Enemies at Home (38 page)

‘You had a plan, part of which was to inform the vigiles,’ I said. ‘You had to tell them, of course. Aviola and Mucia were too important and well known for you to hide what had happened to them. Too many people would have missed them and asked questions.’

‘It’s wonderful how you can work everything out!’ exclaimed Olympe; it was genuine praise.

‘Long practice. So, Cosmus was sent to the vigiles, to inform them of the crimes he had committed. That puzzles me. Why him?’

‘To get him out of the way. Polycarpus didn’t trust him.’

‘I wouldn’t trust a double strangler myself! But he didn’t trust him over what?’

‘Over us making arrangements. Also, Cosmus was bound to dawdle like always, so we had time to get ready.’

‘Ready with the plan you devised? Hiding the silver wine set, so it looked as though it had been stolen? … And what else, Olympe?’

Olympe finally played dumb. Even this too-simple, ridiculously innocent young girl had reached the point where she realised she must clam up.

I asked the direct question then: ‘Olympe, what happened to the door porter, Nicostratus?’

She would not tell me.

S
ome people might think Nicostratus did not matter. He was a slave. I had never met him. But that man’s death had always niggled me.

Cosmus did not kill him. Ironically, in his case Cosmus had been given an alibi. He was sent to report his own crimes to the vigiles, while Nicostratus was still alive. Nicostratus must then have been attacked as part of the ‘arrangements’. I wondered whether going so far as to kill him was an accident.

I led Olympe to the door, letting the others see me smiling and looking pleased with her.

‘I just want to be happy and play my music!’ she burbled as we parted company.

I had her led off separately. I went back into the office, trying to decide which of this shameless crew to interview next. Obviously as part of their plan, the slaves had taken a vow of silence for mutual protection. Olympe had only talked because she thought I already knew all about Cosmus. As soon as I strayed into other subjects, even she grew mute. I had been unable to budge her, whatever promises I floated. Being ‘happy’ was never a reward I could offer anyone.

I called for Chrysodorus, the sardonic philosopher. He brought the dog in with him, a bunch of scrawny bones on a wretched string. The creature immediately looked for a rug to pee on. Fortunately the floor was mosaic.

Our talk was brief. I told Chrysodorus what I already knew, then asked directly for help. ‘Chrysodorus, Fortune favours the commercial. How about you sell me the facts I need, in exchange for your freedom? Manlius Faustus might even throw in a small cash incentive to set you up in a new life. Isn’t it a kind of syllogism? – I need your information; you need your life saved; therefore your information is going to save your life.’

‘Invalid,’ retorted Chrysodorus. ‘I cannot rely on you giving the reward. All humans are dishonest. Some informers are human. Therefore some informers are dishonest.’

‘Not all. Not me.’

‘That’s simply an advertising ploy. Paint it on a bar-room wall: “Flavia Albia, the honest informer”. Then wait for the public to scrawl scathing graffiti.’

‘So no dice?’

‘All bets are off.’

‘What do you have to gain, Chrysodorus, by remaining silent? Is it not a contradiction of your life spent in philosophy, which is supposed to be the search for happiness through living well?’

‘Whoever taught you that?’ laughed Chrysodorus in his bitter way.

‘Many people. Manlius Faustus mentioned it once, when talking to me about his attitude to duty. The duty that will force him to arrest all of you very shortly.’

‘Oh, fabulous aedile!’ scoffed Chrysodorus. ‘A holder no doubt of the Socratic view: “virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul are crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy life” …’ Actually, I thought he was exactly right about Faustus. ‘This makes no mention of being cursed with slavery, badly fed, beaten and denied freedom to engage in an intellectual life. It certainly does not envisage ending up in charge of a stinking, snuffling spoiled bundle of mange that passes itself off as a dog.’

I agreed that Socrates had not faced looking after Puff.

‘I understand your hardship, Chrysodorus. You told me Puff was even sent to you here at the Temple of Ceres, after you all fled for refuge. I suppose Polycarpus despatched the dog to you?’ Chrysodorus nodded. As an intelligent man, I could see him wondering what had made me ask. He worked it out. For emphasis, I indicated the piece of unfortunate-looking cord by which Chrysodorus led around the skinny rat-like creature. ‘Did Mucia Lucilia’s lapdog always go on a lead, philosopher? Or are you hiding in plain sight the rope that the boy Cosmus used to strangle his victims?’

