Enemies at Home (21 page)

‘This is for private customers?’ I asked.

‘Can be. Someone has a slave who needs keeping in order, kindly chastisement, we can supply the necessary.’

‘What would that be?’

‘Posts, chains, ropes. Floggers too – my operatives can work with the cross or the fork.’ I did not need to ask; the slave victims would be either nailed to a wooden cross or hung on a very ancient device called the fork. Then they would be flogged to as near death as their owner chose – or actually until they died. They were property. An owner could dispose of his slave; killing them was frowned upon nowadays, but theoretically it could still happen. ‘We make one charge, applies across the board − four sesterces each man, whether for a fork operative, a flogger, or an executioner.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘I don’t muck about,’ claimed Fundanus smugly. ‘Of course on a public contract, different rates apply. A magistrate gives the orders, we supply crosses as standard, plus free nails, pitch, wax, tapers, anything else required. All covered by our retainer. Copy of the rules hung in the premises.’ He gestured to it.

I admired his certificate and said I was glad to see a public role being properly administered. ‘This is not an area where sloppiness can be tolerated.’

‘Right, young lady!’ Oblivious to my satire, Fundanus decided to set me straight about my own commission. ‘I expect this will come as news to you. Those slaves, that whingeing bunch who’ve got themselves bed and board at the temple’s expense, ought to have gone to their master’s aid. Me, I support extending blame to all the little shits under one roof. We have to fight the enemy, both within and without.’

‘Might they not have been loyal servants who were unable to do anything?’

Fundanus gave me a pitying look. ‘I can tell what sort of home you were brought up in!’ My parents would have been proud to hear that, especially as he clearly meant ‘among dangerous philosophers, who think all beings born on earth have value’.

‘I try to see both sides,’ I murmured, feeling my mother’s influence.

‘That was what I meant!’

‘I am sorry,’ I apologised meekly, mentally writing a curse tablet against this man.

‘Let me tell you a few things about the world, my girl. We cannot let these people get the upper hand. Slaves have to be forced to protect their masters by the threat of their own death if they don’t. They ought to come running without thought for themselves whatever’s going on − including throttling, strangling, being thrown over a cliff, or struck with any stick, missile, blade or other weapon.’

He must have seen this list in an edict somewhere. I wondered if the weapons would include fireships or military catapults. I merely said, ‘Seems comprehensive.’

‘Oh, it’s not ideal. It doesn’t cover poisoning − because the argument goes, how would they know? Pathetic! Or once the effects of a poison become obvious, it’s too late and what could they do? With a master’s suicide, the sentence only applies if the slaves are on the spot at the time and could prevent the attempt.’

‘Understandable.’

‘What,’ asked the funeral director, lowering his voice as some mark of respect, ‘happened to the victims in the tragic circumstance under review?’

‘Strangled. With a piece of rope.’

He nodded, with grim satisfaction. ‘That would be covered.’

‘I know.’

‘As I said. Your bastard clients should have gone to help.’

I didn’t bother to contradict him that Faustus was my client, not the slaves. ‘They all say they didn’t hear anything. No cries for help.’

‘Mule-dung. I’d clean out the lying snots’ earwax with a lighted taper … Anything useful been done to them so far? What has been tried?’

‘Just intense questioning.’

‘You are having a laugh!’

I admitted I was serious, but promised that when the time came to use proper methods, he would be the chosen operator.

‘You can put a word in?’ From the way he sized me up, he was wondering who I slept with.

I assured him I had contacts, not mentioning names. Before things became tricky, I made my excuses and left.

As I walked back to the Esquiline I felt demoralised. The Fundanus world-view was depressing enough, but I was having my own crisis. Earlier I had wanted my commission to continue, because I hate being thwarted and still hoped to find the truth. With time to review the situation as I walked, I decided I had now done everything possible. Some informers would drag things out for the daily retainer, but I faced up to the fact my inquiry should be wound up, even though it had proved a failure.

I never get sentimental about cases. If they are dead in the water, it is always best to admit that. Save yourself time and effort; keep your integrity. Your clients may even be so fair-minded they appreciate honesty.

