The Chariots of Calyx Read online

  ‘But you were wearing it last night?’

  ‘I was.’ She extended one slim stockinged foot, and the page knelt down and reverently fitted a slipper on to it. Fulvia extended the other leg, and went on addressing me. ‘The silversmith who made it was present at the banquet and Monnius felt it would be a compliment to him. If I was entertaining at his table, he always liked to choose the things I wore.’

  I tore my mind away from the picture this created. ‘The other women did not wear their necklaces?’

  She waved the page away and got to her feet. ‘If they did, citizen, then no one saw them do it. They were not invited to the feast. They had their meal in private, in Annia’s annexe.’ She smoothed down the folds of her stola and arranged the veil more neatly over her hair as she spoke, then took up the silken girdle and tied it deftly with her undamaged hand. ‘Annia has a small triclinium of her own, there, where she can recline in comfort and take her meals – with Lydia if she wishes. Monnius prefers male company when he dines – or did prefer it, perhaps I should say. Though he was never averse to a little feminine entertainment.’

  So, I thought, Fulvia Honoria had subtle ways of gaining her revenge. I could just imagine Annia Augusta’s rage at being banished to her lonely annexe, with only whining Lydia for company, while her daughter-in-law attended the banquet among the wine, warmth and laughter, singing – and no doubt dancing – in a beguiling manner for her husband and his guests. I pictured Annia’s outraged face and could not resist a smile.

  Fulvia misinterpreted my amusement, and came round the bed to face me. ‘Citizen, you must not think too harshly of my husband. My servant Prisca has a savage tongue, and she saw only the worst side of him. Monnius had many qualities.’ She was standing close to me now, looking earnestly up into my face. ‘He could be generous, when he was sober; he was shrewd and he was rich. I wanted for nothing, and although he could be bestial in bed he made few other demands on me – apart from being decorative, and singing and dancing for his friends at intervals. It was a small price to pay. He allowed me to visit friends, go the theatre and the public baths, and attend the chariot races too. How many other wives can say the same?’

  She smelled of lavender and roses. I tried to ignore it, and concentrate on what she was saying. There was truth in that too. Many wealthy Roman matrons lead a pitiful life, at least to my Celtic eyes – largely shut away from friends and family, and subject to the whim of their husbands, who are also their legal guardians. Of course, within the household it may be different, and situations like this one, where women hold much power behind the scenes, cannot be as uncommon as they seem to outsiders. If I could find my Gwellia, I thought, I would allow my wife to do anything she desired, only to have her by my side again. Except, perhaps, to share her bed with chariot-drivers.

  Thinking of Gwellia seemed to break the spell. I took a step backwards. ‘I must not delay you longer, lady,’ I said. ‘The anointers will be finished with the body by this time.’

  She extended one hand to me. ‘Then farewell for the moment, citizen,’ she said softly. ‘Send Prisca to me as you go. I need her help to prepare myself for the lament.’

  I bowed briefly over her fingers, and then took my leave. Prisca was waiting outside the room, and as I emerged she flashed me an outraged look. ‘Your slaves are waiting for you in the librarium, citizen,’ she said shortly, indicating the last room off the lobby with a wave of her hand. ‘I sent them in there. They were getting in the way of the undertakers, and people coming in and out of my master’s room.’ Without waiting for a word from me she scuttled back to her mistress and closed the door.

  The door of the study was half ajar, and Junio and Superbus were waiting for me. I glanced around the room. It was not unlike the cubiculum I had just left, except that it was smaller and there was no entry to the garden, only a small translucent window on the outer wall made of thin sheets of horn. It was sparsely furnished with a large writing table and a pair of stools, and a few shelves laden with all the paraphernalia of record-keeping: wax tablets, vellum scrolls, folded bark letter-forms and iron-nibbed sticks for writing, jars of soot, oil and octopus ink mixture; and a huge brass-bound chest, upon which Junio was perching.

  He jumped up as soon as I approached. ‘Ah, master, there you are at last. I have told Superbus that you wish him to go into the city and find Eppaticus. He is waiting for your orders.’

  I guessed from Junio’s tone that Superbus had not welcomed the news. He was looking more disdainful than ever, and without Junio I might have hesitated to send him on my errand after all. However, as Triumvir Pompey once famously said, the die was now cast. ‘Splendid,’ I said with a heartiness I did not feel. ‘I’d like you to find out where Eppaticus lives, at least.’

  Superbus gave me a stare as though I had invited him personally to deliver those chamber pots to the weavers. ‘Citizen,’ he said, with a slight bow, ‘if those are your orders, I will do my best. Though I am not at all clear as to how I should proceed. Londinium is a very large city, and I do not know the man. I have few dealings with Celts.’

  If I had been hesitating, the tone in which he pronounced the last word resolved my doubts. ‘Oh, just go out and ask a few questions in the street, Superbus. This man was a giant with an unusual hairstyle, and he galloped away from here at high speed on a horse. Someone must have noticed him. You could begin by asking the two slaves who gave chase, for instance. They must have seen at least the direction he took.’

