Deadly Election (12 page)

‘Get lost or I’ll beat you.’ Dromo knew there was little chance of that. His master made the mistake of adding, ‘Albia and I do not moon!’

‘You would, if I wasn’t looking out all the time to catch you at it.’

Manlius Faustus gripped his belt with both hands, gave up on his slave and spoke through gritted teeth to me: ‘Sorry!’

‘No need.’

‘I could sell him.’

‘You never will.’

‘Perhaps not. He is mine. He is rude, he is defiant, yet he is my
familia
.’

‘Counts as a relative. Bound to be maddening … Be calm, Tiberius.’

He made a gesture of acquiescence. He had high standards, yet tolerance of those who had a reason to be truculent. He believed that finding yourself a slave was an unfair accident of Fate.

He was tolerant of me too. I could get away with anything. I knew that.

‘Now they’re saying, “What shall we do about Dromo?” I bet,’ scoffed the boy, so we were bound to overhear. Faustus ignored it. However, I heard pent-up growling from him.

The aedile rolled up the scroll of senators’ names he had brought, too jaded to continue making notes. Instead, we discussed the auction and my failure to gather any useful clues.

‘Now, Tiberius, I saw you speaking to the Callistus brothers and their cousin.’

‘Good manners. We just said hello.’

I mentioned how Callistus Primus had inexplicably ordered the repurchase of the armoured chest. ‘The family is presenting this as an act of respect, in order to stop anyone else taking an impious interest in the victim. I don’t believe their explanation.’

Faustus looked sympathetic but proffered no ideas.

‘I think they know who the dead man was, but I’ll never get them to say.’ I changed the subject. ‘The strongbox is my problem … Laia Gratiana was jibing at your friend today and actually has a point. Sextus is married. Why do we never see his wife?’

Faustus shrugged. ‘I suppose for the reason he said. She dislikes large groups of people. You cannot make a shy person enjoy public campaigning.’

‘Do you know her?
“Darling Julia”
?’ I quoted Laia Gratiana, though was less sarcastic in tone. Anyone Laia was catty about was a friend of mine.

‘I have met her. Quiet girl. Never has much to say for herself, but she has always been devoted to Sextus – she is famous for it.’

‘In that case,’ I mused, ‘you might expect her to be brave and turn out to support him sometimes.’ Faustus made no comment. ‘Is it not part of your duties as his manager to try to persuade Julia to appear among his supporters?’

‘I can have a word. I don’t know her very well.’

‘Did you go their wedding? How long ago was it?’

‘Yes. About eight years.’

‘Do they have children?’

‘A boy and a girl, I think.’

‘Don’t you know? Old friend of their father, are you not their jovial Uncle Tiberius, always spoiling the darlings?’

‘No!’ Faustus moved suddenly, adjusting position on the bench as if I had made him uncomfortable with my questions.

‘Sorry.’

‘It is your work. You can’t help it … But, Albia, when you start prodding, I automatically fear you have a problem in mind.’

‘No.’

‘Well, good … Two rumbustious little tots, last time I saw them – which was not all that long ago,’ Faustus insisted defensively. ‘I do visit them. Sextus and Julia simply like being private.’ He paused, then suggested awkwardly, ‘Well, you know, sometimes a married couple don’t issue many invitations to a friend who is single.’

‘I see.’

‘Inevitably we have less in common.’

‘Right.’

‘Their social life tends to concentrate around similar young families.’

‘So true. And a bachelor will not seek out occasions where all the talk is of running a family home and educating children?’ I spoke gently, touched by his hint of loneliness.

‘I can endure family chatter.’

‘Yes, if you have to, but I said you don’t
seek
it.’

‘I don’t avoid it,’ he persisted. After a moment he suddenly added, ‘There must have been a third child. I once heard Julia in discussion about an older daughter. I never asked, in case it’s a tragedy. Anyway,’ Faustus concluded, ‘I am seeing enough of Sextus now. He turned to me for help with his campaign, after all. We work together on a daily basis.’

He unrolled the scroll again, an act of punctuation: a full stop firmly positioned in my nagging interrogation.

New paragraph. I can take a hint.

For some while we talked, as he ran a finger down the endless list of names. This was discussion as he and I practised the art: with serious purpose, balanced, highly productive of ideas. We contributed equally, both intent.

