Saturnalia Read online

  SATURNALIA

  A Novel Of Marcus Didius Falco

  by

  Lindsey Davis

  To Andrew Wallace-Hadrill with thanks for help and support over many years from the British School in Rome

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  * denotes real person

  The ignoble Didii - see Didius family tree

  The noble Camilli - see Camillus family tree

  Nux - a nut, but never thrown

  Galene - a nursemaid, who wants to be a cook

  Jacinthus - a cook, who wants to be anything else

  Apollonius - a wine waiter, who expects nothing

  *Vespasian Augustus - Emperor for the duration

  *Titus Caesar - Emperor-for-the-Day, who wants to do good

  Ti Claudius Laeta - a scroll secretary

  Ti Claudius Anacntes - Chief Spy

  Momus - a slob

  All Vying for the magic bean

  The Melitan brothers - field operatives, found wanting in all departments

  *Q Julius Cordinus, G. Rutilius Gallicus - a bunch of names to watch

  M. Quadrumatus Labeo - whose house is less safe than he thinks

  Drusilla Gratiana - his wife, taking her own medicine

  S. Gratianus Scaeva - her brother, a martyr to catarrh

  Phryne - a loyal old retainer (not to be trusted)

  A boy flautist - silent or silenced?

  Hired medical experts:

  Aedemon - offering Egyptian empiricism (purges)

  Cleander - offering Greek pneumatism (rest)

  Mastarna - offering Etruscan dogmatism (the knife)

  Pylaemenes - offering Chaldean dream therapy (twaddle)

  Zosime - offering charitable outreach for AEsculapius (free)

  *A Very Important Prisoner - on the run

  *Ganna - an acolyte, on the loose

  The IV Cohort of vigiles:

  L. Petromus Longus - watching his drink intake

  M. Rubella - a tribune with a fine pair of pins

  T. Fusculus - a man of many words

  Scythax - a doctor, offering no hope (and wonky stitches)

  Sergius - the big softie

  Legionaries, recalled from leave:

  Clemens - an acting centurion

  Cattus - his servant, not taking much part in the action

  Scaurus, Gaudus, Sentius, Paullus,

  Gaius, Lusius, Minnius, Granius, and there is always one called Titus, plus Lentullus - the dopey one

  Dora & Delia (but not Daphne) - professional ladies with a bucket of bones

  Zoilus - a ghoul, available for hire

  A full supporting cast of Praetorian Guards, vigiles, narks, quacks, vegetables, runaway slaves, priests, priestesses, stewards, door porters, members the German community in Rome, including:

  Ermanus - the sexy one, who likes partying

  plus an Elderly Vestal Virgin

  Extracts from the Hippocratic Oath

  I swear by Apollo the healer

  I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement;

  I will abstain from harming or wronging any man by it.

  I will not cut, even for the stone, but I will leave such procedures to the practitioners of that craft.

  Whenever I go into a house,

  I will go to help the sick and never with the intention of doing harm or injury.

  ROME: DECEMBER AD76

  I

  If there was one thing you could say for my father, he never beat his wife.

  ‘He hit her!’ Pa was spluttering; he was so eager to tell my wife Helena that her brother was guilty of domestic violence. ‘He came right out and admitted it: Camillus Justinus struck Claudia Rufina!’

  ‘I bet he told you that in confidence too,’ I snapped. ‘So you come bursting in here only five minutes later and tell us!’ Justinus must have gone for a bribe to reinstate himself Once Pa had sold the culprit an exorbitant ‘forgive me darling’ gift, my parent had rushed straight from his fine art warehouse at the Saepta Julia to our house, eager to snitch.

  ‘You’ d never catch me behaving like that,’ he boasted self-righteously.

  ‘Agreed. Your faults are more insidious.’

  There were plenty of drunken male bullies in Rome, and plenty of downtrodden wives who refused to leave them, but as I licked the breakfast honey from my fingers and wished he would go away, I was glaring at a much more subtle character. Marcus Didius Favonius, who had renamed himself Geminus for reasons of his own, was about as complicated as they come. Most people called my father a lovable rogue. Most people, therefore, were bemused that I loathed him.