  He seemed to think about that for a moment, and then he said ponderously, ‘And perhaps I should speak to the doorkeeper too, citizen?’

  ‘Good idea, Superbus,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Of course, he wasn’t at his post when Eppaticus left – the Celt had dragged him in here, and thrown him on the floor, very much where you are standing now – but no doubt the doorkeeper did notice where the visitor came from. If Eppaticus came and went in the same direction, that would give you a good indication of where to start asking.’ I nodded at him encouragingly. ‘Very good, Superbus. You are getting the idea of this already.’

  The slave, who had turned very pale at the mention of physical violence, swallowed and said, ‘As you wish, master,’ in a much more humble tone.

  Behind his back Junio, who had been enjoying the exchange immensely, gave me a gleeful wink. I almost regretted my sarcastic tone, and I softened it with an attempt at flattery. ‘With your knowledge of the town, Superbus, you will have a much better idea than I would of where to look for him – where the corn markets are, and the Celtic quarter, for example.’

  Superbus was still looking white-faced at the prospect of an encounter with the Trinovantine giant. ‘And if I find this man, citizen, what am I to do with him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Simply find out what you can, and report back to me here. Or at the governor’s palace, if I have left this house before you return.’

  Superbus looked extremely relieved. ‘At your service, citizen!’ he said, and left hurriedly before I could change my mind.

  I turned to Junio, who was still grinning like a fish. ‘Well then, young man,’ I said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘we have work to do. I want to talk to the other inhabitants of the house. But first you can tell me what news you have collected. I presume that you have been listening to the servant gossip as usual?’

  Junio’s grin broadened. ‘You were the one who taught me to ask questions, master. It has become a habit with me.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said. ‘So, sit down quickly, and tell me what you’ve learned.’ It was not perhaps the most courteous of actions: I should have returned to the public rooms, but I was not anxious to meet Annia Augusta again before I knew what Junio had gleaned.

  He perched on the chest again, and made a small grimace. ‘Not a great deal, really. Except I do not believe the servants can be in it. Caius Monnius was terrified of plots and every other slave in the place was his paid informer, as far as I can see. No one could have managed this with
out someone seeing him and giving him away, for fear for their own skin. Caius Monnius would have insisted on the letter of the law and had the whole household of slaves executed for a plot against him. Even now they were falling over their tunics to tell me things, but they seemed to have no real information to give.’

  ‘So they would have told Monnius if there’d been a slave plot against him. But would any of them have told him about his wife and Fortunatus?’

  ‘I am not so certain about that, master. That would not be an executing matter, and the slaves all seem utterly loyal to Fulvia. She is a just mistress, they say, and although she can punish faults mercilessly, she is always fair. Things have improved since she arrived, they say. And they should know. Most of them have been owned by Caius Monnius for years: all of them, in fact, except Fulvia’s nurse and pageboys – even Annia Augusta was not permitted to bring her own women with her when she came.’

  ‘But none of them saw or heard anything last night?’

  He shook his head. ‘They were all sleeping like Morpheus until the screaming woke them – they had been working hard clearing away the banquet. And the slaves on duty downstairs were all asleep. That seemed to be unnatural in itself, with so many spies about – the staff seem to think that someone must have given them a sleeping potion. That is one piece of information that they gave me, by the way. Lydia has a way with herbs, did you know that? Apparently Annia Augusta taught her. Other people swore it couldn’t have been Lydia who drugged the slaves, because she never left the annexe all day yesterday. There was quite an argument about it.’

  I nodded. ‘I think the servants’ wine was drugged,’ I said, and told him about my conversation with Fulvia. ‘I even wondered if Monnius himself had been affected, but why would he be drinking the servants’ dregs?’

  ‘He hardly needed a sleeping draught last night, by all accounts,’ Junio said. ‘He had drunk enough to fell a giant. He was rather given to that, it seems – harsh when he was sober and bestial when he was drunk – though he could be surprisingly generous to his favourites at times. His mother is just as difficult in her own way, they tell me – demanding and hard to please. She is the same with everyone, even with Monnius, refusing to take his advice over her estates and declining to use his drying houses. One of the maidservants called her a human elephant, making a loud noise and trampling everything in her path.’

  I have never seen an elephant, but I grinned at the description. From the tales I have heard, they are larger than life, with big noses, and have been known to stampede out of control in the amphitheatre and terrify the bystanders. The comparison with Annia Augusta seemed peculiarly apt. (Although one can never believe everything one hears. Some of the legends say that elephants wear their teeth outside, upside down on either side of their mouths.)

  ‘And the lady Lydia?’ I asked.

