The Ides of April

II

The Temple of Ceres was so local to me that I normally ignored it. It sat on the northern slope of the Aventine, a short walk halfway uphill from the starting-gates end of the Circus Maximus. A chunky edifice, it was designed in the remote past and looked more Greek than Roman in an archaic way; the heavy grey columns surrounding it had thick bases and curious capitals that, if you care to know such stuff, were neither Ionic nor Doric. I believe the word is "transitional." I don't suppose the distinction bothered many people; most probably never looked up high enough to notice. But I had spent my childhood a thousand miles from Rome, in a backwoods town that had been laid waste in a revolt and still lacked interesting architecture; when an effort has been made to build something unusual, I pay polite attention.

The truth is, after I was brought to Rome by the family who adopted me, I had to learn fast about the people and the place; as a result I often know more about the myths and monuments than most of the city's natives. I was about fifteen then, and curious about the world. Education was made available. While being taught to read and write, I devoured facts. Sometimes now it helped in my work. More often, it just made me marvel at the weird history and attitudes of these Romans, who believed themselves masters of the civilised world.

At least they had a history. They knew their origins, which was more than I could say.

The temple was home to a Triad: three gods, bunking up together, all holy and cosy amid the incense and deposited must cakes. In addition to Ceres the Earth Mother, a well-built dame bearing sheaves of corn who was one of the twelve grand Olympian deities, it also housed Liber and Libera, two lesser gods that I bet you've never heard of, Ceres' children, I think. This triple cult was rooted in fertility rites-well may you groan!

Needless to say, an organised body of religious-minded women fussed about the temple. No serious shrine can fail to have such busy-bodies importantly organising themselves into a sniffy coven; it's one way local matrons can get out of the house once a week. My grandmother loved it-a bunch of upper-crust women dabbling in neighbourhood benevolence, heads down over gossip, then having wine together afterwards without their husbands daring to disapprove. My senatorial grandmama was a wonderful woman, only surpassed by her plebeian counterpart, whose domestic rule was legendary all over the Aventine. If I mentioned her at the stall where she used to buy roots for her broth cauldron, the greengrocer still mimed running for the hills.

A temple cult can be a good argument against letting women control things. Although Ceres was bringer of plenty, especially favouring commoners, I found that her devotees included a scrawny bird who had been spoiled from birth and thought herself very superior. Forget liberality. The public slaves who swept the steps and acted as security directed me to her because I was a woman, for which I would not thank them. Possibly they could see I was a different type entirely and they were hoping for a laugh.

Sisterhood did not feature at our meeting.

The supercilious sanctum queen was called Laia Gratiana. The public slave had told me that; she would not introduce herself, in case I dirtied her name by using it. She was fair and I am dark; that was only the start of the distance between us. I told myself she was older than me, though in fact she may not have been. She behaved like a domineering old matriarch with five generations of cowed family who all feared she might alter her will if they as much as sneezed. Her garments were rich cloth, elegantly draped with many folds, though in a revolting puce colour that some sly dyer must have been delighted to offload on an idiot. When she swept up, intent on facing me down, I felt my hackles rise by instinct. I saw she felt the same-in my view, with much less reason.

"What do you want?"

"I am looking for Manlius Faustus."

"He won't see you."

"Suppose I ask him that myself. I am responding to a public notice he put up."

When I stood my ground, it unsettled her. Grudgingly, she deigned to mention that the aediles worked from an office in a side street alongside the temple. I guess she only told me because I could have found out easily from anyone.

We parted on poor terms. If I had known then that Gratiana and I were to have history, I would have felt even more sour.

My two romantic little sisters believed that being so carefully dressed up as I was that afternoon guaranteed that you would meet the love of your life. Not today, apparently. My first encounter was certainly dire; while I sized up a nondescript building that must be the aediles' headquarters, a male menace barged out into the street and crashed into me. He snorted with irritation. It was his fault, absolutely. He was too busy hunching up to make himself look like a nobody, an effect he achieved without trying. The shifty blaggard was all hemp tunics and chin stubble. Absolutely not my type. Sorry, hopeful sisters!

"Oh, don't bother to apologise! — Is this the aediles' office?" He refused to answer, skulking off head down. Rubbing my bruised arm, I sent a soldier's gesture after him, though I fear it was wasted.

As I tripped inside the building, I replaced a scowl with my bright-eyed charming face, to impress any occupants. There was no one in sight.

Small rooms led off a dark little entrance hall. Beyond it was a meagre courtyard with a miniature fountain in the form of a shell. It produced a trickle of water that glugged in pathetic hiccups, then leaked into a trail of green slime down the outside of the collection bowl. Mosquitoes clustered hopefully.

