Saturnalia

SATURNALIA, DAY FIVE

The fifth day of the festival brought a turn of the winch.

It started well: we were at breakfast when a message came for me from Petronius. He had obviously buckled down last night to reviewing reports. Among a pile from other cohorts he picked out that the Third had discovered a runaway slave, a teenaged musician. Petro sent a runner over to the Third, who rapidly returned confirmation that they had banged up the Quadrumatus flautist. He did not confess, but when he was rounded up he was carrying a flute. The Third were not bright, but they could add I and I to make III. (According to Petro, III was the only number they knew.) They had chucked the flute away; their tribune hated music in the cells.

I was in my cloak and about to set off for the Third's patrol house to interview the recaptured slave, when a huge litter with gold knobs on the poles turned up on the windy embankment outside my house. The gold was wearing thin and the eight bearers were a lop-sided, shabby set who could not march in time. The conveyance was government issue: some tatty leftover from the imperial transport pool, downgraded from when Claudius or Nero were dragged around in it. Twenty years later it was due for a bonfire. Equally senile, the bearers lurched and dropped it heavily. Out staggered Claudius Laeta and under compulsion I greeted him. He was fetching me to a meeting. Laeta said it was urgent. I knew that meant two things: it wasn't urgent – and the pointless blather would drag on for hours. This was my day ruined.

'I'll fetch my toga.' Helena caught me in the unusual activity, so I lured her into the expedition. That was not hard. After our late night with Maia and Petro, the children were over-tired and squabbling fretfully. Both Helena and I could have coped with the children, but their nursemaid, Galene, was screaming in a hideous storm of foreign frustration. Albia had refused assistance. Currendy she was locked in her room. She was a teenaged girl; Helena let her act like one. Nux was in hiding with Albia. We tapped at the door and called out that we had to go somewhere. 'Get going then!' snarled Albia from within. Well, it was better than 'I hate you', and much better than 'I hate myself. In about six months we would be facing both.

We sent Galene to the kitchen, telling her to make good use of it and cook something. Jacinthus was there, but unlikely to be productive. Galene bounced off happily. Helena looked rueful. 'Maybe we should just accept this, Marcus.' 'Right. First step to degeneracy: be ruled by your slaves.' We put our daughters into cute little matching tunics with bows in their hair and took them with us. Anyone who wants to offer a better solution can just keep quiet. 'What extremely advanced parents!' Claudius Laeta hooted with disdain. 'Your soldiers have disrupted my quiet household routine,' retorted Helena.

Laeta said he would be happy to remove the soldiers – when I earned my fee and found Veleda. Feigning anxiety, Helena and I relaxed. Julia and Favonia sat on our laps as good as gold, fascinated by riding in the litter. If Laeta took us anywhere with slaves, we were sure of a welcome for these deceptively sweet cupids.

I had assumed the conference was in the Palace. Instead, I soon realised we were going down the Via Aurelia; Laeta admitted we were going to the villa of Quadrumatus Labeo. 'One of his Saturnalia guests needs a progress report.' 'We answer to Quadrumatus?' I snorted with astonishment. 'Not him.' Laeta lost some of his pomposity. 'Out-of-town is more discreet, Falco.' I let Laeta deal with the bloody-minded Lusitanian doorkeeper.

While he struggled to declare his invited status and the porter sneered at that idea, Helena wiped up Favonia's dribble. Although I had kept a close grip on Julia, she had managed to get black door hinge oil on her; I dealt with that by the time we carried them indoors, where entranced slave girls fell on them. After hardly any training from us, my children both knew how to gaze at strangers with big appealing eyes. 'Don't give them any food!' I ordered sternly, as Scaeva's ex-girlfriends carried them off in delight.

They took the hint. 'Oh the dear little things must have some must cake to celebrate the festival!' Good. It was bound to be made properly here, with wine-lees from the estate. After running around the peristyles playing hide-and-seek with the sewing girls, mild intoxication would work magic. Our little monsters would be fast asleep when we collected them.

