Deadly Election Read online

I remained silent afterwards, fanning myself gently with one hand. Eventually he instigated a discussion by murmuring, ‘You don’t believe a word of it.’

  I sighed. ‘He’s your friend. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t want to believe it.’

  I could not be hard on Tiberius. I merely said, ‘People never do.’

  There was no strife between the two of us, even on this delicate subject. I knew what I thought about the situation and, even against his inclinations, Tiberius felt the same.

  We sat on, quietly talking about other enquiries we had made that day. I reported on my two visits, to Trebonius and Primus. Faustus had been to see Arulenus, who stuck with the same story as his colleague: they had had no reason to attack Callistus Valens, and they had not done so. For their part, the Callisti had made aggressive legal moves to sue Arulenus for defamation and had also complained to the Senate that he offered threats of violence, in contravention of election rules. It had all gone quiet once Volusius Firmus stood down, so Arulenus was hoping to escape further trouble.

  ‘Collusion.’ I sniffed. ‘Exactly what Trebonius told me. We have a rare instance of two politicians agreeing on something!’

  ‘In order to further their own careers.’ Faustus was equally cynical.

  He had also visited the wife of Niger. Her pompous agent now had his feet under the table, literally, and had made it impossible to re-interview her. He was using the ‘women must have guardians to speak for them’ throw of the dice. It found no favour with Faustus, I was glad to see.

  ‘How in Hades does that ridiculous fraud know what was said between the wife and her husband?’ he raged. ‘As far as I can gather, little was ever discussed at home − still, if I can ever manage a proper interview, there might be a useful detail to extract. Niger didn’t keep her entirely isolated. She certainly met this buffoon she is now employing.’

  ‘I want to ask her some time,’ I said, ‘if she knew another man who was seen at the auction talking to Niger. He bid on a statue. Intriguingly, he also fled without paying and has not been seen since.’

  ‘A ruse? A double ruse, if Niger concocted some plan with him?’

  ‘Not sure. They may have been mere acquaintances, who met that afternoon by chance. After all, Niger did not originally intend to default, and we know he was distraught when the Callisti changed their minds. Backing out damaged his reputation.’

  Faustus winced. ‘Oh, I heard all about that again from the widow. She is not sufficiently prostrate with grief to stop her insulting the Callisti!’

  ‘I think she is wrong,’ I disagreed. ‘I am now seeing them as good sorts. The lost father seems to have been particularly well liked.’

  At this juncture Sextus Vibius came home. He plumped himself down heavily on a seat, causing clouds of chalk dust to fly up. He seemed disgruntled.

  To my surprise, Faustus at once tackled him, and head on. ‘What’s up? Let me guess – more hassle about your missing Julia?’

  ‘People can be such pigs.’ The words had force, yet Vibius spoke mildly.

  ‘Well, you have revealed a weakness,’ Faustus told him, none too sympathetically. ‘In politics, that is an invitation to attack. Look, we have to talk about this. It’s unacceptable that your rivals are harping on Julia Optata’s absence from Rome. They are making a really bad accusation about you, and how you are supposed to have caused her to go.’

  ‘Are they? What can that be?’ Vibius looked bewildered. Apparently he was one of those men who are wilfully blind. The more gossip about him became public knowledge, the less aware he appeared to be.

  No politician can afford to be so obtuse. I was completely unused to it. All the men close to me were as bright as campaign medals. Father, uncles, and now Tiberius. Holding a conversation with them was like scuffling in a constant race to be first to the point. They might not agree with you, but they knew not only what you were saying but why you said it.

  Either Sextus was dumb or he was hiding something.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ Faustus instructed bleakly. ‘People are saying Julia has left home in order to get away from you.’ His friend continued to look disingenuous. ‘All right, Sextus, I shall have to be blunt. People believe she has left you because you are violent.’

  There was a silence. I stayed still, watching Vibius. He did not, like many violent men, instantly rage and deny it. He did not, like the clever ones, claim he could see why people might think that, then produce a slick, plausible explanation. He did not whine, thank the gods. Nor did he blame his wife for any behaviour of hers that had misled people.

