long as she’s never gone out on her own in the evening, and got herself grabbed and murdered in the Grove.”

  I reckoned she would stay indoors a lot. All he had to do was track her down. Then he must persuade Callista that, even if she talked to him, she would be safe.

  “Flavia,” answered Ursus, “any woman is safe with the Seventh Cohort. Are you coming for a drink with us?”

  “How rash would that be? No, thank you. My husband is coming back today, so I am going straight home, like a good wife. Just one more thing. I assume Callista will be concerned about justice for her husband and her innocent children—but do tell her that once Tuccia is formally condemned, she, as the widow of Mysticus, will automatically own the scroll shop.”

  It would be a neat irony if a woman who killed for financial gain was finally informed upon by another woman, to acquire the same inheritance.

  LXVI

  Home.

  A donkey I had never seen before was drinking all the water from the new fountain. Twinkling with polychrome mosaics, it made a superfine trough for this big beast. Dromo and Suza were attempting to entice it away, though they jumped back in alarm every time it turned its heavy head to look at them. Barley was barking a sustained challenge.

  Elaborate scents came from the kitchen area. I could hear Gratus making a to-do with what sounded like our entire wedding crockery.

  Fornix came out, apron-wrapped. He started to lead the reluctant donkey towards the builders’ yard. Larcius and the workmen decided to come to inspect the fountain, after which they covered it up while everything finished setting. Paris appeared and shouted at me that Uncle Tullius would be coming for dinner.

  Marcia was reading a letter, which she hurled aside with a wild shriek. “Corellius has explained everything! He thought I would worry if I knew he was having medical attention. He went to have a special surgeon amputate his damaged leg—then a prosthetic limb fitted!”

  “Of course. A false leg! I am surprised, my dear, you never thought of that.”

  “You’ll miss me if I rush off to him!”

  “So true, darling.”

  Everyone dived back into whatever they had been absorbed in, while I sat temporarily on the dolphin bench. As I reached home, I had spotted an interesting large wagon, apparently laden with furniture, lumbering in from the opposite direction. I was ready the moment that Barley stopped barking. She turned towards the atrium, the end of her tail twitching. Like me, she had heard the familiar key turn in the lock.

  “It’s Master, Barley!”

  The dog moved her tail three inches in each direction. I stood up.

  Barren,

  The shell-hollow

  Of my life

  Without you …

  Tiberius Manlius entered quietly. As the master returning, he gazed around in a rapid summary of what was going on. Romantics might imagine that, after two weeks away, he would come to kiss his wife. Not this one.

  “What’s under the hootch?” he asked, gesturing towards the tarred pall that covered my new building project.

  “Don’t look,” I said. “We think a rat is living there. Besides, the concrete has to set.”

  That didn’t stop him. You know how it is. Somebody tells you not to go to a grotto, so straight away you head over there and start poking around. At least I had let Sosthenes provide a gorgeous shell-lined apse with glass-cube mosaics, plus a fine marble basin. Tiberius would have to concede this was better than green slime. He noticed at once that they had run out of scallops near the bottom edge. But the waterproof concrete, with its classic seven virtues, had set well.

  “Nice job.”

  “I did my best,” I said levelly. “Any boys we allow to play in it can have miniature triremes. They can hold mock-naval battles in their own little naumachia.”

  Our eyes met. “I’ll just go to fetch something,” Tiberius said, turning off towards the atrium. “If that’s all right?”

  “You know it’s all right.” He paused for a moment, assessing my reaction. What was coming would be tricky. I made sure I was inscrutable.

  When he came back, he was carrying the three-year-old. The five-year-old was beside him, clinging to his knee. He had put them back in coloured tunics, the way their mother always did, Daellius in blue and Laellius in green; at least they looked more comfortable than the last time I’d seen them, trussed in white at her funeral.

  They were both crying. I found out later they had been travel-sick in the swaying wagon. They were tired by the journey to Rome and terrified. They had been here before, but then they had witnessed their uncle being struck by lightning, with everybody panicking. Their mother had been in deep distress over their father’s bad behaviour; now she was dead, while he must have given up on them. Their brother had presumably chosen to stay with Antistius, but these two had come with their serious uncle to their scary aunt. Some would say that was brave of them.

  My husband was pleading, though he had no need. There he was, with his grey eyes, warmth of heart, easy attitude. Upon his arrival, for me the troubled world had stilled. Tiberius Manlius was mine and they were his, so they were mine too. A ready-made family. Lucky me.

  Silence had fallen. All our household stood in the courtyard around us, watching. With foreknowledge from Paris, they were agog to see what I would do.

  I knew. No child in my house would ever have to feel as I did as a lost waif in Londinium. Mother would be proud. I went straight over to Tiberius and his nephews, stooped, picked up the secon
d one myself, then wrapped my arms around all three. Since my husband had not thought of kissing me, I gently kissed him. “Welcome home,” I said. “Welcome, to you all.”

  The little boys’ first names were Gaius and Lucius, like the princes, the two princes who were commemorated in the Grove of the Caesars.

