Deadly Election

42

We began our journey in darkness, fighting for passage with the last of the delivery carts. Faustus provided transport, a carpentum, the zippy two-wheel, two-mule carriage that his uncle used for going down to Ostia on warehouse business. There was room to have a driver. This permitted more conversation than if Faustus had taken the reins, not that he bothered to talk when we first set out.

He picked me up at Fountain Court. I was sleepy-eyed and wishing I could stay in bed. He put me in the back of the carriage, under a rug. He hunched in a cloak, up at the front with the taciturn driver. I felt the jolts as we went downhill, then was aware of curses and sick-making stops and starts as we dawdled through Rome, with all the other vehicles seeming to want to cross our path or travel against us.

We were travelling out past Fidenae, which is ten miles beyond Rome, an easy day’s journey, except that from the Aventine it was necessary to go first either through or round the city in order to reach the Via Salaria, the ancient Salt Road that goes north. Rather than out and round, the driver went through. He headed down to the Embankment then up across the Field of Mars, along the Quirinal ridge and so found the Via Salaria somewhere near Domitian’s new temple, built to glorify the Flavian family. Personally, I would not have chosen that way. But who listens to women?

Eventually I grew drowsy as the pace grew easier when we reached open country. The air seemed fresher. Light was beginning to filter in, but I fell asleep.

Later, I sensed food was being consumed. I scrambled forward and squeezed in on the driving seat, a narrow cross-bench. As he made room, Faustus handed me a bread roll from a basket, smelling warm from a baker’s stall. Always organised, he also produced home-cooked clove-infused gammon to fold inside the opened roll.

The day brightened. Grassland and crops were now glowing gold beneath the summer sun. Cypress trees darkly dotted the landscape, singles or doubles or lines that often seemed planted together for no obvious reason. We passed olive groves and vineyards, heading towards the rolling Sabine Hills, though we would stop long before Reate, Vespasian’s homeland. Occasional old Etruscan towns clustered on hilltops in the far distance, each dominated by a temple, each colourful with red pantiled roofs above their rocky grey escarpments.

We were chinking along at a racing pace. Faustus had told me the Vibius estate ought to be reachable today; a bonus of setting out so early was that if we forced the pace we almost had time to return tonight. It would partly depend on Julia: how willing she was to accept our request and how fast she packed for the journey.

Even though his uncle had invested in seriously good mules, this was not to be. We hit a long delay en route. It happened quite soon after Rome. We had reached the bridge over the Anio, which comes down from Tibur. That famously clear river wanders around, crossing both the Via Nomentina and the Via Salaria before it turns towards the sea and is consumed into the muddy Tiber.

Faustus had been sitting up and looking around. I presumed that was because annoying beggars often lurk under bridges. As vehicles slow down, they jump out at you, whining sad stories and wanting money. They can also snatch packages off the back of carts, unnoticed by less careful drivers and passengers.

There were a couple of them lurking under the span, but they were dopey. By the time they called out we had passed them and crossed over. Then, Faustus abruptly ordered our driver to stop. He was reluctant, while still so near the bridge, but he knew Tullius’s nephew of old and grudgingly obeyed orders.

Faustus clambered over me, leaped out and set off across a nearby field. Caught short, presumably. The driver and I exchanged glances, then we, too, descended and made ourselves comfortable. For modesty, we chose bushes on different sides of the road, neither of us bothering to go as far as our companion, but staying near enough to protect the carriage.

Faustus was a long time gone. The driver stood up on the footboard, looking for him. He hollered out, at which I caught a faint reply. The driver shrugged and took his seat once more. Curious, I climbed down and made my way across the weedy field in the direction Faustus had taken. There seemed to be a kind of path, but it was one of those wobbly walk-along byways rural people have, which infuriatingly peter out. I had shoes on, not sandals, but was groaning to myself at the twigs that scratched me and the mud underfoot.

How come even parched ground in the country always has puddles and cart-ruts full of foul squelchy substances into which you always step? So much safer in the city where you can see what’s coming.

How do goats keep their hoofs clean? You never see a nanny wiping her slimed foot against a tussock, scowling with disgust.

Actually there were no goats in sight, though animals with unhygienic habits had passed this way regularly. Farm Boy, my husband, would have chuckled at my squeamishness − but he was also a strong lad who would have picked me up and carried me over the rough and smelly parts. He always thought it hilarious that, although I come from a province so remote it is mythical, I am utterly a city girl. Londinium is full of shacks, but it has streets with stalls and verandas to keep the rain off. I want fresh produce and regulations. And I don’t want to encounter people my father describes as having hairy toes and three ears.

Bumpkins had been here. Faustus was in a clearing. It had been heavily trampled, and was full of sordid litter. While I tried to work out what the aedile was doing, I murmured, ‘This is one of those places the lads of the village – assuming there is anything so cultured as a village nearby – bring shameless girls to fornicate in groups by moonlight.’

‘Don’t worry, that is not my plan for you.’

‘Such a pity!’

‘Wait your turn …’

The only reason he let me lead him into this banter was that his mind was not really on it. He was intent upon another task he had set himself.

The villagers must come often for entertainment. They had left ash from several fires. Outside the circle, though not very far out, I noticed human waste. On one side of the clearing stood a high pile of junk. This had attracted Manlius Faustus, who was single-mindedly picking the pile apart and inspecting every item he yanked out. In his careful way (the reason it took such a long time) the pieces of old wood, sections of wheel, twisted tree branches, amphorae, odd boots, oily rope ends, gourds, mouldy bread chunks and a half-carcass of a rotting sheep were meticulously sorted into neat lines, in categories of his own devising. The locals who came here were going to be extremely puzzled to discover this array some night soon.

I sat on what I took to be a log, cleaning my shoes with leaves, and cooed gently, ‘Tell me your plan then, dear Aedile.’

‘I think you’ll see.’

‘Not evident so far. But I have great faith in you, Tiberius.’

He looked up briefly, holding a dirty old garment between his fingertips. ‘I knew you were the girl to bring!’ He noticed what I was doing. ‘What’s that you’re on?’

‘Part of a fallen tree? Some result of accident or lightning?’

‘I do not think so, city woman.’

I jumped up quickly, in case it was horrible.

Manlius Faustus positioned the tunic where he deemed it belonged in his collection, then came across to me. He stood with one arm round my waist, blissfully comfortable. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He leaned away – ‘Hair tickling!’ Still his arm remained, warm and heavy, fast round me.

We looked down at what had been my seat. It was a long, sturdy pole, weathered but properly shaped and finished by a good carpenter. Once painted, its colours were now peeling after soaking in dew. Faustus kicked aside the undergrowth and uncovered a metal socket into which it would be fixed, when this pole was used for lifting the equipage it belonged to. He picked them up, pole and socket, and carried them over to a carefully assembled group. I saw now that he had singled out pieces that belonged together: three uprights, one leg with a fancy foot, another pole, a half-round roof with decorated semi-circular ends, parts of a slatted mattress base, a shaped back support, various ripped curtains and the rods they had hung on. There was even the mattress, though that seemed to have been used by the villagers for some filthy purpose and he would not let me near it.

‘This is all I can find, so the rest must have been used for firewood. If I carry the roof, will you be able to manage that leg for me, Albia? I want to take enough for a sure identification when we fetch it back to Rome.’

I picked up the leg gingerly. I knew, without Faustus spelling it out, I was now holding part of the litter in which Callistus Valens had set out on his ill-fated journey to his country estate.