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

by Davis, Lindsey

  ‘How tall was she? About your height? Taller? Smaller?’

  ‘About my height.’

  ‘What kind of build?’

  ‘Similar to me.’

  Venusia was, like many slaves, a couple of inches less than the Roman average, perhaps because her distant origins lay in a province where the norm was shorter. Though not skinny, she was slim-built, with thin arms and her clavicles showing bonily above her tunic neckline. The plebeian rich led healthy lives, though they treated their slaves frugally. Laia Gratiana carried even less weight, which I had always seen as representing her lack of enjoyment in life, because there were no dietary restrictions on the mistress of a household. She was taller than Venusia, as was her friend Marcia Balbilla. That was normal.

  ‘How old was Ino?’

  ‘She would have been thirty next year. I know because she was always fretting on about it. She wanted to buy her freedom then, and take up with her fellow.’

  ‘What fellow was that?’

  ‘One of the slaves in the house. Their house.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about him. Marcia Balbilla did not know, but it was a pretty open secret otherwise. Any other follower she was interested in? Someone from outside?’

  ‘I don’t reckon so. She would not have met anyone.’

  ‘It would be difficult,’ I suggested, ‘for anyone with mistresses like yours and Ino’s, to take up with a man who was not in your own household?’

  ‘Oh, impossible.’ That was nonsense. Plenty of slaves and freedwomen make outside connections. Some come and go every few minutes like bees from a hive. Venusia looked me straight in the eye, and made it almost pitying. Her own eyes were so dark brown they were almost black; they were fathomless, reminding me of gutter-water outside an industrial

  workshop. ‘Anyway, we are not all free-living creatures like prostitutes. Some of us behave morally.’

  She was aiming this at me. It was a cheap, nasty dig.

  I felt my jaw set. ‘There’s nothing wrong in seeking congenial company. And do you have a lover, Venusia?’ She just shook her head disgustedly. ‘Have you ever had one?’

  ‘I have not,’ she said in a bald tone, as if I had asked her if she ever dabbled in sorcery.

  That was a crucial moment. Looking back, I could so easily have got this wrong. I might have assumed the brusque way she spoke meant Venusia shunned men because she was inexperienced and no men ever looked at her. Yet a sudden instinct told me it sounded more like the over-emphasis of someone blotting out a bad experience.

  I cannot explain where that kind of impression comes from for an informer. Somehow a niggle starts. It is easy to overlook. Often it turns out to be right.

  ‘Would you have liked to buy your freedom and set up independently?’

  ‘No money.’

  ‘You must have had rewards. Don’t you believe in savings?’

  ‘Why bother? You only get swindled out of it.’

  ‘Who swindled you?’

  ‘Nobody. I am not that stupid.’

  Why mention it then? I wondered.

  I gave up shortly afterwards, exhausted by my long journey that day and the impossibility of breaking through the maid’s stonewall resistance. You wouldn’t think I was trying to identify a man who might be a threat to her. On principle, she had a dry-mouthed, derisive manner, like one who was deliberately being awkward and privately enjoying it. She despised me. It was not the first time I had been regarded as lightweight by a witness; still, it left me feeling unsatisfactory, my purpose unfulfilled.

  I led Postumus away, via the deserted shrine. There we stood gazing up for a moment at the statue of Ceres, seated and representing the Loving Mother. This was not an untrustworthy figure who might abandon a baby girl in a rebellion or exploit a reluctant young boy as a high-wire acrobat. The Ceres of Aricia had the upward and outward gaze of a woman contented with her position and her busy role, nurturing her children whilst attending to many other tasks in the world. Her abundant hair was loosely swept back, caught at the neck in ringlets, tendrilled, fastened down with her light crown of wheat stems. She was handsome, wide-eyed, adorned with a twisted necklet and rosetted earrings. She smiled, she was calm and capable. She reminded my brother and me of the woman who had adopted us, our own Loving Mother. That made us smile. Yes, even Postumus.

