A Capitol Death Read online

  Rome already had a sparky atmosphere: lively commerce was under way both for keyed-up locals and wide-eyed visitors. More proprietors than usual were standing in their business doorways, looking out at whatever was going on. Waiters, furniture-makers, sponge-sellers invited possible buyers in. Quantities of trinkets and statuettes were being shifted at ludicrous prices. Children stayed up late. Notices advertised rooms for hire. Women were offering hires of another kind. Loud voices of groups in bars gusted into every street, while the narrow alleys were alive with deals, fights, music, and the scent of food grilling. People in the evening crowds shoved, leered and swore more than normal; I was glad to be with Tiberius.

  Up on the Aventine, in familiar streets, it felt safer, though I knew that was an illusion. When we finally reached Lesser Laurel Street, I was ready to be indoors.

  Slippers were waiting for us near the front door. A tray with wine tots and olives stood on a goat-legged serving table beside our courtyard bench.

  “Welcome home,” said our smooth new steward. “I shall lock up now you are back, shall I, sir and madam?”

  “Thank you, Gratus,” we replied meekly.

  I had lived alone in a derelict tenement for many years; I was trying not to giggle. Mind you, this new concept of “home” was no more ridiculous than having acquired a husband who shamelessly cheered for the Golds.

  XX

  Next day I started out stuck for ideas. So far, I had worked with a view to discovering all I could about the late Gabinus, his character and his habits, hoping to unearth the right clue to what happened to him. An informer must go forward on the premise that such a clue exists. If the day ever comes that you cannot pretend this to yourself, it is time to give up.

  We had the usual story: everyone hates the project manager. However, this time the object of loathing was not simply an inadequate official who ought to be retired or moved on, yet was basically a man doing his best in trying circumstances—too few resources, not enough time allowed, nit-picking superiors. This time, the swine deserved it.

  That left me with far too many suspects who might have wanted to end the misery of working with him, plus too many more who mainly encountered him on special occasions, such as the Triumph, yet who still loathed his overbearing attitude and choices he made that affected them. It sounded as though he was equally horrible to everyone. I thought if he had picked on a special victim, it was probably the yearning wife. I wondered why she was so keen to have him, but I wonder that about a lot of wives.

  I would find her. She would appear eventually.

  I was hopeful I could track down the dubious business contacts too. For one thing, whatever scam those people were involved in, with Gabinus dead they would need to switch it elsewhere. His successor looked obvious as the next collaborator. They might have to come up to the Capitol again to try out Egnatius.

  So, when I set out on foot next day, my plan was one I sometimes used: having dug out all I could in my first round of interviews, I would go over that work again. I was going back to the Capitol. I would look for extra witnesses and perhaps re-interview yesterday’s too.

  It was a bright morning, though in November not hot enough for the sun to evaporate the puddles left behind by last night’s drunks. As the reek rose from the back-streets, I cursed their bladders, adding insults about puny male equipment. Tiberius, famous for fairness, would say not all drunken revellers are male. I concede that sometimes desperate women need to make the acquaintance of dark alleys. I know people who have. My advice is, only go out partying with a really nice man who will stand guard.

  Amused by these thoughts, I carried on with a disapproving air, like a particularly snooty Vestal Virgin.

  All right, that could describe any of them. Like a Vestal whose haemorrhoids were hurting badly today.

  I made the ascent on the Clivus Capitolinus, the route the Triumph would take. I felt subdued. However sure of myself I normally was, the knowledge that people wanted to withdraw my commission had dented my confidence. However, I did have in my satchel a small tablet Tiberius had prepared to validate me, bearing a huge seal and written in extravagant language. He had enjoyed creating it.

  I brought Barley, though the Capitol was not a hill for anyone to choose when they wanted to walk a dog, especially while it was crawling with soldiers and extra workmen. Nor was it ever a place to trot about with a smile on your face, greeting other pedestrians with murmurs of “Lovely day!”

  November. Most Romans thought it was already time for winter tunics. Only a crazy Briton would be bare-armed and happy with the weather.

