Enemies at Home

57

As 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.

‘Who hit him?’ I sounded as neutral as possible.

‘The first time, I did,’ Daphnus admitted. ‘I admit I lacked practice, so my punch made no marks. Nicostratus had already had enough of it, though. He said to stop there and we would just have to hope a few bruises came out on him next day.’

‘But?’

‘Phaedrus came up behind him suddenly, carrying a plank from the well. He swung it and cracked open his head.’

‘He never meant to kill him,’ Amaranta put in quickly.

‘Phaedrus and Nicostratus had never got on?’ I checked.

‘No, they were sworn enemies.’ She went slightly pink.

From what Gratus had told me after Polycarpus’ funeral, Phaedrus had had a liaison with Amaranta. I wondered if Nicostratus was another, or wanted to be? That would explain the quarrels between the porters — and why Phaedrus hit him so hard. If so, this pert young woman had much to answer for. She liked to look neat and demure, but she was a free-wheeling heartbreaker.

‘I saw the results of the beating on Nicostratus,’ I said dourly.

‘Phaedrus went mad,’ Daphnus told me, sounding subdued. ‘He had had a drink earlier. Afterwards he blamed his German heritage. It turned him into a maniac, he said.’

I realised why Amaranta chose to dump Phaedrus. She saw him as too dangerous a partner. Amaranta would never be a woman who teamed up with a man who thrashed her, and then claimed ‘he never means it and he’s always sorry afterwards’. She flew straight to Daphnus.

‘Did you help out?’ I asked Daphnus. ‘Did you hit him again?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but Amethystus and Diomedes did. They were out of their skulls as well. Nicostratus didn’t pass out at once, and as he buckled at the knees he yelled so loudly, they rushed to knock him cold to stop him. Phaedrus joined in again with that plank while we were trying to stop him. What a nightmare …’

‘How long did this nightmare go on?’

‘Not long. A lot happened very quickly.’

‘Phaedrus seemed to feel Nicostratus’ death sincerely, when I talked to him about it.’

‘He would,’ Amaranta argued. ‘Phaedrus was as shocked as the rest of us, when he sobered up later. He has no idea what came over him, he says. When he saw the damage he was inconsolable.’

Always sorry afterwards … I was angry. ‘Inconsolable? He hid that well with me! Phaedrus carried out a vicious attack, in which all of you were associates. Whatever jealousy caused his feud with Nicostratus, there is no excuse for him, nor for Amethystus and Diomedes − and there’s no excuse for the rest of you. Tell me, when you brought Nicostratus here with you, was that in case he regained consciousness and told tales? Were you hoping to prevail on him to keep quiet?’

‘Partly. We really did think we could look after him, to make amends. But −’ at this one point Amaranta showed visible pride in her ingenuity − ‘we brought him in the chair, where we had hidden the silverware. So nobody would find it.’

Amaranta was a clever young woman. She had not reckoned with that cult busybody, my bugbear Laia Gratiana, tidying the unwanted chair away from her precious sanctum by despatching it back to the apartment as soon as she spied it.

So that was their story. I told the disreputable pair that even though it disgusted me, I would keep my promise about the aedile.

I could not help reflecting ruefully how these slaves had spent more energy and invention on a volatile fellow slave boy, a youth they did not even like, than on protecting their master and mistress or showing them loyalty after their deaths. Loyalty to Nicostratus had been shaky too. Relationships in the household of Aviola and Mucia, two reputedly decent newly-weds, had been corrosive. Under the surface of a happy home had raged divisions that led to fatal results.

Was it the same throughout Rome? Could somebody like Dromo one day turn on Faustus? I thought not. But Valerius Aviola and Mucia Lucilia probably believed they too were safe.