The Ides of April: Falco: The New Generation (Falco: The Next Generation)

by Davis, Lindsey

  Next came a long, steady noise as the audience settled in their seats for the race, a steady hum that broke into a strident crescendo once the runners emerged. This outburst was always heard loud on the Aventine, because the twelve brightly painted starting gates stood at our end of the track. A burst of sound marked the moment when they opened. As the horses completed each circuit, the noise swelled. You could follow the progress of each lap, without needing to be there. You knew each time the leaders passed the turning points at the ends of the central barrier, that curious construction dividing the tracks that bore big marble eggs for counting laps, among dolphin statues, obelisks, refuges for assistants, small temples and shrines.

  A race in the Circus was seven laps. The finish came with a full-throated roar that resonated even up here, through the unstable fabric of my building. The audience would have thrown themselves to their feet in ecstasy. Enormous gusts of garlic-and cabbage-laden farting would billow above the stadium, a ripe miasma that was barely contained by competing breath pastilles and hair pomades. The ovation for the winner would be the high spot of the jockey’s life; even the exhausted horse would toss his head and enjoy the glory.

  After the race finished, normally the many exits would empty the Circus in moments. Tonight, though, people would not leave. Tonight, they would wait in their seats for more entertainment. The snack-vendors would run up and down the steps handing out beakers and bundles of food for the peckish. Marshals would try to order people about, just to show they had that privilege. In a crowd of that size – it was estimated to be a quarter of a million, though boy cousins of mine once did the sums and claimed it was only two thirds of that – someone was bound to have fainted. Someone would have keeled over and not come round, exciting rumours that they had died. Nosy folk would crane their necks to gawp at the stretcher-bearers, until new lights flickered at one end of the stadium, where whoops and wild cries announced that the foxes had arrived.

  I went downstairs, so any screams of pain and smells of burning flesh were less likely to reach me.

  I tried not to imagine how the terrified, wriggling foxes would have been grabbed, grappled, fastened down and encumbered with the torches that were tied to their beautiful brushes. I tried to blot out thoughts of their agony, as flames were given to those torches, then as the foxes bounded free, men whistled and yelled, driving them away from the temple, running headlong down the lower slopes to the great valley of the Circus, headed off, herded in through the starting gates, shocked by the cruel uproar their arrival caused, and then subjected to slaughter amidst screams of delight from the crowd.

  Then, only those of us with compassion in our souls understood it was a cause for shame. And every year I wondered, was not living decently supposed to be a gift to humans from the generous goddess Ceres?

  33

  Next morning was the thirteenth day of April, the Ides. It was a long day for me, and in due course I was to see that it was the pivotal point of my enquiries. It was also my birthday, although when I woke in the morning I had forgotten about that. When you live alone, all days are equal.

  It began mundanely. A domestic day. I made life hell for the boy who swept the stairs, the water carrier, the lamp provider and Rodan. Supervision of lacklustre male staff is the traditional role of a Roman woman, in a business, on a farm, in the home. We hold the keys. We organise the rota. We know where to lay hands on equipment when it is needed. We keep things running smoothly, while the half-baked and the blatantly bone-idle mess about. Men are convinced they run the Empire. The Empire would collapse without us.

  Throwing my weight around perked me up. I then changed the covers on my bed, sorted my wardrobe, tidied my jewellery box. I went to the baths, scrubbed myself harder than usual, layered on moisturising oils, let a girl arrange my hair exotically, invested in a manicure, let myself be lured into a pedicure as well, had some overdue depilatory work done, and slowly relaxed.

  Prisca appeared. ‘I’ve heard all about those murders you’re involved with!’

  ‘Ah, word has got out now?’

  ‘I’ll say! When are you going to catch him?’

  If I knew that, I thought glumly, I would be out putting a neck-collar on the bastard right now. The bathhouse owner did not want to hear me speaking reason. Public hysteria was now rife and according to Prisca there were hundreds of victims. For once, I felt a mild sympathy with Manlius Faustus for having wanted to keep this epidemic of deaths a secret.