  People did not come up here for recreation. The Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest, symbol of Rome’s endurance, spread its wide arms as a monument to be viewed from afar. Ordinary folk who felt pious would offer prayer and sacrifice at smaller, friendlier local shrines. Today there were no big official assemblies in the precincts, so apart from men preparing for the ceremony everywhere lay quiet. The Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, could look out at Rome, Rome could see their temple, but the Hill seemed almost deserted.

  Egnatius was not in the caretaker’s hut. I could not find the caretaker either—he must still be at his mother’s, sneering at her lover or having one of the quarrels with his mother that Larth and Lemni had mentioned. Incandescent about her fancy man, Lemni had said.

  I strolled around to the Temple of Faith, sniggering to myself because the goddess of good faith was supposedly the patron of diplomatic relations. How did her responsibilities cover Domitian holding a triumph for buying off the Dacians?

  From there I looked down at the Theatre of Marcellus and the vegetable market, then walked back. Hmm. Barley sniffed a few smells with eager interest but I was less happy.

  A scatter of tourists was admiring the big temple’s architecture at close quarters; one group was even being led around by a local guide. He was thorough; they were fading. When he finished discussing the Temple of Jupiter, he turned the group around to gaze out over the Forum, while he told them they were now looking down where lambs for sacrifice used to be sold in an open space called the Aequimelium, according to a learned reference by Cicero, although the hillside was prone to rockfalls and collapse …

  Newcomers to Rome would have nothing to tell me. I left them being informed that the Porta Pandana, a gate in the fortified part of the hilltop, was always closed at night. They were receiving their plethora of facts sadly. If this guide had said he knew a good snack bar nearby, he would have been given a much bigger tip. They never learn.

  I carried on behind the Tabularium. Another guide was intoning Ovid to his group. “The Temple of Vejovis was consecrated above the Place of Asylum. When Romulus surrounded the grove with a high stone wall, ‘Hither flee, whoever you are,’ the hospitable city-founder promised, ‘you shall be safe.’ From such low origins the Roman people rose! But let me tell you who this god Vejovis is—young Jupiter. Regard his youthful looks. Witness his hand, which holds no thunderbolt. Originally almighty Jove was unarmed. With him stands also a goat: nymphs of Crete are reported to have furnished milk to the infant god…”

  Holy custard cakes! I had endured sight-seeing with a maudlin guide who spoke peculiar Latin; we had had it in Greece, when I was travelling with my parents. I sympathised.

  Vejovis was the ancient temple of “not-yet-Jupiter.” Outside was indeed a cult statue—“Originally cypress wood, which assumes a high polish, but which was destroyed by fire a decade ago, lately restored in marble by the generosity of Domitian…” The guide was wrong: the god brandished a bundle of arrows—he was obviously not unarmed. A rebel among the tourists pointed this out. It went down badly.

  Barley approached the goat statue, sniffed it and backed away a few steps, as if she wanted to play. I called her, leaving behind the guide’s sing-song recitation of how the little temple—note its new brick columns, its elegant travertine decoration—was unusual in its width, due to its transverse cella caused by space limitations, as
it was encircled by the Record Office … The helpless group was being hammered.

  I could not bear a grisly lowdown on the Record Office, which is often used by informers when in search of official documents.

  As I walked on, I found myself wondering whether the mysterious “business colleagues” Gabinus was said to have met at his borrowed hut might be nothing more than transfixed tourists. Did he moonlight as a hired escort, hauling people around Rome’s famous sites? Was he killed by some maddened traveller, desperate to escape his spiel?

  I had crossed the Asylum. Running to greet me came some old familiars of my father. I was wary, even though I knew they were simply curious. Believing it an attack on me, Barley plunged in among them. There was no point trying to call her back: she had not even learned her name, let alone obedience. Anyway, I was too late. My untrained dog was pelting around the Arx, barking hysterically, in hot pursuit of Juno’s Sacred Geese.