  Manlius Faustus held his gaze. His old friend looked straight back.

  ‘Vibius Marinus, please tell me you are not a wife-beater.’

  Vibius spoke solemnly: ‘Manlius Faustus, I give you my word this is untrue.’

  ‘In that case, I am sorry to have raised it.’ Faustus was not letting up, however. I stayed out of the conversation. It sounded polite, yet must be painful. ‘I have a proposition then, my Sextus. We have to bring Julia Optata back to Rome.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’ Sextus was equally steady.

  ‘Either you do it,’ said Faustus, ‘or I can’t carry on as your mentor. I cannot and will not continue with a situation that is so pointlessly damaging to you.’

  His friend leaned forwards on his couch indignantly. ‘I need you! You know the condition of my father. My mother is utterly loyal, but this is men’s work. I have no brothers or uncles. Where shall I turn, but to my oldest friend?’

  ‘Don’t blackmail me, please.’

  ‘Don’t you blackmail me!’

  ‘It’s not meant that way. This is what I must absolutely advise you.’

  ‘She agreed to go.’

  ‘Then she must agree to return.’

  Vibius slumped back and looked glum.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ I now asked him quietly. ‘How long has she been gone? When did you last hear from her?’ He looked grateful for my intervention, yet still said nothing. I risked more: ‘If you and Julia Optata have quarrelled, will you allow Tiberius and me to talk to her? … You would do that for him, wouldn’t you?’ I asked Tiberius.

  Tiberius remained steely, but backed me up. ‘I am prepared to go out to see her, yes.’ Sextus was weakening. ‘You cannot leave Rome yourself, Sextus,’ he continued. ‘You’re a candidate and remaining in town is axiomatic. You should write her a letter. Ask her to come home. I shall go, taking your letter, and I shall speak to her on your behalf. You’re a good man and you ought to be elected. The Julia I have met will certainly see that.’

  ‘She understands!’ Sextus assured him.

  ‘Then I shall plead with her to come back to help you. If Albia is willing, I should take her along with me. She can address Julia woman-to-woman.’

  ‘I can do that,’ I agreed, despite surprise at being asked.

  ‘No time to waste, then. We’ll go tomorrow.’

  I assumed that was in case Sextus changed his mind.

  42

  We began our journey in darkness, fighting for passage with the last of the delivery carts. Faustus provided transport, a carpentum, the zippy two-wheel, two-mule carriage that his uncle used for going down to Ostia on warehouse business. There was room to have a driver. This permitted more conversation than if Faustus had taken the reins, not that he bothered to talk when we first set out.

  He picked me up at Fountain Court. I was sleepy-eyed and wishing I could stay in bed. He put me in the back of the carriage, under a rug. He hunched in a cloak, up at the front with the taciturn driver. I felt the jolts as we went downhill, then was aware of curses and sick-making stops and starts as we dawdled through Rome, with all the other vehicles seeming to want to cross our path or travel against us.

  We were travelling out past Fidenae, which is ten miles beyond Rome, an easy day’s journey, except that from the Aventine it was necessary to go first either through or round the city in order to reach the Via Salaria, the
ancient Salt Road that goes north. Rather than out and round, the driver went through. He headed down to the Embankment then up across the Field of Mars, along the Quirinal ridge and so found the Via Salaria somewhere near Domitian’s new temple, built to glorify the Flavian family. Personally, I would not have chosen that way. But who listens to women?

  Eventually I grew drowsy as the pace grew easier when we reached open country. The air seemed fresher. Light was beginning to filter in, but I fell asleep.

  Later, I sensed food was being consumed. I scrambled forward and squeezed in on the driving seat, a narrow cross-bench. As he made room, Faustus handed me a bread roll from a basket, smelling warm from a baker’s stall. Always organised, he also produced home-cooked clove-infused gammon to fold inside the opened roll.

