Deadly Election Read online

  And how many times have I heard that while standing beside the pyre for some miserable, skeletal victim after the undertaker has told me privately that the poor woman had sustained many broken bones and scars over the years, before the attack that killed her?

  If Vibius beat his wife, it explained why she might leave him − though if she was any kind of mother, why had she left behind her still-young children with a man who hurt her?

  Even if Vibius hit Julia, Rome might be slow to call it reprehensible. Historically, Roman men had the right to chastise their wives and children, and if they committed crimes that shamed the family, to kill them even. The paterfamilias had been king, trial judge and executioner in his own household.

  In theory he still was. Wives found ways around that system, mainly by ignoring the supposed rules.

  We no longer lived in traditional times. Cruelty was frowned on, at least if the bruises were visible; love – or a pretence of love – was applauded. Even in cases of adultery, a husband or father was not legally permitted to put his wife or daughter to the sword, although if he caught her with a lover in his own house, he could slay the lover. Adulterers had to be quick at shinning out of windows. Women were wise to conduct love affairs in friends’ houses. The friends had to pretend not to know about it, else providing a love-nest was pimping.

  Suppose a man went too far and did kill his wife or daughter. He was virtually let off if it happened in the heat of the moment. However, husbands who battered their wives for pleasure, or for no reason, or to hide their own guilt at screwing a prostitute, or when too drunk to know what they were doing, or too drunk to care, were denounced. Husbands had to protect the weaker members of their households. After all, if a man really needed to take out his temper on someone, he was supposed to knock the lights out of his slaves.

  Wives could leave. Divorce was easy. Fathers had to take back brides who found married life unbearable. We were civilised nowadays. Fathers might curse but, after all, they could always find the returning daughter a new husband and offload her again. Under the rigid Augustan marriage laws, a divorced woman was supposed to re-wed promptly. She lost her right to receive legacies otherwise, assuming that bothered her. Really unhappy wives might think money did not matter.

  There was a moral code, too. If people thought Vibius had caused the break-up of his family, the kind of family the law directly encouraged, that would lose him votes. He had two children; he was supposed to persuade his Julia to let him father three. In the kind of senate we had, some would disapprove of violence yet others would actually envy a man who had dared to chastise his wife. But the governing fathers would never let him get away with his deception.

  What about the other candidates?

  In general, I had thought marriage was so much the norm for would-be politicians I had not even asked the question. To be an aedile, a candidate must be thirty-six; since men tended to marry first in their early twenties it was likely they had all done so at one time. The only one I had ascertained as married was Dillius Surus, who notoriously lived off his very rich wife. Presumably, since she paid his bills, he paid her respect, though perhaps he drank so hard simply to endure having to be grateful to a woman some called unpleasant. Arulenus Crescens stood accused of refusing to marry his mistress, so he must be single now but had been married before and left a wife pregnant; it was possible he had ditched the latest mistress (a woman with a blowsy reputation) because he had wanted a more suitable wife for show. Laia’s brother, a widower, was making a new marriage, unusual only in cynically timing it for the election.

  I decided to establish more facts, double-checking with the banking fraternity. No one else had so keen an interest in a man’s domestic background. I could either make a return visit to Nothokleptes or call on my own financier, Claudia Arsinoë. I did that. Arsinoë could be relied on to give me mint tea.

  She lived and worked not in the Basilica Aemilia or anywhere else in the Forum, but above one of the bookshops that quietly inhabit the Vicus Tuscus at the back of the lawcourts. Her bank had a change-table among the élite financiers in the Clivus Argentarius, but private clients saw her at home. This was like visiting an auntie. I took flowers and had the posy tied with ribbon.

  You had to allow for eastern formality. First, we pretended this was a catch-up on friends and family. She called for the mint tea. Sipping, she spoke well of my mother, and I asked after her health. Then we ran lightly through my investments. The weather came up for notice; we fanned ourselves wearily. I gave my opinion of her newest patisserie provider. She pressed more tea upon me. And another cake.

