‘Laia Gratiana? What a pain!’ I sympathised.
‘Well, I tried to stop the lads from scratching their itchy bum-cracks in front of her, but Hades, this is a working barracks, Albia! What did she expect?’
‘What happened?’
‘I was not party to the discussion. It was short and nasty, judging by the prisoner’s state afterwards. I had to get the medico to dose her with a poppy cordial – which she, of course, eagerly took to. Madame herself emerged from the cell looking like a goddess of war, saying she had obtained everything we needed.’
‘Being Laia, she made it sound as though any idiot could have done the questioning and saved her the trouble?’
‘Right! She obviously wasn’t going to tell me, Albia, because I am just the man charged with tracking down the perpetrator, so that would be too bloody helpful, wouldn’t it? She swanned away, ordering me to inform the aedile she will supply the details at his office, today mid-morning. Lucky him! Nobody was to go to her house to bother her.’
‘I could try,’ I volunteered, though not looking forward to it.
‘Don’t waste effort,’ Morellus counselled me. ‘What’s another hour or two?’
‘Long enough for Andronicus to kill again.’
‘Well that should be all right then. It’s you our friend is after next, and you’re here, aren’t you, darling?’
I could not even raise the energy to order him not to be patronising.
‘All safe and snug with me in my private office,’ mused Morellus. ‘We could have a bunk-up, if you have time to kill?’ The flabby great lump was just raising my spirits by offering.
In lieu of bunking up, he took me out to an oily foodhall where the vigiles had meals when they went off duty, sat me on a bench in the corner behind a fortress-wall of large men, and gave me a second breakfast, this one of elephantine size. He called it the full Roman. It had all the refinement and quantity of a meal barbarians would devour before riding out on a three-day rampage.
I had to sit in the Armilustrium to let the stodgy feast go down. I did not see Robigo. I had glimpsed no foxes since the night of the burning-torch ritual. I knew my Robigo had probably been killed in the Circus.
At mid-morning I went to the aediles’ office. A worried slave told me Laia Gratiana had already arrived, but she had ensconced herself with Tiberius and they were not to be disturbed. Had she been more bearable I would have barged in anyway, but in her case, I decided to forego the cheeky option. I would wait until the miserable cow departed, and get the facts direct from the runner. It was bad enough putting up with him.
I had nowhere else I wanted to be, so I waited in their courtyard. It felt wrong, being at the aediles’ headquarters without Andronicus. I was glad to be alone while I dealt with that pang. Still, it would kill the demon. This was just a public office. Like them all, the furniture was dingy and the bastards made you hang about.
I had declined refreshments, which was a mistake because I soon felt violently thirsty after the vigiles breakfast. There had been slabs of cured gammon and even the doorstep slices of bread were salty; it was food for men who sweated themselves to wraiths in firestorms. Biffing away the mosquitoes that habituated the fountain, I took a drink of water there after which, since the flow was glugging feebly, I found a stick and began poking the outlet to make it run better. It is a tradition in my family that wherever we go we improve people’s water features for them, whether they invite us to or not. You do have to make sure you don’t block the thing entirely by mistake, or at least not when they are looking.
Laia and Tiberius must have taken refreshments, because while I was bent over working my water magic, a slave collected their empties. When he carried out the tray, he left the door open behind him. I could then overhear a low murmur of voices. Knowing this was confidential material, I tried not to listen, though not very hard.
Morellus was keeping Venusia in a small, bare, smelly cell, where she could hear horrible noises nearby of men being beaten, drunks screaming, and other unpleasant sounds she could not even identify. She became frantic. The mere appearance of Laia Gratiana, playing the concerned mistress who might use influence to have Venusia released, had been enough to break her. In tears, Venusia had admitted what she claimed was the whole story: Andronicus had made her acquaintance, seduced her, and subsequently made a fool of her. He had even conned the foolish woman out of her life savings. Laia gave Tiberius details which were horribly familiar to me, concerning the archivist’s tactics. By the sound of it, he had even taken Venusia for lunch at the same place he once took me.
