Flavia Albia Mystery 09 - A Comedy of Terrors Read online

  “She will,” warned Paris.

  “Then you don’t know who Terentius is!”

  “Tell me?” I offered, but something, which I supposed must have been fear of his master, held him back. I flogged on patiently: “Anyone who went down the alley would have had to pass you slaves, hanging around the fountain instead of going home properly with your buckets. So who dropped in on the pedlar today?”

  “His brother,” Sagax now admitted, forgetting to be unhelpful.

  “Before I went, or afterwards?” If before, Morellus would have been right: the competitive brother was the killer.

  “Just after.”

  “At last we are getting somewhere. What’s his name?”

  “Victor.”

  “Does Victor share the same room?” In Rome no one lives solo if they can go halves on rent. Their doss might be no bigger than a bedside mat—an accessory the room in question did not have—but it would be home to both Agemathus and his brother. Quite likely other people bunked up with them; further extras may even have come and gone occasionally. Sibling strife is one motive for murder; stranger danger can be worse.

  Sagax stayed unresponsive until Paris shook him like a lumpy bolster. To avoid rattling teeth, the slave nodded.

  “So what happened? Victor goes in and finds the corpse. Then did he run out, so upset he couldn’t bear it? Or do you think he did it?”

  “He just walked out like normal.” Sagax was grinning as if he was holding out on us.

  “Stop giggling like a silly child. Was it Victor who carried out the body?”

  “He wasn’t carrying anyone!”

  I kept trying to extract sense from him. “Did he notice you and your pals loafing?”

  “Must have done.”

  “So did he say anything to you?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re lying about him.” Paris took a hand. “Nobody would act so calm if he’d just found his own brother on the bed they shared, bloodily murdered.”

  Sagax shrugged. He had the slave’s airy defiance: the ways of the free were beyond him.

  “Did you and your pals go in to look?” I demanded, suddenly sure they must have done.

  Sagax shook his head but could not stop himself admitting he had done it. “Brilliant!” he chortled. “All that gory blood!”

  “Never mind the blood.” I cut across his glee. “Where do you think Victor went? Would he be heading for the vigiles to report this?”

  “Of course not. He was off to the Orion’s Dog for a drink.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s where he always goes.”

  “Stop being clever,” warned Paris. It struck me he had been a slave once, freed by his previous master not very long ago. He knew all the tricks slaves pull; in a situation like this, insider knowledge made him feel superior.

  I said a drink did make sense after seeing his brother dead like that, but it still left me wondering about a body that had been spirited away by invisible forces. Sagax smirked again. He definitely seemed to know something we had missed. Still, some slaves are like that all the time.

  We extracted directions to the bar, hoping Victor would be more forthcoming. Before we released Sagax, I made him provide an address for his master, the Terentius who was named on his iron collar. I checked again, but the dogtag suspended from the band merely carried the usual rubric that, if found on the loose, this slave was a runaway so hold on to him. Although it told finders to return him to Terentius, Terentius had not specified where. According to Sagax, everyone knew, but I had never heard of the man, so Paris kicked the slave until he gave me details. I wrote them down on my note-tablet, pointedly.

  Paris ordered him to nip straight off home, then he and I walked to the Orion’s Dog. I had no reason to suppose Sagax followed us to watch what happened, though with hindsight he must have been eager to know.

  The Orion’s Dog had no picture of the hunter from the starry skies, nor his cloud-treading hound. That was because there was no wall space. It was a one-counter, one-waiter cantina patronised by local workers. The frontage was so narrow that only a couple of people could lean there at the same time. Too small even to have a pot-shelf, it was sited on a slummy side-street, next to the din of a copper-beating workshop where men with muscles did vigorous planishing all the time. As we approached, we saw only two customers, both presumably deaf. One must be Victor. Rather than being in shock at finding his brother laid out in blood, he was buying a drink to celebrate. We understood immediately. This had been a stunt: as pranks go, it was fabulous.

  Paris cursed. I checked my anger. I would kick a wall later. My presence at the supposed death-bed had never been intended, but my chance arrival must have increased the brothers’ hilarity.

