Saturnalia

by Lindsey Davis

  Mastarna looked savage. But again his tone stayed level: ‘No, I did not carryout a post-mortem examination on Gratianus Scaeva. Nor did I seek to do so. Cutting up corpses is illegal, young woman. Apart from a short period, in Alexandria, it always has been.’ He made Alexandria sound a pit of depravity. That would be news to the learned liberals at the world’s greatest library.

  I was pretty sure that Scythax, the Fourth Cohort’s vigiles doctor, had more than once conducted anatomical research using the remains of dead criminals, but I rettained ttom saying so. When the criminals had been thrown to the lions, not much of their corpses remained for Scythax to play with anyway.

  It was my turn to tackle a frog in my throat. ‘Tell me, Mastarna: did you attend Veleda too? She’s on the run, and it is important for me to gain some idea of her physical condition.’

  ‘The woman was hysterical, in my opinion.’ Mastarna sounded curt. I saw Helena bristling. Unaware of it, Mastarna carried on condemning himselPS ‘Hysterical in the medical sense. I diagnosed a classic case of “wandering womb”—’ I had heard Helena raving against doctors who dismissed all female ills as neurotic, and she particularly loathed the Greek idea that women’s organs moved around their bodies, causing a kind of suffocation and hence a hysteria that explained any female symptoms, whether piles or athlete’s foot. Her set face was eloquent: to suggest that a woman with a headache has her womb between her ears proves that the doctor has decayed matter where his brain should be… ‘The woman refused to succumb to an internal examination.’ As Helena visualised Mastarna offering to subject Veleda to a vaginal groping, no doubt conducted with a crude expanding metal uterine probe, she took a deep angry breath

  I intervened quickly: ‘I believe Veleda had asked for trepanation. Was it your suggestion?’

  ‘Trepanation was not carried out.’

  ‘Were you willing to do it?’

  Mastarna seemed evasive. ‘It never came to surgery.’

  ‘But you had discussed it with her?’

  ‘Not in person. Trepanation is a tradition in German communities, I understand—though I cannot believe it is often successful among unskilled barbarians. Veleda had asked whether any of the doctors who attend the Quadrumatus family possessed the necessary knowledge. Cleander’s discipline forbids surgery; he was unwilling to attend a barbarian in any case. Aedemon is less snobbish but follows a theory that all illness is caused by putrefaction and can be addressed with chants and amulets, with purges, astringents and laxatives…’ Mastarna’s lip curled in contempt. ‘Carried out to excess, that can be more lethal than the knife. I do on occasion conduct drilling to relieve pressure in the head—’ He paused. ‘But not this time.’ He seemed uncomfortable. Maybe he thought I would criticise him for considering dangerous surgery on a state prisoner.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Another practitioner was called in.’

  ‘Cleander recommended her? Zosime. Her methods sound much less radical than skull-boring.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘Still, you and she had a disagreement about the appropriate treatment?’

  Recovering his confidence, Mastarna passed off the quarrel with Zosime as unimportant. ‘There can be many approaches to ill health. All or any of them may work. Zosime was trained by my colleague, Cleander. His regime and mine are antipathetical.’

  ‘But Zosime was not permitted to attempt her gentle regime?’ Helena said.

  Mastarna seemed reluctant to admit this, unaware that Zosime had told Helena she had been given the hint to abandon Veleda’s care. ‘It was an issue between her and the patient. Then, of course, the lady from Germany removed herself altogether.’

  ‘Patient choice,’ I commented. It was clear from Mastarna’s expression he thought that kind of licence was a bad thing.

  The thought crossed my mind that if Veleda had trusted Zosime and wanted to continue with her suggested gentle treatment, after her escape the priestess might have traced the female doctor to the Temple of .AEsculapius. When we left Mastarna, irritated by more unsatisfactory answers from that suppurating smoothie (Helena’s definition), I considered making our way home via Tiber Island. It would have meant a detour. And I reasoned that if Zosime had been willing to own up to further contact with Veleda, she would have confessed it to Helena when she came to our house yesterday. So late that afternoon, I tracked down Clemens and the soldiers on search duty; I dispatched them to do a room-by-room search of the temple and its hospital buildings. If Veleda was there, they would recognise her or I hoped they would. I had warned them always to be aware that she might have changed her appearance. They were not to manhandle women with the rough treatment I had seen the Praetorians using, but they were to check carefully for height and eye colour, neither of which could be altered.

