The Imperial Triumph

by Robert Fabbri

  Having taken a couple of turns left and then right in the tangle of alleys that made up the less than salubrious quarter of the city known simply as Trans Tiberim, Magnus stopped at a door that he had passed through on half a dozen previous occasions. Having knocked, he waited a few moments before a viewing slat opened and he was subjected to the scrutiny of a dark eye.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ the owner of the eye muttered before pulling back the bolt and creaking open the door.

  ‘Hello, Laelia,’ Magnus said to the bent old crone revealed by the door, ‘you’re keeping well by the looks of you.’

  Laelia spat on the floor. ‘If you think that flattery will get you a better price, Magnus, then you’re sadly deluded; I’m very aware that I’m well past my best and deteriorating rapidly with every succeeding day. What do you want?’

  Magnus stepped into the gloom of the interior, trying to ignore the pungent stench of old and ingrained urine that emanated from its occupier. ‘Your services; what does anyone want if they come to you?’

  Laelia closed the door. ‘My prices have gone up.’

  ‘I’m sure they have, what with so many people in the city for the Triumph.’

  ‘What Triumph?’

  Magnus peered at Laelia but could see no trace of guile or humour. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  Laelia gestured towards the outside world and shuffled off into the depths of the house; one candle burnt within. ‘What goes on out there is no concern of mine.’ She led Magnus and Sextus into a shadow-filled room crammed with earthenware jars and bunches of dried, hanging herbs; the table at its centre was covered in dishes and jugs and in the middle was a massive mortar and pestle. A pot steamed on the cooking fire in the corner. ‘Who’s the target?’

  Magnus waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t want one of your potions, Laelia; I’m here for the keys.’

  ‘I don’t give them out, you know that.’

  ‘Nor would I expect you to.’

  Laelia looked at her steaming pot and then at the contents of the mortar. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘When can you come?’

  ‘About four hours’ time.’

  ‘I’ll expect you at midday then. I’ll leave Sextus to escort you to Pomegranate Street on the Quirinal.’

  ‘What needs opening?’

  ‘Three doors; one domestic and two workshops. The house dates back to Sulla’s time.’

  Laelia tutted. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to but it had better be worth it; that’ll cost you a gold aureus.’

  Magnus grinned, despite the exorbitant price, and reached into his purse, pulling out the coin in question. ‘That’s exactly what I thought you would say, so I came prepared.’

  ‘And …’ Laelia indicated with her head towards Sextus.

  ‘I also knew that would be a part of the price and again I came prepared; Sextus will do whatever you tell him to whilst your pot boils, if you take my meaning? Won’t you, Sextus?’

  ‘Err, do whatever she tells me to.’ He paused for a moment to digest this but the full implications did not seem to sink in. ‘Right you are, Magnus.’

  ‘Good lad, Sextus, good lad.’ Magnus held out the coin. ‘I’ll see you at midday.’

  Laelia took the gold, bit it and then looked appreciatively at Sextus; fire rekindled in her aged eyes. ‘I’ll be there an hour after midday.’

  Magnus fretted at the delay as he made his way back to the Quirinal but knew there was nothing that he could do to speed up Laelia; she always worked at her own pace and could afford to: as the Keeper of the Keys – the largest set of skeleton keys known to the Roman underworld, each one of which she had made in her youth with her father – she dictated her own terms and timetables. It was said that there was not a door in Rome that could not be opened by one of her keys.

  ‘You were very favoured if she agreed to come today,’ Servius said after Magnus had told him the timescale on his arrival back at the tavern. He nodded to two men sitting over a jar of wine in the centre of the room. ‘They’re the two blacksmiths; they both owe us favours for various reasons, not least because we dealt with the man who raped the daughter of the one on the right.’

  ‘Did we? What did we do?’

  ‘The normal.’

  Magnus winced and signalled the two men to approach his table.

  ‘Orfityus,’ the right-hand man said, introducing himself.

  ‘Minos,’ the other, bearded, smith announced with a strong Greek accent.

  ‘Well, lads, I’m pleased that you’re ready to honour your debt to the brotherhood. Have you ever done military work, swords and the like?’