When she found her lover cooling off, Venusia had become demanding; she threatened to tell Laia he was making trouble for the aedile. His response was the attack that killed Ino. Terrified, Venusia told her fears to Laia, though without admitting the full relationship at that point; she was sent to Aricia. I heard Tiberius comment that it might have been better to ask first, in case official advice was different because of the investigation. At that point someone, probably Tiberius himself, must have noticed the open door and quietly closed it.
I got on with making an elegant job of fountain maintenance. I had no need to hear what followed. I could amuse myself imagining Laia’s response to anyone who dared suggest she should have taken advice.
Eventually the door reopened. Laia bounced out first, exclaiming, ‘It’s no use arguing. I will do it!’ as if she meant to have the runner’s balls toasted in a bread roll.
The elderly maid I recognised must have been chaperoning; she scuttled ahead, presumably to organise Laia’s chair, which I had spotted out in the street when I arrived earlier. Tiberius, tight-lipped, escorted Laia as far as the atrium, whence she would leave the building. He took her down the colonnade, which had a certain amount of entwined foliage between the columns; as I remained beside the fountain in one corner, neither of them spotted me. I was therefore a secret witness to their parting: Tiberius leaned in and gave Laia Gratiana a deliberate kiss on the cheek. After a moment of hesitation, she even returned the favour, albeit with an angry peck. Then she swirled her skirts as she turned away; she left without another word on either side.
This was unexpected. I could easily believe that Tiberius would act as a trusted go-between, given that Laia could not abide Manlius Faustus. But the cheek-kiss is a formality for intimates; it is strictly reserved for close colleagues, friends and family. Such farewells should not occur in Rome between a woman of her status, an élite member of the cult of Ceres, and a man who acted as little more than someone else’s errand boy.
Well, well!
49
Tiberius stood with his thumbs in his belt, as if ensuring Laia was off the premises. When he turned and noticed me, I almost thought his expression lightened. I was innocently scratching moss off the shell-shaped fountain bowl. Dropping the stick, I brushed my hands clean. ‘Oh there you are!’ I said off-handedly. If he feared I had seen his odd moment with Laia Gratiana, he did not blush.
I followed him into the room he occupied, which at least I had never been in with Andronicus. It must have been decorated for the aediles. Stirring wall frescos showed heroes shedding the blood of monsters, watched by vacuous maidens, in various rocky locations: the sort of lurid adventure people suppose takes place abroad. I had been abroad, and knew otherwise. None of the characters had all their clothes on. There were borders of pretty foliage and distant hints of the seaside. I could live with it. Not from choice, however.
I was offered a ladies’ armchair, still warm from the thin backside of Laia. I hopped off that and found a cushioned X-stool. Tiberius took a hard man’s stone seat. Not quite marble; Pa had several better ones in a corner of the antiques warehouse.
I sat meekly while my companion relayed all I had overheard Laia saying. He tipped back his head and looked down his nose at me, as if he guessed I had eavesdropped.
Tiberius sighed. ‘We have a problem.’
‘Really?’
‘Andronicus escaped—
’
‘Yes, while you were sauntering round the Aventine to give yourself courage, he was calmly eating an apple at my place and helping himself to my last sewing needle.’
‘I’m afraid he just walked out of our house with a basket of old documents, saying he was taking them to the rubbish-heap. The porter had not been warned, because we did not want to alarm Andronicus with any whiff of trouble coming. But he must have sensed it; he never came back. At least we have found and arrested the apothecary who supplied his poison, and warned others. Apparently Andronicus was quite open about who he was. He claimed he needed the drug to paint on arrows to shoot rats in the archive store.’
‘Every poisoner says that,’ I grumbled. ‘You would think apothecaries would be trained to report mad-eyed people who have a rat problem.’
‘You know him,’ replied Tiberius wearily. ‘A few smooth jokes about the vermin being unfeasibly tenacious, that big-eyed confident look of his, and he would convince anyone.’
