The Grove of the Caesars
Page 32
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 MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
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)