Enemies at Home

12

It often happens on a case: the first story you hear seems straightforward, yet it soon starts to show cracks. First the tale of what happened to the door porter did not add up. Now, despite Polycarpus assuring me all was harmonious among the workforce, here was contradictory news of disturbances and pottery fights. Back at the apartment, I poked around in the rubbish store but found no smashed dinnerware. It might already have been carted off to a tip.

I was due to see Aviola’s executor, but had time to prepare lunch; a snack stopped Dromo muttering. He was worse to look after than my young brother.

In the kitchen I found Myla feeding her baby, so I took my time and had a closer look at her. As slaves go, she was fairly clean and tidy, with features that suggested she came from an eastern province like Syria or Judaea. I had seen very beautiful Syrian women, with wide-set eyes and straight noses down which they looked with imperious awareness of their own stunning looks. Myla had a heavier face; in another ten years she would be jowly. Even so, she had the imperious expression; for no obvious reason she appeared full of self-belief.

Polycarpus had bought in some basics for me, a loaf, plus boring hard-boiled eggs and salad leaves, though among the stuff Manlius Faustus had sent over were treasures: a crock of good honey, squids in brine and another stone jar of best quality olives. I created a warm drink with the honey and some wine vinegar I found on a shelf. While I stirred it over the fire, I was able to tackle Myla.

When she finished nursing and laid the child in its basket, I dutifully viewed the wrinkled, milky creature. The poor little thing was a girl. I said how sweet she was. This failed to impress the mother.

‘So, Myla, are you going to tell me who her father is?’

The mother hunched up at the question, looking as if she had not heard, or more likely did not even know the answer.

‘Is this your first?’

‘No.’

‘How many have you had?’

‘Some.’

‘What happened to the others?’

‘Gone.’

I couldn’t tell if that meant dead, sold, or sent to Campania. A slave’s children would all be slaves too, of course. Myla had no rights over her babies.

I tried asking her about the night of the murder. She had little to say — surprise! — apart from maintaining that when it all kicked off she was trying to sleep, in the slaves’ quarters. Nobody was with her. She had such an air of oddity and distance, I wondered if the others avoided her.

She said she had heard an upset going on, but she could barely move due to the late stage of her pregnancy. Anyway, she claimed she was too frightened to look out.

I felt myself taking against her. A man might be attracted by the faint suggestion she would resist nothing sexually. I was harder. If she had given me information, I would have assumed it was unreliable. I gave up on her.

At the appointed time, I trotted around the corner to see Aviola’s executor. I had made sure I looked like an independent free citizen: strands of gold necklace and floret earrings, with deft applications of make-up and perfume. This was to show I was respectable — or in Roman terms, that my associates had money. I always wore a wedding ring, and introduced myself as a widow. Widows are treated with respect in traditional societies. Mind you, I never banked on it.

Sextus Simplicius was at home. He saw me in his private library. He seemed wary, so I made much of my connection with Manlius Faustus. I had to judge that carefully, however. I didn’t want Simplicius running off to deal with the aedile direct.

Sometimes being female works in my favour. Some men find it exciting to engage with a woman − so long as they can tell themselves the meeting will arouse no bile in their suspicious wives (I mean, the wives don’t have to know about it). If Simplicius had one, he did not invite her to business discussions. In fact, throughout my investigation I was never to meet her.

I spotted scrutiny that made me sit far enough away to prevent any touching. Given a free choice, I would flatten gropers with a lump hammer. But when I need information I have to work around this problem more politely.

This man must be about the same age as Aviola, who had been a close friend. Simplicius told me there was another executor, also a friend, currently away on his country estate. That was fine, unless it made this one too anxious about speaking to me. There was neither opportunity nor time for them to confer and I wanted him to be frank.

Once we were seated I took a good look at him. He was portly, a man who lived well. Their whole circle probably did, because when he produced a plaque with portraits of Aviola and Mucia, Aviola looked the same type. Aviola and Simplicius had strong Roman faces with deep maturity lines and an air of directness, in the style that is labelled ‘republican’. That means the subject has an old-fashioned short temper and expects someone else to pick up after him. Society sees such people as harmless, or even decent and approvable. When one is murdered, like Aviola, society is horrified. ‘If him, perhaps me next!’

