Graveyard of the Hesperides

XL

Tiberius and I left Gavius in the exuberant company of his dogs. First Tiberius said he wanted to call in at the Third Cohort’s station house, which was close to the Viminal Gate. We did so, but our contact, Macer, was off duty. We left a message asking him to provide a status report on protection rackets in the Ten Traders bars. He might respond, but I bet Tiberius that Macer would conveniently “not receive the message.”

We walked back a different way, climbing up onto the Embankment to feel the cooler air. As we strolled along toward the Esquiline Gate, we said little, enjoying each other’s quiet company. It seemed a while since we had been able to do this.

The lofty bank of the ancient Servian Wall had once been the city boundary. Now Rome had expanded well beyond the old fortifications, which had never been pulled down but had become a pleasure ground for people walking, lovers escaping, popular entertainers, street theater and puppeteers. Even in the middle of a working day there were idlers and connivers up here, along with the odd prancing lunatic. Occasionally one of the lunatics was brandishing a knife.

Elsewhere in the city, expansion had taken the form of teeming residential districts, but here we were overlooking a one-time paupers’ graveyard to our left; it had such a bad reputation, no one would want to live there. So the area had been transformed into several large gardens. Rumors said it had had to be covered twenty-five feet deep in new soil to cover up the smell of death.

Named for whichever millionaires commissioned them, these luxurious walks were free to the public; well, that was why the wealthy created extravagant city spaces-making sure they were advertised forever as persons of taste, money and flash beneficence. You might die, but your stone pines ensured your name lived. Topiary was a better memorial than a tomb. I am serious: gardens lay within the city for all to notice, whereas tombs had to be placed along the roads outside.

The Esquiline gardens were beautiful, laid out most elegantly, full of fine trees and plantings and adorned with statues (generally stolen from defeated nations). Some had museums with prehistoric giants’ bones or pavilions for the performing arts. The fabulous Stertinius had undoubtedly twangled his cithara to good Hypodorian effect for an invited audience at the Auditorium of Maecenas. The gardens all provided fresh air and peace; they restored the tired soul.

Of course they also concealed pickpockets and hustlers; they were venues for sordid assignations. Generally, as a member of the public, you tried to concentrate on the fine vistas and invigorating atmosphere. Today, as I gazed down from the Embankment, yet again I made the contrast between Rome’s civilized heights and its ever-present seamy depths. The lewd and crude jostled the sublime wherever you trod. Side by side; nose to nose. This was a city of stupendous contradiction, which the Romans either viewed as normal or even embraced with crazy pride.

I took a cooler view, of course. I had a reserved northern temperament. Well, not so much in August. At the moment I was too hot and crotchety.

We descended to street level at the Porta Esquilina. While walking, Tiberius had been forming an idea. “Just along here is the Second Cohort’s bolt-hole. Can you bear to come and see if Titianus is home? I know you want to rest.”

“I’m tough.”

“You’re tired.”

“I am an informer. I can last out. Mind you, I loathe the thought of dealing with that dreary clown. Of all the lackadaisical, maddening public servants I have ever met, Titianus takes the oatcake.”

“Yes, I knew he was a favorite of yours.”

I understood why the visit had been suggested. Titianus was a vigiles inquiry agent we knew; his beat included the heartland of the Rabirius crime empire.

He was out. Thanks again, to the whole pantheon of delightful gods!

Rather than waste a visit to the station house, I went looking for a certain Juventus. He was a better bet anyway. I knew him and introduced him to Faustus. His name was supposedly secret, in order to preserve his anonymity during a special project monitoring the local gangsters.

According to Juventus, no one was supposed to know even he existed, let alone his project. I for one had been aware of it for years. Operation Bandit King was set up originally by my uncle, Lucius Petronius. I had a better idea of its aims and objectives than Juventus; I had heard Petro maundering on about it for most of my adult life. My uncle would not approve of this idiot being a liaison officer on his legendary scheme.

Juventus was sitting in a room by himself (because of his special mission), doing nothing. Nobody supervised him. No one had ever properly explained to him what his project should entail.

He began by saying he could not talk about his work. That would at least protect him from revealing his incompetence. But the project’s secrecy had made him lonely. He was desperate for somebody to talk to.

“Spill, Juventus!” I ordered sternly, watching him weaken.

Tiberius never liked putting anyone in trouble. “You can safely confer with me, I am Manlius Faustus, plebeian aedile. I heard about you during the Aviola case so I am officially aware of your mission-I’d say, it’s a tenet of Operation Bandit King that you should communicate with the aedilate. One day we shall have to take decisions, based on your specialized input.”

“Specialized” was not a concept Juventus grasped. He was leery of “tenet,” too, though he knew for sure “communication” and “decision” were words to give him the squits. It was an entrenched rule throughout all fourteen station houses that the vigiles devoted endless time and ingenuity to dodging both. From the day of his induction, Juventus had been taught by his hideous comrades to douse fires, beat up thieves, bully the public, hate his tribune, make rude gestures behind the back of any pompous ass in a toga, respect Vestal Virgins, chat up women (the Vestals do not count as women for these purposes, though pretty well anybody else does)-and always to avoid telling officials anything at all. Official decisions only led to extra work. The lads in the vigiles had better things to do, for instance loafing about, looking slovenly and going to bars.