  Both men assured him they had.

  ‘I’ll need you to be on Pomegranate Street at the beginning of the eighth hour with your tools and slaves. Now, I believe that there already is a blacksmith’s forge in one of the shops of the property we’re taking over but it’s not going to be big enough; how easy is it to set up another forge?’

  ‘It depends how big, Magnus,’ Orfityus replied as an attractive young slave with long flaxen hair entered the tavern and made his way over to Servius.

  ‘Big enough to re-forge loads of blades into military-quality ware and to melt down more iron than you’ve ever seen in one go into bars,’ Magnus said as the slave whispered into his counsellor’s ear and then turned and left.

  ‘Why don’t we just work in our own forges?’

  ‘Because, my friend, this has to remain discreet; no one must know that this amount of iron is going to come on the market, otherwise we’ll have exactly the same situation with the price dropping as with the slaves.’

  The two smiths looked at each other and then back at Magnus. ‘If we could have a couple of days,’ Minos ventured.

  ‘So a day and a night would do it then?’

  ‘Err … I suppose so, Magnus.’

  ‘Good, then see it done as the iron will be arriving on the evening of the Triumph. Be prepared for it to be a time-consuming job, but you’ll be recompensed.’

  The two men nodded their agreement and were dismissed with a wave of Magnus’ hand.

  ‘Well?’ Magnus asked Servius.

  ‘That was one of Senator Pollo’s boys.’

  ‘I know, I can see … ah, sorry, Brother.’

  ‘Yeah well, it would seem that the good senator has had a word with the local aedile this morning and reported that in the past three months he’s witnessed seven transfers of ownership of tenement blocks in our area; all of them were at the bottom of the Vicus Longus near our border with the West Viminal.’

  ‘Jupiter’s slack foreskin! Fuck!’

  ‘Fuck indeed, Brother; fuck indeed.’

  ‘No one has been near it, Magnus,’ the brother watching over the house in Pomegranate Street reported as Magnus arrived shortly after midday.

  ‘Well, that’s a bit of good news, Laco. Any sign of Marius?’

  ‘Yes, Brother; he and some of the lads were here not long ago and have just gone to the nearest tavern for a wet and a fill. He said they won’t be long.’

  ‘Fair enough. How did you do disposing of the body of that slave yesterday?’

  ‘It’s done; a Tiber job and the head down a sewer. I’m sorry about that, Magnus; I weren’t thinking.’

  ‘That’s the trouble: you were thinking and it’s best you didn’t; just follow your orders. It was a bad mistake to make, Brother; he would have been more use to us alive than dead as I think he knew a lot more than he let on.’

  Laco mumbled another apology but was saved from further embarrassment by Marius’ arrival.

  ‘The news ain’t good, Magnus; not good at all,’ the one-handed brother announced as he led his lads up the hill.

  ‘Don’t tell me – you’ve found seven tenements that have changed ownership.’

  ‘Seven? No, Brother; more like ten and all of them have been served eviction orders in the last day or so and all of them have to be out by tomorrow. It looks like we’re under attack.’


  ‘I’ll say so, Brother; and it’s time to start fighting back. But first we’ve got to get this bit of business going. Where’s Sextus got himself to? It was must be an hour after midday.’

  Sextus, when he arrived, surprised Magnus, for not only did Laelia have a serene expression on her aged face but so too did the bovine brother. ‘She knows a few tricks, Magnus,’ he admitted upon being questioned closely on the subject. ‘If you close your eyes so you don’t see her and try to ignore the smell then it’s quite a thing what she can do. A high-class, two denarii whore couldn’t match her for invention and would certainly have more teeth.’

  Magnus winced as he looked at the bent figure of the crone and tried not to imagine her mid-tryst but failed, having himself been subjected, on one occasion in the past, to her voracious attentions as it was always a part of her price. Since the first time he had used her services he had always taken care to have the physical part of her fee covered by one of the brothers; Sextus was the first to have fully appreciated her skills to the point of enjoyment. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Sextus, but I’d appreciate it if you keep your opinions to yourself on that subject; for me it’s rather raw, if you take my meaning?’

