Graveyard of the Hesperides

XV

I let Tiberius tell my disappointed sisters that they could not come with us to see Morellus. We were seeking a favor, so it would be bad practice to arrive in a noisy crowd. We would need to flatter Morellus. “Albia will need to restrain herself. This won’t be the moment for her to tell him his faults.”

I bridled. “Husband-to-be, are you chastising me?”

“Never, my darling!”

“How wise of you, Aedile.”

I watched Julia and Favonia accept what Tiberius said as they would never have done with most people. Instead, while we walked along in a posse, I was treated to a list of wedding guests. I had the odd experience, even though Tiberius was here, of my own sisters enlightening me on his family relationships: “First, Uncle Tullius. He is a famous molester, so if we talk to him we always have to make sure there are two of us there.” I saw Tiberius wince, though he did not dispute the description.

“That’s if he comes. He may not, because of Tiberius demanding his property rights.”

“No, it will be all right. Father went to smooth things over.”

“I’d like to have been at that meeting!” I commented, stepping around a recumbent beggar.

“Oh no. It needed diplomacy.”

“Well, thanks, Julia!”

“Father told Mother all about it, so we know what happened.” This was not because Helena Justina had confided in them but, in the family tradition, the girls had shamelessly listened outside the door.

“Father said he fully understands why Uncle Tullius feels unhappy; he wanted Tullius to know the marriage is nothing to do with him. Falco has his own misgivings, which he hoped Tullius would not mind him setting out briefly. Flavia Albia is his eldest daughter and Falco had always hoped any new partnership would reflect our family’s status, with him being a confidant of the great emperors Vespasian and Titus; also, we have two uncles in the Senate, which is evidently important.”

I choked quietly.

“Uncle Tullius then blamed Falco for putting Tiberius up to trying to get his own money back. But Falco said Tiberius had the idea himself-” Lies, devious Father! Falco had suggested it. “If it comes to court, Falco’s advice would be to back away fast. But of course, Tullius doesn’t need advice from him or from anyone; he’s a famously sharp businessman.”

“So what,” asked Tiberius wryly, “did my sharp Uncle Tullius respond?”

“Oh, we don’t know. We only heard the sounds of Mother throwing a cushion because Father is a reprobate. Then Father threw it back, but he missed and broke a vase. I think it was a kantharos. Things were said. About the kantharos, I mean.”

“As in ‘This is a fine Etruscan drinking cup with two vertical handles?’”

“No, Albia. As in, ‘Didius Falco, you are a trial to live with.’”

“Next, Mother invited Uncle Tullius to dinner and, to the surprise of all, he came. She didn’t use our cook-she borrowed a good one.”

“Father got ours, Tiberius. Hopeless as usual. He just can’t buy slaves.”

“Helena Justina tucked his napkin around Uncle Tullius with her own hands, complimenting him on the fine job he has made of bringing up his lovely nephew. She murmured to him that it would be best for both families to grit their teeth and show support. Tiberius and Albia both being so headstrong, she thought that was the only way-otherwise there was a danger you would run off to be beach bums on a Greek island.”

“We never even thought of that,” I marveled.

“Still could!” suggested Tiberius in a low voice.

“Falco said our mother was a wise and wonderful woman. So, he was prepared to withdraw his own objections and pay for the ceremony as a gesture, even if it choked him, provided Uncle Tullius found it in his heart to unbend as well.”

“Which Tullius had to?” I asked.

“Of course!” Julia scoffed. “Our ridiculous parents have some uses.”

We had reached the Forum. I gathered the girls closer. Favonia excitedly continued her chatter, oblivious to her noble surroundings and the squalid crowds bustling therein, very keen to feel her up or steal the purse from her girdle. “So Uncle Tullius will come to the wedding. He can look magnanimous announcing that it’s the right moment to give Tiberius more say in their family business. That will make everyone happy. Tiberius will get at the money, so he can go out and buy lots of things, especially for your house.”

“We can help with choosing things to buy,” Julia told him hopefully. Gently moving a persistent sausage-seller out of our path, Tiberius managed to seem distracted; he had mastered the art of looking noncommittal. As a wife, I might see a lot of that. I was ready for it.

“Now listen, Albia,” Favonia ordered me. “The other new relatives we are expecting are these.” She ticked them off on her small fingers. “An auntie from Caere who is elderly and infirm, but if she can come we have to be nice to her even though she is a bit grumpy these days. Tiberius has a sister; her name is Fania Faustina. When their parents died, they were split up. Tiberius was taken by Uncle Tullius in Rome while his sister was brought up by Aunt Valeria in Caere. Tiberius was once very close to his sister but she married a husband that Tiberius can’t stand; they have three little boys whom he hasn’t seen for a long time because of the gruesome husband.”

Julia had a say: “We shall have to decide who they stay with. Aunt Valeria will refuse to be at Uncle Tullius’ house because he is so deplorable. He’s not her brother, so she can’t order him about. Mother says they may all have to stop with us.” I imagined Helena had mixed feelings about that.

“Your mother has been very kind,” Tiberius told me.

“And Falco?”

“He’s just being Falco,” Julia sniffed. “Don’t worry, we have him under control.”

After further discussion about my own relations, mainly who we wanted to omit from the guest list (though they would come anyway), we rounded the Circus Maximus and arrived at the foot of the Aventine. Katutis and Dromo were deputed to escort my sisters home safely, while Tiberius and I climbed up the hill to the vigiles’ station house.

