Pandora's Boy Read online

  So it seemed that Tiberius was working, because the brown tunic was a disguise he adopted when he went out incognito. As a magistrate, he had his own quaint way of spotting wrongdoers; when I first met him, he was patrolling the streets, looking like a layabout you wouldn’t stand too close to, while pulling in people who blocked pavements, sold fake goods from stalls or owned dangerous wild animals.

  I felt glad he was taking an interest again. Then I found the wedding ring.

  Even Dromo showed an ominous sense of occasion. “Shit on a stick! He told me he was never going to take that off.”

  Thanks, Dromo.

  Then in another trinket dish I found my husband’s signet ring as well.

  I sat down on the bed, trying not to be upset. Married less than ten weeks and my husband had left me? That would take some explaining to our friends and relatives. None of them would be surprised; they viewed me as an eccentric who would soon drive him away. But I was very surprised indeed.

  “Don’t cry!” Dromo was now terrified. “If you’re going to cry, I’m off.”

  “You’re a typical boy then!” I wiped my eyes. “I am not crying. Tiberius Manlius will come back soon.”

  “Where’s he gone?”

  “How should I know? He’s grown up. He doesn’t have to take a pedagogue to carry his school homework—oh, stop looking like a wide-eyed owl, Dromo. I mean, he can go where he likes.”

  “Has he gone to get drunk in a bar?”

  “Why?”

  “He hates Laia Gratiana.”

  “Well, I doubt it, even for her; solitary drinking is not your master’s style…”

  Or was I wrong? If being visited by his ex-wife had upset him enough, he might want to recover on his own … Was this her fault? If Laia Gratiana had said or done something to aggravate his anxiety, I would make her suffer.

  I quizzed Dromo about how long she had stayed. Not long. At the same time as the slave saw me hide in the cupboard, his master had yelled for him. Dromo responded only reluctantly; he, too, disliked Laia. (He had some good points.) But he confirmed that he had been instructed to see her out. Tiberius neither showed her to the door politely himself, nor kissed her cheek in farewell. All the burden of being courteous fell on Dromo.

  “I had to take her into the street to her chair. She ought to have given me a copper for being helpful—but she didn’t!”

  “Were you helpful?”

  “No, I was grumpy.”

  I nearly gave him a copper for that.

  “Did he say anything else to her?”

  “He just snarled, ‘You’ve told us the situation; we shall have to think about it.’ Then she tossed her head and walked off ahead of me.”

  It was unclear to me whether Dromo had lived with them while they were a married couple years ago; if so, he would have been a child at the time. Rather, I had the impression Tiberius had acquired Dromo as a little soul to fetch and carry, after Laia kicked Tiberius out. When he went to live at his uncle’s house, any slaves they owned together probably stayed with her; she exacted a vicious divorce settlement.

  At least if there had been no further conversation today, I need not visit Laia to ask what she had said to make Tiberius vanish.

  I would not have to own up that I did not know where he was.

  *

  When he failed to come home that night, I really panicked.

  Next day, I hurried out to search his haunts. It was so early, Rome seemed like a badly bruised peach, promising much but too brown to tolerate. Sordid relics of last night’s adventures littered every street. There was sick in the fountains and worse in the gutters.

  Stepping on bits of torn garland and circling round the occasional comatose fun-seeker, I busily visited the aediles’ office, his uncle’s house, shops and stalls he liked, the barber he patronized, a warehouse he owned and was trying to hire out … Nobody had seen him. I went down to the Marble Embankment, where my family lived; they all said the right comforting things—then I spotted them exchanging worried signals behind my back.

  My last hope was Glaucus’ gym. This place in the Vicus Tuscus in the Forum was where my father went to exercise if he was facing any crisis; I had persuaded Tiberius to attend for remedial massages. Young Glaucus, the first proprietor’s son, now ran it. He was a retired athlete of some distinction. Taking a keen interest in my husband’s accident, he had researched the physical and mental effects of surviving a lightning strike. He found out more about it than even some doctors we consulted.