  It was too late to return to Rome that night. We had to stay at the inn. As the boy and I walked back there, I muttered wearily, ‘Well, that was a long way to come to hear nothing useful!’

  Postumus turned and looked up at me. He assessed my statement. He might be eleven, but he was creepily observant. ‘She was telling you lies.’

  Well, I knew that. I just had to decide what the lies were about.

  41

  It took us all day to make it back to Rome. This was partly due to traffic tangles, but we had our own delays. By the time we reached and climbed the Aventine, and the cart rolled up outside the old laundry, the three chickens were down to two. Two very scared ones.

  Felix, the driver, was in a filthy mood over that. He had been attached to all the chooks. He dropped off Postumus with me, pretending he had to take the cart off in the wrong direction for carrying my brother home. Postumus climbed out resignedly, with Ferret hanging around his neck. Ferret had stopped going crazy. Tragically for Diddle, Ferret had achieved his aim.

  I felt worn out. I was ready to collapse at home, but now had to walk my brother to my parents’ house. And my brain had been in turmoil, in between me being obliged to sort out crises with men and pets. I had travelled frequently with my parents so was well used to quarrels among my companions, though had never before had to catch hysterical poultry. Still, things always quieten down once everyone is exhausted. You just need to know when to fetch out the picnic hamper. Then the one grace of a long journey with an unfriendly driver and a boy who lives in his own world is that you have a chance to arrange your thoughts.

  Mine had slithered into order almost of their own accord, and the results were disturbing for me. I no longer believed that the aedile had killed the maid – or any of the other people who died on the Aventine in mysterious circumstances. He was the wrong type.

  That meant my friend Andronicus was stirring up trouble when he swore it was otherwise. I wondered if I really should meet the aedile to assess him first-hand, but Andronicus had also tried to implicate the runner Tiberius, and I was equally convinced that was wrong, so why bother? People like me were best advised to avoid all magistrates. It was definitely a bad idea to roll up to one who was in the throes of the main festival in his period of office and accuse him of committing a series of unspeakable murders. Everything I did know about Manlius Faustus said he would grow very hot under the tunic at that. Especially if he hadn’t done it.

  If he was innocent, I would be stuck for the rest of my career, working in a city where officials knew of my outrageous claim. Not sensible. I even had relatives who would annoyingly point out that the aedile had a right in law to compensation for me blackening his reputation. Some of the blighters were so keen to make names for themselves that in a promising cause célèbre, they might even rush to prosecute me on Manlius Faustus’ behalf …

  I had committed myself to plenty of stupid actions, though never before because somebody else incited me. I liked to make my errors for myself.

  There was no reason to think anyone from the Faustus/Tullius household had been directly involved with the murders at all and, frankly, I was beginning to be annoyed with the archivist for suggesting it. Andronicus clearly felt resentment against the people he lived with, but it was irrelevant to my investigation and he should have kept it to himself.

  I had met people like that before, people who thought my work was one big game. To them, trying to send me down the wrong track was a challenge, often a joke. Their theories were like ill-formed, pointless, wild ideas cooked up in a bar, which is indeed where they often floated to the surface. I ignored them – at least when I was sensible.


  I recognised, too late, that I been lured into trusting Andronicus’ judgement because of how I felt about him. I was furious with myself. I had behaved like a daft girl.

  It was not that I blamed him for my wasted trip. Somebody did need to ask Venusia if she saw anything. I was half looking forward to telling Tiberius at some point that despite his sneers at my competence I had gone to those lengths – a twenty-mile, two-day trip – supposing we ever liaised on the subject again, which seemed unlikely.

  Perhaps we should meet. I had questions he might answer and an idea to test. As I say, I had done a lot of thinking.

  As soon as we arrived in Fountain Court, Rodan rushed up to tell me Andronicus had been there. I would have liked space to recover. I wanted to readjust, given some of the doubts that had struck me. I had certainly not spent that journey musing on the airy spheres of astronomical philosophy.

