Enemies at Home (34 page)

Graecina was now sitting with her eyes closed, frowning slightly so her dark eyebrows came even closer together than usual. It looked as if she was in pain. Was that physical pain from the scalding, or mental anguish? Had she herself known before now about what happened? Had Polycarpus shared the full story when he returned to his own apartment? Did he tell her or did Graecina guess parts of it?

Why didn’t Polycarpus and the slaves simply bring in the vigiles and wait for justice to be done? Because slaves know the rules. These slaves were bound to be accused. By the time Titianus told his tribune next day that he thought the crimes here had been an inside job, the ten slaves were ready to run for it to the Temple of Ceres the moment he pronounced them guilty – or better still, before he came to arrest them.

I now thought Polycarpus must have been right in there, helping them to get away. With his position under threat, bonds to his master were loosening, yet he still felt close to the slaves he supervised. His plight, if Aviola decided to have a new steward, was little different from theirs in being sold.

It was too soon for me to confront Graecina with what Polycarpus might have done. Luckily, or for me not so luckily, at this point we were interrupted. Just as we reached the most dishevelled point of our morning, we heard banging. Fauna was the first to gather her wits, so she went to see who it was while the rest of us made feeble motions of tidying our drinks tables and straightening ourselves up.

Fauna returned looking apologetic, followed by two visitors. With coy glances at me, Galla and Graecina immediately rose to their feet, Graecina exercising a lurch that nearly toppled her, until Galla caught her and they tottered in each other’s arms. Winks occurred. I took no part in that, for I was the object of my companions’ sniggers.

‘Albia’s boyfriend!’

‘Client!’ I corrected.

Standing this side of the atrium, with one fatherly hand on the shoulder of his pale slave Dromo, was the aedile Manlius Faustus. Both he and Dromo looked amazed at the scene they had interrupted.

I
n general, I prefer not to let my clients learn of any unusual measures I am forced to adopt in order to pursue facts.

Fortunately Tiberius Manlius Faustus already considered me wild and irresponsible, a barbarian beyond saving. There was no chance of me sinking any lower in his estimation.

Nevertheless, I wished old grey eyes had not walked in.

The aedile announced pointedly that a carrying chair was waiting outside.

Galla jumped to. Graecina suddenly became extremely tearful, so Galla insisted she go home with her so they could have a weep together. Fauna whispered a hurried goodbye and scurried off out there as if she had remembered a pot that might boil over. That left me on my own with the situation.

We could have been a bunch of carousing teenagers who had just heard someone’s mother come back into the house unexpectedly.

Cobnuts. I was a grown woman. I could do what I liked. It wasn’t as if we had set fire to a scroll box of Virgil’s
Aeneid
in order to fry a Lucanian sausage.

I did not try to tell him that. When the others had gone, Tiberius looked me up and down with his chilling stare and said I ought to sleep it off. He would take Dromo out for some lunch then they would come back when I was ‘more myself’, by which he meant sobered up. He made me hand over my door key, in case I was too comatose to let them back into the apartment.

‘You need to drink plenty of water.’

‘The house has run out.’

‘Then Dromo will go to the fountain and fetch more. Dromo, arm yourself with buckets from the kitchen. Better bring an extra one for Flavia Albia, in case we are due for an up-chuck.’

‘Not me.’

‘Shall we take bets?’ growled Faustus, at his most disparaging. ‘Just don’t heave your heart out on me, will you?’

I maintained that I would not dream of vomiting on him since the tunic he was wearing was bound to be his favourite, one woven by his grandmother with her own hands. (He was in his aedile’s white and purple, so I knew the tunic was not old. On the other hand, it was expensive and must require high-price laundering.)

The brute snorted.

Although my head was spinning, I refused offers of help to reach my room. I must have had the kind of exaggerated dignity that tells people you are on the verge of losing all your grace and elegance, but I summoned up enough willpower to stalk indoors. That may have confirmed to the aedile that I had been drunk in the morning on other occasions.

I heard them leave. I felt desperate to collapse upon the bed. However, that would have meant crushing the loaf I bought all that time earlier for the breakfast I had never eaten. Stale crumbs are painful to lie on.