  The killer was a mad poet, I was curious to learn. He had a grudge against anyone born on Thursdays, whom he stabbed with specially made silver stilettos. Prisca had been told this nonsense by an ointment-seller on Lupin Street whose nephew worked in the tax office.

  ‘Are you telling me murderers are notorious for not turning up to be taxed?’ I scoffed. ‘And I suppose he has a harelip, a crooked toe and his star sign is Aquarius? Oh, come off it. None of the victims had a stab wound, Prisca. I think he must use poison.’ I decided right at that moment. His weapon was too small to inflict noticeable damage; he must use a small piercing device of some sort and coat it with a deadly paste like that used on hunters’ arrows. The poison was what eventually finished off the victims. But it was not the same as hunters used, because theirs paralysed before death and we had no reports of that. All we knew was that it must be swift-acting.

  ‘Poison!’ Prisca rushed off, brimming over with excitement that she had a chance to tell other people something new.

  By this evening, the mad murderer would have a golden alabastron containing a deadly potion made by Cappadocian dwarfs from a recipe handed down through thirty generations, to which there was no antidote except moonbeams, and he would identify himself by etching a Greek letter onto the foreheads of all his victims as they twitched and gasped their last. The Omega Killer had been born, and it was my fault.

  I slipped into a clean tunic and laced shoes, then disappeared from the baths to apply myself to proper enquiries.

  When evidence is sparse, you have to dig, dig, dig away at what little you have. Once again, I trudged to the apartment of Laia Gratiana and attempted to see her maid, the elusive Venusia.

  They had set their hearts on disappointing me. This time I was told that Venusia was no longer there. She had been sent away ‘for a rest’ to one of her mistress’s estates in the country. I could not tell whether this was a disguised punishment, or a reward for good service. In a week when her mistress was taking part in an important festival, it seemed odd that anyone on Laia’s staff whose duties involved such personal care should leave Rome. What woman lets her maid vanish the very moment she herself will be on public display at ceremonies in the Circus Maximus? Come to that, what maid wants to miss such an occasion? The chance of receiving a festival thank-you present, or better still a cash-in-hand gratuity, must be hard to pass up.

  Apart from the usual reluctance to allow me indoors, the situation at Laia’s apartment did not favour casual visitors today. During the Cerialia it was a custom in plebeian high society to issue dinner invitations to other swanks. Laia Gratiana and her brother were to host a large dinner party that evening, so the entrance was full of flustered slaves wielding long poles to sweep spiders’ webs from the ceiling and plaster cornices, while others sponged the floor at the same time, causing everyone to be at risk of falling off stepladders, slipping on the wet marble, or having a pole land on their heads. Meanwhile a bunch of effete contractors were mincing around with dining-room decorations and having a quarrel with a steward about their bill.

  When somebody screamed, ‘Who sat on the poppies and the wheat-ear crowns?’ I thought it time to leave.

  It was the wrong time of year for poppies. Even wheat, that other traditional symbol of Ceres, would be at planting stage, not harvest. The items must be fakes.

  The professional decorators (‘thematic banquet designers’ as they called themselves) had had an exciting idea of using snakes, like the twin serpents that pulled Ceres’ chariot as she searched for P
roserpina, her kidnapped daughter. Nobody of taste and social standing wants live snakes in their lovely home, so fake ones had been created by a tousle-haired young man who enjoyed crafts.

  Oh dear.

  Nevertheless I made an attempt to talk to him, helping him lay out his structures, which I admired politely because I knew he would be desperate for approval and nobody else would have troubled. We had a conversation about making the display floats for military triumphs. We talked about the Cerialia chariot, which would have even larger snakes. I asked about his hopes for the future. I wrote down his name on a note tablet in case I could ever put a commission his way. At least, I said that was the reason.