  Both men were tall, whip-thin and black. Both wore patched tunics from the same low-grade source. Their features were different, though they had to be brothers. They were close, bonded, locked in their long-running competition to be wickeder, wittier and wilier. This particular trick’s grinning winner had a big red stain on the back of his tunic that would never come out, though he had ditched the fake knife: today’s winner was Agemathus. Absolutely alive.

  Classic.

  Io, Saturnalia!

  IV

  The two brothers were almost too doubled up with mirth to pay attention to us. Intent on getting drunk at his brother’s expense, Agemathus must have left his tray at home. Wryly, I put coins on the counter, then told him to bring his sigillaria to our house later. I hoped the money was not enough to render him incapable. Paris and I set off home for lunch.

  “You’ll have to learn to find jobs where there’s something to investigate,” joked Paris, as he buffed aside a pushy nut-seller.

  “That’s an idea! How come I never thought of it?”

  I was no longer in the mood. Forget intrigue. We passed a house where a man was yelling up at a window to his wife, who leaned out and yelled back. Clearly not for the first time in this exchange, she was refusing to have their front door unlocked for him. He was smartly dressed; she had her bean-meal face pack on and rags in her curls, preparing for her social life. It was nothing to do with me, though the kind of scene you watch out of neighbourly nosiness.

  Before she disappeared inside, she roared that she was sick of him and that bawd from the Temple of Diana; there would be nothing for him at home, not today nor any other day. She never wanted to see him back here and she was going to throw out his smelly old mummified animal collection for anyone who wanted it. “I don’t know you! Apparently, I never did!” The old delusion. The wife must have known. One glance was enough: I had assessed the horrid chancer from his gold neck chain and his shiny pointed shoes.

  Her head popped back at the window again, owl-eyed under the face mask. “Get lost—and don’t expect me to look after your first wife’s children any longer! I’m not your drudge.” Then again: “But I am keeping the parrot!”

  The descent into madness had begun. Even though these people and their pet bird lived close by on Greater Laurel Street, I had no heart to offer the woman divorce advice at tempting rates. Him I would never consider as a client; I do have standards. In any case, after the festival that pair would probably negotiate a treaty. She’d give in and say he could keep a few boars’ heads while he would promise solemnly that the Diana bawd would never be an issue again … (some hope!). So I didn’t suppose they would need me, even though my brother, who keeps lists, would include misjudgement as one of my famous errors.

  Reconciliation? I loathed it. What was the point of keeping families together? I needed devastated clients, insoluble rifts, frail women desperate for me to squeeze financial settlements from utter bastards whom they would never forgive. Forget compromise.

  The street-seller was still buzzing around us with his tray of nuts. His persistence felt ominous. “Not today!” I snapped, the traditional code for “never.” Paris weakened; he picked out a hazelnut to try. He bit, then spat it out.

/>   “Ugh! Bitter. Leave us alone, or you’ll regret it. Her husband is a magistrate on quality control.”

  Gurgling a festive curse, the seller slimed away.

  * * *

  When we went indoors, I learned we had acquired a sheep. Egged on by the donkey, this daft woolly thing had rounded up the dog and was penning Barley in her kennel.

  “A gift to Tiberius Manlius.” My steward, the unflappable Gratus, stopped running after the sheep and explained breathlessly: the Temple of Ceres, home base of Rome’s aediles, always over-ordered animals for sacrifice because Ceres was a picky goddess. This offering was deemed unsuitable for the corn lady: the poor beast had a small black mark on her long face. When Tiberius Manlius had dropped in on them for official business earlier today, the priests passed her on.

  The boys would love this creature—but already my cook planned to snaffle her. I would have to send Gaius and Lucius to play with the vigilis’s children again while the animal was roasted by Fornix, then I must invent a devious story that she had gone to a happy life in a field.

  Just then Suza, my maid, brought home Gaius and Lucius. They were bursting to try out some trick the evil young Morelli had taught them, but instead, as soon as they saw the sheep, they rushed straight across the courtyard to fling their arms around her.

