Ode To A Banker

by Lindsey Davis

  Taking her free arm, I made her stand in front of Diomedes. ‘Did you leave one out?’

  ‘Oh, I have seen him such a lot of times… I’m sorry, Falco, I really can’t say.’

  Diomedes laughed; it was brittle and overconfident. Fusculus caught my eye above the old lady’s head, and I could sense his hostility. All his antipathy to Greeks was now focussed on this one. He grinned nastily at Diomedes and Lysa, then guided the nosy old woman to a seat among the vigiles, so she could watch the fun.

  ‘Worth a try.’ I said ruefully. ‘You’re a lucky fellow!’ I told Diomedes. ‘I really was convinced you were lying. I thought you had been here. The way I saw it, you killed your father, Vibia discovered you at the scene covered in blood, then she helped you cover up your tracks - literally in the case of some bloody footprints. It might even have been the lady who thought of sending you on your way casually chewing nettle flan. Once you were cleaned up and had left the house, she rushed outside screaming as though she had only that moment found the body…’

  People heard me out in hushed silence. They could see how well the story fitted the facts. Vibia Merulla remained expressionless.

  ‘In return for Vibia’s silence about your guilt - I thought - your mother gave up this house to her. Vibia herself was so horrified by finding you at the crime scene, Diomedes, she started avoiding you… And that was why she disliked the thought of you marrying one of her relatives. ‘Still!’ I exclaimed brightly. ‘How wrong can I be?’

  I spun round to the resolute widow.

  ‘Nothing to say, Vibia? If you’re hiding your husband’s murderer to get it, you really do hunger for possession of this house! Still, a Corinthian Oecus is a rare feature. And of course, the property came fully furnished - the furnishings are beautiful, aren’t they? So lush. Every cushion stuffed to bursting point.’

  I faced Diomedes.

  ‘I am not intending to call that priest of yours as a witness. I believe he lied about you making offerings all day. You do go to the Temple of Minerva, but you don’t go there to pray. There are other reasons for hanging about there on a regular basis - the writers’ group, primarily. Tell us: do you write, Diomedes? He looked shifty, but he sat tight and glared at me. His mother’s face was also blank.

  ‘Blitis!’ I called out. ‘Does Diomedes write?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blitis. ‘He wrote Zisimilla and Magarone.’

  ‘Truly! A secret scribbler?’ I went on relentlessly. ‘Do you lurk in your room dreaming up and honing your creative masterpiece, young fellow? And, Diomedes, do you persist with it, even when all around you describe it as no good?’

  I spun back towards the vigiles. I asked Petronius swiftly, ‘Did he have the flan?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Petro immediately, not needing to consult his notes. ‘He grabbed the last piece when I was trying to get my hands on it.’ I saw Helena resisting a giggle, while the vigiles grinned at one another.

  I strode over and bent down to the old dame. ‘Can I make a suggestion? I think Diomedes came here around lunch time and then breezed back later, heading towards the Temple of Minerva, looking a little too innocent?’

  ‘Oh, I remember now.’ She too grinned through toothless gums. She was a game old duck, thoroughly enjoying this. ‘I did see him go in when I was fetching some lentils for my dinner. When I was getting a bit of onion later, I watched him come out again. I thought it was peculiar because he was wearing different clothes.’

  ‘Aha! Why was that?’ I demanded of Diomedes. ‘Was there blood on the first set?’

  ‘She’s got it wrong,’ he scowled.

  I signalled to Aelianus. He moved those who were seated on the furthermost bench; Fusculus went to help him kick the seating aside, fling the doors open, and wheel in the great trolley that bore Diomedes’ property.

  I crossed the room towards the heaped baggage. First, I pulled out a scroll from a chased silver container. ‘Helena, glance at this, please. Tell me if you recognise the handwriting from the tale you and Passus hated so much.’ She nodded almost immediately. Fusculus came up behind me, probably intending to hint at where I ought to look in the cart, but I managed without any help from him. ‘Diomedes, you agree that all this is your personal property?’