  ‘I never hit your mother in my life!’

  I may have sounded weary. ‘No, you just walked out on her and seven children, leaving Mother to bring us up as best she could.’

  ‘I sent her money.’ My father’s contributions were a fraction of the fortune he amassed in the course of his dealings as an auctioneer, antique dealer, and reproduction marble salesman.

  ‘If Ma had been given a denarius for every foolish buyer of flaky Greek “original statues” you conned, we would all have dined on peacocks and my sisters would have had dowries to buy tribunes as husbands.’

  All right, I admit it: Pa was right when he muttered: ‘Giving money to any of your sisters would have been a bad idea.’

  The point about Pa is that he could, if it was absolutely unavoidable, put up a fight. It would be a fight worth watching, if you had half an hour before your next appointment and a piece of Lucanian sausage to chew on while you stood there. Yet to him, the concept of any husband daring to hit a feisty wife (the only kind my father knew about, since he came from the Aventine where women give no quarter) was about as likely as getting a Vestal Virgin to buy him a drink. He also knew that Quintus Camillus Justinus was the son of a respectable, thoroughly amiable senator; he was my wife’s younger brother, in general her favourite; everyone spoke highly of Quintus. Come to that, he had always been my favourite. If you overlooked a few failings—little quirks, like stealing his own brother’s bride and backing out of a respectable career so he could run off to North Africa to grow silphium (which is extinct, but that didn’t stop him)—he was a nice lad. Helena and I were both very fond of him.

  From the moment of their elopement, Claudia and Quintus had had their difficulties. It was the usual story. He had been too young to get married; she was much too keen on the idea. They were in love when they did it. That is more than most couples can say. Now that they had a baby son, we all assumed they would set aside their problems. If they divorced, they would both be expected to marry other people anyway. They could end up with worse. Justinus, who was the real offender in their stormy relationship, would certainly lose out, because the one thing he had acquired with Claudia was joyful access to her very large fortune. She was a fiery piece when she needed to be, and her habit nowadays was to wear her emeralds on every occasion, to remind him of what he would lose (apart from his dear little son Gaius) if they separated.

  Helena Justina, my level-headed wife weighed in, making it clear where her sympathies would lie. ‘Calm down, Geminus, and tell us what caused poor Quintus to be in this trouble.’ She tapped my still excited father on the chest, to soothe him. ‘Where is my brother now?’

  ‘Your noble father has requested that the villain leave the family home!’ Quintus and Claudia lived with his parents; it cannot have helped.

  Pa, whose children and grandchildren rejected all forms of supervision, especially from him, seemed impressed by the senator’s bravery. He assumed a disapproving air. From the biggest reprobate on the Aventine, this was ludicrous. Pa gazed at me with those tricky brown eyes, running his hands through the wild grey curls that still clustered on his wick
ed old head. He was daring me to be flippant. I knew when to hold my peace. I wasn’t mad.

  ‘So where can he go?’ A curious note of hysteria squeaked its way into Helena’s voice.

  ‘He told me he has camped out in your uncle’s old house.’ The senator had inherited this property next door to his own. I knew that house was currently empty. The senator needed the rent, but the last tenants had left suddenly.

  ‘Well, that’s convenient.’ Helena sounded brisk; she was a practical woman. ‘Did my brother say what caused him to lash out at dear Claudia?’

  ‘Apparently,’ my father’s tone was lugubrious—the old bastard was enjoying every moment of this—‘your brother has an old girlfriend in town.’

  ‘Oh “girlfriend” is putting it far too strongly, Geminus!’ I gazed at Helena fondly and let her commit herself: ‘I know who you mean of course—Veleda is her name—’ All Rome knew the past history of this notorious female—though, so far, few people realised she and Quintus had ever been connected. His wife must have heard something, however. I guessed Quintus himself had stupidly told her. ‘Quintus may have met the woman once,’ Helena declared, trying to reassure herself, ‘but it was a long time ago, long before he was married or had even heard of Claudia—and anything that occurred between them happened very far away!’