  Sextus did not but refrained from further observations as he gazed in wonder at the old woman rummaging in the leather bag slung over her shoulder.

  ‘Which door is it, Magnus?’ Laelia asked, producing a prodigious bunch of keys from the bag.

  ‘Come with me, Laelia,’ Magnus said, pleased to have his thoughts distracted from the disturbing images that had clouded his mind. He turned to the rest of his brothers. ‘Stay here, lads; we don’t want to attract too much attention.’

  ‘If you need my services again, Magnus,’ Laelia said as she shuffled up the hill after him, ‘then Sextus has to be a part of the price. He’s very amenable; strong and hard, just like a man should be.’

  Magnus muttered something incoherent and kept any other thoughts to himself as they approached a two-storey house with shuttered shops to either side of the front door; dark blue paint peeled from it to expose the wood underneath. ‘This is the one.’

  Laelia bent down to examine the lock, her eyes no more than a hand’s breadth from it. After some close scrutiny and comparison with a few of the keys on her bunch, she looked up at Magnus. ‘The house might have been built in the time of Sulla, but this lock is more modern; it’s the work of Blassus of Tusculum from around the time of the beginning of Augustus’ rule.’

  ‘Does that mean that you can open it?’

  ‘Of course; but not with these.’ She put the keys back in her bag, pulled out an even bigger collection and began thumbing through it. She paused at a key with three evenly spaced, thin teeth, each with a small horizontal extension at differing heights. ‘This should do the trick; I made this with my father after we had studied over a dozen of Blassus’ designs. The common theme was always the three teeth.’ She slipped the key into the lock and, to Magnus’ relief, it turned with a satisfying metallic clicking as the teeth did their job.

  Laelia grinned at Magnus, exposing her toothless gums as she pushed the door open and then moved on to the two shops, both of which she opened with different keys after a short inspection. ‘If you want to change the locks, send Sextus to me with twelve denarii and a couple of spare hours and I’ll give him three new ones with two extra keys each.’

  ‘That’s a very good idea; he can pick them up when he escorts you back.’

  She looked at Sextus, waiting with the rest of the brothers at the end of the street. ‘No, he’ll have to come again tomorrow, Magnus. The locks won’t be there when we get back this afternoon; I need to fetch them.’

  ‘Ahh! I take your meaning, Laelia. What time would suit you best?’

  ‘First thing is always good; sets one up for the rest of the day.’

  ‘He’ll be there, but send him back as soon as you’ve finished with him this afternoon; he’s got work to do.’

  Laelia cackled, her eyes gleaming as she turned to go. ‘I know he has, Magnus; oh yes, don’t I know it.’

  *

  ‘It’ll do,’ Orfityus said to Minos as he looked at the large furnace in the right-hand corner of the street-side wall of the blacksmith’s shop; a metal flue guided the smoke out through a hole in the bare-brick wall above it. Two years of dust and draping spiders’ webs attested to the building’s abandonment. ‘We can set up a second furnace in the other corner with another flue through the wall to take its smoke and then do the same thing in the shop next door.’

  ‘And you can have all that done by sundown tomorrow and the place cleaned?’ Magnus asked in a tone that brooked no negative response.

  ‘Yes, Magnus,’ Minos affirmed; he indicated to four burly slaves standing in the doorway. ‘They’re good workers; they all know their job as they’ve been with us for over five years now.’ Behind the slaves, a stream of Magnus’ brethren were going in and out of the main house carrying in furniture, boxes filled with household goods and all the other items essential to furnishing a home.

  Satisfied, Magnus made for the door. ‘Make it so then, lads; there will be a lot of iron to process over the coming days.’ The slaves parted for him as he stepped out into the street. ‘Marius! Send one of the lads back to the tavern and have Servius organise bringing the Germanic slaves up here; we’re going to have a look at these tenement blocks.’

  ‘These four on the left, the three opposite them and then three from the corner in the Chainmakers’ Street,’ Marius explained as they reached their boundary with the West Viminal’s territory towards the bottom of the Vicus Longus.