I knew what to do. I tore it into its segments and ate the loaf now. All eight pieces. I chewed carefully to lessen the chance of what Tiberius had called up-chuck.

There was an experiment that I had to try. I could ask the aedile and Dromo to help, but I didn’t want to look foolish if my suspicions were wrong. If I was right, I wanted the heaviest possible impact. When dealing with theories, I follow the good informer’s rule: mull it over; test it for yourself; be certain of the answer;
then
bedazzle your client.

Action.

When I walked back out into the courtyard, I groaned. It was now midday, with the sun right overhead. I covered my eyes against the fierce glare of warm light in that bare space. I stood for a while, swaying gently.

Forcing myself to move, I walked over to the well in the corner. It had been boarded over with a set of wide planks, butted up against one another. Someone did a neat job. I pulled up one of the edge planks, which were smaller, trying not to get splinters as I held the end, then turned it as I heaved it over away from me. The top must have been scrubbed. The underside no one had bothered to clean. There the wood was covered with dark, rust-coloured stains, which I knew must be dried human blood.

‘As I thought! Well done, Albia.’

The planks must have been taken up before. I was sure the boarding on this well was lifted when Manlius Faustus sent his men to search. They looked down inside. I knew they found nothing. The extremely neat re-covering for safety had been their work. Very soon afterwards, unless I was mistaken, Polycarpus must have had some of the boards up again briefly for his own purposes.

Even if they noticed these stains, Faustus’ men would have thought nothing of them on old wood. They had been ordered to look for stolen silver – not to search, as I was doing, for a murder weapon. I had found it: this was the plank deployed in the attack on Nicostratus.

I had not finished exploring. Next, I hauled aside the featureless stone urn that always stood on the boards to deter access. This took me some time. I could have ruined my back. Since my father runs an auction house, I had been told how to prevent injury when moving very heavy objects. The best way is, get large men to do it. Otherwise, I was too tipsy to remember how to apply myself and too eager to stop now. I dug in my heels, grasped the top lip and eventually pulled the thing right over. I jumped back, quick, to save my toes. Then I rolled it in a big curve along the ground. This was not an approved method, and it damaged the urn, but I was trying to work fast.

Sweating, I rested for a moment. One by one I pulled, pushed or edged out the remaining boards. They were not excessively heavy, though the large ones were awkward for a drunk who did not want dirt on her tunic. Eventually, I had the well opened up completely. I won’t say it was no work for a woman, because we do what we have to do, but inebriation did not help. Even so, stubbornly I shifted the whole lot.

I knelt on the edge and peered down. People in my family have the horrors about holes underground, especially wells. I tried that trick everyone does, gently tossing a small pebble down. It was not deep. A splash soon came from the dark water below.

The sides were straight and smooth. If this had been a source of water in regular use, someone would have built a top frame, with a winding handle. As it was, I saw a big iron hook at the top of the side wall. Attached to the hook was a rope, going right down into the water.

I had to lie on the ground to take hold of the rope safely. I was still wobbly. Standing, I could easily have tumbled in head first. Ropes are heavier than you expect and this one felt as if it held a lead bucket. Drawing it up was so difficult, I dropped it once, but it was still safely tied to the hook so I started again, keeping a more careful hold of the rope. In the end I managed to extract the bucket, along with its not-unexpected contents. It was wooden, but it contained a sack, which was what had been heavy. I hauled the sodden bucket and sack onto land, collapsing in a warm heap beside them. At least there was plenty of cold water trickling off, which I could smear over my face and neck to cool myself down.

Stiff wet twine tied the neck of the sack, then also tied the sack to the bucket to prevent it falling out. This posed a challenge for my tired fingers. But again, I was not defeated. I brought out the contents, drained them of well water, then set about arranging them like a diligent housewife.

When Manlius Faustus and the boy strolled back into the courtyard, I had cleared away the debris of our drinking bout. I was sitting in one of the chairs, half asleep. I opened my bleary eyes just in time to see them take in the glittering spread I had organised to welcome them.