First we stopped for a rest and a drink of water at the Stargazer, my aunt’s caupona. There I tried miming to my deaf cousin Junillus, the waiter on duty, that I was having a wedding to which he was invited, but he would have to inform his father, the doleful Gaius Baebius, that I had appointed someone else to conduct the sacrifice and augury.

Junillus, a bright, good-looking seventeen-year-old, let me struggle for a long while before he suddenly and silently reacted. “Jupiter Tonans! The poor old sod will be mortified! You can bloody well tell him yourself, Albia.”

The cheeky lad understood more than he usually let on and was a brilliant actor.

We went on to the Fourth Cohort’s secondary billet. Tiberius shouldered open a crack in the heavy gates, despite the vigiles’ attempts to deter the public from bothering them.

Various ex-slave troops were lolling in the courtyard among pieces of firefighting equipment. They whistled at me on principle, regardless of my being under a magistrate’s protection. This was no surprise. The first time I came here I was with my father, yet only narrowly avoided being gang-raped on a heap of esparto mats. We were collecting a lost dog. Even she looked slightly ruffled, as if she had fought off unwanted attention.

A dark closet halfway down a dusty veranda housed Morellus. After a night’s long shift he could have gone home to his family, but as usual he was asleep, carefully wedged on a stool with his back against a wall and his feet up on a table. His booted heels were dropping road dust on the scroll that listed last night’s arrests. For once the miscreants were not shouting protests in the cells. Drunk or sober, they seemed to be landlords who wouldn’t comply with fire regulations and were now resignedly waiting for slaves to come from their bankers with the necessary bribes. Morellus must have stayed late in order to extract his cut.

I banged a metal spoon on his dented food bowl. Like all ex-soldiers he had the knack of waking instantly, on the alert. Seeing us, he did not bother to lower his boots.

“Flavia Albia! Word is, you’re now screwing that aedile who was sniffing around you.”

“I am here,” the aedile pointed out.

“I see you!” Morellus did not call him “sir.”

“Good to have you back,” returned Faustus, mildly.

“I thank you, Aedile. It’s bloody good to be here and not dying in my bed with four upset nippers all bawling their sad little heads off and throwing porridge about.”

Once overweight, a vicious poisoning attack had left Morellus a shadow of himself. He had the shaved head all the vigiles favored, and wore the standard red tunic, stylishly crumpled, with muted accents of gravy stain. His belt was wide, his boots tough, his feet showing through the battered straps were dramatically blistered, his manner was truculent, his career had stalled for the past ten years. In all of this he was typical. Of Rome’s various military or paramilitary forces, the vigiles were the lowest grade.

“Come over here and have a big squeeze,” the horrible lout enticed me, still ignoring Faustus.

“No chance, Morellus. Haven’t you heard? I’m getting married.” I would never have gone anywhere near him anyway. “Show some respect to my fiance, will you?”

Jumping his feet down floorward, Morellus sat up suddenly, letting out the customary cry of amazement. “Fiance! You don’t say! When is the wedding?” He laughed raucously. Tiberius did not. “I’ll have to get a new smart tunic for that!”

“Who said you were invited?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll invite us myself. Pullia will be delighted.” His wife, Pullia, was a surprisingly nice woman, though she must have been sozzled the day she agreed to share her life with Morellus. I wondered whether they would bring the four little porridge-flingers. Probably have to. They were children no aunts would willingly look after. Anyway, Pullia liked them to all go out as a family. It would increase morale, she hoped, poor optimistic woman.

Tiberius placed the rubble basket on the table, a heavy planked affair onto which officers traditionally slammed the heads of witnesses they were interrogating. Having a smashed face was supposed to encourage people to tell the truth.

“Presents? What’s this, Legate?”

“We are hoping you can tell us. We think it may be some of the bones of a dead waitress, but as Albia’s bright sister remarked, if that’s right, she had interestingly mismatched legs.”

“Just my type. I love a woman with a physical quirk. Let’s see your luscious legs, sweetie!” Morellus hauled himself upright so he could peer salaciously into the basket. Pullia was in fact a good-looking woman; there was nothing wrong with her. Well, except for her judgment in men.

Morellus upended the basket, scattering the bones all over the table where, I knew, he regularly ate and drank. “Ooh, these will look attractive in your cabinet of curiosities, Manlius Faustus. I take it you’ll display them for visitors, when you and the luscious Albia socialize?”

Faustus went along with it genially. “So how shall we label them?”

Morellus shifted bones left and right on the tabletop, sorting them. His movements were swift and decisive. “Woman’s thigh, woman’s ribs, male thigh bone, indeterminate spine knuckle, probably toe-could be anybody’s-female pelvis, child-bearing age, looks as if she has carried some to term, poor unhappy cow…” He continued like this through most of our cargo before speeding through the last few items. “Can’t tell, can’t decide, can’t tell, could be a dog, bound to be poultry.”

“You’re good!” commented Faustus.

“Practice. Tell you one thing.”

“What?” I asked since he had clearly paused for emphasis.

“This one, this male thigh bone, has been sawn.”

“Deliberate dismemberment?” asked Faustus. Nodding, Morellus showed him the cut. “So we can assume at least one of the bodies, perhaps not the dog or the chicken, died from foul play?”

“Well,” Morellus drawled, being clever. “Whether you call it foul play will depend if your victim was a bad waitress. If she often fiddled bar bills, I’d call it justice.”