Insofar as Juventus was specialized, he went to more bars than the rest, and he went on his own. He could call it work. The purpose was to learn what any criminal gangs were up to. They tended to operate out of eating houses and brothels so Juventus diligently went there to look around and have snacks on expenses. They saw him coming-easy, since he had a mournful expression not suited to such places and he always wore boots tied up with string. While he convinced himself he was properly on observation, he would be lucky if he avoided catching a nasty disease or becoming addicted to drink.

At least if anyone had seen the Rabirius enforcers in action, it was him. Naturally he told us otherwise. He had studied the training manual’s section concerning unhelpfulness.

We played on his need for human contact. When he feared we might leave him alone in his room again, he claimed that any events ten years ago were long before his time. Faustus pretended he felt such high regard for Juventus’ inside knowledge that any information from him about those far-off days was of high value. I was marrying a sycophant: “I know you are very thorough.” In reality, after just a few moments, he thought Juventus was shabby, a dangerously unskilled lightweight. The Rabirii would run rings around this dunderhead. The criminal-gangs initiative needed to be taken much more seriously. “I wondered if you had made it part of your special mission to research past history?”

For Juventus it seemed a startling change to be held in someone’s high regard. He made an effort to speculate. Much of it was bluff. Anyone could tell he had not looked into the history at all, but that did not deter him. He reckoned the Viminal bars were enduring more pressure nowadays than previously. Gallo, the right-hand man of Rabirius, had moved over from the Esquiline, extending his influence to the next hill along. He was as ambitious as he was cruel. Strictly speaking, our area of concern lay in the remit of the Third Cohort; they should be able to give more particulars.

We did not admit that Macer of the Third had been our first choice to ask-though we mentioned that he was our contact on the killings at the Hesperides.

Juventus claimed he had liaised with Macer, though I wanted to hear Macer’s opinion on that.

Juventus had no more to tell us. We left him, still on his own doing nothing. Tiberius tried to convince me Juventus might now carry out useful research.

“Tiberius Manlius, you are such a forgiving man!”

“I am marrying you, Flavia Albia. I have to be an optimist.”

Before we returned to the Viminal, we crossed the main road and went into the Gardens of Pallas. Our walk along the Embankment had made us yearn for more quiet time together. These large gardens, laid out by a millionaire freedman of the Emperor Claudius, would serve as a timeless memorial to a man Nero eventually executed. By the end, Nero had executed everyone he could, as much for owning fine estates as for perceived disloyalty. The richer they were, the more he could snaffle. Besides, Pallas had been the confidant, and according to gossip the lover, of Agrippina, Nero’s domineering mother. Yes, he killed her too. Such a nice family.

Pallas had been chief secretary to the Treasury. He was stonkingly rich. Although it was never suggested that he was guilty of impropriety, even without obvious embezzlement he amassed a fortune large enough to create a notable open-air space. That got him killed. But the fine Gardens of Pallas still memorialized a bureaucrat who would otherwise have been long forgotten.

I sauntered with Tiberius through the western end. This sneaky escape in the late afternoon helped free us of stress. We sat on a stone seat in the warm shade, smiling slightly, thinking that this was what life was for. Free time, time to do whatever you liked, or to do absolutely nothing, alone or in company you valued: of all the luxuries in the Empire, perhaps this was the greatest. To be fair to the Romans, they valued leisure accordingly.

I soaked up the afternoon light, emptying my mind.

It was the time of day when, in the busy built-up areas, the atmosphere was subtly changing. People ended their siestas. Baths prepared to open, so the scent of woodsmoke increased as furnaces were stoked. Military shifts changed; the vigiles would soon gather to go on patrol. Men who needed patrons made their way to the Forum, looking for someone from whom they could wheedle a dinner invitation; men of means either made themselves visible so parasites could ingratiate themselves, or hid from them. Women who could indulge in evening entertainment began to prepare, placing themselves in the hands of their hairdressers, manicurists, adorners with their vials and pots of face color. The sick were at a low ebb. Workers were weary. Animals barked, bellowed, brayed for food. Above us in the still cerulean sky, swifts squealed as they swooped at high speed after insects. Others careered above water features in the garden.

Tiberius had his head thrown back, eyes closed. He was not asleep, because his thumb was slowly caressing the back of my hand as he held it. Heat from the bench warmed us through our clothes as we sat.

There, in the peace of the Gardens of Pallas, my brain found its own space to work. Two strands of information came together for me.

“Tiberius…” He turned his head, listening. “Morellus believed one set of bones was from a woman who had given birth: ‘female pelvis, child-bearing age, looks as if she has carried some to term, poor unhappy cow…’ But other people have told me the missing barmaid was far from young and never had any children: ‘I always thought she was one of those women who just couldn’t conceive…’ If both are right”-Tiberius opened his eyes; he saw my point-“the skeleton we found at the Garden of the Hesperides cannot be Rufia.”