Well, I had one once who claimed she did. She thought it meant she could get away with not paying me for work done. I soon explained how that was a misapprehension, so then she decided that I was a cheating bitch she should never have hired. I had to send a debt-collector. She coughed up when she saw Rodan. She didn’t even try to buy him off with the promise of her body – restraint in which she showed both morality and taste. Such rare qualities.

The same woman even tried to hire me a second time. She seemed surprised when I refused, even though I was lying on a sunbed at the time so she could see I was not busy.

This case was over. Faustus would pay me for what I had done, and I would accept the fee.

He might never commission me again, although if he was a just man he would see that we had simply run out of evidence. It can happen. I still had doubts whether the slaves were guilty. But now we would be forced to follow the law and damn them, if and when the temple authorities chose to terminate their asylum.

Then something happened, as it sometimes does. The whole inquiry had to be reopened, just as I was on the verge of writing the report that would tell Manlius Faustus we had to close it. Someone else in the Aviola household died.

I
continued back to the Esquiline, considering how I could formally explain the position to Faustus. I thought he would probably accept it, causing me less of a headache than I got from my own bad mood. I cannot deal well with failure.

Dromo was dodging about behind me, looking at stalls and shops. I needed to keep an eye out all the time, in case I lost him. Faustus had taught him one route to and from the Aventine but our path from the undertaker’s was new, while Dromo’s grasp of the Roman map was limited. If we separated, I did not trust him to find his own way to the apartment. Besides, he was supposed to guard me.

The weather had warmed up. It was a long hot walk. I should have paid for a chair, but I chose not to sting the aedile with a hefty fare at the moment when I was dropping his case. If I did, as soon as the carriers set off, Dromo was bound to be left behind. How often have you seen women leaning out of chairs and helplessly calling slaves’ names, shouting themselves hoarse while their difficult entourage pretends not to hear?

I needed Dromo; I was going to the apartment to collect my personal belongings and Faustus’ property, so Dromo would have to transport it all on his handcart. While I could rely on Polycarpus to return these things eventually, he had no incentive to be prompt and it was foolish to suppose every item would reappear. Even a good steward could not prevent messengers picking out choice goodies for themselves.

As it turned out, asking Polycarpus to organise it was not an option.

Close to heat exhaustion, we passed the Market of Livia but I did not go in. If I was leaving the apartment, I had no further need for provisions. I could not face the crowds, nor the barracking shopkeepers. You have to be feeling confident to cope in a Roman market. I was too demoralised.

When I reached the part of the Clivus Suburanus where Aviola had lived, I looked around carefully from the shelter of a doorway, telling Dromo to stand close and not draw attention to himself. He knew what had happened to Camillus Justinus, so was prepared to follow orders temporarily. But the butterfly-brain would not keep still for long.

I carefully checked for gangsters, though identified none.

Everyone appeared to be going about their normal business. It was just a street. Elderly women muttering abuse after young men who had barged into them; young men staring at young women as if they had never seen anything female before; one girl and her mother brushed mud off their skirt hems where they had accidentally stepped in a gutter puddle. Overhead, someone invisible inside an apartment pulled a cross-street washing-line hand over hand as they hung wet clothes out. A clean tunic fell off into the same puddle, followed by a magnificently inventive torrent of screaming curses. A door slammed. A couple of pigeons lifted themselves laboriously from a sill, flew in a half-hearted circle and landed in fluffed lumps, to continue their midday drowsing.

A dopey-looking boy stood outside the leather shop, which was closed for lunch. A couple of feet away from him sat a very hairy black dog. It had fleas. I could tell from here, by the intent way it was scratching among its long matted fur. It was loose, so could have belonged to anyone or no one, but kept looking at the boy as if it half hoped for a titbit and half feared a kick.

‘Cosmus,’ said Dromo, catching the direction of my gaze.

‘Who is he?’

‘Their lamp boy yesterday. And Panther.’

‘His dog?’ Constans had told me that the boy went home to see his dog.

‘Right. You’re good at this,’ Dromo declared, mock-admiring. ‘Have you thought about making guessing-games your career?’