  XXI

  One of many fowl facts my father had taught me was that, to protect their family, ganders will tackle anything, yet in the end they are no match for foxes or dogs. Or, he added, for confident young women, so stop whimpering … The creatures on the Arx acted as if Falco had forgotten to tell them that.

  Selective breeding had produced a choice white strain, heavy in the rump and upright. Those lumps of couch-stuffing were symbolic of faithfulness and bravery, famously nosy and intelligent—though in my opinion not bright enough. Barley was making snowy down fly. They did their best to retaliate, pecking off fur, but with her thin body she could switchback more bendily than a mountain road to get out of their way.

  They made a raucous noise. The birds led a pampered life, hanging around until some crisis required them to flap in and save the day. Then they let the world know about it. They despised dogs. For them dogs, like sentries, shamelessly sleep on duty. When silent besiegers climb your citadel in the hours of darkness, only loyal gooseys honk the alarm. Geese are top birds. Geese absolutely know it. These birds were shouting the fact all over the peaks.

  Falco reckons their reason for alerting the Citadel was not a longing to be carried in processions upon purple cushions. They feared that if marauding Gauls arrived, any geese the greedy Gauls ran into would be grabbed by their sturdy necks, force-fed dried figs through a metal tube and their livers turned into a rich pâté. Juno, Queen of the Heavens, their mistress, could not save them from being spread on bread rolls.

  Helena Justina, on the other hand, contends that fattening goose livers was devised by Egyptian deviants. Gauls, she says, have a kinder cuisine: they would rather make yolky omelettes or, better still, roast the birds whole with star anise and ginger.

  “Whatever you say,” says my father.

  “You never mean that,” she retorts.

  Regardless of my parents’ controversy, historically Juno’s geese had heard the Gauls creeping up the rocks. Their frenzy alerted a certain Marcus Manlius—who bore, I now realised, the names of my father and my husband: heroic men in any crisis. Every schoolchild knows what he then did: face to face with the first Gaul over the battlement, Manlius threw him off. So for the death of Gabinus there was an interesting precedent. Not that it helped my inquiry.

  More pressing matters claimed me. I had no time to ponder myths. Barley and I were in big trouble with the holy honkers.

  The dog was haring around like mad, but those geese weighed in lustily. There were a lot of them, big-bodied, necks extended, beaks open. Wings wide, they ran at the dog on flub-dubbing pink feet. When I see a dog in difficulty, I race in to help. Using the downhill slope for lift-off, one of the spoiled birds took flight. When it came at me, Barley went bonkers. As I ducked, shielding my head, the dog leaped up at the attacking bird. It veered away while she continued to spring up and down, almost shoulder high.

  The goose landed, but bounced itself airborne again for another attack, which it luckily aborted. All the Arx resounded to barks and honking. Wildly excited, Barley was still making precious white feathers scatter. The geese could not deter her. I could not catch her. I failed to steer the geese away too. Like feasting Celts (if you believe historians), they had no idea why they were fighting but were keen to keep going. A good peck-up was their idea of entertainment.

  Barley bounded at a goose, gripping its angrily wagging tail. As it swung around in outrage, its hard golden beak landed a vicious peck. The dog squealed. She let go. Her victim scampered off in ungainly haste.

  Worse followed. Unable to distinguish between play and purpose, the dog then accidentally jumped me from behind. It was so unexpected, I fell over. The ground around the temple was splattered with green slime; after a short skid, I landed full length—right on a goose. I am compact but a grown woman thumping down on top of it was too much. I had a soft landing, but the goose went limp.

  Nobody would believe it was an accident. Our fracas outside Juno’s temple had now become sacrilege. Barley and I faced religious penalties. Since I was married to an aedile, I knew what that normally meant: the death sentence.

  The bird lay on the grass. I stroked its neck. Kindness and pleading failed to revive the stupid thing. Another great goose loyally joined in, first taking a look, then hanging around beside the body. They are famous for never abandoning a wounded flock-mate.