  I found him leaning on a lad he was training to wrestle. The pupil looked desperate; Glaucus, who had maintained his superb physique, was hardly trying.

  When I said what had happened, his face fell. “This is a nightmare, Glaucus. You look green—what’s that for?”

  I had known him for years. He had probably forgotten, but he once proposed to me. No, that’s wrong; poor old Glaucus, who was extremely serious, had probably not forgotten at all, but as I grew up and became famously high-handed, he had been worrying ever since that I might change my mind and decide to accept him …

  Looking anxious, Glaucus told me he had found several anecdotes about lightning survivors who abruptly left home. Even they seemed puzzled as to why. They might be found, perhaps a long time afterward and many miles away, living a new life with a different identity.

  “If their relatives ever track them down, Albia, it seems they can be persuaded to come back. They do come home quite willingly.”

  “Well, that’s good news—but I have to find him first! When they disappear, is there any logic in where they go to?”

  “No, it seems to be pure chance.”

  Brilliant.

  I walked slowly home. Up in our bedroom, I put my husband’s wedding ring, and his signet ring with its fish-tailed horse design, on a piece of cord, which I hung round my neck under my clothes. I was beginning to accept it might be a long time before the rings went back on his fingers.

  I sat on the bed, thinking about the irony that I could be hired to find missing people yet had no idea where to start looking for my own.

  III

  In the end there was nothing else I could do, so I took on Laia Gratiana’s case.

  This may seem hard-hearted, but it was better than moping at home. I chose to distract myself with work and earn fees. As I always tell my clients, when your husband skips the scene, the sooner life goes on the better; if he reappears, you can deal with him then. In the meantime, eat sensibly, keep occupied, pay your bills and keep your mouth shut in public about whatever he has done. Sometimes I giggle with the jollier women that they can start looking around for a new lover, though I would not do so. I had my work. That gave me enough trouble.

  Besides, I chose Tiberius. He was what I wanted. All I wanted. This terrible disappearance was like stepping in horse dung wearing shoes you had only owned for a week.

  I left Dromo at the house. “If Tiberius Manlius shows up, let him know I am worried about him, then someone must run and tell me straight away.”

  “I never get left anywhere all on my own.” There were many reasons why, starting with the risk that our daft slave would burn the place down …

  “Well, I trust you, Dromo.” Even he failed to believe it. “Don’t let anyone in except your master, or his uncle, or my mother. Larcius will see you are all right; you can ask him about anything that’s worrying you. It is very important that somebody stays here; you will be my special liaison officer.”

  I had asked Larcius, the foreman of our construction business, to come through from the yard whenever he could and check the house. There was a connecting door he could use to pop in without warning. He understood. To Larcius, Dromo was just like a hapless apprentice eating buns all day, but with the bonus that he wouldn’t be on site knocking buckets over or spilling sacks of nails.

  *

  I would pop back from time to time, though it was best not to worry Dromo with that detail, which would seem like a threat. When I am work
ing away on an investigation, I like to return home on occasion. I show my face locally so the neighborhood burglars think my house is properly occupied. I organize laundry, change my earrings, have my brows tidied at Prisca’s bath house, where I can pick up gossip. I spend a little time quietly in my own space. My brain clears of whatever puzzles are competing for attention on behalf of my clients. Ideas often flow in of their own accord. I return to my client with a new approach and quite likely solve the case.

  I had a long way to go before that stage on this one.

  *

  The bright day was still early. Public slaves had been round with brooms to tidy up the city. The drunks had either died or gone home. Shops and schools had opened. Respectable people were out and about, greeting old business colleagues with delight or having arguments with friends at the tops of their voices. Mules, washing lines, doddering old gents, and men delivering bales, barrels and amphorae got in my way as I walked. All normal. All thriving and thrusting. All utterly indifferent to my own unhappy state.