  Then I told him I myself felt a little rebuffed and a great deal frustrated because of the Venusia problem. And he told me he had overheard somebody mention that she had gone to Aricia, where there was an ancient shrine to Ceres.

  Too far to travel, unfortunately. Still, it might be handy to know.

  I needed to be cheered up by seeing Andronicus. I badly wanted to be chased around a small room by a man with a determined gleam in his eye.

  I went to the aedile’s office, but a public slave who was very slowly picking up leaves in the courtyard told me nobody was there. I left the slave collecting his leaves individually, then placing them in a bucket one by one as if they were very thin-shelled eggs.

  I could ask for Andronicus at the aedile’s house. He was a free citizen. His friends could call round. I had never been closely involved with a freedman before, but surely that was one point of being freed? A freedman’s friend might have to go in through a side entrance, but visiting him was surely possible …

  I decided against. Manlius Faustus remained an unknown quantity and I felt diffident about straying too close. But the idea was tempting. Worm my way into somebody’s house? I tried not to imagine members of my family urging me

  to do it. Hades, I had been trained to take that kind of risk as an informer.

  34

  I met him. Io Saturnalia!

  That light frame and his thick, swept-back hair gave me a pang. Andronicus came jauntily along the Street of the Armilustrium, swinging a small glass flagon on a leather string from his left wrist. It looked like a bath-oil jar. I met him as I returned homewards in a grumpy mood, which instantly lightened. He conducted a farce about pretending he couldn’t remember knowing me. I lapped it up, overjoyed by his happy silliness.

  We then kissed cheeks, with extreme formality, to respect our position in public on a main street. His breath felt warm and tantalising on my face. He nuzzled around me, not touching, just growling under his breath with suppressed desire. It drove me wild, as he intended.

  We walked.

  He had lost his beard. The effect was not too striking because it had been so light-coloured, never hiding his features; to begin with, I didn’t even notice the difference, but he was conscious of it. They had had a cull of facial hair, he said. Even though the rites of Ceres were famously Greek, Faustus had ordered patriotic Roman clean-shaven chins all round. A barber had even been specially brought in to scrape everyone.

  ‘Even Tiberius?’

  ‘Even the bristly kitchenmaid. Albia, you wouldn’t recognise Tiberius.’

  Andronicus said that Manlius Faustus expected everyone in his household to be spruced up every evening, to attend as a group whatever festival ceremonies he organised. They were all on show. There could be no skiving.

  ‘Dutiful support?’

  ‘Showing off how rich he is by the size of his retinue!’ complained my friend. ‘Most of the others are stupidly thrilled because he hands out free tickets. Of course he does. If an aedile can’t pack the Circus seats with his own people cheering him, what’s the point of the job? I’d like to bunk off and see you sometime, but any absence will be noted and reported to him by some mean spy in the cringing entourage.’

  ‘Don’t get into trouble on my account, Andronicus.’

  ‘You are so sweet!’

  Not sweet; diplomatic. Andronicus’ well-being mattered and I had some self-interest. I did not want Manlius Faustus to decide I was luring one of his staff away from proper duties. I had not even met this man, yet I felt we had a prickly relationship.

  I told Andronicus how pleased I was to have found him by chance today. Perhaps foolishly, I mentioned how I had toyed with visiting his home and asking to see him. As usual, my mischievous friend immediately picked up this rash suggestion. He said the aedile’s house was close nearby, so he would take me there at once and show me round.

  Of course it could be a bad idea. And I fell for it.

  Why do I take such risks? Well, if nothing else, my Aventine granny would have been proud of me. As I said in connection with Salvidia’s funeral, Junilla Tacita seized any

  opportunity to inspect her neighbour’s houses. An aedile’s home? Thrills! She would expect me to check the sheets for moth holes and run a finger along shelves, looking for dust.