‘No. I’m too busy thinking, when shall I get around to beating you for cheek?’

The last thing I wanted today was careers advice.

Panther might be the beast I had heard barking when I called at Polycarpus’ apartment. His wife, Graecina, had said ‘the boy’ took the dog out for a walk, so at the time I assumed she meant their son. Cosmus must be about fourteen, quite a lot older than the child I had heard wailing when I visited. Graecina must have meant ‘boy’ in the other sense. As a freedman, Polycarpus was entitled to possess slaves. Mind you, someone who had been a slave himself ought to know how to buy better. It’s one thing for an adolescent son to loaf about the streets looking for trouble but a slave ought to be kept better occupied. This one looked impervious to training.

Graecina came down from their apartment. She spoke to Cosmus, though I could not hear what was said. He hunched up and stayed put by the leather shop, looking lethargic. Graecina waited a moment, then she walked to one of the other retail outlets. It was where Polycarpus had pulled open a shutter to produce Mucia’s chair for me yesterday.

The shutter was obviously not locked but now it refused to move freely. As best she could, Graecina hauled on it then said something, as if someone – Polycarpus presumably – was inside. It looked like a routine exchange between a wife and her husband. He might be continuing the process of cleaning up the seat cushion, and she might be calling him upstairs for lunch.

I was intending to exchange greetings as I went into the apartment. As I came closer, Graecina spoke again, more impatiently. Seeming on the clumsy side with physical mechanics, she failed to apply her weight properly so could not heave the heavy folding door any further open. I went forwards to help. Giving up, Graecina squeezed through anyway, muttering. It was a tight fit. She was a fleshy woman. She would have acquired bruises.

I reached the shutter; I was standing on the threshold when, within the dim interior, the steward’s wife let out a shriek.

T
he scream sounded more like surprise than anguish, but sometimes you recognise trouble. With a great struggle, I pressed myself through the narrow gap, following Graecina inside. Through the gloom, I saw why the shutter was so hard to open. Polycarpus was lying against it, in a partly bent position with his shoulders and upper body pressed against the inside of the wooden leaf, his weight jamming it.

I joined his wife as she knelt beside him. He was warm, though lifeless. Graecina was breathing fast, but she held herself together, a loyal wife and mother, refusing to give way to hysteria while there might be something necessary to do.

No chance. No pulse. No breath. No life left. I said nothing, but the wife knew too.

Together we lifted Polycarpus away from the shutter, so I could pull it open properly. We hauled him out and laid him on his back in the street. I checked again, but it was pointless. Light and air failed to revive him or alter my verdict.

I sent for a doctor anyway. A widow needs to be sure. Graecina provided an address and I told Dromo to go; I reckoned Cosmus would be unreliable.

Having brought back the cloak Graecina lent me the day before yesterday, I folded it and placed it beneath the steward’s head. It was too soon to cover over the body, not while his wife was still reluctant to accept he was dead.

Though the corpse was recognisably Polycarpus, with the same build and desert-dweller’s chin stubble, all the spry bonhomie had vanished. To me, it was no longer him.

Graecina and I sat side by side on the kerb; I held her hand. I had taken to her on first acquaintance and, unbeknown to her, we shared this hard experience. I too had once had my husband abruptly despatched, in the middle of what had seemed an ordinary, bright and sunny day. So, as the world went about its business unaware of her tragedy, I knew all too painfully what Graecina was going through.

She stayed silent. Some people immediately become stupefied. Others of us clench up and fall into deep thoughts, planning ahead, already readjusting because we need to be ready, we need to be strong.

She would be thinking about her children – how to tell them, how to console them, how then to provide for them, on her own, in whatever difficult future lay ahead. I had not had that worry, but on the other hand, when my husband died suddenly, he left me to a life alone. That’s hard, even if you call yourself tough. As far as I knew, her children were still young, and so Graecina would at least have someone to talk to, cry with, even snap at when everything became too difficult. The infants would grow up. They would grow up fairly well, I thought, from the little I had seen of her. She would have her family.