  They did not find her. As Helena pointed out, if she ever had been at the hospital after her escape, then as soon as questions started to be asked, she would have been moved elsewhere. It was generally thought that runaways who could demonstrate they were seeking refuge from brutality were helped to disappear. If the staff sympathised with Veleda’s predicament, she could have been whisked off by the same escape route.

  After the search, we let it lie. I had no evidence at this stage that would justify either leaning heavily on Zosime or threatening the administrators.

  It had been a busy, though mainly unproductive day. I was ready for a quiet night in, planning my next moves. This was where, on a normal enquiry, I would have welcomed a case consultation with one of the Camillus brothers. It would be a good ploy on a winter’s night. We could have sat around a warm brazier munching almonds and apples, with a glass or two of table wine, and Helena would steer us towards sensible conclusions while we men tried to duck the issue…

  No chance of that. Aelianus was in Greece—and I was about to hear very bad news about what had happened to our missing Justinus. It began when we were greeted on the threshold by Albia, in tears.

  ‘Marcus Didius, something terrible has happened—I’ve been searching for hours but I can’t find the dog anywhere. Nux has run away!’

  XVII

  ‘You are joking, Albia? You cannot seriously mean, not only do I have to search for a missing murder suspect, and my missing brother-in-law—but now I must waste yet more time and effort looking for a dog?’

  ‘I cannot go; you do not let me roam outside.’ That never stopped her when she wanted to buy cinnamon cakes.

  Albia spent a lot of time imagining she was a princess, among whose accessories was a noble hunting hound, a role she crazily assigned to Nux; the little dog just let her get on with it. Albia loved Nux. Nux returned the favour. To the rest of us my pet was a scruffy, often stinky bundle, whose matted, multicoloured fur nobody would willingly investigate closely. Nux was friendly and full of life, but she had no pedigree. She had adopted me. She came from the streets and saw me as a soft touch. She was right, too. Nobody who had a choice would let Nux into their home. I took in the dog, and later I took in Albia, because their lives at the time were even worse than my own. Besides, in both cases, I blamed Helena. She wanted to believe she was in love with a generous person, a benefactor of the oppressed. She had willed me to do it. Both times.

  ‘Poor Nuxie was upset when the soldiers came, Marcus Didius.’ ‘Have the bastards mistreated her?’

  ‘No, but she doesn’t understand why they are all in her house.’ ‘She’ll come home of her own accord.’

  ‘How can you be so heartless? The streets are wild with revellers—she will be terrified!’

  Infected by Albia’s agitation, both my children began wailing. Julia and Favonia, two fine little tragic actresses, were clutching Nux’s favourite toys and looking piteous. Needless to say, I soon found myself promising to go out and find the lost doggie. Trusting young faces beamed at heroic Papa, expecting miracles.

  Albia came with me. I think she suspected I would bunk off to a wine bar. (No, sweetheart; that was last night.) Eventu
ally, when we had walked all the local streets and alleys, feeling like fools as we called the dog’s name, I got sick of being jumped at by revellers in fancy dress who then ran off whooping. I marched to the vigiles’ patrol house, and asked to see Petronius. Albia stuck with me, glaring balefully.

  ‘Petro—I want you to tell the men to look out for my dog, please. Don’t say anything!’

  Petronius Longus eyed up the situation; saw I was being supervised; saw that this was not my own idea. He revelled in my discomfiture. ‘You mean, Falco, my hard-pressed lads are to ignore all the arsonists, plotters, market-trashers, temple-defilers, robbers, rapists and heartless killers—’

  ‘I said, don’t say anything.’

  ‘What—not even, I hope you’ve come to collect your dog?’

