Enemies at Home

24

‘Is he alive?’

The slaves knew nothing.

I realised what had happened. Those men I saw earlier departing from that bar opposite were not innocent drinkers, but criminals. Watching the house. Waiting for someone to leave, with specific orders to look for a senator. The Rabirii sent them after us. The men tailed Justinus until he reached a suitable spot, then brutally set about him.

It was no random act. It was a warning. We had taken too much interest.

‘Tiberius, I have to go!’

‘Stay here, where you are safe.’

‘Was Nicostratus safe? Aviola and Mucia Lucilia?’

‘Albia, do as I say, please.’

‘Don’t give me orders.’

‘Only advice.’ Well, aedile, that is always irritating.

We were standing in the street by then. The damned man was so stubborn with me, he might as well have been one of my family. I was trying to break away and he was trying to shepherd me back into the house. I wanted to kick him, but I was wearing only house slippers. Besides, I would never have aimed right, as I havered in panic over whether to pelt straight off to the Camillus house or first rush indoors for shoes I could run in.

People were looking out of windows and doorways. The disturbance brought Polycarpus’ wife down.

‘Dromo — come. With your cudgel, fool!’ Faustus finally went along with me. I calmed down. Better he decided to help me than I rushed off by myself. I knew from experience he made a good ally.

Polycarpus must be out but, assuming responsibility on his behalf, Graecina produced a carrying chair. It must be Mucia’s, sent back by the Temple of Ceres after the slaves ran off. It had been kept in a lock-up while attempts were made to clean Nicostratus’ blood off the seat. Not very successfully, I noticed.

The steward’s wife also gave us a lantern-carrier, a callow lad who worked for her, and a cloak of her own — I was shaking — which Manlius Faustus bundled around me, a practical man, ignoring how angry I had been with him. He noticed I was on the verge of tears and murmured, ‘Don’t go jittery. This is not your fault.’

‘I don’t jitter. Let me go. I need to go.’

‘I am coming with you. Get in — go, go!’ He was shouting not at me, but the Camillus slaves who would be carrying the chair containing me.

Thank the gods it was downhill to the Capena Gate. It felt as if we were travelling across half Rome, a rough journey at the speed they ran, and I was so keyed up I soon felt sick. We had to scramble from the Fourth district, past the Fifth, across the Second and into the Twelfth. At least it was not as far as the Aventine.

It was a quiet evening by Rome’s standards. The streets were negotiable. The Rabirius gang had done their worst for one night. Nobody attacked us.

When we arrived, the men took the chair right into the house and I fell out of it in the atrium, almost before they were stationary. Someone gestured to a room. Quintus, stripped and sporting livid marks, was lying on a couch.

Aulus was attending to his brother. He had rejected the family doctor, a freedman they kept for dosing the children, who had tried to use lambswool for cleaning the wounds, only to be ordered away in case fibres killed Quintus with an infection. The doctor was still maundering on about this, while Aulus explained his reasons through gritted teeth, apparently not for the first time.

Aulus used a sponge. He must have already spent some time cleaning Quintus up. Several bloody bowls of water stood on the floor around the couch. Even so, I could see no sword or knife wounds, only bruises and scrages where dark blood welled but only to the surface. The damage was extensive. He would hardly be able to move tomorrow. But he would safely have a tomorrow.

Aulus had knocked Quintus out with a strong dose of poppy juice, judging by a beaker I sniffed and by the patient’s smiling, unspeaking acceptance of everything that was happening. Quintus knew people were there. He had no idea who we were or what was up with him. Tomorrow would be soon enough — too soon — to grapple with his pain.

Six entirely silent children held hands in a row on the opposite side of the couch from where Aulus was perched. Children here were generally sheltered, but not excluded when they wanted to know what was going on in a crisis. They were a bright, pushy bunch.

Aulus looked up and nodded to us without speaking, since at that point he was suturing a cut on his brother’s elbow, the kind people get when they go down heavily on one arm. You had to know Aulus very well to understand how nervous he felt. Some of the little boys on guard beside their father were critically watching every move their uncle made. When he tied off the thread, he puffed out his cheeks, suddenly sweating.

‘He’ll live.’ Now he was calmer, bandaging with a slow rhythm. ‘No broken bones, just this cheese-grated skin, which was full of grit from the roadway. I hope his internal organs are intact. The worst is bruising. He’s already feeling that.’

‘Weapons?’ murmured Faustus, standing behind me.

‘No. Fists. And boots. But they must have been big buggers.’

I wondered what had happened to the bodyguards. I assumed they were similarly beaten. Faustus murmured to me that this looked different from the attack on Nicostratus. Was that bad or good?

I made soothing noises to reassure the children. They viewed me as a peculiar aunt, but my being from Britain explained most of it. A row of dark brown eyes stared back at me with the sketchiest politeness, then they concentrated again on their father. Their mother came in; Claudia hugged me, as if consoling other people helped her cope. A couple of the youngest children set up pathetic cries, wanting her attention.

‘Silence in the ranks!’ commanded Aulus, no lover of the young.

Although Claudia Rufina often seemed distracted, in emergencies she grimly took it upon herself to be the one person who stayed strong. While everyone else was weeping over a broken vase, Claudia would sweep up the shards and move the other antiques along the shelf so the gap was less noticeable. In any crisis, while disorganised Romans were colourfully panicking, Claudia Rufina came along, tutting under her breath, to show practical Baetican womanhood in action.

