Enemies at Home

16

Mother’s Boy had been dragged from Campania to Rome with Mother. Did she want to be able to produce him as the wronged heir, like a tame dove from a conjurer’s sweaty armpit? I made arrangements with Galla to interview her darling the next morning, but graciously allowed them time to wake up first, after their journey. Mummy’s Precious was bound to be master of the long lie-in.

Tingling at this unexpected swing in the case, I myself rose early.

‘You are causing me a lot of trouble!’ Dromo whined.

‘How come?’

‘He made me go to some baths again! Two times the same day. He hauled me there himself and got a horrible attendant to torture me.’ He, being Faustus, had then equipped Dromo with an old tunic of his own. I had seen Faustus wearing the faded garment, when he was acting as a man of the streets, incognito. It gave me an odd feeling.

The restless slave continued to brood on the unfair treatment inflicted by this cruel master. ‘I’m not going every day! … Oh, don’t make me do that, Albia.’

‘Get a grip, Dromo.’

‘Can I have another cake for being washed twice?’

‘No. Eat this.’

I had made us breakfast rolls, fresh from a local bakery and filled with cold sliced beef; I went out for the ingredients myself. ‘Do you want a pickled gherkin with it?’

‘I don’t like them.’ Refusing pickles, Dromo was like a big five-year-old.

‘Good. I can eat both.’

‘I could try one.’ Make that a three-year-old.

‘Too late, lad.’

I still had time to spare before interviewing Aviola and Galla’s son. Since Polycarpus had not appeared that morning, I took the chance to go upstairs and investigate where he lived. Secundus and Myrinus, the North African leatherworkers who were Libycus’ friends, were opening the shutters on their shop and they pointed me to the right stairs.

It was a long hike up, almost to the top of the building. In this it was typical of Rome, and no worse than my own office at Fountain Court. Stone steps led directly from the street; they were cleaner, with more light than I was used to in my building. I guessed housewives swept and tidied them, not a lazy general cleaner. So there were no lost toys to trip over and hardly any smells. Well, I noticed some smells, though not bad enough to make me want to hold my breath until I reached the next level.

As I reached the door I heard a dog start excitedly barking. When I knocked, a woman called out to know who it was; this was followed by exasperated orders to the dog. After a period of paw-scrabbling, a door slammed inside. A short, breathless woman with joined Eastern eyebrows and dark moles, though not unattractive, opened up. She looked out as if she feared I would be nagging her to buy worm-eaten sponges from a tray. I repeated who I was. She cannot have heard properly, while struggling to control the dog.

‘I suppose you should come in. He’s out.’

‘Thank you. I don’t need to see Polycarpus himself; you can probably help me.’

She looked worried by that. Was she unused to speaking for herself — or, rather, speaking for him? Many an ex-slave who has had to obey orders all his life behaves very strictly with his own household once he acquires one.

I even wondered if Polycarpus beat his wife, though I saw no bruises, nor was she cowed.

The apartment was only three rooms, as far as I could see. She led me to their main room. I was not invited to inspect the rest. She had just introduced herself as Graecina when the dog began barking again. She stepped out, closing the door behind her, and I heard her tell someone to walk the creature.

‘There; that should give us some peace. The lad has taken him out.’

I never saw the dog, though I would have liked to. He sounded like a savage guard-dog, but I suspected he was barking above his weight. I never saw the lad either, their son presumably; Polycarpus had mentioned children. I had no interest in a boy. I had enough ridiculousness with Dromo.

The home was neat, spotless, furnished rather heavily as tends to happen with first-generation citizens. There was one couch, padded to a hard finish, on the edge of which Graecina and I both perched.

We exchanged light chit-chat about how long they had been there. I was surprised to learn that Graecina did not come from the Aviola household, as I expected. I wondered if she had been a bar girl, though if so she had learned to disguise it. She had turned her back on the filthy aspects of the refreshment trade. To gain this better life, she had to sleep with Polycarpus, but not with every sweat-stained randy Titus who had a drink then wanted to take her upstairs for a cheap thrash.

Every side-table in her apartment was crowned with a doily, while a set of matched glass tipple-tots was on proud display, probably never used.

I asked first about the night of the robbery. Graecina confirmed what Polycarpus had said about him returning downstairs on a whim, and then discovering the robbery. If he had coached his wife in this story, I could spot no signs of collusion — though a good steward knows how to get a tale told right.