Such bullies will claim to have simple honesty − though they are equally proud of their crookery. Their wives never speak out of turn, yet usually spend what they like and run rings around these men. The men know it, moan about it to their cronies, yet accept it as normal. They tend to have strong mothers, mothers who remain close, mothers who would give them hell if they divorced.

You may think that was a lot to deduce from a formal wedding picture, but Simplicius was there right in front of me, embodying what Aviola must have been like.

Yes, Aviola had had a mother until recently; I asked. Was she a strong influence? Yes, she had been.

Mucia Lucilia was portrayed in the traditional way as a bland, pretty cipher; since my family deals in art, I knew better than to trust this plaque. On it, she had her veil over her head, one hand placed in that of her new husband to show they were married, and a sweet, meek gaze. This may not mean a woman is submissive in real life. Normally all it tells the viewer is that she is really admired for bringing a good dowry to her marriage.

According to Sextus Simplicius, they were a delightful couple. I smiled discreetly. When you need to dig, start slowly.

Despite my request via his steward, he failed to show me the will. However, he answered whatever I asked about it — or so I thought at the time.

It would be a public document so I restrained my immediate annoyance; I could find it eventually — but I itched to scan that scroll myself if it was in the house. Perhaps Sextus Simplicius thought I could not read. Women he knew would all have secretaries. My adoptive mother was highly literate and had expected me to be the same. Once Helena Justina learned her alphabet (which seems to have been when she was about four), she speed-read and speed-wrote anything for herself; that was what she taught me. My father did possess a secretary, but the man spent his time moaning that no one gave him enough to do. The concept of letting a scribe note down your shopping list or recite a poem at you, with intonation he chose, was unknown in our house.

The current will was very recent. Aviola made a new one when he married Mucia Lucilia.

‘I have been considering this subject,’ Simplicius declared, in a self-conscious, pompous way. Every time he shifted in his seat, a faint spearmint miasma wafted my way. Some diligent body slave kept him pleasant for his public. ‘His household knew that he was revising the document, so there may have been discussion of the contents. I was at the apartment when the lawyer brought the scroll to be signed; we had the usual gathering of witnesses. It was finalised in private, behind closed doors.’

I told him which slaves were under suspicion; Simplicius said none, not even the scribe Melander, was in the room for the will-signing. ‘Only witnesses were admitted. Mucia Lucilia was present, though of course she took no part.’

I managed not to growl at that. ‘Simplicius, it looks as if Aviola and Mucia were murdered by robbers, but if Aviola’s slaves attacked him as the vigiles suggest, I have to consider if the new will caused disgruntlement. There will have been talk about it, as you say.’

‘Unfounded rumours can influence staff,’ he agreed.

I said, ‘I am interested in two aspects. Were there any large bequests, ones that might make someone want Aviola dead in order to cash in? Don’t alarm yourself. This is something we always have to consider, when somebody dies in bad circumstances. Also, what does he have to say about his slaves? Who did he intend to liberate, for example?’

‘Or not!’ added Simplicius heavy-handedly, wafting more lotion scents in my direction. I smiled as if I thought him extremely astute.

Yes, I was ashamed of using flattery. But it is undeniably useful.

Valerius Aviola owned several hundred slaves, mostly of the rural type, working as agricultural labourers on his estates. He intended to free a hundred, the most he was allowed.

At this point, Sextus Simplicius finally had someone fetch the scroll and while I sat tantalised by its proximity, the scribe read out the hundred names. Juno, I had to listen to every one, even though most had no relevance because they worked on Aviola’s country estates. I chewed the end of my stylus, trying not to let my eyes glaze over.

None of the hundred manumissions were given reasons. A general heading stated briefly that all these slaves would be rewarded with their freedom ‘for their hard work and loyalty’. Of those on my list, only Libycus and Daphnus were to be freed.

‘Fascinating!’ I checked my note tablet. ‘I wonder how Aviola made his choices? Amethystus and Diomedes are a couple of old lags and won’t be surprised to be excluded. Libycus is an obvious candidate for freedom; he was the personal valet, so they had an intimate relationship. Daphnus not so, however. He’s bright, a go-getter, painfully ambitious, and may have caught Aviola’s eye as someone who deserved a chance. But he is only eighteen, and only a tray carrier. Sextus Simplicius, you must have been to the house often. Do you know Daphnus?’