  Shoved roughly inside a knee-high boot I could see papyrus. ‘What have we here? An interesting boot-shaper. Two very crumpled sheets that purport to be - let’s see: the title pages to Zisimilla and Magarone and also Gondomon, King of Traximene. What’s that about, Diomedes?’ I dragged him to his feet. ‘Looks like proof of who wrote Gondomon - this title page is written on the back of a used popina drinks bill.’

  ‘Mine!’ Diomedes blustered recklessly. ‘I often drink there -‘

  ‘Urbanus, it says.’

  Urbanus looked unfazed; then told me, ‘I leave the bills behind. Philomelus tucks them in his pouch. He has no money for equipment and I’m happy for him to reuse them for writing.’

  Lysa, resplendent in maternal wrath, swept to her son’s side. ‘Foolish boy,’ she reproved her son. ‘Now tell the truth!’ She turned to me. ‘These prove nothing!’ she snorted at me. ‘Blame Chrysippus. He wanted to exchange the title page on the scrolls he stole from the shipper’s son. He was planning to publish the story under our son’s name. Diomedes was far too sensitive and honest to agree… In fact, Diomedes removed and kept the original, so he could prove what had happened if his father went ahead -‘

  Oh, she was good!

  ‘Very generous!’ Among the swathes of rich brocaded curtaining, pillows and floor rugs, lay one cushion that looked extremely lumpy, ill-stuffed and quite untypical of this house. It was nothing like the smooth, fat items I had thrown on the floor from Vibia’s couch that time. I dragged it from the pile. ‘This is from your room too?’ Deeply perturbed, Diomedes gave a brief nod.

  Wrenching open some loose and amateur stitchery that cobbled one seam on the slipcase, I flung the innards across the floor at his feet. People gasped.

  ‘One heavily bloodstained tunic. A pair of bloody shoes. A scroll rod finial, with a dolphin riding on a gilded plinth - the exact match of the finial on the rod you forced so crudely up your father’s nose.’

  Diomedes leaned across me and grabbed a spear from his pile of belongings. Helena cried out.

  ‘Jupiter!’ I muttered, as I grabbed the shaft. I went hand-over-hand up it in a couple of swift moves, until I was leaning on Diomedes’ chest. ‘Where exactly were you planning to shove that?’ I demanded sarcastically.

  We were inches away from each other, but he hung on to the spear. Petronius had reached us. He and Fusculus grabbed Diomedes. I wrenched the spear from his grasp. They twisted his arms up his back.

  I took hold of his fancy tunic, either side of his miserable neck. ‘I want to hear you confess.’

  ‘All right,’ he admitted coldly. Lysa burst into uncontrollable and hysterical wails.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said in a polite tone. It was worth a fee bonus to me. ‘Details would be useful.’

  ‘He refused to take my work, although I was his only son. Mine was as good as anyone else’s - but he said he had found something wonderful. He was going to pretend Philomelus’ story was worthless so he could pay nothing for it. He would even make Pisarchus pay the production costs, and then take all the profits. He was beside himselfwith excitement. Then he said that as the publisher of a high-class work, he could not afford to soil his name by selling mine alongside it.’

  ‘So you killed him?’

  ‘I never meant to do it. Once we started to fight, it just happened.’ His hysterical mother was now battering me, as she tried to fling her arms protectively around her boy. I let go of him and pulled her away. ‘Leave it, Lysa. You can’t help him. It’s all over.’

  That was true for her too. She collapsed, sobbing. ‘I can’t bear it. I have lost everything -‘

  ‘Chrysippus, the bank, this house, the scriptorium, and your crazy son - then of course without the bank, you have pro
bably seen the last of Lucrio…’ I tried wheedling encouragement: ‘Admit to us that you had Avienus killed, and we can lock you up as well.’

  Some women fight it all the way. ‘Never!’ she spat. So much for my wild hope of claiming not one but two confession bonuses.

  As the vigiles logged the evidence and prepared to take their prisoner away, Diomedes remained surprisingly calm. Like many who confess to ghastly crimes, ending his silence seemed to bring him relief. He was very pale. ‘What will happen now?’