I fetched out the waxed tablet that I always carried, making notes for him. Since I had run out of leads on Strongbox Man, I offered to be available tomorrow to take Faustus first to see the Camilli, then to consult the retired Secretary of Petitions, Claudius Laeta, with whom Father used to work. ‘Or work against, I should say – the man was an intrepid manipulator. Always so subtle we could never deduce his real objectives.’

‘So it will be all straight answers!’

The aedile’s humour was interrupted by his slave, as Dromo shouted, ‘Master! I’m supposed to yell out when you have to go off to dinner!’

‘No, Dromo, you are supposed to approach discreetly and whisper in my ear … Sorry, Albia.’ Faustus smiled a rueful apology, although in truth I had no claim on his time. ‘He is right. I have to go. More necessary socialising. Dinner, probably lousy, with one of the possible senators …’

‘Time I let you leave.’ I made it sound as if I was happy to be rid of him. My true feelings were probably visible. ‘Is your Sextus going too?’

‘Yes, he will be on display. That is the purpose of it.’

‘Will his wife accompany him?’

‘I am not sure.’

‘Salvius Gratus, your coalition colleague?’

Amusement crinkled around the aedile’s grey eyes. ‘Yes – and before you ask, Laia Gratiana will drag herself along as well, to demonstrate her support for her brother.’ I applied an uncaring expression. Faustus gazed at me. ‘Would you like to come as my guest, Albia?’

Gulp.

I said taking along their informer might not assist Sextus Vibius. Ours is a despised profession. I heard myself add that it would look as if Faustus had brought along his mistress, which was only useful if the mistress had a great deal of political influence and was publicly known to have slept with very famous men.

Faustus reckoned it depended on the senator: some, he claimed, would find me very interesting. I laughed drily. Then he sensibly accepted my refusal.

I walked with him to the gatehouse. He touched my hand lightly. I watched him march off down Fountain Court, Dromo lolloping in his wake, like a disabled rabbit. The way Dromo fell over his feet reminded me of the slave who worked for Fundanus, the pyre-builder, struggling in a dead man’s stolen boots.

I recrossed the empty courtyard and resumed my bench. Pleasant early-evening sunlight warmed the spot where the aedile had positioned it, bringing me a sense of well-being.

My new seat aroused lively interest among the other apartment-dwellers. They were fewer than they once had been: my father was intending to sell the decrepit Eagle Building for redevelopment. It was one of those drawn-out sales that take several years, with a sluggish buyer who keeps you guessing; everybody knew it was planned, but his tenants would scream with indignation when the buyer suddenly came good and Father had to evict them.

Most lacked balconies but managed to lean out of windows, calling, ‘Ooh, get you, Flavia Albia!’ By tradition, any people who lived here were appalling.

I already felt this bench was a crucial acquisition. One of those items that become central in your daily life, the one crazy possession you make sure to save if a fire breaks out … Silly: it was in a courtyard and made of stone. All I had to do was keep burglars away from it, especially strong ones.

I was an informer. I lived alone in squalor here. I had done so for years, never expecting change. Yet Manlius Faustus had planted the idea that I might begin to strive for a better life.

Still, he was a political campaigner. That is what they always say. All lies. It never happens.

W
e rendezvoused next day at my uncle’s house. Since Faustus had met the Camilli before, I let him make his own way there. I could have suggested breakfast first at the Stargazer, but as he had spent the previous evening in his ex-wife’s company, I felt cool towards him.

We had to wait. My uncle, the most noble Quintus Camillus Justinus, was in the midst of dealing with a child, one of six he had fathered. The infant must have behaved so dreadfully that for once even Quintus and his wife Claudia felt that playing the heavy paterfamilias was required. Quintus had probably had to look up how to do it. An efficient mother, his wife was bound to possess a child-education manual.

Claudia was somewhere else in the house, trying to stop their five other little fiends giggling. Nearby, we overheard a small boy shrieking defiance, then heartbroken sobs and muffled contrition. Silence fell.

Faustus winced, though I could not tell whether he was sympathetic to the boy or to my uncle. To cover the hiatus, I did ask about the dinner, to which he replied that the swinish senator had promised his favours but was obviously wriggling and that, yes, Laia Gratiana had been present but, no, he had not spoken to her. ‘Thoughtful hostess. Did not put me next to her.’ A hostess who knew their story, then.