There were plenty of grand ladies on whom Julia and Favonia could practise their techniques of begging for jewellery and toys, for the place was full of stiffs, and since it was Saturnalia, the stiffs had brought their stately wives. The Quadrumati were bravely putting bereavement behind them and going ahead with their annual house party. 'Invitations will have been sent months ago,' Helena sneered. 'And the hospitable Quadrumati would not want to disappoint their many friends.' 'I seem to recall Quadrumatus asserting "We are a very private family"! Yet half the Senate have congregated, in the hope of blood on the marble.'

'Marcus, I bet most of them will slip a servant a denarius to sneak them into the crime scene.' Apart from the fact they looked a mean bunch who would think a whole denarius was too much, Helena was bound to be right. Snobs are the worst gawkers. It explained why the Quadrumati had tried to hush up what happened.

Laeta bustled off importantly to see where the meeting would be. We moved among the milling groups of notables, marvelling that none of the family was anywhere in evidence.

'Entertaining the fashionable way,' Helena enlightened me. 'You invite hordes of people, whom you know only slighdy, then you keep out of sight but let them wander at will admiring all you own.' 'Giving them a good shake-down for stolen silverware when they leave?' 'I suppose the message is that the hosts have so much money, Marcus, that even if everybody steals something, they won't miss it.'

We worked out that the gathering was mixed, in fact. We identified various off-duty hired entertainers, and Drusilla's troupe of dwarfs were stomping about being offensive. They were all drunk. Perhaps they knew where Drusilla kept her wine stash. The men the dwarfs were insulting seemed to be tradesmen. Although it was still mid-morning, they were digging into trays of pre-lunch snacks and aperitifs; perhaps it was the only way they could guarantee themselves a Saturnalia bonus. Of course the senators ignored them, and the tradesmen were even more snobbish about sticking together and not conversing with the senators. While such a melange could appear egalitarian, Helena and I thought that the groups had just been bunged together in a perfunctory and rather tasteless manner. 'It makes you wonder what they would have done with Veleda,' said Helena. 'I suspect they would have let everyone know they had her – and made her a sideshow.' Among the retainers who had gathered to grab festive gifts, we found a knot of medical specialists. Aedemon's bulk made him instantly visible; he was talking to a man 1 remembered as Pylaemenes, the Chaldean interpreter of dreams in his shabby robe. 1 would have ignored them, but 1 spotted Anacrites nuzzling up to them. He must be here for the same meeting as me. When 1 walked Helena over to see what he was up to with the physicians, 1 also recognised the third man. He was Cleander, who on my previous visit had turned up for a consultation with Drusilla Gratiana. He had an oval face, round eyes, and a restrained manner which probably meant he could be savage if he fell out with anyone. 'Name's Falco. We passed in a doorway. You look after the lady of the house.' 'And you're the bloody sleuth.'

Cleander looked too busy to speak. His bedside manner must be brisk. He made it plain he had no time for meaningless socialising. Nonetheless, the others treated him as a respected colleague.

'Anacrites!' 1 gave my own colleague a brush-off nod. 'Falco.' He was equally indifferent. 'Dear Anacrites.' Helena forced him to acknowledge her. 'Helena Justina!' When he clasped her hand, greeting her formally, he bent his head obsequiously, showing the grease he always lathered too thickly on his hair. He was wearing a heavy tunic, with a sweaty nap like a mushroom, in a shade of ochre that reflected off his face and made him look bilious.

'So you're all here, to receive your rewards for a year's hard work!' Helena exclaimed to the doctors, trying to dissipate the heat between the Spy and me. She must have worked out that Mastarna, the goatee bearded consultant who used to attend the deceased Gratianus Scaeva, was absent. 'It's rather hard on him to lose out on his Saturnalia bonus, just because his patient happened to have had his head lopped off.' The others were silent, not meeting each other's eyes.