  Fusculus reminded him tersely: ‘Just like your evidence.’ He kicked at the empty cushion case. ‘It’s the Tiber for you. You’ll be sewn in the parricide sack!’

  Fusculus refrained from adding that the wretched man would share his dark death-by-drowning with the dog, the cock, the viper, and the ape. Still, I had told him yesterday. From his terrified eyes, Diomedes was all too aware of his fate.

  LIX

  IT SEEMED to take hours to conclude the formalities. The vigiles are hard, but even they dislike taking in parricides. The dire punishment strikes horror into everyone involved.

  Petronius left the patrol-house with me. We went home via my mother’s, where Helena had gone to fetch Julia. I told Ma what Lucrio had said about her money being safe. Naturally, Ma replied that she had been well aware of that. If it was any of my business, she informed me, she had already reclaimed her cash. I mentioned that Nothokleptes seemed a good bet as a banker to me, and Ma proclaimed that what she did with her precious sacks of cash was private. I gave up.

  When she asked if I knew anything about stories that my father had been involved in an altercation with Anacrites the other day, I grabbed Julia and we all went home.

  By chance, as we crossed the end of the street nearby where my sister lived, who should we see but Anacrites himself.

  Petronius spotted him first and caught my arm. We watched him. He was leaving Maia’s house, unexpectedly. He was walking along with both hands in his belt, his shoulders hunched up, and his head down. If he saw us, he pretended not to. Actually, I don’t think he noticed us. He was in his own world. It did not appear to be a happy place.

  Helena invited Petronius to dine with us that evening, but he said he wanted to set his apartment straight after the fight with Bos. After she and I had eaten, I sat out on the porch for some time, unwinding. I could hear Petro crashing about opposite. From time to time he tipped trash off the balcony in the traditional Aventine manner: making sure he shouted warnings, and sometimes even allowing long enough for pedestrians to scuttle out of danger in the street below.

  Eventually, with Helena’s approval, I sauntered off alone. I went to see Maia.

  She let me in, and we went out onto her sun terrace. She had been having a drink, which she shared with me; it turned out to be nothing stronger than the goatsmilk she normally kept for the children. ‘What do you want, Marcus?’ She was always abrupt.

  We had been too close for too long for me to mess about being delicate. ‘Came to check you were all right. I saw Anacrites, looking grim. I thought you and he had had plans?’

  ‘He had the plans. Far too many.’

  ‘And too soon? You were not ready?’

  ‘I was ready to dump him, anyway.’

  She might have been crying earlier; it was impossible to tell. If so, she had gone past needing to shed her woes and was now calm. She looked sad, but unrepentant. There were no visible doubts. I wondered when she had made up her mind. Somehow, I did not think that Maia had ever heard the rumours about Anacrites and our mother. But she might know he had given Ma stupid advice fmancially. That would count against him with my sister, to a degree he might never have realised.

  ‘I’m sorry if you have lost a friend.’ I found that I really meant that.

  ‘So am I,’ said Maia quietly.

  I scratched my ear. ‘I see him around town. He is bound to ask me, when he can face me, whether I think you mean it.’

  ‘Then tell him what you think,’ she said, being her old awkward self. I shrugged, then drank my milk.

  We heard someone knocking at her door. Maia went to answer, leaving me relaxing in the sun. If it was another close associate, she would bring them out here; if it was door-to-door lupin-sellers, she would see them off and come back cursing.

  Low voices were talking. Far be it from me to eavesdrop, but I was an informer; the new visitor sounded familiar I leaned back, tucked the toe of my boot under the handle, and inched open the sun terrace door.

  ‘My brother is here,’ I heard Maia say, in an amused tone.

  ‘Nice!’ replied Petronius Longus, my supposed best friend, with what sounded like a sneaky grin. ‘Family conference?’

  ‘Why, what sort of conference were you planning?’ quipped Maia in a slightly lower voice. Surely she must have known I could overhear them. ‘What’s this you’ve brought?’ she demanded suspiciously.