  Arsinoë was a forty-year-old native Athenian, putting on the pounds. As a widow, she wore dull clothes and covered up. However, her hair, still naturally dark to all intents, was rarely veiled and held in place by a pointed gold stephane that any goddess would have coveted for her temple statue. She was deeply religious but she enjoyed worldly pleasures. Waiting for her missing fiancé never interfered with her colourful Greek social life. I had been invited to these gatherings. There was laughter, throbbing lyres, lashings of traditional food, resinous wine and utterly sad singing. Arsinoë loved a good cry. (Yes, I know: it’s hard to envisage a banker in tears.)

  She was a good source. From her, I learned that Trebonius Fulvo had been married to the same woman for years, quite happily; she did not let him bully her and like many tough men he appreciated that. The louche Arulenus Crescens had had a couple of wives and several long-term mistresses, shamelessly overlapping these creatures and leaving behind children. Dillius Surus was the second husband of a woman who had married first extremely well – at least, well in Arsinoë’s terms: he had enviable pots of money and he left it all to his widow.

  ‘Being dead is good – why did she spoil everything by taking on an idiot?’ Arsinoë wondered.

  Ennius Verecundus had a sweet young wife of a few years and a baby.

  ‘I bet they live with his mother?’

  ‘I believe they do, Flavia Albia.’

  ‘Disaster.’

  ‘Surely there can be good mothers-in-law? Kindly women who will help a new bride while she is learning, and become fast friends with her?’

  ‘Is that irony? This kindly woman is called Julia Verecunda.’

  ‘Oh, that witch!’ Arsinoë made a sign against the evil eye – well, that was what I assumed the gesture to be.

  ‘You know of her?’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘Has she money?’

  ‘None worth mentioning.’

  ‘She is putting her son up for election.’

  ‘He has cash. From his father, Ennianus. Verecunda is not allowed to touch it. I have heard she finds her husband’s prudence galling.’

  Salvius Gratus was about to announce his engagement to an Aventine hide-importer’s daughter. (Arsinoë knew the details, even though Gratus had yet to announce it.) And Vibius Marinus, as I knew, was married with two children.

  ‘Ah, yes. Arsinoë, have you heard any rumours?’

  ‘Why, no! Tell me the gossip.’

  ‘One candidate is said to be a wife-beater. Since his Julia has gone missing from home, can it be Vibius Marinus? At least, that is the slur from Nothokleptes.’

  Arsinoë made a short noise of disgust. ‘Nothokleptes is a useless bastard.’

  ‘Really!’ I chortled. ‘Have you heard any hint that Julia Optata may have left Vibius?’

  ‘No, I have not.’

  ‘By some coincidence, her mother is Julia Verecunda also.’

  ‘Pallas Athene!’ cried Claudia Arsinoë. ‘The mother-in-law has caused the rift. She is famous for quarrelling. She makes her daughters treat their husbands badly, leave them for better ones. She loves to see families disintegrate and to know she is responsible.’

  ‘What makes her like that?’ I wondered.

  ‘A wicked nature. Hating is her character.’

  ‘And she brought her children up to be the same? Are they all aggressive?’
/>   ‘No need to teach it to them,’ scoffed my banker. ‘Venom came with her milk, like a sorceress. But the family character was there before their birth. Their very blood is poisoned.’

  Even allowing for Greek drama, this boded ill for Vibius. I felt sympathy for the other son-in-law, Volusius Firmus, and more still for Ennius, the natural son in this unhappy-sounding family.

  ‘You know your road,’ declared Arsinoë. She tended to declaim like a fortune-teller, though her fees were cheaper and you didn’t have to watch her handle mummified gizzards. ‘You better go and see this horrible cow. Tell her I send a howling Fury in hot wind if she harms one hair of you.’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’

  Arsinoë jumped on me and smothered me with hugs as if she thought she might never see me again. I took that as her Athenian love of the theatre. If she really had been a fortune-teller, I might have found it worrying.