Turning to Cleander, 1 tried the friendly chat which is an informer's trademark: 'We haven't had an opportunity to get to know each other.' He despised the offer. 'As I remember, I was informed you are a "Hippocratic pneumatist"?'

'He's a good doctor despite that!' Aedemon joshed him, while Cleander himself merely inclined his head snootily. He thought it degrading to discuss his craft with me. 'All his patients will tell you how wonderful he is,' Aedemon continued. 'I'm hanging around trying to poach them, but they all adore Cleander far too much.'

'As I understand it,' Helena joined in gamely, 'the Hippocratic approach is a sensible, comfortable regime, encouraging health by diet, exercise and rest. I know someone who is being treated that way,' she told Cleander. It was Zosime's prescription for Veleda. Since he himself was not the favoured physician, Cleander obviously didn't care if the patient was Helena's favourite donkey. She noted it, and changed the subject: 'Of course, any treatment must be very difficult when some patients refuse to help themselves.' Still playing dangerously, this was a veiled reference to Drusilla's alleged habit of over-imbibing wine. Unwilling to talk about his patient, Cleander made a sudden excuse and left us. 'Sometimes gruff ones are the best doctors… Is he a bit of a loner?' 'Married with children,' Aedemon disabused Helena. 'You mean quite normal?' I laughed. 'Horrible to his wife, and distant with his offspring?'

'I expect he blames his work, darling! He is a loyal physician,' Helena commented disingenuously. 'He didn't like me criticising Drusilla. '

'Drusilla Gratiana foolishly blames the gods for her misfortunes,' Aedemon replied. 'Cleander won't have it. He rejects all superstition – irrational assignment of causes – shamanism.'

'He hates me, of course!' giggled Pylaemenes, the dream therapist. 'And what do you think of him?' I asked, keeping it light. 'I would like to know that man's dreams,' exclaimed Pylaemenes, with feeling. 'He's a tortured soul?' 'He has his dark side, I suspect.' 'He is bloody rude,' snarled Aedemon. 'He gave me all Hades, just for supplying Quadrumatus with a scarab amulet. A patient who is drinking his own urine as a laxative deserves a comforter!'

The Chaldean patted the fat man's knee. 'Oh that was a misunderstanding,' he soothed. 'Quadrumatus had a nightmare in which your scarab was eating him -' A nightmare seemed natural, if the man had been drinking his own water. Quadrumatus took a sharp downward lurch in my estimation for submitting to it. 'He gave away the scarab to his cheese-server, and Cleander happened to see the boy with it.'

'So what's wrong with that?' wailed Aedemon. 'The cheese-server needs help. He is permeated by gas. Classic bowel putrefaction. Every conduit in his body must be blocked.' 'I fear you are right,' agreed Pylaemenes gravely. 'His farts are legendary.' I cheered up. At last we had encountered someone attending the Quadrumati who had a sense of humour. 'I'd like to get access to that boy and give him a thorough empty out with wild cabbage,' Aedemon exclaimed.

At that moment Cleander returned. The man had no social skills. Overhearing Aedemon, he scoffed, 'He's just a slave, man; he'll get over it!' We were only discussing flatulence, but this would clearly have been Cleander's attitude whatever the boy suffered from. He then charged in with: 'You're chasing Scaeva's death, Falco? Can we assume you've got nowhere?'

I had met his type before. Some know the effect of their rudeness. Most are just so arrogant they have no idea. I did not need to justify myself to him. Aware of Anacrites watching me, I declared that I would identify the' murderer publicly in the next few days.

'Someone had better look out then!' muttered Cleander in his low, gruff voice. I glanced at Helena but with the Chief Spy standing alongside, neither of us elaborated. I felt the Spy's intense tingle of curiosity. He as good as fetched out a note-tablet and made a memo to himself

Once again, Helena attempted to improve the atmosphere. 'How are your headaches these days, Anacrites?' He jumped. He had been listening in, with the unobtrusive silence that was his favourite technique, a slight smile on his face as he followed everything the rest of us discussed. He hated being made the centre of attention; 1 guessed Helena knew that. She turned to Cleander: 'Our friend here had a bad head injury and still suffers side-effects. 1 wonder if one of his humours may be a little out of balance?'