  I heard the squeak of the front door hinge, as if it was opening wider. There was a rustling noise. ‘A garland of Vertumnus. It’s his festival, you know -‘

  Maia laughed raucously. ‘Oh don’t say it’s my turn to be backed into a corner by Lucius Petronius, the Aventine seduction king, and enticed into a night of festival fun.’

  Maia was my favourite sister and a model of chaste Roman motherhood - but she gave me the impression that in the absence of action from Petro, she would consider cornering him. The innuendo was flagrant. He must have thought the same.

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ begged Petro, in a strange tone. ‘Maia Favonia, you will break my heart.’

  ‘You’re serious!’ Maia sounded surprised. Not as surprised as me.

  ‘I don’t want to be passing festival fun,’ he bragged. What a fraud.

  ‘I won’t ask what you do want then.’ Something was going on, something sufficiently intriguing to stop me calling out a ribald joke.‘So?’ asked Maia.

  Then Petronius answered gravely in a formal tone, ‘I am reconstructing my apartment. I want to buy some replacement pots and foliage to put on the balcony…’

  Maia laughed again, more quietly this time. ‘My dear Lucius, so that’s how you do it! You murmur, “Don’t touch me, I’m too honourable!” Then you talk about potted plants.’

  Petronius carried on patiently as if she had not interrupted. ‘They seem to have some good stuff at that stall below the cliff. Will you come and help me choose?’

  There was a pause. Then Maia said suddenly: ‘Good idea. I like that stall. I saw they are selling watering pots. You dunk them in a bucket of water, then you can rain a gentle shower onto your special plants…’ She stopped, sounding wistful, remembering she could no longer afford treats.

  ‘Let me buy you one,’ offered Petronius.

  ‘Wait there,’ said Maia cheerfully.

  My sister poked her head around the door and smiled brightly at me. Around her neck, she was wearing a ludicrous garland of leaves, twigs and fruit. I refused to remark on it.

  ‘I’m just going on an expedition with a friend for a few horticultural sundries,’ she told me in a sweet, inconsequential way. I loved gardening too, but there was no offer to include me. ‘You can finish your milk. Make sure you pull the door closed when you go, please.’

  I felt as if Anacrites was not the only person my sister Maia had dumped that day.

  I went home, through streets full of slightly threatening revellers who were preparing for the festivals of Vertumnus and Diana. There were people jumping out from behind pillars, wearing animal skins. I could faintly smell smoke - perhaps singed fur. Others had bows and arrows and were targeting hapless passers-by. On the Aventine, nobody needed moonlight to behave crazily. Unpleasant mimes were enacted with horns, while phallic garden gods were everywhere. Mounds of greenery made alleyways impassable, street hawkers were flogging trays of congealed snacks, and drink was being consumed in fabulous quantities. Where the two happy festivals collided, rival groups were squaring up for a good fight. It was time to huddle safely indoors. />
  Back home, I told Helena that my sister was shamelessly leading on my friend, and that he was encouraging her.

  ‘Dear gods. I never thought I would see Maia and Petronius canoodling over a balcony fern and a watering pot.’

  ‘Don’t watch then,’ scoffed Helena, chewing the end of a pen. She had a codex spread open on her knee, a double pot of red and black ink, and was updating our accounts. ‘Think nothing of it, you dear sentimentalist. They may be giggling over propagation pots tonight - but tomorrow is another day.’

  ‘Sounds like some daft girl in a romance, trying to console herself.’ I reached for a wine flagon and a good scroll to read. As I gripped the scroll rod and pulled out the first columns of words on the faintly yellowed papyrus, wafts of writing ink and cedar oil assailed me with nostalgia.

  Helena Justina folded her arms and said nothing for a long time. As she did when she was letting her imagination roam. I stopped reading and gazed at her. Her eyes met mine, dark brown, intelligent, perturbingly deep with love and other mysteries.

  I smiled at her, showing my own devotion honestly, then immersed myself in my scroll again. You never know with secretive, imaginative women what surprises they are dreaming up.

  ***