  ‘In a forest, I believe!’ Pa smirked, as if trees were disgusting. Helena looked hot. ‘Veleda is a barbarian, a German from beyond the frontier of the Empire—’

  ‘Isn’t your sister-in-law also from outside Italy?’ Pa now produced a leer, his speciality.

  ‘Claudia comes from Hispania Baetica. Absolutely civilised. An utterly different background and position. Spain has been Romanised for generations. Claudia is a Roman citizen, whereas the prophetess—’

  ‘Oh this Veleda is a prophetess?’ Pa snorted.

  ‘Not good enough to foresee her own doom!’ snapped Helena.

  ‘She has been captured and brought to Rome for execution on the Capitol. Veleda offers no hope of romance to my brother and no threat to his wife. Even Claudia at her most sensitive should be able to see that he can have nothing more to do with this woman. So what in Hades can have driven him to hit her?’

  A wily look appeared upon Pa’s face. People say we are alike physically. This was an expression I had certainly not inherited.

  ‘It could be,’ my father speculated (knowing the reason full well, of course), ‘because Claudia Rufina hit him first.’

  II

  Saturnalia was a good time for a family quarrel; it could easily be lost among the seasonal rumpus. But not this quarrel, unfortunately.

  Helena Justina played down the incident for as long as Pa stayed around. Neither of us told him any more gossip. Eventually he gave up. The minute he left, she pulled on a warm cloak, called up a carrying chair, and rushed off to confront her brother at their late uncle’s empty, elegant house by the Capena Gate. I did not bother to go with her. I doubted she would find Justinus there. He had enough sense not to place himself in a losing position, like a doomed counter on a backgammon board, right where furious female relatives could jump on him.

  My darling wife and mother of my children was a tall, serious, sometimes obstinate young woman. She described herself as ‘a quiet girl’, at which I openly guffawed. Still, I had heard her describe me to strangers as talented and of fine character, so Helena had good judgement. More sensitive than her outward calm revealed, she was so upset about her brother she failed to notice that a messenger from the imperial Palace had come for me. If she had realised, she would have been even more jumpy.

  It was the usual washed-out slave. He was underdeveloped and rickety; he looked as if he had stopped growing when he hit his teens, though he was older than that—had to be, to become a trusty who was sent out alone on the streets with messages. He wore a crumpled loose-weave tunic, bit his dirty nails, hung his lousy head, and in the customary manner, claimed to know nothing about his errand.

  I played along. ‘So what does Laeta want?’

  ‘Not allowed to say.’

  ‘Then you admit it is Claudius Laeta who sent you to get me?’ Out-manoeuvred, he cursed himself ‘fair do’s, Falco… He’s got a job for you.’

  ‘Will I like it?—Don’t bother answering.’ I never liked anything from the Palace. ‘I’ll fetch my cloak.’

  We buffeted our way through the Forum. It was packed with miserable householders, taking home green boughs for decoration, depressed by the inflationary Saturnalia prices and by knowing they were stuck with a week when they were supposed to forget grudges and quarrels. Four times I rebuffed hard-faced women selling wax candles from trays. Drunks were already littering the temple steps, celebrating in advance. We had nearly two weeks to get through yet. I had worked on imperial missions before, usually abroad. These jobs were always terrible and complicated by ruthless scheming among the Emperor’s ambitious bureaucrats. Half the time their dangerous in-fighting threatened to ruin my efforts and get me killed.

  Though designated a scroll secretary, Claudius Laeta ranked high; he had some undefined oversight of both home security and foreign intelligence. His only good point, in my opinion, was that he endlessly struggled to outwit, out-manoeuvre, out-stay and do down his implacable rival, Anacrites the Chief Spy. The Spy worked alongside the Praetorian Guard. He was supposed to keep his nose out of foreign policy, but he meddled freely. He possessed at least one extremely dangerous agent in the field, a dancer called Perella, though generally his sidekicks were dross. Up to now, that had given Laeta the upper hand.

  Anacrites and I had occasionally worked together. Don’t let me give the impression I despised him. He was a festering fistula of pestilential pus. I treat anything that venomous only with respect. Our relationship was based on the purest emotion: hate.