  They had lost their mother. If they set their sad hearts on a new pet, what was I to do?

  On cue, Fornix emerged from the kitchen in his apron, wielding a huge shiny knife, his well-honed, mutton-slaughtering snickersnee. No tug on the heartstrings affected him. I signalled him to hold off, so he stomped back indoors, his broad, sulky back saying lunch was cancelled.

  “Where’s the master, Gratus?” Let Tiberius sort it.

  “He went out with the investigator.”

  “What about his sheep?”

  “He said you would know what to do.”

  Oh joy. Four months of marriage was enough to turn a decent-seeming, pious, loving man into a typical husband. Given another week, I too would be a woman shouting down the street that I would not let him back in the house.

  “How was he dressed?”

  “The brown tunic.”

  His disguise. So, while he cunningly avoided decisions at home, Tiberius Manlius had gone to mooch around our riotous district, passing himself off as a harmless pedestrian, not a magistrate who was aiming to catch people out in infringements of Rome’s raft of regulations. He had three weeks left to play at this. He wanted to become the aedile with the highest record ever for on-the-spot fines.

  In truth, Tiberius won that prize months ago, mainly because no other aediles in history had tried. Most preferred to swank about looking important. Even the future Emperor Vespasian, as a young office-holder, had been berated by Caligula for not having streets cleaned. Vespasian was ordered to have the folds of his toga filled with mud. This would never happen to mine: I had married a stickler. At the Temple of Ceres, delighted officials had had to buy an extra money-chest to contain the fines he collected. No wonder they had given him a festival present.

  He was not such a favourite with his ex-wife. Laia Gratiana had glued herself to that temple as a do-gooder. I bet it was the jealous blonde ice-queen who suggested lumbering us with a ruminant. The next time Laia nibbled lamb chops, I hoped she would choke on a bone.

  Gaius and Lucius had fallen in love with the sheep. “Where’s some grass? We need to give her grass!” The sheep and donkey, nuzzling noses, had also made lifelong bonds of friendship. Even Barley looked interested.

  I was fuming that Tiberius had deliberately gone out without deciding where in our house a sheep could live or who would sweep up its droppings. If it had come from a temple, I even wondered if theoretically it was sacred … Good thing I had stopped Fornix butchering the creature.

  “Gratus, did you happen to overhear what Tiberius is up to with Titus Morellus?”

  “I think they were discussing some problem the vigiles have among the seasonal workers.”

  Oh, nuts! Migrant strife. Anger and swearing in impenetrable languages. They were welcome to that.

  * * *

  Denied the sheep, Fornix crossly decamped to visit his brother, who lived and cooked on the Quirinal. Gratus had to pull together lunch. Caught unawares, for simplicity the steward decided to fetch a selection from Xero’s pie shop.

  “Pies! We are having pies!” screamed the children, delirious. Normally we enjoyed gourmet treats, prepared with skill by our one-time celebrity chef. Fortunately, Fornix had stomped off before he heard that his exquisite offerings were second-best, compared to bought-in pastry.

  V

  Fornix would have to live with this. Few delights can match hot meats in flaky dough, with rich gravy squelching. I only hoped the high turnover at Saturnalia, festival of excess, ensured today’s pies were fresh.

  Tiberius had excellent domestic timing: he returned for his lunch exactly when Gratus was laying out food on serving platters. Morellus came too. Word of a major pie-acquisition flies around a neighbourhood as if impelled on the feathered wings of Rumour, sweet-tongued herald of Olympian Jove. There was probably a queue outside our front doors. I might be the wife of a man with public duties, but I didn’t look. Scroungers who claimed they needed advice from my husband were not having free lunches from me.

  Our planned dining-room had no couches yet, but because of the winter weather, we piled indoors to eat. I let Dromo fix a brazier for cosiness; all of Rome’s by-laws to prevent building fires concentrated on keeping water handy, though they ought to be banning hot charcoal in the hands of youths like ours. Still we had a member of the vigiles here. “Oh, just take a chance!” was Morellus’s safety advice. “Let him enjoy himself with the flames.”