  The day brightened. Grassland and crops were now glowing gold beneath the summer sun. Cypress trees darkly dotted the landscape, singles or doubles or lines that often seemed planted together for no obvious reason. We passed olive groves and vineyards, heading towards the rolling Sabine Hills, though we would stop long before Reate, Vespasian’s homeland. Occasional old Etruscan towns clustered on hilltops in the far distance, each dominated by a temple, each colourful with red pantiled roofs above their rocky grey escarpments.

  We were chinking along at a racing pace. Faustus had told me the Vibius estate ought to be reachable today; a bonus of setting out so early was that if we forced the pace we almost had time to return tonight. It would partly depend on Julia: how willing she was to accept our request and how fast she packed for the journey.

  Even though his uncle had invested in seriously good mules, this was not to be. We hit a long delay en route. It happened quite soon after Rome. We had reached the bridge over the Anio, which comes down from Tibur. That famously clear river wanders around, crossing both the Via Nomentina and the Via Salaria before it turns towards the sea and is consumed into the muddy Tiber.

  Faustus had been sitting up and looking around. I presumed that was because annoying beggars often lurk under bridges. As vehicles slow down, they jump out at you, whining sad stories and wanting money. They can also snatch packages off the back of carts, unnoticed by less careful drivers and passengers.

  There were a couple of them lurking under the span, but they were dopey. By the time they called out we had passed them and crossed over. Then, Faustus abruptly ordered our driver to stop. He was reluctant, while still so near the bridge, but he knew Tullius’s nephew of old and grudgingly obeyed orders.

  Faustus clambered over me, leaped out and set off across a nearby field. Caught short, presumably. The driver and I exchanged glances, then we, too, descended and made ourselves comfortable. For modesty, we chose bushes on different sides of the road, neither of us bothering to go as far as our companion, but staying near enough to protect the carriage.

  Faustus was a long time gone. The driver stood up on the footboard, looking for him. He hollered out, at which I caught a faint reply. The driver shrugged and took his seat once more. Curious, I climbed down and made my way across the weedy field in the direction Faustus had taken. There seemed to be a kind of path, but it was one of those wobbly walk-along byways rural people have, which infuriatingly peter out. I had shoes on, not sandals, but was groaning to myself at the twigs that scratched me and the mud underfoot.

  How come even parched ground in the country always has puddles and cart-ruts full of foul squelchy substances into which you always step? So much safer in the city where you can see what’s coming.

  How do goats keep their hoofs clean? You never see a nanny wiping her slimed foot against a tussock, scowling with disgust.

  Actually there were no goats in sight, though animals with unhygienic habits had passed this way regularly. Farm Boy, my husband, would have chuckled at my squeamishness − but he was also a strong lad who would have picked me up and carried me over the rough and smelly parts. He always thought it hilarious that, although I come from a province so remote it is mythical, I am utterly a city girl. Londinium is full of shacks, but it has streets with stalls and verandas to keep the rain off. I want fresh produce and regulations. And I don’t want to encounter people my father describes as having hairy toes and three ears.

  Bumpkins had been here. Faustus was in a clearing. It had been heavily trampled, and was full of sordid litter. While I tried to work out what the aedile was doing, I murmured, ‘This is one of those places the lads of the village – assuming there is anything so cultured as a village nearby – bring shameless girls to fornicate in groups by moonlight.’

  ‘Don’t worry, that is not my plan for you.’

  ‘Such a pity!’

  ‘Wait your turn …’

  The only reason he let me lead him into this banter was that his mind was not really on it. He was intent upon another task he had set himself.

  The villagers must come often for entertainment. They had left ash from several fires. Outside the circle, though not very far out, I noticed human waste. On one side of the clearing stood a high pile of junk. This had attracted Manlius Faustus, who was single-mindedly picking the pile apart and inspecting every item he yanked out. In his careful way (the reason it took such a long time) the pieces of old wood, sections of wheel, twisted tree branches, amphorae, odd boots, oily rope ends, gourds, mouldy bread chunks and a half-carcass of a rotting sheep were meticulously sorted into neat lines, in categories of his own devising. The locals who came here were going to be extremely puzzled to discover this array some night soon.