  Compared with Anacrites, Claudius Laeta was civilised. Well, he looked harmless as he rose from a couch to greet me in his highly painted office, but he was a silken-tongued twister I had never trusted. He saw me as a grimy thug, though a thug who possessed intelligence and other handy talents. We dealt with one another, when we had to, politely. He realised that two of his three masters—the Emperor himself and the elder of Vespasian’s sons, Titus Caesar—both had a high regard for my qualities. Laeta was far too astute to ignore that. He held on to his position by the old bureaucrat’s trick of feigning agreement with any views his superiors held strongly. He only stopped short of the pretence that hiring me had been his recommendation. Vespasian could spot that sort of creep.

  I was quite sure that Laeta had managed to find out that the younger princeling, Domitian Caesar, had a deep-running feud with me. I knew something about Domitian that he would dearly love to expunge: he once killed a young girl, and I still possessed the evidence. Outside the imperial family it remained a secret, but the mere fact that such a secret existed was bound to reach their sharp-eyed chief secretaries. Claudius Laeta would have buried a coded note in some scroll in his columbarium, reminding himself to use my dangerous knowledge against me one day.

  Well, I had information on him too. He schemed too much to stay in the clear. I wasn’t worried.

  Despite this plotting and jealousy, the old Palace of Tiberius always seemed surprisingly fresh and businesslike. The Empire had been run from this fading monument for a century, through good emperors and debauched ones; some of the slick slaves went back here for three generations. The messenger had dropped me off almost as soon as we entered through the Cryptoporticus. With barely a wave of a spear from the guards, I wound my way up into the interior, through staterooms I recognised, and on into ones I could not remember. Then I hit the system.

  An invitation was no guarantee of a welcome. As usual, working through the flunkeys was a frustrating grind. Vespasian had famously abandoned the paranoid security Nero used to protect himself from assassination: now, nobody was searched. It may have impressed the public; I knew better. Even our most lovable old emperor since Claudius was too shrewd t
o take risks. Power draws lunatics. There would always be one crackpot ready to run amok with a sword in the perverted hope of fame. So as I sought Laeta’s office I was pushed around by Praetorian Guards, held up while chamberlains consulted lists upon which I did not feature, stuck alone in corridors for hours, and generally driven crazy. At which point Laeta’s tidily dressed minions had let me in.

  ‘Next time you want me, let’s meet on a park bench!’

  ‘Didius Falco! How pleasant to see you. Still frothing at the mouth, I see.’

  Arguing was about as useful as demanding a recount of your change in a busy lunchtime food bar. I forced myself to simmer down. Laeta saw he had nearly pushed me too far. He caved in. ‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Falco. Nothing changes here. Too much to do and too little time to do it—and a panic on, naturally.’

  ‘I wonder what that can be!’ I implied I had private information about it. I didn’t.

  ‘I’ll come to that—’

  ‘Keep it brisk then.’

  ‘Titus Caesar suggested I talk to you—’

  ‘And how is the princely Titus?’

  ‘Oh—wonderful, wonderful.’

  ‘Still screwing beautiful Queen Berenice? Or have you dreamed up some stratagem to whisk her back to her desert and avert embarrassment?’

  Nursemaids must give a potion in babies’ little pottery feeding bottles, one that makes aristocratic Roman males hanker after exotic women. Cleopatra had worked her way through enough Roman top brass. Now Titus Caesar, like me a handsome lad in his thirties, was an amiable prince who ought to be marrying a fifteen-year-old pretty patrician with good hips so he could father the next generation of

  Flavian emperors; instead, he preferred to dally on purple cushions with the voluptuous Queen of Judaea. It was true love, they said. Well, it must certainly be love on his part; Berenice was hot stuff, but older than him, and had a terrible reputation for incest (which Rome could cope with) and political interference (which was bad news). Conservative Rome would never accept this hopeful dame as an imperial consort. Astute in all other matters, Titus stuck with his no brain love affair like some bloody-minded teenager who had been instructed to stop smooching the kitchen maid.