  35

  In Rome, the homes of the great are as well-protected from intrusion as it is possible to be. They have high walls, no windows on the exterior, the most hostile door porters in the world, and often troops of taciturn guards from strange overseas provinces, in charge of snarling dogs who also don’t respond to Latin – or not unless someone orders ‘Kill!’ They all know that one. In daylight at least, these houses are also notoriously chock-a-block with inquisitive outsiders, invited in for a look around by members of the staff. In a house of this status, everyone thinks they are a cheeky slave in a play. Kitchen hands’ out-of-work brothers-in-law lounge around the storerooms, pinching commodities. Maids’ giggling friends come and try out the beds, still warm from members of the family. Factotums are pitifully keen to ingratiate themselves with people they drink with at fish restaurants on Fridays. Even the snootiest stewards love a chance to impress; fine fellows who claim to have been trained in etiquette at some minor villa owned by a relation of Julius Caesar’s can easily be inveigled into showing off to total strangers the mansion where they work. It’s a sad fact that only when a hardworking informer has a genuine reason to call at one of these places does entry seem difficult.

  Manlius Faustus and his uncle were bound to have forbidden casual visits. But I knew they were probably resigned to it happening.

  They lived on the western side of the Hill, close to the main bank of warehouses they owned. They were in the triangle of large properties that lay to the west of the Street of the Plane Trees, so they were close to Laia Gratiana and Marcia Balbilla; it was clearly an enclave of plebeian aristocracy. Tullius owned half a block of typical urban mansion, of some grandeur, with an atrium just inside the main door, beyond which your eyes were drawn to an enclosed garden. A typical formal vista. Sightlines developed to impress.

  All the public rooms were placed directly beside the entrance. People came here on business, probably on a daily basis. Only the few who were permitted close intimacy with the masters would ever penetrate as far as private snugs and bedrooms. I sensed that plenty of those existed, off discreet downstairs corridors and upstairs on a second floor. In a city where most people lived crammed against other people’s halitosis and smelly armpits, the lucky occupants here had space.

  Andronicus marched straight in through the double front doors, which opened at the top of a couple of marble steps, each tread adorned with standard rose trees in matching urns. An elderly porter, who had probably lived there for years, put out his head from a cubicle; he looked surprised, but made no objection to me being brought indoors by the archivist. Perhaps he thought I had come about ink supplies, though I doubt it.

  Just inside the atrium was a lararium, a family shrine against a wall, with signs that the household gods were tended daily with offerings. The flowers and wheat cakes looked fresh. ‘Tullius,’ said Andronicus. I nodded; it would not be the first time a man who showed casual disrespect to women gave heavy reverence to the gods. As head of the household, he would make the offerings himself.
He would call himself ‘an old-fashioned traditionalist’. I bet if I met him I would want to thrust his old-fashioned attitudes down his old-fashioned throat before he had time to say what a pretty little backside I had, and feverishly make a grab for it. I hoped we would not run into him.

  I was led around the main areas, feeling nervous. There was an inside dining room, with convenient kitchen areas to the right-hand side of the garden. Salons with seating and a few display cases for statuettes lay on another side, along with a small library; there was no time for me to pull out scrolls and see what authors they read. Everywhere was decorated with wall frescos that had been painted in the not too distant past, as if they had a routine maintenance programme. I suppose I expected pornographic scenes, though if they existed I saw none. It was all minor myths, stylised architectural views and pleasant garlands, well executed but in unexciting colour schemes.

  Where the aedile lived with his uncle was neat, and not particularly ostentatious. You could tell they had money, but the money was used with a light hand, so the place had simple elegance. I was surprised by its calm atmosphere. This house was well run, in a casual way that I found rather remarkable. Even though I was uninvited, I soon felt comfortable. The easygoing mood did not fit the antagonism I had witnessed between Andronicus and Tiberius, or the sharp way Andronicus spoke about the aedile and his uncle; still, that shows how human nature can fester, even in a good environment.