  I had no such scruples. Clambering to my feet, I pointed to the ground beside me, which somehow convinced the dog to come. I picked her up; she was bigger than our old family pet, Nux, but still medium-sized and manageable. As I moved off, clutching her hot, panting body in my arms, she buried her slobbering muzzle in my neck as if we were having a wonderful adventure.

  So far, no one had seen it. Possibly the gods had noticed, but gods prefer to watch fornication or war. Now I heard people coming. As I gripped Barley, I muttered, “Get the story straight. We did nothing. Those naughty birds attacked us. It is not our fault!” Barley licked me.

  Temple attendants reached the scene; we froze in a heart-rending pose. We were shocked. We were frightened. We were still encircled by aggressive geese and, once someone came to rescue us, we were seriously thinking of sending for our compensation lawyers.

  In Roman law, can you sue geese? Discuss avidly; cite precedents.

  The goose-boy, as he was always called although he looked about ninety, turned up with his piece of herding stick. All still-active geese hurried over to greet him. Not bothering with the live ones, he fixed on the unresponsive carcass. “What happened?”

  “Poor thing fell over.”

  “I’ll have to make a report.”

  “Don’t expect any help from me. My dog has been bitten. I want to submit a complaint.”

  “Save it. He’s going to get a fine.”

  “She’s a bitch.”

  “Makes no difference.”

  “She’s innocent. She never bothered geese before.”

  “How long have you had her?”

  “About two weeks. Just pop the bird in a sack, and I’ll take it away,” I volunteered, thinking this was a way to impress my new cook, Fornix. “Come spring, you will be awash with goslings—you’ll soon make up the numbers.”

  The goose-boy scoffed. He didn’t even need to say it was more than his job was worth.

  He might have forgotten that when Didius Falco became Procurator of the Sacred Poultry, sometimes he collected omelette eggs but it was not unknown for a “sick” bird to be culled during his check-up visits. Then while he went off on more interesting business, he might send me home with something solid in a grain sack.

  Various temple attendants were making attempts to round up the agitated flock. Juno’s revered priests waddled in circles, holding their arms wide, while the geese simply nipped underneath and made off. The goose-boy rolled deploring eyes. Instead of helping, he let them all get on with it.

  I remembered his name was Feliculus. He was a stringy public slave in a clay-coloured tunic, with hairy arms and a downbeat attitude.

  “You are Falco’s daughter.”
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  “Afraid so. His eldest.”

  “I could tell by what you said about the sack. We miss your pa up here.”

  “He is a memorable character.”

  “I was sorry when they did away with his post,” Feliculus mourned. “He was wonderful with the geese. Always considerate to me as well. Such a good listener. I suffer from black thoughts. Discussing it with him has helped me understand a lot of my problems. I made progress while he was procurator. Falco explained how talking to poultry all day for forty years was bound to erode anybody’s social skills.”

  My adoptive father does have his soft side, which all his children deploy when suggesting gifts for birthdays. I said, “Falco will be very glad to know he was of benefit.”

  “Please give him my regards.” Digging into a pouch at his belt Feliculus produced a ragged length of string, which he must keep for rampant dogs. Tiberius, the fond master of our house, had lavished a leather collar on Barley; I put her down and tied on the string, so she could devote herself to trying to chew it off. With her attention claimed, I was free to ask the goose-boy if he knew anything about Gabinus. A good informer wastes no chances.

  We paused while Juno’s priests and their assistants, sweating and much out of breath, brought back Juno’s sacred flock to their official minder. Both birds and priests now looked rumpled. I had the impression it was not the first time the élite temple squad had carried out his job for him. “Just helping out with the inquiry into the Tarpeian fatality,” he excused himself airily. They were snooty as Hades but he had them in control. He must have used his way with livestock to herd them around.

  He gesticulated with his stick, mainly to steer away the temple retinue. The temporary drovers obediently dispersed. Left with us, the geese insisted on mobbing their carer, who had probably hand-reared some of them. After pleading for him to stroke their heads and pet them, they cooed at him lovingly before they returned to their normal occupation of destroying anything that looked like grass. Any gardener in that precinct had a soul-destroying job.