Covering the tops of two small portable tables, their metal shining as they dried in the sunlight, were jugs, drinking cups, coasters, strainers and even spoons: a distinctive array of high quality decorative silverware. The ‘stolen’ silver that Roscius had said he could not find. The silver that was supposedly the cause of all that happened to Valerius Aviola and his bride, their door porter and probably their steward too.

T
he aedile strode across the courtyard, stood and looked down the well. ‘I’ve seen you do some things, Flavia Albia, but this beats everything for stupidity!’

‘It worked. Look what I found.’ I waved an arm over the silver. ‘So much for praising my brilliant perspicacity.’

Faustus came back and sat down with me. ‘Stop it!’ I thought he was talking to me, then realised he was admonishing himself. He turned to me, appealingly. ‘Albiola, you terrify me. I could have come back and found you drowned in that well.’

‘You love to accuse me of behaving badly!’

‘Don’t do it then.’

To look reasonable, I made a sketchy apology. ‘I ought to have waited. Still – congratulations?’

‘I might go that far.’ He sounded sombre, but that was better than his punishing mode.

Dromo stood at his shoulder, jaw dropping at the beauty I had laid out. I raised one of the fancy goblets, into which I had poured the last quarter-inch of Galla’s fine Caecuban wine. There must have been well-water still lurking in the cup; it tasted less fine now. Nevertheless, I drained it and told Faustus how good the Caecuban had been, though sadly for him it was finished.

‘You have drunk enough for both of us.’ Faustus was impervious. He fumbled at his belt and produced a small packet. ‘This came for you.’

‘From whom?’

‘Your aunt, Claudia Rufina, with a tart message saying she was very surprised you had not gone along to enquire how Justinus is doing.’

‘Someone would tell me if he died.’ Faustus scowled. He ought to know I was not that hard-hearted. ‘Oh Claudia was simply too mean to send a messenger all this way. I’ll be charitable, and say maybe she thought a messenger would more easily find the aediles’ office.’

‘She said she did not know where you were working.’

‘Nuts. She should have asked Uncle Quintus.’

‘Right.’ Faustus reined in a little. ‘I sent a deferential note on behalf of both of us, claimed you were caught up and could not reach the Aventine. In case you want to know, I received word your uncle is progressing well.’

‘Good.’ I too backed off: ‘Thank you for excusing me.’ He in turn made a graceful gesture. ‘So what’s this thing she sent, aedile?’

‘How should I know?’ he answered tetchily. ‘It is addressed to you. I was told your aunt took it from one of her children.’

With a grunt, I opened the paper, an old bill. Inside was one of the silver coasters from the Aviola wine set, a small circular stand, with three little curly legs.

‘Well, that fills in another part of the puzzle.’ As Faustus gave me an enquiring look, I explained. ‘My aunt mentioned that her children kept playing in the carrying chair that I was loaned when Justinus was hurt … This tells me the silver stayed hidden because it was moved around.’

‘In the chair?’

‘Underneath the seat. When I raced over to Capena Gate that night, I was actually sitting on the stuff!’

Faustus whistled. ‘On the night Aviola was killed, the silver was hidden in the chair?’

‘Seems so. The chair was either already stored in an empty lock-up shop, or was put there that night. When Titianus and his men arrived at the crime scene, they searched, but only the apartment.’

Faustus sucked his teeth. ‘They would say, believing the silver was long gone with thieves, they had no reason to look elsewhere.’

‘Lazy bums! So in the lock-up it stayed for days, until Graecina offered me use of the chair. I guess she had no idea what was hidden in it. When she told Polycarpus she had lent me the chair he must have been beside himself. I thought it was odd that a busy steward went in person to reclaim the chair, and went so soon too. He must have been shitting bricks – sorry, very perturbed – because he remembered the silver was inside. Presumably, Polycarpus thought the loot might be discovered, so he chased off to retrieve it. One of my dear little inquisitive nephews had been playing in the conveyance. But the little boy failed to tell his mama, when she caught him with the coaster, that he had seen a whole load of other things under the removable seat.’

‘Well, don’t snitch on him.’