  28

  What was I trying to prove here, and would anybody thank me? Deciding no to that, I opted to be cautious.

  It was mid-morning. I walked down the Clivus Tuscus past the Temple of Augustus, heading into the Forum. This temple had been destroyed by fire and rebuilt by Domitian; the neat edifice was newly released from its scaffold, so I paused to admire its eight spanking columns and glimpse the interior statues of Augustus and Livia.

  Considering my next move, I would look again at the various candidates, including the now-problematic Vibius.

  It seemed very quiet. If the rivals were on their daily walkabout, either I kept missing them or they had floated off to a new venue. None was at the Rostra, the main point for formal oratory, where Sextus Vibius was to make his speech today. Had he done it? Had the jibes hurt the others so deeply they had crept home to lick their wounds like defeated athletes? I did not suppose so. I am a realist.

  ‘Anybody been on the rostrum today?’

  ‘One of the fools was up there spouting. I took no notice.’

  Great.

  So much for being a political speech-writer. Nobody thanks you. Even the dummy who is reading the words misses the point of your best jokes; your fine sentiments will be superseded by events and forgotten by tomorrow; anyway, the crowd don’t even listen. No one is impressed. Get a new career. Sell fish-pickle.

  Perhaps because they were always somewhat isolated from the main group, I did run into Ennius Verecundus and his mother. If the other rivals had moved off in a body, these two had missed the picnic invitation. He was the boy nobody else wants to play with.

  I watched Ennius lavishing those smiles on everyone he met. He had a rectangular face with a pointed chin and a slightly receding hairline that made his forehead extra square. His eyes looked more intelligent than fitted his humble stance. If you met him out of his election robes, you might identify him as a disillusioned secretary. One who had been pensioned off because he was no good.

  Mama did not steer her son quite as blatantly as I had originally thought. He moved around of his own accord, even though she was constantly watchful. She must know he had no real aptitude. He launched himself towards people and dutifully shook their hands; that smile of his was not exactly false, though meaningless. If someone had called him a lying cheat, he would have kept smiling.

  Surprisingly, people were oddly patient. He would join a group and pose as he shook the hand of the leading figure, smiling around at the others. He acted as if they were all like-minded. They let him.

  At least no firebrand tackled him with aggressive questions about what was wrong in their neighbourhood. Nobody expected he would do much about anything. Nobody had the energy, on a hot day, to engage with him. No one threw goose eggs. They just waited for him to move on again.

  It was true that his baleful mother looked a woman not to cross. That was partly because of her resolutely old-fashioned dress and deportment. Today she again wore the stola, that sleeveless over-tunic that had once been reserved for respectable matrons but which now no younger woman would be seen in. Her hair, turned back in a topknot, with three precisely pinched waves down each side of her head, also harked back to the cult statue of the Empress Livia I had seen earlier.

  In imperial art, Livia wore the stola, and was frequently veiled. She had an oddly sweet face, yet, even if you disbelieved the lurid tales of her poisoning people, she had been another dame to treat with caution: a wife who, while pregnant, had left her first husband when she saw that Augustus was a better deal. Thereafter she had tirelessly devoted herself to polishing his reputation, grabbing the seal and conducting business if he was away. A matriarch to chill the blood. Another mother who had pursued the claims of her son, the weird Tiberius. Wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother of emperors (some wicked, others mad). Deified, yet still viewed nervously.

  Julia Verecunda had assembled a matching outfit and the hair. She copied Livia’s wide eyes and beyond-reproach expression. Her features were naturally plump and might have been sweet but for the firm unsmiling lips. Respect me or I break your legs.

  Subservience to the male was, of course, her public persona. Their campaign was for Ennius, about him and (apparently) led by him, as it should have been. No one could doubt that she advised him, which probably meant nagged him.

  Even if he did what he was told, he gave no real sign of feeling hen-pecked or bossed. He had learned. He knew to avoid trouble.

  He had his own money, Arsinoë had told me. Presumably his mother knew that meant, if he was ever brave enough, he had an escape.