Simplicius raised his heavy shoulders and looked shifty. He probably did not even know the names of his own tray carriers. Daphnus would have been a silent presence placing a drink in front of him, worthy of less notice than the drink.

‘Others won’t like him jumping the queue. Take Nicostratus, the door porter — a responsible position − he was nearly thirty, so may well have been hoping for his freedom soon. He has died of his injuries, so he won’t have to know …’

Some of Aviola’s deserving slaves had been freed in his lifetime, when they became eligible, the steward for one. Polycarpus and a few others were rewarded for past services with minor bequests.

‘Polycarpus!’ Simplicius recognised his name with enthusiasm. ‘He will be looking for a new position now my poor friend has passed on. To be truthful, I was already eyeing up the situation. There was a rumour that Mucia Lucilia wanted to kick him out and have her own steward take charge. Well, one way or the other, I am hoping to snaffle Polycarpus myself!’

There can be a scramble for good employees after a death, and apparently after a marriage, though I had met his own steward who seemed pleasant and efficient. When I asked what would happen to that man, Simplicius said cold-bloodedly that the fellow would have to accept being pushed aside and sold off. He actually joked that if he, Simplicius, was then found murdered, I would know who did it.

I replied that this would be most helpful.

I knew that four of the refugee slaves (the second porter Phaedrus, the attendant Amaranta, the musician Olympe and the philosopher Chrysodorus), plus at least one sent to Campania (the steward Onesimus), had belonged to Mucia Lucilia. I asked Simplicius if he knew anything about Mucia’s will, since Roman law did grudgingly allow a woman to dispose of her own property. He claimed to have no idea, though I screwed out details of a freedman who had acted as her official guardian before she married.

We moved on to an outline of Aviola’s bequests.

In the will as it stood, I was told, there were a number of gifts to close relatives and old friends. There were rewards for the two executors, payments which Simplicius described demurely as ‘generous’. Overall, however, no one person would receive a whacking amount. Freedmen and women were provided with pensions but ordered to continue service to the family in various non-controversial ways. Donations were made to temples. The usual perk was earmarked for the emperor, a bribe to dissuade him from seizing more. Domitian’s reaction could never be guessed in advance, but Simplicius told me no one, not even the paranoid tyrant who ruled Rome, had a real reason to speed up Aviola’s departure to Hades in order to inherit. Their legacies would be welcome yet were not enormous.

As was a wife’s right, an allowance was left to Mucia Lucilia. Simplicius and I discussed the legal problems with both that bequest and her dowry; he intended to take advice (I recommended the Camillus brothers). He needed to know whether Mucia died first. I had to tell him that in my judgement she was killed after Aviola. Since this could not currently be proved, and might never be, Simplicius wanted to obtain a legal opinion that would allow him proceed as Aviola’s executor on the basis they ‘died at the same time’, negating bequests to each other. Possibly there was such a rule.

‘Does this will say how Aviola’s bequest to Mucia Lucilia should be reassigned if she’s no longer alive?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes. Wives can die early …’ Childbirth (Mucia was young enough), accident, disease … ‘The amount would be shared out pro rata among the other beneficiaries. They all get more, therefore — but as they are many, the addition cannot be called significant.’

That would depend on how rich you were to start with, I supposed.

‘As a matter of interest, Simplicius, what happens now to slaves who are not freed in the will?’

‘The rural slaves are part and parcel of the farms they work on.’

‘And any others?’

‘Have to be liquidated.’

I was startled by his casual turn of phrase. ‘What?’

‘Sold for their cash value. Some may be taken on by the beneficiaries, for a price set against their legacies. A few may be able to buy their own freedom, according to their assessed value. Otherwise, it’s the slave market for any bummers, special auction for the best.’

‘They would have known this?’

‘Standard practice, my dear.’

There was nothing else I wanted to discuss. The conversation had taken me no further, other than suggesting no beneficiary was likely to have helped Aviola on his way. It cast a little light on why some slaves might have held grudges, but nothing dramatic.

Sextus Simplicius escorted me to the door. He seemed anxious. ‘I should warn you about Mucia Lucilia’s guardian … The man can be a menace — he holds some wild theories. Do not believe everything he may say.’

I like wild people. I thanked Simplicius for the advice — then opted to make the guardian my very next interviewee.