  XVIII

  Nux had been recaptured by Petronius himself. He had spotted her slinking up an alley, covered with mud and worse. Fortunately the vigiles keep a plentiful cache of water. Now washed and fluffed up prettily, my dog had established herself as a guest in the all-night galley that kept the men supplied with hot rissoles and mulsum. She had her snout in a bowl of delightfully rich broth and did not want to come home. She wagged her pert tail when she saw us. Nux did not believe in guilt.

  ‘Oh you naughty girl; they’ve been spoiling you!’ Albia was entranced.

  None of Petro’s cohort were likely to pass up the chance of showing a bright young woman around the excubitorium, their local outstation here in the Thirteenth District, so I had to wait with the dog while pumping engines sprayed water all over the yard and long ladders were rushed to imaginary blazes; then even the cells were opened up so Albia could look in wide-eyed at that evening’s bunch of really stupid drunks who had thrown nuts at the watch.

  While I waited, lolling in the doorway of Petro’s office so I could keep an eye on Albia and prevent any malpractice, Petro took delight in telling me there had been no progress in the surreptitious search for Veleda. ‘Your trail is cold, Falco.’ I thanked him courteously.

  The lads had led my foster-daughter into the depths of their equipment store, so I had to saunter over there. Of course they would be stupid to try anything on with her—but in their eyes, once presented with the opportunity, they would be stupid not to try. They were all ex-slaves, all with a hard attitude; they needed it to do their job. Left to themselves, they would have my teenager bemused on a pile of esparto mats in ten minutes, wooing her with a private demonstration of their ropes and fire axes—then luring her into other things.

  Albia could look after herself. Still, best to avoid that situation. If the alarm sounded, we did not want half the duty fire response group to be doubled up in pain after a kneeing from a lass who was far more streetwise than she looked.

  I gave the girl the wink that it was time to go. Always alert, she took the hint, thanked the men sweetly, and came with me.

  We had crossed the yard, waving to Petronius, who saluted us satirically. As we approached the big double-gated exit, Fusculus came in. He was Petro’s best officer, increasingly rotund, cheery and totally imperturbable. ‘I0, Fusculus! How goes it with the king of nipping and foisting?’ Fusculus loved lore and cant. If a criminal activity lacked technical terms to describe it, he would invent some.

  Now he squinted at me, unsure whether these were real variations he ought to know; his eyes showed suspicion, though he rallied fast. ‘All posy-posy on the Via Derelicta, Falco.’ While Albia stared in puzzlement, I let him chatter happily. ‘Is that dog yours? She’s a ferrikin!’

  ‘Right up there with the champions of fragonage,’ I agreed. I was so glad to have found Nux so easily, I had stopped being sour. The way my mission was going, to have found any missing person, even a lost pet, was a bonus.

  ‘A woozIer,’ nodded Fusculus approvingly. I think that was one of his coinages. But you never knew with this dictionary dabbler. Canine woozling could be traditional among totters’ lurchers. Romulus might have owned a woozIer, queen among beasts around the antique shepherds’ folds… No, probably not. I bet my Nux was scared stiff of wolves. ‘- I’m glad I’ve seen you, Falco.’

  ‘I’m honoured to bring joy to you, my dear Fusculus.’

  He went with the joke. ‘It’s a pleasure to be in the company of a civilised man. Top-pigeonhole in life’s columbarium—’ Eventually even Fusculus grew tired of playing weird man’s bluff ‘Dear gods, I do maunder on, don’t I? What a wonk.’ I raised my eyebrows as if in great surprise. His friendly face wrinkled with fun, then sobered. He was, despite the soft-sponge impression, a rather good vigiles officer. Astute and with an eye for detail. Good in a fight too. Petronius Longus knew how to pick them. ‘I gather you’re searching for somebody, Falco?’

  ‘Apart from the lost dog?—Nasty but handsome barbarian lady. I believe, with a very bad headache.’

  ‘Oh don’t give up! You can work your charm on her.’ Albia shot me a sharp sideways glance. Fusculus carried on blithely, as if unaware of the damage he had just done to my domestic reputation. He knew all right. ‘But I don’t mean the priestly pullet.’

  ‘There’s Justinus too; you know him. We work together. He’s missing. My brother-in-law, the mild one.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad it’s not the vicious one.’ This time Albia bridled; she seemed to have a latent admiration for Aelianus. Not all that latent sometimes. When they were together they tended to gang up like starlings.