  The Quirinal Hill starts close to the Forum of Augustus; it is the most westerly of three ridges that cover the main part of Rome like the fingers of a hand. I had worked on both the Esquiline and Viminal this year, so now I would be completing my set. Thrills! I knew that my father, Didius Falco, had auction and fine art customers on the Quirinal, so my first step was to visit him. From our house on the Aventine heights, I descended on the Tiber side, then walked along the Embankment past the Theater of Marcellus and the Porticus of Octavia. Gaining the Field of Mars, I went through the Porticus of Pompey in case Pa had a current auction there, but no. I carried on to the Saepta Julia, where the elegant galleries were home to jewelers and antiques dealers, and my family had long rented premises.

  The Saepta Julia began life as something to do with citizens voting, but emperors had since relieved us of the burdens of democracy. Turned into a fancy gallery, the Saepta had been rebuilt after a fire only ten years ago, yet the Didius showroom already looked as dusty as if it had been collecting junk for a century, while the upstairs office was little better. The curly-haired proprietor was generally grouching somewhere, eating a stuffed vine leaf while he waited for custom. If he was out, some ragamuffin nephew would do the honors, but today my famously casual, devious, rebellious, cantankerous paterfamilias was here. I found him polishing a metal jug. It was spelter, but once he had finished buffing he would blithely pass it off as silver. Buyer, beware. Especially beware of the utterly shameless Didii.

  Falco was cheerful because of creating the fake jug, but his first demand was to know whether my runaway husband had turned up yet. I said no but I would give him hell when he did.

  With that out of the way, I could explain my mission. Father confirmed that he knew a few Quirinal people, then spent a quarter of an hour raving about the wealth and insufferable habits of these customers. He enjoyed exaggerating. I waited patiently for him to finish.

  I had to gauge carefully how much I revealed. If my query sounded too intriguing, Falco would try to take over. Now that he had the family auction house to run, he was supposed to have retired from informing, but it only made him more nostalgic for a good mystery. If ever I had a really dire case I might even try to offload it, but he had learned to be wary of me passing on dross. Also, Mother would have things to say. She wanted him to keep a low profile. I can’t say why. It was political. Besides, she thought he was too old for the excitement.

  “This is nothing you will want to pinch. It’s just a typical family dispute,” I lied cheerfully. “Incipient divorce and battered slave compensation. I think it’s going to be grim. For some reason they called in the vigiles, though you won’t be surprised to hear that got them nowhere, so now they are asking me. I shall have to calm them down, then explain the facts of life.”

  Giving me a narrow look, Father started by supplying the name of his contact at the First Cohort of Vigiles, whose main station-house was nearest to the Saepta Julia, although the Field of Mars was in fact supervised by the Seventh. We shared some lively banter about how the cohorts all interpreted “supervision,” then Pa threw in extra contact details for a couple of long-standing customers who might be helpful with background. I had to promise that if I ended up working nearby for long, I would come down to the Saepta for an occasional lunch. Well, that was an easy oath to take.

  Before I left, my father asked more seriously about my husband. I explained what Young Glaucus had said.

  “Fugue state.” Father knew. He gave me worrying details of this rare but fascinating phenomenon: sudden loss of memory, change of identity, wandering off inexplicably and, worst, the troubled victim eventually waking up in a new life, with no idea of who they were supposed to be, where they had come from, or how they had got to their new location.

  “Glaucus says if I can find him, he will come home quietly.”

  Better make sure Tiberius didn’t see me coming then, teased Falco. My guess was that he and Young Glaucus had put their heads together at the gym, discussing any scary symptoms that might afflict Tiberius in future. The thought of the two of them conspiring behind my back made me even more worried.

  Pa jollied me along. Perhaps if Tiberius started a new life, it would be as a celebrity cook—which we could do with in our house.

  Having been adopted by a colorful character, I had learned to go along with badinage. “More likely he has set up a ménage with a belly-dancer from the Bosporus. I hope the filthy slut doesn’t damage him.”

  My father always liked the idea of a belly-dancer being involved in something.

