The Ides of April (22 page)

I
spent much of the next day leading my own life. I had not abandoned the murders, but there were no obvious leads to follow and I had no wish to subject myself to more disparagement from Tiberius, so I was determined to avoid him. I collated my notes about various other cases for private clients; they had been neglected lately. I carried out domestic chores. That included even sewing braid around the neck of a tunic, one with a square neck that had
developed the traditional run in the material, from the weak point at the corner. I was covering up the ladders by stitching on braid, which would also strengthen the neck and give the garment a longer life. It had been a good tunic, blue, which was always a favourite colour of mine, though it is expensive and fades terribly.

I quite liked sewing. I enjoyed the quiet push and tug of the needle as I pressed into the layers of tunic and facing, then jerked the thread through, and the satisfaction of smoothing the work well, so it lay flat as I made progress.

This task calmed me after another experience that had left me horrified: I had walked around the Aventine all morning, looking for more fox cages. I found several. All but one were empty and I made them safe. The last contained a young fox, dead. At some point before or after he collapsed, crows had managed to insert their beaks through the wires and peck out his eyes. I shooed them off, but then could only walk away.

Just as I finished sewing, Andronicus came. I was up in the office, seated in the balcony doorway to use the best light. At his cheery greeting, I bit the thread on the last stitch then carefully docked my needle in the tunic braid; needles are not cheap.

‘Not far off weaving at a loom like a traditional wife!’ I mocked myself as I tidied my work and gathered up my sewing box. My friend took that from me, inspecting the elegant casket which had been a present from my parents: fine fragrant cedarwood, with patterned ivory inlays and
silver fitments. My younger sisters had enjoyed themselves finding contents: a bronze thimble, shears, hole-punch, carved bone needle-case. I had filled up the box with remnants of braid and threads, buttons and beads. To anyone else it was a jumble of untidiness, though to me each cheap treasure represented past history.

‘Somebody loves you!’ As he placed the decorative box on my table, Andronicus had his suspicious look. My nut-brown lovely stood there, slim and trim, with no idea how little need he had to be jealous with regard to me.

‘Not a man!’ I growled, knowing how he thought. ‘Generous parents.’

‘You stay close to your family.’

‘People who know my history never expect that – but why not?’

‘You live alone,’ Andronicus said. ‘But there seems to be a great deal in the background that you hide.’

‘I hide nothing.’

‘You live in this horrible place, although you have a rich father.’

‘This was my father’s office before me. He made his own way in the world, and so do I.’

‘You fell on your feet, yet you turn your back on a fortune.’ Andronicus seemed unable to comprehend the situation I had chosen. I suppose to a freedman money mattered too much. ‘You told me you came from nothing. If that is
true –’ His implied suggestion that I might have invented my story for effect startled me. My past was hard; why would anyone burden themselves with a miserable past unnecessarily? ‘–why don’t you now take advantage of what is available?’

‘It would seem obvious to most people. And I expect it is my father’s biggest fear that any men his daughters like will adopt that attitude.’ As I explained the alternative, I felt my chin come up. ‘I don’t. I never will. I appreciate good fortune, but I make my own way when I can. Anyone who is my friend will see it my way.’

‘I just wanted to understand.’ Now Andronicus had his wide eyes, his seriousness about the mouth, his manner earnest and trustworthy. ‘I love the way you see things, Albia!’

As if to prove it, he told me why he came. He had learned where the aediles were keeping the Cerialia foxes. That news certainly won my affection and gratitude.

What we did in the next hour was dangerous, and could have brought down public wrath on both of us. Andronicus was eager not just to show me where to go, but to join in and help me. Sometimes I did crazy things, but never before with a partner. Since our destination was the Temple of Ceres, so familiar to him yet so alien to me, it would have been pointless to quibble. Anyway, our friendship easily extended to sharing this rash adventure.

As we walked there, he asked, ‘What would your wonderful family think about this?’

‘They would very strongly advise against it!’

Clearly the right answer. He laughed gently.