I stood still for a moment, listening. I didn't knock or clear my throat. My father was a private informer too, and according to some (him, for example), he was the best in Rome. I was trained to take my chance, to open doors, to look around.

You always dream of finding an unattended diary that reveals an eye-watering love affair-not that I ever had. Everyone was too careful now. Under our latest emperor, when people committed adultery-as they did like rabbits, because he was a despot and they needed cheering up-they did not write down details. Domitian saw it as his sacred role to punish scandalous behaviour. His agents were always looking for evidence.

Repression had spread to the aediles. Encouraged by our austere and humourless ruler, the market monitors were extra conscientious these days. They were cracking down on docket-diddling, fraudulent weights and pavement-encroachment, though their most lucrative target was prostitution. Here in their lair, I saw massive armoured chests, where all the fines from miserable bar girls could be stored. Bar girls were fair game for the purity police. Traditionally, whenever a waitress served a customer a drink, he could order a bunk upstairs as a chaser. That's if he wanted to catch the crabs or risk having to slip an officer a backhander if the authorities paid that bar a surprise visit, looking for unregistered whores-and inevitably finding them.

Bribes, I presumed, would go straight into the aediles' belt pouches. Could Manlius Faustus be paid off with a bribe, I wondered? How much of his income came from sweeteners?

The building smelled of dust. It was a place of unused reference scrolls and faded wall maps. Old wooden benches inhabited uncomfortable interview rooms in which members of the public, hauled in for questioning, could be made to feel guilty about the kind of rule infringement everyone expects to get away with. One thing startled me: a cage containing leg irons, though currently no prisoners.

Someone had turned up behind me.

"I see you are admiring our facilities!" I spun around. The charmer, who was neat and suave, purred appreciation of my physical appearance. He pretended to assume I had come for a guided tour. "His eminence has already cleared out the captives today, so I can't show you any, I'm afraid."

Some days the sun just comes out and lightens your world. We understood one another immediately. That magic spark.

I gazed at him, a pleasant experience. He was roughly my age, not a real redhead but he had gingery-brown eyes, hair, eyebrows, beard and moustache, even the fine hairs on the backs of his hands and his arms-the complete matching set. Background? — hard to say, though his accent was cultured. If he worked in a public office he was almost certainly a freedman, probably first-generation. I don't despise ex-slaves. I could be one myself; I shall never even know.

"The used gruel bowl looks recent." I nudged it with my toe. The toe had been pedicured; my sandal was new. I often wore shoes more suitable for a lame old lady, laced from front to ankle, in case I had to do a route march; on this visit I had treated myself to more feminine footwear. The soles would make a mark if I kicked someone, but the uppers consisted of just two thin gold straps on a toe-post. If this clerk was anything of a foot fetishist, my high instep would set his pulse racing. "I'm glad I am not compelled to steal the keys and set someone free behind your back."

"You sound as if you would really do it!" he murmured admiringly.

"That's me."

The tips of his ears had a little turn forward that gave him character, which I could tell involved personality, humour and intelligence. His slim build suggested a plain life; like me, he had probably known struggle. What I liked most was that he looked as if the sun came out for him too, when he found me in their anteroom. I fell for it happily.

"Andronicus," he introduced himself. "I work here as an archivist."

"Hundreds of records of market fines?"

"That would be tedious!" Andronicus said, although I myself had been neutral. Scrupulously kept public records can be a windfall in my line of work. I never despise bureaucracy. "The plebeian aediles receive decrees from the Senate, which they must deposit for safekeeping next door in the Temple of Ceres. All those records become my responsibility." He was exaggerating his own importance, though I did not blame him. "I tend them devotedly, even though no one ever asks to consult anything."

"But of course if you ever did misfile a scroll or let a mouse nibble one, that would be the only occasion ever that some pompous piece in purple would requisition it."

"You know the world!" Andronicus' grin was rueful and charming; he was very aware of that. "Life has its high spots. Sometimes, the aediles hold a meeting, all four of them-we have two plebeians and two patricians, as I am sure you know. To save them getting ink on themselves, I then have the privilege of being their minutes secretary. I bet you guess that means compiling action notes that none of the spoiled boys will carry out."

I knew he was playing me, or he thought he was. Even though I was enjoying the moment, I never forgot that men were sneaky. "Do you always flirt with visitors?" I asked him.

"Only the attractive ones." He was respectably dressed; his tunic was clean, not even splattered with ink-yet he managed to give the impression his thoughts were dirty. I liked him enough to share them, though I didn't show it.

"Ah don't expect me to fall for blather, Andronicus. I spend a lot of my time explaining to inane women that plain male treachery is the reason their husbands have vanished. Even though my clients' husbands are always supposed to be the loveliest of men, none of whom would harm flies, nevertheless, my enquiries tend to show they have uncharacteristically run away with a bar girl. A piece with an ankle-chain, invariably. And by then, five months pregnant."