Me, for instance.
‘Sorry,’ apologised Tiberius, although I had not spoken. He became brisker. ‘Look, I haven’t time to be delicate about your love life. Plans must be made. You are not the only person to be harried by Andronicus since he walked free. Laia Gratiana is in danger. She felt somebody was following her around yesterday, and when she arrived home from the station house last night, she definitely saw a man lurking outside her apartment. She is sure it was the same person she glimpsed when Ino was attacked. She described Andronicus’ build and distinctive colouring.’
I felt hard-hearted about Laia. At least her harasser had not invaded her apartment, and she did not live alone. People would always be around her, and in addition to her large household, Tiberius said she and her brother were to be provided with a day-and-night protection squad from those fine squaddies in the Urban Cohorts.
Well, jolly good for the cult of Ceres! Andronicus was probably unaware that Laia’s brother even existed. I did point out that all I was assigned were a couple of near-useless vigiles. Tiberius annoyed me by saying that was because I was thought more capable.
Then I learned that the ‘problem’ was more complex and risky than safeguarding a couple of target homes until the killer was caught. Tonight there was a serious risk that Andronicus could strike again. Despite having been stalked – presumably because Andronicus was enraged she had put Venusia out of his reach – Laia was insisting on joining in an after-dark ritual that was a high spot of the Cerialia: the cult women would be roaming the Aventine, dressed in white and carrying torches, as they re-enacted the goddess Ceres’ search for her missing daughter. I groaned with disbelief, as I imagined the scene: women who had no street-sense at the best of times, running about in all directions as they called for Proserpina at all the crossroads. There were many of those on the Aventine, most of them in seedy areas, overlooked and underlit.
‘Tiberius, we cannot allow this! Surely for just one year, Laia Gratiana can sit it out and weave at her loom at home?’
‘She absolutely refuses.’ Well, who likes weaving?
‘Get her brother to lock her in the house.’
‘No, he thinks she is wonderfully brave and spirited.’ The runner looked at the floor. ‘Of course, this has to do with Faustus.’
‘She sets herself up as a target, in revenge for his unfaithfulness? If anything happens to her, all the blame lands on him?’
‘She won’t think of it like that, not consciously. But you are right: as organisers, the aediles are responsible for the cult women’s security. Normally all it entails is keeping drunks away from them.’ Tiberius dropped his face into his hands for a moment. When he looked up, he was unusually satirical. ‘And keeping them away from the drunks sometimes … Albia, this will be a nightmare. You must have seen it. You have a bunch of women who are not safe handling fiery torches, and who in my opinion have secretly tucked into wine fortified with very dubious substances. They run amuck like bacchantes, shouting their heads off and threatening to burn down the whole bloody region.’
This was a deliciously intimate revelation about a ritual most people suppose to be sedate. I giggled, partly at his despair. ‘If it’s that kind of wild party, I may join in myself.’
Tiberius sat up. He said that was the best idea anyone had had so far. He would be one of the group patrolling the area, and I could go with him. Then he could personally look out for my safety while I could lend my eyes to assist him.
50
It would go wrong, almost certainly. Set up a woman as bait for a man who had already sent too many bodies prematurely to the pyre? An invitation to disaster.
I spent the rest of the day at home, supposedly resting. I had been taken back to Fountain Court by my vigiles escort, after the fool finally caught up with me. Later he delivered me to Prisca’s baths. I enjoyed the amenities, but my real purpose was to proposition two people I thought could be helpful.
Zoe and Chloe, the women who wanted to be gladiators, were bemused by my story. I told them the truth about Andronicus and the danger he posed, because I wanted to be fair. I explained that he was out to get me, and also one of the cult members who would be cavorting on the Aventine that night. I knew from Tiberius that to give Laia courage, she would be with her friend, Marcia Balbilla; I wanted them to have bodyguards.