I in turn asked how he came to be allowed out. He said Faustus was chairing a big meeting about arrangements for the Cerialia Games, a duty he could not neglect, while his uncle had gone to some drunken banquet, a normal night out for Tullius. The household was unregulated. Slaves and freedmen came and went.

It was a fine evening, though cool. People were on the streets though not in great numbers. We went side by side like strolling lovers. It was too early, and still too light, for most robbers to be active, while the old ladies who maintained moral standards had gone home for mean suppers with their cats. Families who spilled out of shops and workshops took no notice of us, since we were clearly not window-shopping. Nobody would remember us. Nobody could have imagined our illegal errand.

We reached the temple. One of so many on the Aventine, its isolated position in the north-west corner overlooking the Circus Maximus meant this particular temple was turning towards the city opposite as if offering some upstart rivalry to Rome’s grand official gods on the Capitol.

Ceres was benign to humans. Ceres gave us agriculture, and with it the habit of a regulated life. How could the goddess who taught mankind to plough, who discovered wheat for us, who reigned as a patroness of decent human values, of peace and justice, require the torturing of foxes? One of her companions in this ancient temple was Liber, Father Freedom, a god of wine and male virility, but – perhaps because liquor will loosen the tongue – also a champion of free speech. This temple represented a longstanding centre of rebellion against restrictive social order. What Andronicus and I intended to do at least fell within that spirit.

Not that the plebeian authorities would approve. If we
were seen with the foxes – if we were caught – it would count as ‘an insult to Ceres’. Traditionally, the penalty for that
was hanging.

That night my friend was so fired up it was wonderful. He dragged me up the worn steps and through the wide-set stubby columns beneath their bleached wooden pediments, then headed into the sanctuary. I had never been inside before. In Rome most religious life takes place outside, where the altars for sacrifices stand in the open air. On the eve of the festival there was more public presence than usual. Old women were selling cakes and honeycombs from little tables set among the columns.

We slipped past them, to enter the interior unchallenged. Another old woman, in white Grecian dress, clearly the chief priestess, was tending the statue of Ceres. Her movements were creaky but she straightened the goddess’s wheatsheaves and torch to her satisfaction before turning. She recognised Andronicus and perhaps looked disapproving, but made no attempt to shoo him out. She ignored me. Women were allowed here.

Andronicus was a fine actor. As if to explain our presence, in a grave voice, he began giving me a lecture about the cult statues playing guide to a curious tourist. Each in their own sanctum were three extremely handsome bronze gods, paid for from fines the aediles extracted: Ceres seated on the snake-wreathed box which contained secret items used in her mysteries, Liber with his Dionysian wineskin, Libera, associated with Proserpina, the daughter Ceres lost to the god of the Underworld, but rescued . . .

Unlike so many stories of the official pantheon’s gods and goddesses – that randy, amoral group who seemed concerned mainly with love affairs – Mother and Maiden had a special appeal for me. Their story was the core of the festival. In a few nights’ time white-robed women would be running all over the Aventine with torches, to represent the desolate goddess’s desperate search for her missing daughter, when the earth dies in the dead dark of winter before the mother is reunited with her child in the light, and green shoots are allowed to sprout again. Even in the city –
especially
in the city where there were so many mouths to feed – the renewal of the life-sustaining grain was celebrated.

Once, according to legend, a boy found a fox stealing chickens. When he tried to burn the fox alive, it escaped; as it ran away ablaze, its burning tail fired the fields and destroyed the precious cereal crops. Forever after, foxes had been punished in the name of Ceres . . .

The incense-scented hall became deserted but for us. A few hanging lamps burned, keeping the gods company. Andronicus winked at me, yet refrained from disrespect for the deities. He led me back outside; we sneaked through the columns and down off the podium, now with our hearts bumping. He was undoubtedly the leader, as we made our way from the main street, keeping in the shadows along one side of the temple, to a discreet doorway. Most temples have these, generally the entrances to underground vaults where treasure can be banked. Here, the Senate archive for which Andronicus was responsible had its location, a store of decrees kept at the heart of plebeian Rome, tended by commoners as if snubbing the aristocracy. He took me inside and showed me the array of columbaria, the endless banks of dovecote-style holders for scrolls, that formed his domain.