I was surprised she had let Aulus tend her husband. However, Quintus was her weakness. Claudia stayed with him out of love; yes, he was the father of her children, which limited her freedom to leave, but they had been together for ten years through many personal upsets. It was a testament to what people can do when they make their minds up. In other words, it was like many marriages.

I guessed Claudia could not bear to watch painful medical processes being inflicted on Quintus. She would have gone off to see to the bodyguards.

She had been followed back here by a maid bearing a big jug of hot mulsum and enough tots to serve everyone with this sweet, soothing beverage, relieving shock. Aulus certainly needed it; he tossed his beaker back in a single movement. The maid came round of her own accord pouring refills. This left the tender mother free to see that each child kissed Quintus and whispered private endearments to him, before being carried away to bed. That done, Claudia organised Faustus and me.

‘Albia, I have put you in little Aelia’s room. If she wakes in the night she can creep into your bed for comfort, if you don’t mind. You have always been so good with children … Aedile, you must naturally stay with us. It is too late for you to go up to the Aventine, unless many guards were to be sent with you. I want our people all under our roof; you will understand. You will be most comfortable in a room at my brother-in-law’s house; I have spoken to my sister-in-law, who has everything ready.’

Faustus opened his mouth, then subsided in the face of the Baetican whirlwind. I secretly wondered whether dear Claudia, a high-minded woman, was making sure no sly creeping along corridors occurred between Faustus and me.

‘Your sister-in-law is still in situ! Aulus still not divorced?’ I asked dryly. I rather enjoyed the notion of his wife having to give hospitality to a friend of mine − the third wife who had given up on Aulus (and who could blame her …). And that grouch Aulus would hate having to offer a nightcap and smalltalk to a fellow they must all think was having an affair with me … A fellow of such fabulous reserve I could trust him to give no clue as to whether it was true.

Hades, Faustus never even gave much of a clue to me.

Claudia pulled a face and rattled her bangles with disapproval. ‘The poor woman is still waiting for Aulus to make arrangements. I suppose he will bestir himself in his own time. They share the house but lead separate lives.’

‘Didn’t they always? … And where is ridiculous Aulus, incidentally?’ I noticed he was missing. He must have slipped out of the room during the hot drinks.

‘Gone to the vigiles. He insisted on escorting the prisoner personally.’

‘What prisoner?’

That was when Faustus and I were informed that as Uncle Quintus went down under a hail of blows, he shouted to his bodyguards, ‘Never mind me — just take one of the bastards alive!’

Being devoted to Camillus Justinus, as all his stray lambs were, that is what the two ex-soldiers snapped to and did.

This capture could be vital. Whoever ordered the ambush had made a mistake. They could be traced. The vigiles would fully interrogate this prisoner, where ‘fully’ meant using a torturer. He would name the Rabirii if they were his masters. If his orders had been from the rising young blood Roscius, Roscius’ easy times were over. The prisoner himself was as good as dead, though the bloodied relics of him would sing like a caged finch before he was executed. Execution was inevitable. He beat up a senator.

The gang had forced the vigiles’ hand. It could escalate. Questions were bound to be asked in the Senate about the dangerous condition of the city if mobsters dared to attack one of its noble members.

Aulus Camillus Aelianus would be on his feet in the Curia, for one. This was his younger brother; he would be expected to make much of it. A Roman has to represent his family when they suffer an outrage.

I imagined Aulus already scripting a speech about Justinus innocently going home to his own house, after a civilised dinner with a widowed niece (an equestrian’s daughter) and with a serving magistrate … Such details would be received as touching and significant.

Normally Aulus needed to be wound up on a ratchet, but he was trained by Minas of Karystos, the eminent Greek practitioner. Once the noble Aelianus let rip, he could hold an audience. (Aulus once spoke for almost half an hour on whether it was permissible to clean up the copious shit deposited by the augurs’ chickens on the Capitol − who conceivably shat holy guano − and hardly anybody left the chamber. A Vestal had slipped over on the poultry excrement. There was a lot of interest in my uncle’s declamation, with some people not even sniggering.)

If the Rabirii were very unlucky indeed, our emperor would jump on the idea of a moral campaign to eliminate the criminal element in Rome.

‘Of course,’ announced Claudia, who had her peculiar moments, ‘there will be more questions asked, and even perhaps useful action taken, if my darling Quintus dies from this.’

That doesn’t mean she was hopeful he would. Claudia Rufina merely wanted to emphasise how stupid it was for anyone to attack a senator.

Slaves were waiting to lead Faustus and me to our separate quarters. He would have extremely smooth sheets and neatly aligned pillows. I would be on a pull-out bed, spending the night cuddling Aelia, the only daughter of the house, four years old, her father’s pet (and didn’t the sweet little piece of mischief know it).

As I glanced back, Claudia had taken over as nurse. I saw her stationed at her husband’s side, patient, brave, disposing herself to the will of the gods, not allowing herself to cry because that would be no help to anyone.

Uncle Quintus lay with his eyes closed. He showed few signs of being in our world. But I noticed that he moved his right hand and covered one of Claudia’s. She shed tears then, though silently and without moving a muscle, so as not to disturb him.