This apartment was similar in layout to that rented by Lusius and Fauna on the other side, which I had already visited. It had the same small high windows, letting in light but not made for looking out. According to Graecina, no noises from the courtyard had risen up here that night. She denied Fauna’s complaint of increased disturbance around the wedding; still, if Graecina and Polycarpus loyally declared that Aviola’s household were as quiet as mice, that was only their duty.

Actually mice can make a hell of a racket, knocking about a building and gnawing like maniacs in the middle of the night. The mice in Fountain Court were hideously loud, as well as fearless.

While witnesses are true as steel, of course.

Maybe.

‘So was there anything else you wanted, Flavia Albia?’ Graecina seemed uneasy, and anxious to be rid of me.

‘Well, the reason I came up was to ask Polycarpus for his private opinion of Galla Simplicia, Aviola’s divorced wife. Have you met her, Graecina?’

‘No, I’ve only seen her from a distance.’ Graecina hesitated over whether to speak about the ex-wife of her husband’s master − but she decided to enjoy the chance. ‘My husband never had much good to say about her, though at least she’s better than the new one.’

‘What did Polycarpus have against Mucia Lucilia? Reorganising the household?’ I asked, playing innocent. His main beef may have been that Mucia planned to let him go, in favour of her own steward, Onesimus.

Graecina conceded the point. ‘Yes, she wants — wanted — her own people around her. Personally, I don’t think you can blame her.’ She shrugged. ‘It was all going to sort itself out.’

I decided to test ideas on her. ‘Am I right, that Mucia’s steward Onesimus was sent to Campania to be in charge through the summer, while your husband was to be left here? Onesimus will be back empty-handed now, of course … Mind you, hasn’t any conflict between the stewards resolved itself? I heard Polycarpus might be offered an opening elsewhere?’

‘Well, you keep your ear to the ground!’ cried Graecina admiringly.

‘Just doing my job.’ I slipped in a question about the ex-wife: ‘I’m surprised you spoke well of the ex. I heard Galla Simplicia is the kind of woman who would resort to violence? If Aviola brought in a rival, wouldn’t she do her utmost to remove the rival?’

‘What are you asking, Albia?’ Graecina was stalling.

‘Would Galla go so far as to hire killers − as has been suggested?’

Graecina looked truly shocked. ‘That would be terrible!’ I wondered. Did Polycarpus’ wife have to feel grateful to Sextus Simplicius for offering Polycarpus a new place? Did that mean she couldn’t risk blackening the name of the new master’s female relative? ‘Oh, Albia, how could she do it? How would a woman find people to do such a thing?’

‘Well, she herself might have no idea — however, there is someone here with excellent local contacts … I have to ask you: Graecina, did Galla ever try to get your husband to do something bad?’

‘He wouldn’t!’

Maybe Galla asked him, but Polycarpus hadn’t mentioned it to his wife. I always assume men do not tell their wives anything those wives might disapprove of.

Think about it. If Galla Simplicia restored friendly relations with Polycarpus by persuading her cousin to offer him a job, then Polycarpus, the all-knowing, wheeling, dealing facilitator, might have been able to tell Galla who the criminals were around the Clivus Suburanus. If he didn’t know to start with, people Polycarpus knew could tell him.

I had seen him operating. He could work out how to make contact. Adept at dropping the right word in the right ear, he could fix a secret meet. I bet the neighbourhood’s chief gangster either knew who Polycarpus was, or had sidekicks willing to vouch for him. After which, employment is always welcome to businessmen, including gangsters. It would be short work for them to tender for the job, agree a price, claim a deposit, programme the work, receive the necessary victim-profile and a sketch plan of the apartment, then do the deed.

Polycarpus would have been able to arrange for someone to open the door. Maybe the timescale of his trip downstairs ‘on a whim’ was all wrong, and he came for this purpose.

Maybe he unlocked the door himself.

On the other hand, maybe Polycarpus was exactly as he made out: an honest, hardworking, loyal long-term servant of a master who might yet have resisted the beseeching of his misguided new wife. Aviola might never have replaced Polycarpus with Onesimus as Mucia wanted. Sextus Simplicius could have got this wrong. Or Onesimus might make a hash of the work in Campania and lose his chance.

Even if Aviola was ready to dump Polycarpus, maybe Polycarpus remembered too much about Galla from the old days. He might not want to work for her cousin.

Even if he did, surely Polycarpus still had more sense than to assist Galla Simplicia with a crime that carried a death sentence?

Ideas were jumping up like sand-flies. But I concealed them from Graecina, who had concerns of her own. A young child started mithering in another room, so I took my leave.