Then Chrysodorus made that classic gesture, beloved of both Greek orators and Roman gangsters: the open palmed shrug that wordlessly says, ‘You got me!’

A
s Chrysodorus left the room, two other people solved my dilemma of who to see next. Amaranta and Daphnus sidled in together. They said they wanted to speak to Faustus, but as he was not here could I act for him? I said being an honorary aedile, plebeian or otherwise, was an interesting concept for a female freelance. If they wanted to try me, I would certainly give them advice. Possibly I could intercede.

I did not imply in any way that the aedile might allow me special favours. I doubted he could be swayed on a professional matter.

Nevertheless, I took his gilded stool of office, the stool with heavy curved legs that represented his authority, shifting about on his purple cushion until I squashed it into the best shape for my own posterior. Next time he turned up at the office would he start roaring,
‘Who has been sitting in my curule seat?’
Or maybe one of the public slaves who tidied up would fluff out his cushion before he noticed.

As they came in, Amaranta and Daphnus both glanced over their shoulders as if they were anxious about the others spotting them. I suspected these two had now joined in a partnership that set them apart from the rest. So it proved. They said Manlius Faustus had let it be known he had been given legal advice to make arrests, though in the right circumstances, he might grant an amnesty. They wanted to claim it, then run off together.

‘Would this reprieve be for everyone?’ Amaranta asked me. I suspected not all the slaves were willing to own up. Chrysodorus, for one, had opted out.

‘I doubt it. Faustus has to demonstrate that justice has been done.’

‘Could we two make a deal?’

‘How blunt! What are you bringing to the table? I don’t need to be told that Cosmus killed Aviola and Mucia. He killed Polycarpus too. The vigiles are out looking for him, and once they catch him they will put him to torture. Once they start on him, trust me, Cosmus will confess. He committed the murders but that leaves the rest of you guilty of failing to help your masters. Manlius Faustus may also want to consider that if you had all told the truth, it might have saved the life of Polycarpus, a third Roman citizen senselessly killed.’ I dropped my voice, which had been firm and level. ‘What did you have against the steward?’

‘Nothing,’ said Daphnus. ‘He was one of us.’

‘And I think he cared a lot for all of you … Did he work out your action plan?’

Amaranta interrupted. ‘Albia, we have nothing to say without a promise.’ That interruption reinforced my idea that she had always been a ringleader.

These were two out of nine. I had had enough of this investigation and genuinely thought it would go nowhere else, not on the meagre evidence. I needed them to clarify things. Amaranta was bright; she knew it.

I gazed at her. She had spent a lot of time intricately plaiting her hair. Her nimble fingers would work busily, accurate even without a mirror and without help. I bet she thought things out while she did that. She created her own hairstyle. She lived for herself.

I seriously wondered about her pairing up with Daphnus. She was almost thirty; he was eighteen. Though he had told me cockily that he hankered after her, he was far too young. Love has no barriers, but I was realistic. Whatever he thought was going on here, Amaranta knew different. If she had let him believe he was in luck, it was for calculated reasons. Any bond they had forged while in refuge would last until they obtained the freedom they wanted, maybe a while longer. Eventually, she would drop him. I could even foresee that Onesimus, Mucia’s steward who was still in Campania, might reappear and Amaranta would claim him.

‘You two devised the details of the cover-up, admit it.’ I spoke tersely.

‘Is it worse for us?’ asked Daphnus. ‘If we admit something—’

I knew Rome. ‘In this city, under our present emperor, helping a prosecution succeed is highly prized.’ I did not say that under Domitian this was prized even if the proffered evidence was invented.

‘Well, you do that, don’t you, Albia?’ Amaranta risked a sideswipe at me. ‘You give information. What’s the difference?’

None. That was why my profession has a very bad reputation in some quarters … I stared her down, showing I knew it and would not be cowed by criticism.