  IV

  Standing outside the Saepta Julia, on the opposite side from the river, I looked across the wide main road, which ran dead straight from the city gate to the Forum. It was the Triumphal route, the Via Flaminia, at this point named the Via Lata. I could see the newly rebuilt Temples of Isis and Serapis, with Domitian’s shrine to Minerva behind them. Beyond, the Quirinal cliffs loomed. None of these northern hills was as steep as the two peaks of the Aventine, though I knew they made you breathless as you climbed their slopes. Rome was called the City of Seven Hills because they really were significant features.

  I wanted to know where I was going, not to potter around aimlessly. Also, I wanted to be sure what situation I was heading into. For this reason I first made my way to the vigiles.

  The First Cohort lived almost opposite, slightly south of the Arch of Claudius where it crosses the Via Flaminia. They watched over a significant swathe of Rome; their two administrative districts were the Seventh, named after the Via Lata, and the Eighth, the Forum Romanum. Naturally their lead investigator, a snappy man called Scorpus, used the demands of the Forum as his excuse for not poking deeply into domestics up on the Via Lata. If he was beset by toga-ed toffs complaining about the pickpockets on the basilica steps or the dossers who slept in the curia porch, he could hardly give much time to mad stories about love-potions. Or so he claimed.

  Scorpus was typical: a lewd, crude, shrewd type, whom I assessed as just about acceptable at his job. This was as good as you get in an organization of ex-slaves who carried out dangerous work for little thanks. The vigiles were tough. Their officers could be either cynical or corrupt. Many were both. If they had been delicate, they would have chosen to be florists.

  Scorpus was a short, wide man with shaved hair, who clearly had a past behind him: he walked with a limp that could have been acquired either during a tricky arrest or from an accident while firefighting. Or in a bar fight. Or from a furious girlfriend. With the vigiles, unless they boasted of their exploits, you never knew. This one did not bother trying to impress, since he intended to get rid of me.

  He remembered the family: “The Volumnii. Apricot Street.” I noticed he gave no verdict on them. The man did not gossip. His Quirinal patch included the gracious homes of Imperial family members—or at least any relatives Domitian had allowed to remain alive—not to mention retired consuls and serving senators. I guessed Scorpus left them a
lone as much as possible; if he was ever called in, he would be polite though probably not deferential. With the Volumnii, if he had mentally dismissed them as poncy time-wasters, they would never have noticed what he thought. He knew how to bluff. I didn’t need a description of them from him; I would decide for myself. I reckon he could see that. I tend to come across as self-assured when I’m working.

  In twenty words Scorpus rapped out a story that more or less matched what I had been told by Laia. I name-dropped Falco, which softened him, though gained me no additional details. He was a plain reporter. I thought of mentioning my uncle, Petronius Longus, who had done the same job as Scorpus for many years in the Fourth Cohort, but I suspected the First thought the Fourth were layabout headcases, just as the Fourth called the First bribe-taking slimeballs, so there would be no advantage. It was better simply to let Scorpus see I was familiar with how the vigiles worked and that I understood their problems. To be fair, although he had no time for informers (the traditional attitude), he was treating me as a professional.

  He went so far as to say I could see the cohort clerk. If the clerk could find the record pertaining to the Volumnius incident, I could neither handle it nor take it away, but the scroll could be read out to me. Scorpus marched me to the clerk’s cubbyhole, where he left me to make my own overtures. He himself strode off to what he described as more important business.

  The clerk was a nasty, pasty, far from hasty slave who presumably hadn’t got a copper for the laundry so he could not fetch his clean tunic. Judging by the state of the one he was in, collection was weeks overdue. He was either trying to grow a beard to hide his pimples or his barber had a blunt razor that spread infection. Nevertheless, like many clerks, he was so surprised at somebody taking an interest, he roused himself to look for a note-tablet (nothing so grand as a scroll, then) where Scorpus had written up his visit to the Volumnii. The scrawled notes were so hard to decipher, the clerk laid the tablet on his tiny table to pore over it; although I was not supposed to look, I read them upside down.