‘The women will be in the chariot, because the chief priestess is too old. So we will always know where these two are, even if all the others are weaving about like escaped sheep. It’s a women-only night, supposedly – well, participants – so we can’t line the streets with soldiery; that would be out of place. But no one will object if the targets have two armed Amazons.’
‘This chariot—’ Chloe was the facetious one. ‘I’ve seen it other years. It’s towed by big serpents, isn’t it? Can’t we dress up as the snakes?’
‘No. We shall have powerful men hidden inside the monster costumes. Strong enough to drag the chariot – or to help if the murderer is stupid enough to approach. If he does, we need you to be light on your feet. Keep him at arms’ length, remember; don’t let him strike you with a poisoned needle. Or the cult members while they are cuddling up together in the chariot,’ I felt obliged to add, having nothing against Marcia Balbilla.
Zoe looked deeply suspicious of the whole affair. ‘Are these women lesbians?’
‘Of course not! One is married. The other had a husband once.’
‘Could be a cover.’
‘I really don’t think so, Zoe. Marcia Balbilla has children, I believe.’ I could not believe I was having this conversation with two well-built girls who dressed up in breastplates and swords. ‘Look, the sisterhood is no big caboodlum anyway – what about you and Chloe?’
Zoe was shocked. ‘We are just close friends.’ Very close, I reckoned.
‘So are Laia and Marcia. And if I’m wrong, they won’t jump you, they are faithful to each other.’
‘We don’t want to be seen with Sapphists. We have to think of our reputations.’
‘That never bothered you when you took up gladiating!’
I dragged these coy Amazons to Marcia’s house, where the cult women were preparing. They were dressing up in their folded-over white Greek gowns and fake wheat crowns, twittering like a wedding party. As had been insinuated by the runner, the devotional dames were well supplied with great silver bowls of some warm liquid that exuded a powerful aromatic smell. Not, believe me, thyme and rosemary.
There, to my further amazement, I had a similar conversation with the two respectable matrons as I had had with Zoe and Chloe earlier.
‘Just don’t show each other too much affection,’ I warned wickedly. ‘You don’t want the Amazons to get the wrong idea about you. Myself, I really don’t care what people get up to, but they are narrow-minded. No fondling!’
Balbilla and Gratiana looked put out, yet as I left I overheard them in fits of nervous giggles.
I went in a hired chair to the temple, my agreed rendezvous with Tiberius.
I was in white myself. I only owned one proper white gown, which happened to be in delicate opaque material. Luckily it was long enough to cover my sturdy ankle boots, inappropriate accessories with silk-weave gauzes, but excellent for kicking. Not possessing a wheat crown, I had threaded a gold necklace through my hair; that had been put up professionally at Prisca’s bathhouse where, since I had had time to spare, a girl had also given me an eyebrow tidy and face-paint job.
This groomed effect made Tiberius gulp. ‘I see you are intending to stand out!’
‘Give me a torch and I’ll look like one of the others.’
‘None of them find it necessary to be in see-through.’
I had a perfectly thick undertunic (though a little short because I had run out of long ones) making the filmy dress decent. ‘Oh shut up. I’m not fourteen and you are not my mother.’
I let the prude stare. We had discussed the white dress plan; it meant I could blend in with the cult women.
His disapproval was spoiling the mood for me. Since so much of my life was spent looking dowdy for work reasons, I did occasionally like to lash on the cosmetics and jewellery. I admit Mother would have said four necklaces was one too many, but too late: my neat belt-purse was already full, with emergency cash and a small but deadly weapon which I could pass off, if challenged, as a fruit knife.
Every woman should own her own little decorative hunting dagger. You never know when you may need it.
51
‘Hail, goddess, preserve this city in harmony and prosperity. Bring us all the products of the earth, feed our kine and cattle and flocks, donate the corn-ear, give us the harvest. Nurture also peace, so he that ploughed may also reap! Be gracious, O thrice-prayed for, great Queen of goddesses!’
The Ides of April: Falco: The New Generation (Falco: The Next Generation) Page 28