  We flopped onto cushions while Gratus tried to make us pay attention to an ingredients list from the pie shop. He had scribbled it in a hurry, so we had to squint to understand his notes: “The one shaped like a rabbit is actually pheasant with almonds. The little round ones are ham with aniseed and caraway. The big cracked fellow that fell out of the basket is venison and plums, and this is mullet with ginger.”

  “Do I like ginger?” little Lucius whispered, sitting close to me.

  “I don’t know, darling.” He looked at me darkly: I was a failure. His mother would have known. “Just try a tiny piece and see.”

  “I want to put it back if I don’t like it.”

  “That’s fine. Give it to Uncle Tiberius. He enjoys everything in a food bowl.”

  Gaius was meticulously removing every scrap of almond from a portion he had been given. Morellus scooped up these rejects in one palm, picked out pheasant bones, snaffled an entire round ham pie with the other hand, then left us. He said he had to get back to his lads in case of any emergencies; it was really because at Saturnalia the vigiles could turn up at any bar at lunchtime and be guaranteed free spiced wine.

  While Gratus was out shopping, I had thrown together a dish of leeks in olive oil and fish-pickle. I served this Didius family favourite in a big shallow terracotta dish from our wedding-present dinner service. It sat on the low food table, attracting little interest. Wasted effort. We had pies. No one wanted vegetables.

  As the materfamilias, I had the traditional struggle to get anything except the venison with plums, the pie nobody else wanted. Otherwise, it was a happy scrum. People leaned over, grabbing seconds and thirds for themselves or grudgingly serving others if specifically asked. Down on our cushions on the floor, we were all at the wrong height. Dromo claimed helping at lunch was not his job, so he was just grabbing for his own bowl. There was too much pushing and shoving, on top of the usual arguments that always happen over pies. The boys were livelier than normal too. That was how they stage-managed their stunt.

  Suddenly Suza, my maid, a lumpish lass, let out a wild scream. She pointed to my untouched dish of leeks, then made retching sounds. Lolling in the middle of my green ragout, like an enthroned potentate, we saw a large dark brown turd.


  For a beat I was fooled.

  It was completely realistic. The Morellus children certainly knew good hoaxes. Only the bright eyes of two small boys, thrilling with excitement, betrayed this as a loan from their new friends.

  “Great gods!” exclaimed Tiberius.

  He had paused, pie pierced on a knife point, halfway to his mouth. He lowered the knife to his bowl again. The thought came to me that I had not known him long enough to be certain he would take it well. Were we about to have a furious po-faced paterfamilias? He was witty on an intellectual level, but that does not always ensure a man will embrace low comedy.

  Tiberius stood up. “Who … did … that?” he roared out slowly, making it deeply ominous. Lucius shrank up against me again, trembling. Gaius was on Suza’s lap; he buried his face in her tunic. I deduced Suza had been in on the trick. She might even have positioned the spoof poo for them.

  “Dromo did it!” Lucius piped up. He was the conniving one. After less than a week here, he had grasped how to sweet-talk his way out of anything by blaming Dromo.

  More people joined in the accusing chorus, while Dromo gave back his stare, not seeing why he had the blame.

  “Dromo!” roared Tiberius. “You shat in the platter?”

  “No, I never! Why are you picking on me?”

  “Nice acting,” I murmured to my nearly-new husband. Fortunately, he winked.

  Enjoying himself, Tiberius continued declaiming. “Someone remove this repulsive object from my dining room! My wife is fainting…” I flopped like a smashed lily, though with care to preserve my bowl of pie. Gratus took charge of the leek platter. “Save that evidence, Gratus. I intend to conduct a full investigation. The guilty party will be discovered—and then, by all the pantheon gods, this criminal will pay.”

  Suza was mouthing to me that the Morelli would want their turd back. I nodded: the sooner the better. However, I knew my brother Postumus would dearly want to see it first. He was bound to try to make his own. He would be heartbroken if I let the specimen leave the premises before he managed measurements and working drawings. Of course, I could warn our parents what he was up to, but I would probably not do so.