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘But you were dying to know.’ He sounded scratchy, so I wondered if he had a hangover.

Quintus joined us, looking ruffled. At the same time my other uncle, the equally noble Aulus Camillus Aelianus, appeared from his own house next door, making smug comments about children who misbehaved, goading Quintus. These squabbling brothers were supposed to be acting as Romans of influence, greeting clients at their morning levée. For us they were not in their togas but casual white tunics. Neither appeared to have combed his hair that morning, though in other respects they were turned out neatly.

To me, who had known them from my teens, they were still the boyish relatives I had first met when I was about fourteen and they were in their twenties. Both had been despondent and unsettled then, due to career setbacks even when Vespasian was emperor; I had thought them glamorous, though now I saw they had both caused their parents great anxiety before they settled down.

We got them into the Senate at the same time, about ten years ago. They were just shy of forty now, and typical of second-generation senators who tried to act well yet felt increasingly hampered by the current regime. Domitian distrusted the Senate, working against it where he could; he had killed or exiled many of its members, some of them prominent. My uncles had sought to join this body out of ambition, a sense of duty and, in both cases, a genuine love of law and law-making. They found the Curia frustrating and unsafe. They could not leave. Nobody resigned. Domitian weeded out people, but his way of doing so was deadly.

According to traditional early-morning practice, we ought to flatter our hosts, so they would be gracious, possibly donating small gifts. But Faustus and I were not standard clients and that was not expected.

Quintus seemed fraught after disciplining little Constans; Aulus was characteristically glum. I left Faustus to canvass for Vibius. He had not brought his friend, preferring to speak for him. He made a good case. He was easy and direct. He admitted that he was unable to offer favours, though he could promise that Vibius Marinus would work hard and keep his assigned districts in good order. There was an unsaid hint that Faustus would supervise him.

The Camillus brothers politely assured him they would give thought to his candidate. Everyone knew what that meant. Faustus could not conceal a despondent sigh.

‘Is it always so hard to get answers?’ I asked sympathetically. ‘It must be especially difficult to excite senators over mere neighbourhood magistrates – I mean, they don’t put their noble noses out into the street much, in case the proletariat abuse them, so why should they care whether pavements are muddy and metal jugs displayed on pillars biff you in the face? – And then, of course, the position of aedile is optional in the senatorial course of honour.’

‘Not “one of us”, Albia,’ agreed Aulus. He spoke in his usual dour way, though his intention was satirical. These were my mother’s younger brothers; they had been brought up with the same wry attitude.

To emphasise how worthy Vibius was supposed to be, I ran through the scandalous stories I had unearthed about his rivals until I felt the Camilli might support our candidate at least by default. ‘Remember, my mother won’t like you if you vote for a man who hands out lewd dwarfs to Domitian.’ Mention of Helena Justina made them both wince in a way I thought silly. Typical brothers.

‘The outcome depends on the order for voting,’ said Aulus. Of the two, he was the legal tactician and he was prim about scandal.

‘I agree.’ Faustus leaned forwards, equally ready to expound on technical issues.

Aulus interrupted: ‘The word is, we must first elect some puppet called Volusius, “Caesar’s candidate”.’ The brothers had taken
some
interest then.

‘Volusius Firmus dropped out. Nobody seems to know why. I don’t know him personally, so I can’t ask.’

The uncles sat up. ‘Lost it with Domitian?’ suggested Quintus, quickly. The uncles glanced at each other. If I knew them, they would ask questions of colleagues, poking at this mystery. That would save me having to do so.

Aulus mused further about the listing until Faustus said he believed that now Firmus was gone the order for senators to vote would be: Trebonius Fulvo, Arulenus Crescens (the two bruisers), Dillius Surus (the drunk), Salvius Gratus (Laia’s brother), Vibius Marinus and finally Ennius Verecundus (the mother’s boy). Apparently his uncle had been digging: this list emanated from Tullius. There were four posts. The men were voted on one at a time. Once four obtained a majority, the rest lost out. None of us commented but that that meant, however worthy he was, in fifth position Vibius might lose.