  ‘No, Aulus is in Greece. I’ve only one of them to worry about. He hasn’t been seen for two days now.’

  Fusculus now lowered his voice. ‘I’ve just come from a recce. Heard word of a possible.’

  I stiffened. ‘Straight stuff?’

  ‘Partially reliable. Seventh Cohort.’

  I fumbled to recall the cohort delegations. ‘Seventh—that’s the Fourteenth district and… the Ninth?’

  ‘Transtib and Circus Ham,’ said Fusculus. ‘What a hotchpotch—the immigrant quarter over the river, and all the public monuments around the Field of Mars. Includes,’ he said, gently tapping his pug nose, ‘the Saepta Julia.’

  ‘Right! Justinus was last seen at the Saepta.’

  ‘You have a fit then. The Seventh are indignant that a man was lifted from their patch. You know we’re all taking strop from the bloody Praetorians? Pushing their way in all over the shop—’ ‘Hunting my barbarian.’

  ‘So that’s why they’re at it!’ He gave me a look. I didn’t react. I was used to taking blame for other people’s messes. ‘Well, they hijacked a mark who could be Justinus two days ago, as you say, in the Saepta. The Seventh think the Guards must have been following him. They let him carryout his business and he seemed to be heading homeward. They jumped him just by the exit next to the Pantheon, and had him away like a flea up a barmaid’s skirt.’

  ‘Was he doing something the Palace grandees objected to?’ ‘Nothing at all, I heard.’

  ‘No official explanation then?’

  ‘Nobody asked them. Would you do it?’

  I tried to look like a hero. ‘If I suspected a miscarriage of justice, I might politely enquire.’

  ‘Nuts, Falco! The Guards dragged him off, no questions asked. The Seventh keep a finger-man permanently at the Saepta, and he saw it all. Happened in the proverbial flash. Most people noticed nothing.

  For the Guards,’ admitted Fusculus grudgingly, ‘it was professional… Mind you, your fellow dropped his arm-purse in the scuffle. Now I know who he was, I wonder if he dropped it non-accidentally.’

  ‘A signal? Who has it?’

  ‘The Seventh’s nark. Name of Victor. You’ll find him most days lurking in the Saepta, not looking inconspicuous… Or just ask anybody there to point to him. They all know Victor. As an undercover operative, he’s rubbish. Bloody Seventh! Incompetent whosits.’

  Fusculus was enjoying himself, insulting his rivals. I felt more benign towards them. The Seventh Cohort (Transtiberina and Circus Flaminius) might not meet the exclusive professional standards of the gloriou
s Fourth (Aventine and Piscina Publica), but so far they were the only people who had given me a lead.

  ‘Were all those words ones I need to learn to be a Roman?’ Albia asked, as we walked home. She had waited a while before she spoke, aware that I was glumly lost in thought. The streets were dark and fairly quiet now; I was watching out for trouble, as I always did, but that only accounted for half of my preoccupied air.

  ‘Definitely not, Albia. You don’t want people thinking you are eccentric. ‘

  There was a pause. ‘Is Fusculus eccentric?’

  ‘Not him. Rock-solid character.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m a total grozzle.’

  Another pause. ‘Oh no, Marcus Didius. I’d say you’re a woozIer!’ Albia decided forcefully. ‘… So are they real words?’

  ‘Words are real if other people think they understand their meaning. ‘

  ‘What do those words mean then, Marcus Didius?’

  ‘Albia, I have no idea.’

  We walked along in silence for a while. The Aventine is packed with temples. We had come past the great dominating bulk of Diana on the Aventine, high on the main part of the hill, and were heading down via Minerva, Liberty and Juno the Queen. As we then jumped down the Stairs of Cassius with Flora, Luna and Ceres away on our right, we were almost on the Embankment, by the Probus Bridge. Nearly home. Before it was too late, Albia asked her real question: ‘So will you have to ask the Praetorian Guard why they arrested Quintus?’

  ‘I shall ask, certainly. But not the Guard.’

  The girl waited. When she got tired of that she demanded, ‘Ask who, then?’