Daphnus kept glancing at Amaranta. He wanted to play the strong male role, but was confirming with her everything he said. She was definitely the leader. Their partnership today held interesting tensions.

Daphnus was tall, which gave him a presence, but since I first saw him, so brash in his amulet and secondhand shoes, he had lost his lustre. It was about two weeks since the slaves sought refuge, since when they had in effect been prisoners. The layabouts, Diomedes and Amethystus in particular, were taking it well, since they were idle by nature. Daphnus was feeling restless and, I guessed, bored with captivity.

Amaranta, by contrast, kept her self-confidence. She wanted to extract terms, because if she was to live, she must act decisively, act now, and screw whatever she could out of a damning situation. She would be methodical. She would be ruthless if necessary.

Daphnus thought Amaranta would protect him too, but he might learn otherwise.

I addressed her. ‘I am writing my final report. I shall write it now, this afternoon; then I shall leave here and play no further part. It is your choice. If you tell me the rest of the story, I promise I will recommend to Manlius Faustus that the two of you have immunity from prosecution, your freedom, and such other rewards as he and the Temple of Ceres see fit.’

I meant it. Faustus had given me authority to offer as much.

‘Three of us,’ begged Daphnus.

‘Three?’

‘My brother, Melander.’

I said it was good to see family loyalty. Far be it from me to separate twins in the city of Remus and Romulus; Faustus would make it a triple amnesty.

Yes, I know about Remus being murdered by his twin out of jealousy.

So they settled down to confess to me. Daphnus started the story, under Amaranta’s watchful eye. I knew the beginning, from Cosmus invading the bedroom and exploding, through the other slaves discovering what he had done – ‘Too late to stop him, which we would have tried –’ then their deciding with Polycarpus that the murders of Aviola and Mucia put them all at risk.

‘Did none of you ever think of handing Cosmus over?’

‘Nobody blamed Myla nor Cosmus,’ said Amaranta. ‘None of us cared for either of them much, but we could see that Myla had been treated badly. She didn’t have enough imagination to see she was in a good home and things could have been far worse. Cosmus neither. He was really lucky Polycarpus took him. Cosmus never saw it that way. He just grew up hating the fact that his father, the master, never wanted anything to do with him. He was always obsessed by that.’

‘He had reached the age when he brooded,’ Daphnus put in. He was young enough to remember his own puberty vividly.

‘Myla was used, for years,’ Amaranta said. ‘Of course she was supposed to endure that sort of thing, but it doesn’t mean she felt nothing. Whenever she was angry about it, she would pour out her heart to Cosmus, making him even more resentful.’

‘They were very close?’ I asked, thinking how Myla had tried to take the blame for Cosmus’ acts, just before she committed suicide.

Amaranta nodded. ‘He convinced himself he killed Aviola and Mucia in defence of his mother, to stop her being sold.’

‘Right. Tell me about the robbers, please.’

Daphnus took up the tale. The fleeting visit by Roscius and his men had given Amaranta the idea to fake a robbery. Some of what the neighbour Fauna had seen from above – people running about with lamps and whispering urgently – happened when the slaves packed up the wine set; they hid it in the chair seat, then hurried the chair out to the unused lock-up. They had to act fast, because they knew they must soon involve the vigiles.

I tried to sound neutral. ‘Once you decided to use the silver to make it look like a robbery gone wrong, was it anyone’s intention to keep the valuables afterwards?’

Their eyes flickered towards one another, but they both denied it. I could imagine what would have happened; if they had got away with it, escaped any accusation, then some time later – probably too soon to be wise – a cloaked figure would start visiting a pawnshop where no one ever asked too many questions, on each visit taking some new closely wrapped bundle … one by one, the wonderful items in the wine set would have been sold. The slaves would gain a tiny fraction of the pieces’ real value. But perhaps to them it would seem more.

Daphnus had played his part in what happened next. This was the incident that had always bothered me. Daphnus had suggested how to make the fake robbery look good: they should give Nicostratus a black eye and pretend the home-invaders rushed him. Nicostratus was willing to be tied up and shut in the mop cupboard, but that was not colourful enough. He was less keen on being battered about, but Amaranta and Daphnus persuaded him.