  I now saw that a small, quiet party of faithfuls followed them about. These included a young, pale, decent-looking woman who must be the wife, mother of his baby. The babe had not been brought to woo the crowds, however cute it was. Today was far too hot; the child would have been wailing. Either the pale wife or someone else must have sense. The decision probably had not emanated from Julia Verecunda, the grandmother from Hades; such a one would surely expect infants to behave impeccably on all occasions – or would make the pale wife feel she was a useless mother if a fretful baby cried.

  The wife had on an attractive sky blue gown, elegant on her slim figure. Though pale, she looked quietly composed. Mind you, the downtrodden learn to stand straight to avoid drawing more trouble on themselves. Perhaps she and Ennius were well matched in submissiveness.

  I was heartened when Ennius, speaking to a man who had his own wife there, called forward the pale thing and introduced her; the two wives then talked. It was undoubtedly about babies. The wife of Ennius was not exactly animated, but assumed a polite, politician’s helpmeet manner. Ennius kept a hand on her shoulder. It looked almost affectionate.

  Playing the politician’s partner was what Julia Optata, the supposedly devoted wife of Vibius, ought to be doing.

  The rest of the party looked like family slaves and freedmen. Perhaps there were a few friends and relatives but, if so, they were very discreet.

  I cornered one of the freedwomen. She had been trained to answer questions from the public and she welcomed me as a potential influence with male voters in my family. (She did not know my family or me.) Introducing myself by name though not by profession, I spoke admiringly of Julia Verecunda. I said I believed she was a woman of importance in this election. ‘I have heard she is not only mother to Ennius, but has two daughters married to other candidates. She must hardly know which train of well-wishers to join!’

  ‘Oh, she supports her son, of course.’

  ‘But it would be an accolade for any family to have more than one candidate elected the same year?’

  ‘Maybe, but Julia Verecunda is not thinking of that.’ No: she allegedly despised the sons-in-law.

  ‘Your young master will be elected, I feel sure.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what his mother wants for him.’

  The freedwoman was turning away. I laid a hand on her arm, just enough to detain her yet remain good-mannered. ‘Excuse me, could you just tell me one thing? Someone said that one of her daughters, whom I need to speak to, is living
with her mother nowadays. Julia Optata. Will I find her at your house?’

  ‘Oh, no – whoever told you that? Julia Optata is married to Vibius Marinus. You must ask for her where he lives.’

  ‘I wonder why I was told otherwise. Of course, as a good daughter she does come to see Julia Verecunda?’

  ‘We have not seen her for some time, but with so much going on, that is to be expected.’

  ‘She must be working hard at the moment, to support her husband?’ I suggested, wide-eyed.

  ‘Bound to be.’

  The witness sounded so casual that I reckoned she believed it. Had no one in their party noticed how, when they encountered Vibius going about, they never saw his wife with him? I would expect a sharp-eyed mother to have spotted it, but perhaps Julia Verecunda kept her own counsel.

  Would she have words with her daughter? Or would she approve, as Claudius Laeta and Claudia Arsinoë had both said? She loves to see families disintegrate and to know she is responsible … Had Julia Optata left Sextus because her mother encouraged it?

  Here in the Forum, Verecunda continued as always, proudly bestowing maternal admiration on her son. Her head never turned. Yet her eyes moved. Her eyes were on me. She had spotted my conversation; her distrust looked acidic.

  The freedwoman noticed and moved away from me. Very little showed that she was nervous, yet as she pulled her shawl tighter I saw her hand shaking. I, too, pretended to be unaware of Verecunda as I made off.

  I marched to the other end of the Forum and, believe me, I went very fast.

  29

  A new flash of white drew me towards the Basilica Julia where I found Faustus with Sextus Vibius. They were advancing purposefully down the Sacred Way, striding to the Rostra, under the high shadow of the Capitol.

  More people were with them than usual. I was loath to pull Faustus out of this large train of supporters, but he saw me and came over of his own accord. He looked troubled. I did not need to ask why. We walked along together.