  Appendix

  You think that by buying up all the best books you can lay your hands on, you will pass for a man of literary tastes: not a bit of it; you are merely exposing your own ignorance of literature. Why, you cannot even buy the right things: any casual recommendation is enough to guide your choice; you are as clay in the hands of the unscrupulous amateur, and as good as cash down to any dealer. How are you to know the difference between genuine old books that are worth money, and trash whose only merit is that it is falling to pieces?

  You will go on buying books that you cannot use—to the amusement of educated men, who derive profit not from the price of a book, nor from its handsome appearance, but from the sense and sound of its contents.

  Lucian of Samosata,

  remarks addressed to an illiterate book collector

  Epitynchanus the Dialectician, “the Controversialist,” and Philadespoticus of Skopelos are today virtually unknown. Concerned scholars have voiced the hope that when scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum can be unravelled with modern technology, works from these intriguing philosophers, followers of the ancient School of Miletus, will emerge among those that the villa owner chose to leave behind in a heap of rejects when Mount Vesuvius erupted. Until then, no writings that can safely be attributed to Epitynchanus or Philadespoticus survive. Even details of their lives are sparse.

  There is no record of Didymus Dodomos, who rates not even a Wiki stub.

  Of the Arcadian poetess Thallusa, little remains. A widely discredited suggestion has been made that it was in scraps of her work that Samuel Pepys wrapped his Stilton cheese when he buried it to escape the 1666 Great Fire of London. This claim was put forward by Mimsy Bloggins, a romantic novelist. Generally derided, Bloggins appeared in a television documentary, passionately advocating her theory, which gained a following in social media. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Bloggins continued to further her idea through personal appearances on C-list chat shows. She also self-published a five-novel saga envisioning the life of the Stilton cheese while in the custody of Pepys. The original documentary is occasionally shown at 4 a.m. on TV channels at the end of the regular spectrum.

  Another claim made by Bloggins is that four lines of Thallusan verse cited by Flavia Albia form a precursor to “Identity Crisis Blues,” a satirical rock anthem celebrating the introversion, confusion and mental unhappiness of university students in the late 1960s; no copies are officially known to have surfaced.*, †

  Obfusculans the Obscure is too obscure even for modern scholars to write PhDs about him.‡

  Also by Lindsey Davis

  The Course of Honour

  Rebels and Traitors

  Master and God

  A Cruel Fate

  THE FALCO SERIES

  The Silver Pigs

  Shadows in Bronze

  Venus in Copper

  The Iron Hand of Mars

  Poseidon’s Gold

  Last Act in Palmyra

  Time to Depart

  A Dying Light in Corduba

  Three Hands in the Fountain

  Two for the Lions

  One Virgin Too Many

  Ode to a Banker

  A Body in the Bath House

  The Jupiter Myth

  The Accusers

  Scandal Takes a Holiday

  See Delphi and Die

  Saturnalia

  Alexandria

  Nemesis

  THE FLAVIA ALBIA SERIES

  The Ides of April

  Enemies at Home

  Deadly Election

  The Graveyard of the Hesperides

  The Third Nero

  Pandora’s Boy

  A Capitol Death

  The Spook Who Spoke Again

  Vesuvius by Night

  Invitation to Die

  Falco: The Official Companion

  About the Author

  LINDSEY DAVIS is the author of the New York Times bestselling series of historical mysteries featuring Marcus Didius Falco, which started with The Silver Pigs, and the mysteries featuring Falco’s daughter, Flavia Albia, which started with The Ides of April. She has also authored a few acclaimed historical novels, including The Course of Honour. She lives in Birmingham, England.

  Visit the author’s website at www.lindseydavis.co.uk, or sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Map

  Characters

  Rome: The Transtiberina

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Chapter XLII

  Chapter XLIII

  Chapter XLIV

  Chapter XLV

  Chapter XLVI

  Chapter XLVII

  Chapter XLVIII

  Chapter XLIX

  Chapter L

  Chapter LI

  Chapter LII

  Chapter LIII

  Chapter LIV

  Chapter LV

  Chapter LVI

  Chapter LVII

  Chapter LVIII

  Chapter LIX

  Chapter LX

  Chapter LXI

  Chapter LXII

  Chapter LXIII

  Chapter LXIV

  Chapter LXV

  Chapter LXVI

  Appendix

  Also by Lindsey Davis

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  First published in the United States by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group

  THE GROVE OF THE CAESARS. Copyright © 2020 by Lindsey Davis. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Rowen Davis and David Baldeosingh Rotstein

  Cover photograph-illustration by Alan Ayers

  Cover photograph of branches © Ester Kolis / Shutterstock

  Map by Rodney Paull

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-24156
-6 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-24157-3 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250241573

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].

  Originally published in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK Company

  First U.S. Edition: 2020

  * The author of The Grove of the Caesars has seen this poem. Davis, 2019.

  † And she can sing it. Ibid.

  ‡ I bet some idiot academic will try. Ibid (unattributed)

 

 

 


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