  I sat on what I took to be a log, cleaning my shoes with leaves, and cooed gently, ‘Tell me your plan then, dear Aedile.’

  ‘I think you’ll see.’

  ‘Not evident so far. But I have great faith in you, Tiberius.’

  He looked up briefly, holding a dirty old garment between his fingertips. ‘I knew you were the girl to bring!’ He noticed what I was doing. ‘What’s that you’re on?’

  ‘Part of a fallen tree? Some result of accident or lightning?’

  ‘I do not think so, city woman.’

  I jumped up quickly, in case it was horrible.

  Manlius Faustus positioned the tunic where he deemed it belonged in his collection, then came across to me. He stood with one arm round my waist, blissfully comfortable. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He leaned away – ‘Hair tickling!’ Still his arm remained, warm and heavy, fast round me.

  We looked down at what had been my seat. It was a long, sturdy pole, weathered but properly shaped and finished by a good carpenter. Once painted, its colours were now peeling after soaking in dew. Faustus kicked aside the undergrowth and uncovered a metal socket into which it would be fixed, when this pole was used for lifting the equipage it belonged to. He picked them up, pole and socket, and carried them over to a carefully assembled group. I saw now that he had singled out pieces that belonged together: three uprights, one leg with a fancy foot, another pole, a half-round roof with decorated semi-circular ends, parts of a slatted mattress base, a shaped back support, various ripped curtains and the rods they had hung on. There was even the mattress, though that seemed to have been used by the villagers for some filthy purpose and he would not let me near it.

  ‘This is all I can find, so the rest must have been used for firewood. If I carry the roof, will you be able to manage that leg for me, Albia? I want to take enough for a sure identification when we fetch it back to Rome.’

  I picked up the leg gingerly. I knew, without Faustus spelling it out, I was now holding part of the litter in which Callistus Valens had set out on his ill-fated journey to his country estate.

  43

  It is an inescapable truth that when two strangers, who are courteous but slightly official in manner, ask, ‘Excuse me, do you live around here?’ all the locals will say no.

  This held us up. We wasted the rest of the morning trying to get somebody to talk to us. Anybody. Only when we found a roadside snack stall did things improve. The stallholder accepted we were only travellers,
rather glum people, but prepared to eat savoury meatballs for lunch and drop sauce down our tunics quite normally. He could hardly deny that he lived nearby. The meatballs were warm; he had fetched them from his hovel, which we could see from the stall.

  He knew who the night birds were, hooting rowdies who came and lit campfires. They collected on long summer nights to drink, sing, play crude musical instruments, knife one another in quarrels over women, and exchange stolen goods they had pilfered from passing wagons or from local farms. The snack-seller thought they must have found the Callistus litter and pulled it off the road for sport; he doubted they would have been involved in whatever ambush happened. Faustus agreed because he reckoned if robberies took place at the bridge on a regular basis the authorities would have set up preventive measures. If nothing else, they would have installed a bridge-keeper.

  I said, yes, that would be a good way to ensure the authorities knew that when carriages were held up, the bridge-keeper did it.

  Although to me the countryside is bare, plenty of people could be found. Once we squeezed evidence out of one lot, others spoke to us. We followed a trail through farmhands and road-menders to a small villa rustica close to the River Anio, where the field labourers admitted they had seen what happened. Their story was corroborated by the semi-professional beggars who sat by the bridge. Locals had leaned on hoes or lain under pine trees and watched it all. None, of course, had rescued the victim or bothered to report the incident afterwards. It was nothing to do with them. The people involved were city folk.

  A group of ‘foreigners’ – that is, from Rome, which was at the most five miles away – had arrived early one morning, driving away the beggars and positioning themselves at the bridge. There were either five or six, or ten or fifteen, depending who was telling us. Before the beggars had had time to gather reinforcements to regain their squatters’ rights, along came the Callistus litter with its bearers and attendants. Out jumped the men lying in wait. The attackers were shouting oaths and threats, wielding sticks and possibly daggers. The slaves made a stand initially, but their master put his head out of the litter and gave orders to save themselves; they all ran away across the fields and had not been seen since.