  Despite the holiday atmosphere, enhanced by decorations and the setting up of street kitchens for the public feasts, there was a sombre feel to this part of the road. Handcarts loaded with possessions stood outside each of the three-storey tenement blocks that Marius had pointed out as the dispossessed piled everything they owned on them; all around children cried and babies wailed, sensing that the patterns of their already hard lives were about to change for the worse.

  Magnus surveyed the scene, sucking the air through his teeth and slowly shaking his head. ‘We’re being made to look stupid; even the ones who don’t get evicted would willingly acknowledge the West Viminal once they’ve moved their people in, seeing as we seem to have nothing to stop them.’

  ‘Well, it’s happened so quickly, Magnus.’

  ‘I know, Brother; but they won’t see that as an excuse. We’re meant to look after our own and that is something that we plainly haven’t done in this instance.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well, we’re too late to stop the evictions now and, besides, Geminus has the right to do whatever he wants with the property and if he wants to fill it with West Viminal people there’s little we can do to stop it; he won’t bow to our threats.’

  ‘So we’re buggered, then?’

  ‘As the situation stands at the moment, yes we are, Brother; soundly buggered. But things would be a lot better if either we owned the buildings or they didn’t exist, if you take my meaning?’

  ‘Buying them is out of the question, even if Geminus would consider selling them to us, which, of course, he wouldn’t,’ Servius said as the Germanic slaves shuffled into the house on Pomegranate Street, their chains clinking and scraping on the stone pavement. ‘Which leaves us only one option.’

  Magnus screwed his face up in disappointment. ‘That’s the way I saw it too.’

  ‘But, we could take advantage of the timing.’

  Magnus frowned. ‘In what way?’

  ‘The Triumph.’

  Magnus’ face lightened. ‘Of course, it’ll be chaos tomorrow.’

  ‘And for the next few days.’

  ‘Our local Vigiles are going to be very hard-pressed.’

  ‘And with all the public feasting there will be so many obstructions in the roads.’

  ‘Many more than normal.’

  ‘Indeed, Brother. It’ll seem
like there’re barricades all around the area; it’ll be very difficult to get their pumps through quickly.’

  Magnus’ face brightened still further. ‘Very difficult; especially if they’ve been partaking of the dozen or so amphorae of the strongest wine we can find that we, as a brotherhood, will present to our local Vigiles tomorrow first thing, in honour of our beloved emperor’s Triumph.’

  ‘And what a very generous gesture that would be, Brother; one worthy of the great tradition of philanthropism for which the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood is renowned throughout Rome. I’ll organise it as soon as I get back to the tavern.’

  ‘And I’ll prepare the lads for a warm day’s work tomorrow, which I imagine will end in a bit of a toe to toe once Geminus, Sempronius and Primus hear of it. Send word to Martinus to cut a few lengths of chain and leave them in his workshop.’

  The morning of the Triumph dawned cold and Magnus’ breath steamed from him as he waited outside Senator Pollo’s house with the rest of the senator’s clients. The chatter was excited as the togate crowd discussed what largesse they might receive from their patron in honour of the greatest day seen in Rome since Caligula celebrated his Triumph over Neptune, having soundly defeated the god in the sea to the north of Gaul and brought back cart-loads of shells as proof. As the first rays of a red sun hit the underside of the sparse cloud coverage, the door was opened and the extremely attractive door-boy stepped back to allow ingress. In order of precedence they went in, and in that same order they filed past Senator Pollo wishing him health and joy of the day as he bestowed purses of coinage of differing size according to the station of the client.

  ‘Ah, Magnus!’ the senator boomed. ‘I’ll need to talk with you in private after the salutatio. We’ve got quite a day ahead.’

  ‘Pallas will separate the weapons carts from the rest of the booty once the parade has returned to the Campus Martius; that will happen inside the Flamian amphitheatre. He’ll give you a pass for each vehicle so that the guards don’t search them as you take them back through the gates after dark; you don’t want to be caught smuggling weapons into the city.’