"Ooh," the archivist crooned. "Are you part of the emperor's morality campaign? Do you take these absconders to court?"

"No, I track down loose husbands for abandoned wives who can't afford to go to law. My clients have to settle for battering the bastards with heavy iron frying pans."

"I get the impression you hold the men down while it happens?"

Andronicus was smiling broadly. Why spoil his party? I smiled back. "That's my deluxe service… You mentioned your superior," I hinted broadly, dragging us back to the point of my visit. "I think it's him I need to see. Is the notable who calls himself Manlius Faustus available? Or are you going to spin me the old line-'sorry, you just missed him'? "

He gave me a wry gleam. "Faustus is, genuinely, out. I hardly dare say this, but he did leave the building just before you came."

"Not that lout who nearly knocked me over on the step?"

I thought something flickered in the archivist's gaze but he answered calmly, "Oh that would have been our runner." He paused, then added, "Tiberius. Did you speak to him?"

"No." Why would I? "He was a grim bastard. And what's Faustus like?"

"Couldn't possibly comment. He is much too aware that I owe him this job."

"Not on good terms?" I guessed.

"Let's say, if you think our runner is dour, you will not like Faustus."

Andronicus seemed keen to move on the conversation. He asked what brought me, so I explained about the accident in the Clivus Publicius and that notice calling for witnesses with Faustus' name on it.

"Sounds like him," Andronicus commented. "He's quite a meddler."

"Well, I suppose it is his job… Have any witnesses shown up in response?"

"Only you."

I smiled with the complicity we had developed between us so nicely. "I wouldn't have come if I hadn't been stuck… Are you going to mention me to Faustus?"

"Why? You haven't told me anything." Andronicus gave me his own conspiratorial grin. I did like dealing with this man. He came so much cheaper than the clerks I usually had to badger or bribe.

"I want to ask a cheeky favour. If anyone does bring in a story, could you possibly let me know?"

"Love to." Showing how keen he was, Andronicus then asked, "So where do I contact you?"

I always considered this carefully. People can find my office; I could not work otherwise. But there was a difference between clients who were too preoccupied with whatever trouble they were already in to cause any other trouble, and chancers who might have tricky personal motives in coming after me.

Andronicus worked for a magistrate. That guaranteed he was reliable, surely? I told him where I lived.

Anyway, I had Rodan. "It's a climb and not easy to find. But my doorman brings up visitors. Rodan will show you."

"Sounds exclusive!"

I snorted. "That's right. Fountain Court is the most exclusive slum on the Aventine." And he had not yet seen Rodan. I wouldn't spoil the surprise.

"Best you can do?"

"I am only a poor widow." Never imply you have money.

"Oh is that so?" scoffed Andronicus. He sized up my outfit pointedly. I like a man who sees through banter. Indeed, I like a man who notices that you have dressed nicely to meet him. Still, he had not gained the full measure of me. Not yet. "And what is your name when I ask for you?"

"Flavia Albia. Just ask for Albia. Everyone knows me." A lot of people did, though "everyone" was pushing it. This was another ploy for protection that I had learned; it gave the impression there might be many people looking out for me.

I said I had to be going. He said he had enjoyed meeting me. More people were now arriving for official reasons, so I saw myself out, which seemed to be procedure in that office. In mine, I like to be quite sure visitors have left, but Andronicus did not need such precautions.

So, no aedile. That had been a wasted trip, like so many others. I was used to it. In the street I paused, turning up my face to the Roman sky. Heard the hubbub surrounding me on the Aventine and also coming from far away all over the city. Smelt hot oil on lunch-time griddles. Felt the oppression of the Temple of Ceres, gloomily shadowing the street.

Mentally I apologised to my romantic little sisters. Despite my smart get-up I would not be meeting the love of my life this afternoon. Nevertheless I had just had an extremely pleasant experience. That was an improvement on normal.

In any case, I had met the love of my life already, met him long, long ago. You will not be surprised, any more than I was at the wise age of seventeen, that the man toyed with me, then dropped me when he feared it might be serious. The pain had not lasted; I soon met and married Farm Boy, and if people thought that was love on the rebound, they understood nothing about me. There was nothing fake in my affection for him.

He was still around. Not Farm Boy; Farm Boy died. The other one. For family reasons I saw him at social gatherings and sometimes I even worked with him. These days, our past seemed to bother him far more than me.

There had been one result from visiting the aediles' office. If the rapport I had built with the archivist today ever came to anything, that would be fun.

Something would happen with Andronicus. Hades, I was an informer. I could tell that.