He snatched a kiss. He was highly excited, and I could tell he wanted more and would have taken it, defying propriety there among the banks of scrolls, had I not been single-minded about our mission. ‘Later!’ I hissed, letting him know I wished we did not have to wait.

Further along the street, still beneath the temple, was a store. Untidy but functional, it was like any hiding place for equipment. Here they kept cleaning materials and lamps, cult items, and a pile of unlit torches ready for the festival. Andronicus showed me a phallic herm, an attribute of Liber, dumped here to gather dust. According to him, the priestesses of the cult were a sanctimonious collection of matrons who had thrown out the huge erect member in one of their many spring-cleans. He fingered it suggestively; we both giggled.

Unlike the archive, to which Andronicus had a special key, we had found this store unlocked. Andronicus told me two public slaves were supposed to guard it, the same sad lags who used the brooms to sweep the temple steps and the buckets to fetch water from fountains for washing the shrine daily. Every evening they went out to supper, and since they served at a temple housing a wine-god, they were known to take the attitude that Liber would want them to enhance their meal with the joys of fermented grape juice. It would be some time before the pair rolled back, stupefied.

They had left a lantern to stop themselves stumbling into things on their return – and to give some light to their current charges: four stricken and mange-ridden country foxes.

We acted fast.

The animals were all housed in one big cage. They had water, but no food that I could see. They were snarling, unhappy creatures whose stink had filled the storeroom. I could not imagine how it was intended to catch them and control them enough to fix burning torches to their tails. The thought was hideous. Andronicus said men would come from the imperial menagerie.

‘I know what foxes do,’ I admitted. ‘My husband was born on a farm. He always hated foxes because they slaughter poultry. Tearing off chickens’ heads, regardless of their actual need for food. Every year, while I hid at home, deploring the ritual, he would go out and join in, whooping down to the Circus with the crowd.’

‘So you and he had nothing in common?’

‘Love is when you stick with someone despite disagreements.’

‘I don’t see it,’ said Andronicus.

‘Then just shut up and help me do this.’

We had to be careful. Loose foxes in this store would cause havoc and be pointless. We needed the creatures to go straight out into the street and run away. To make sure they did, we manoeuvred that big cage to the doorway before we opened it. The foxes cowered, afraid we intended to harm them. At first they just stared at the open door, assessing the new situation. We shooed, trying not to make much noise in case we attracted attention. At last one edged forwards and put his nose out, then made a crouching run for safety; the rest followed. The third waited for the fourth as if they were mates or siblings. Once in the street, they all slunk into shadow and were quickly lost from sight. I heard a harsh bark, then nothing.

We moved the cage to make space for us to leave. I wanted to get away from there as fast as possible; Andronicus now decided to cause even more disruption to the rites. He carried out the pile of torches and dumped them in the roadway. He poured a bucket of tar over them. While I watched admiringly, scarcely able to believe his rashness, he lit a piece of matchwood at the lantern. Cupping the flame, eyes bright, he brought his taper outside and dropped it onto the pile of brands. They flared alight, bringing a sudden warm glow to our rapt faces. He kicked a loose torch onto this bonfire, causing a stream of sparks. I ran indoors for more torches to add to the pile, until the whole side street filled with light and fire.

The smell of the smoke must have travelled. As a vigiles whistle sounded close by, Andronicus grasped my hand and, both laughing out loud, we finally turned the other way and made a run for it. So we vanished from the Temple area, shooting away into the night, just like the foxes.

W
e had scampered north because the shouts told us the vigiles were coming from the street on the temple’s entrance side. Heading away from them took us down off the hill near the corn dole station, after which our footsteps naturally led us to the Tiber Embankment. We walked, hand tightly in hand, through the long Porticus of the Trigeminal Gate. Its stalls had been closed up for the night, some of them actually towed away; although we passed the family stall of Lupus, the murdered oyster-shucker, no one was there and we did not mention it.