Surprisingly, this tactic worked. Cleander was at once drawn into a discussion with Anacrites about his famous headaches. He even seemed to be offering cures. Before I could suggest blood-letting from a main artery, Helena pulled me and the others off to one side.

'So Cleander won't let Drusilla Gratiana get away with believing she hits the amphora because she's fated?' Helena asked Aedemon. 'I don't suppose she enjoys being warned off wine – but she puts up with it? It confirms that Cleander's patients think he's marvellous.' 'The rest of us suspect they love him because he's a hot dispenser of poppy juice… Drusilla is in Cleander's pocket because he never seriously insists she dries out. He loathes slaves and freedwomen, so he sees Drusilla even without that scowling maid of hers present, and has complete control. Husband doesn't help,' Aedemon informed us, happily insulting his own patient, Quadrumatus. 'Says "a drop never hurt anyone". He only has to observe Drusilla after a hard bout to know how wrong that is.'

'I don't suppose he does see her tipsy,' suggested Helena. 'This seems like a house where they may well lead separate lives much of the time – and when Drusilla is unfit for society, I expect the scowling Phryne keeps guard.'

While Pylaemenes just winked at me, Aedemon muttered, 'Too much is concealed behind closed doors in this house. Abominations. Quadrumatus is a good judge and has a mind of his own, sure – but that's useless if nobody ever takes notice of his instructions.' It was unclear what abominations had upset him. In a pause, Helena asked, 'So where is Drusilla, our hostess, today?' 'Rumour is, she had a complete nervous breakdown. Swallowing more wine than ever – never got over her brother's awful death.' Aedemon then raised himself upright like an uncoiling reptile and swanned off, following a slave who had a huge tray of seafood bites.

I could see the dream therapist was about to move away too, but I made a last effort: 'So what has Quadrumatus been so lax about?'

Pylaemenes just shrugged.

He sidled off, so we shifted further from Anacrites and Cleander.

We managed to position ourselves beside one of the three-foot silver salvers. It seemed to be wielded by the cheese-server Aedemon and Pylaemenes had mentioned, but I had to leave Helena at risk of his fabled gaseous emissions because Claudius Laeta was gesticulating from a doorway. Helena waved me off to my meeting. I left her discussing Gallic cheese with the server: was it best pounded with pine nuts, hazel nuts or almonds?

She had the best bargain. At least she could pick out a cheese and the flatulent slave boy would cut her a sliver. He looked like a reprobate who would give a handsome woman more than a sliver, in fact. I heard him begin chatting to her; he was full of cheeky quips.

I meanwhile was made to halt by a valet, whose purpose in life was to irritate men by fiddling with the folds of their togas. A sponge-slave grabbed me by both hands and cleaned any grease from my fingers and palms, then a boy almost tripped me up, scrabbling round so he could dust my boots. I had endured less attention when visiting Vespasian. Emperors can afford to relax. This manic preparation told me that inside the room I was trying to enter was someone dull, but highly aspirational.

Too right. An ingratiating major-domo whispered the good news. His duty was to set people at their ease with terrifying lists of VIPs. 'You are entering the presence of Marcus Quadrumatus Labeo, who is hosting and chairing the convocation. Also present are Tiberius Claudius Laeta and Tiberius Claudius Anacrites, who are both highly placed imperial freedmen. The guest of honour is -' The creep nearly wet himself – 'Quintus Julius Cordinus Gaius Rutilius Gallicus!'

Rutilius had enough names already but I invented a few more for him: 'Old Grovel is here, is he? Bonanza Boy! Domitian's Ovation Sparkler. I'm Falco,' I said as the major-domo gasped at my irreverence. 'If you need a mnemonic, give me a piece of brazier charcoal and I'll write it on your wrist for you.'