  ‘That fellow of yours has been,’ grumbled Rodan, so churlishly I guessed they had had words about me being missing. I should have left a message. ‘He’s an irritating bastard.’

  At that moment Andronicus himself turned up again. There I was, tired out, with a small collection of luggage at my feet, after Felix dumped us, with a fretful eleven-year-old, plus Ferret, plus Rodan staring curiously. Women have to handle such situations, postponing the demands of lovers. Andronicus could see my predicament, yet swarmed all over me. It struck me he was like a dog who could not bear to be left alone. He had the same kind of self-centred jealousy, and as it turned out, was equally prone to sulking, to spite me for going off secretly, without taking him on his lead.

  ‘I had to attend a family occasion, then I needed to interview that maid, Venusia – it all came up rather suddenly, but I’m here now, so I hope you can forgive me.’

  ‘It was her birthday,’ announced Postumus. I expect he thought the detail might be helpful.

  ‘And who is this?’ Andronicus asked, with a glint in his eye, and pointing. Thank the gods, Postumus was far too young to be mistaken for a rival.

  ‘My brother. He is not as evil as he looks, just never turn your back on him.’

  Andronicus assessed my brother, who was a chunky child as a result of his single-minded manner of eating. He loved food as his substitute for loving anybody else. Over his solid body, Postumus wore a good quality tunic, which he had managed to keep fairly clean because he was the kind of odd child who enjoys being careful. The unnatural creature had also been subjected to a very neat haircut, specifically for my birthday. He looked arrogant and superior. The ferret must have summed him up for Andronicus: such a pet may be a normal accoutrement of a working country dunderhead, but in the city it defined my brother as a pampered rich boy.

  Postumus gazed back. Many people found his stare disconcerting. Even in my weary state, I found amusement in watching how Andronicus would react. Both were used to taking a specific position, observing everybody else disdainfully.

  ‘She has to take me home now.’ Postumus claimed me casually, but effectively.

  ‘Must you?’ Andronicus was pleading in his most winning way. My heart fluttered. He knew how to make his attentions fervent. He knew, too, how to seduce and disorientate a woman who thought she had decided she wanted to be left alone. ‘Since when have you been a pedagogue, dragging little pupils through the streets?’

  ‘Afraid I must.’

  ‘But what about me?’

  ‘Andronicus, he is eleven. It’s getting dark; he cannot be out on his own on the Aventine. He would frighten the muggers. Either he stays the night with me here—’ I could see that would not fit whatever plans my friend had ‘—or I have to take him.’

  There was no reason why Andronicus should not have walked down the hill with us, then come back with me. Nobody suggested that.

  Instead he demanded abruptly, ‘What was so urgent, to send you chasing after Venusia?’

  Oh Juno. Not here, not now. ‘I had to ask if she saw something.’

  ‘Any luck?’ challenged Andronicus. I was conscious of Postumus assessing my friend like a scientific experiment put in front of him by his tutor (a cheap academic, but sincere and whom, you guessed, Postumus derided).

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Some place in the country. Do you need to know?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Andronicus replied, so immediately and so reasonably I felt chastened. ‘We seem to be having an argument, Albia.’

  Though he spoke lightly, and wore his open-eyed innocent expression, Andronicus was tense. The people I knew called this kind of talk a discussion. Arguments were when you threw dinner bowls, first making sure they were full. Mostly we had those with bad-tempered toddlers. There had been many with Postumus.

  ‘So your trip was pointless?’ Andronicus asked, when I failed to respond to the argument comment. I wasn’t ready for discord tonight.

  ‘No, but it made me sure I need to see Faustus.’

  ‘I told you not to.’ While I was taking that in, Andronicus insisted, ‘You should do what I say!’

  He should have known better. Anyone could see I was tired and tetchy, but in any case that was a bad move. ‘Because you are the man?’

  ‘I am not your head of household,’ he conceded, as if making a belated attempt to cool the tension. I let the moment pass. Or so it seemed. When men start handing out orders to me, I can be a good actress.

  Postumus slipped one hand into mine. That was unusual. I saw what he was up to. He loved a stand-off. He loved to stir one. My brother spoke up with his eerie self-assurance: ‘Flavia Albia’s head of household is our father, Marcus Didius Falco.’

  With what seemed a single breath, Andronicus became all silkiness again. ‘Of course he is, little man, and we must certainly get you home to him! You go, Albia.’

  ‘If our father dies,’ Postumus announced, as if he had been working this out, ‘Albia’s head of household will be me!’

  That was too much. With a wince at me, Andronicus went off, swinging down the alley, after saying significantly, ‘Well, I may come along again later!’

  I made no comment.

  ‘You ought to stay with us tonight,’ my potential head of household instructed me. As a go-between in a love affair, Postumus made an efficient hatchet-man.

  I left the luggage with Rodan and set off with the boy. I started at a fast march, but slowed down. We had to watch our step. In our absence, the Cerialia ceremonies must have continued on a daily basis; wherever a procession had snaked around the Aventine, remains of the nuts thrown at bystanders – Ceres’ bounty – still lurked on the sidewalks, ready to make the unwary twist an ankle. I was wearing the wrong shoes. Even my brother was so tired, his feet were all over the place and I had to steady him when he stumbled. The last thing I wanted was for him to drop the ferret, and for us to have to persuade the slinky beggar to come out of a drain.

  When we arrived home, my brother broke away from me, and scampered ahead into the house shouting cheerily, ‘Guess what! Ferret killed Diddle and he’s eaten her!’ He knew my sisters would start wailing.

  He was eleven. Just a child. He seemed wise beyond his years, yet sometimes we overestimated him. Half the time

  he did not understand the significance of things he said and did. Never try to reason with a boy; it’s pointless. We, who knew and tried to love him, accepted his eccentricities and even his rudeness. But other people could take him badly amiss.

  I wished I did not at that moment remember the oyster-shucker, Lupus. It reminded me that what a boy says or does too casually to the wrong person may have terrible results.

  I was grateful that my own little brother lived a sheltered life, kept in at home. He was never out on the streets where mysterious attackers prowled.

  42

  I could have stayed the night with my folks, as Postumus had slyly suggested, but I was not in the mood for company – theirs or anyone else’s.

  Andronicus did return to Fountain Court. It was almost as if
he knew I preferred not to see him. I felt he was trying to impose his will, never a good trick for a man who wanted to impress me. I was in my apartment, the one on the second floor. I had not even undressed, but was lying on my bed as if I expected more to happen that night.

  In Rome there would be other women lying in the centres of beds alone while men in separate rooms cursed them for it. One of the rites of the Cerialia required that as a gesture to chastity, women should preserve themselves from any male touch; to make sure, men had to sleep elsewhere. Of course this was a rite for the rich. The poor did not own enough beds.

  I had heard that ladies who stayed celibate for Ceres drank a concoction of barley and pennyroyal to suppress their sexual appetite. Rumour had it, drugs were incorporated too, since grains and simple hedgerow herbs were not enough, supposedly, to overcome female lust. I needed neither herbs nor

  drugs. Nothing beats seeing a man in a new light to kill your passion.

  Did you know, even in low doses, the oil of pennyroyal is poisonous? People happily cook with it, or make infusions, yet midwives are said to use it to bring about abortions. And it can kill. Was the mystery killer using some similar, readily available household poison? Or was he in a position to access something more specialised?

  So, true to his promise, Andronicus returned. I wasn’t surprised.

  How many times do women lie awake, longing for a lover to appear, only to be disappointed? I had done it. This requires a degree of excitement about a relationship that I knew I had abruptly lost. Somewhere on the road out to Aricia, or returning home today, the Via Appia had claimed all my joy in the archivist. Tonight, I genuinely wanted to be chaste. It had nothing to do with religious observance, but reflected a cold drench of sense. I had lost the urge. Our rift was permanent. I would never again want Andronicus to touch me.

  Did he know? Would he accept it? Was he a man who would let a disaffected lover go?