  ‘Apart from her herbal skills, they think of her as a joke. She says, thinks and does whatever Annia Augusta tells her to, except where her child is concerned – she can be determined then, by all accounts. Apparently she was always the same. Completely indecisive. Some of the slaves can remember when Monnius married her – they did not live in this house then, of course. He built his career and fortune on her marriage portion. She could not find a husband, and her father gave her a rich dowry.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Monnius would have had the usufruct of that.’

  ‘Exactly – but he had to give her back her estates when he divorced her. The servants say he tried to claim that there was a question over her fidelity, so he could keep the estates, but Lydia was so plain she was always above suspicion.’ He grinned. ‘The whisper is that when her father died, Monnius hoped to get control of her lands again, and that is why he let Annia Augusta bring her here, but Lydia’s brother had been managing the money in the meantime, and most of it was lost in legal wrangles over the will.’

  I nodded. ‘Then . . .’ I began, but I got no further.

  From Monnius’ bedchamber came the eerie sound of someone calling the dead man’s name three times. Then a low tuneless wailing began, followed a moment later by the moaning of funereal pipes, and the dreadful keening of professional weepers. I looked at Junio. The lamentations had begun.

  We scrambled to our feet like a pair of guilty schoolboys. It would hardly be acceptable to be found here, gossiping like a pair of equals. We went out into the lobby.

  The moaning was louder there, and I glanced at Junio in surprise. The voice that was doing the wailing did not sound like Fulvia’s.

  Chapter Nine

  We had come out into the lobby not a moment too soon. An instant later there was a disturbance in the death chamber. A door slammed, there was the sound of raised voices – during which the wailing faltered – and finally one long last ululation before the tuneless moaning stopped abruptly, and a woman’s voice took up the lamentation.

  Junio and I stood back as the door to Monnius’ chamber opened and the bier was carried out, borne high by some of the funeral attendants, and accompanied by others: some carrying the sacrificial herbs, some banging gongs and playing pipes, some simply wailing and beating their breasts. Behind them walked Fulvia, her brow now covered in ashes, her eyes lowered and her hands clasped, lamenting in a sweet, low, melancholy voice.

  She did not glance towards us as she passed, and the noisy little procession moved away into the house. Monnius’ bier would be laid down in the public space at the back of the atrium, where no doubt other civic officials and dignitaries would soon be calling to pay their respects, to leave their funeral gifts or even – if they had worked closely with him – to take their turn at the dirge.

  A moment later the door to Monnius’ chamber opened again and a sulky-looking young man in a black-edged toga came out, shepherded by a white-faced Lydia. She had been all in black before, but she had now added a shapeless long mourning cape to her attire, not unlike the one that Fulvia had worn. Where Fulvia had looked a picture of elegance and grace, however, on Lydia the garment bunched in awkward folds, making her look scrawnier than ever – an impression she did nothing to dispel by clutching the garment to her with one arm, like a wounded bat. As soon as the door was shut behind them she began to talk to the boy, in a piercing undertone, with all the righteous outrage of an insulted Vestal virgin.

  ‘Well Imagine that! Brushing you aside and following the corpse herself. Jove only knows what your father would have said. Still, never mind. You began the lament, that is all that matters. You closed his eyes and put the coin in his mouth, and so you should have done. You are his son – and you are legally a man, if only by a week or two.’ She hitched her cloak a little closer round herself. ‘And if that woman tries to contest the will, we’ll see what the courts say about that!’

  The young man pouted. From the set of his features that seemed to be his habitual expression. He looked a little younger than his fourteen years, although he must have been that age to have lost the childhood bulla round his neck and be wearing the plain white toga virilis which was the mark of legal manhood, and to which the mourning stripe had been hastily attached. His hair was short and curly, slightly reddish under the ashes with which he had adorned himself, and his plump, pale face was petulant.

  ‘Oh, do not fuss so much, Mother. I don’t know why you insisted on making such a spectacle of me in front of the undertakers. With Father’s body lying there, too. His spirit won’t even have left the house by this time. He’ll think we have shown him disrespect, and then we shall be lucky if he doesn’t come back to haunt us.’ His lower jaw jutted defiantly. ‘Don’t blame me if the milk curdles and the slaves start dying. What else can you expect, making a scene in the funeral chamber?’

  ‘I didn’t make a scene!’ his mother said, with more animation than I had thought she possessed. ‘Monnius knows I would never offend his spirit. It was that woman, coming in and wanting to interrupt. Well, she can lament now all she wants. She didn’t begin the ritual, you did, and nothing can ever alter that
.’

  Filius – this had to be the famous Filius – brightened slightly. ‘There is one good thing about it, I suppose. I have done my duty now. I won’t have to go in and do any more lamenting till the funeral.’

  He seemed to be quite serious. It occurred to me that only Fulvia appeared to feel any real emotion at Monnius’ death. I was about to step towards the pair, but at that moment Filius noticed me.

  ‘Is this the fellow the governor sent?’ he asked, looking me over from haircut to sandals, but addressing himself to Lydia, as though I had no ears.

  ‘Yes, Filius dear,’ his mother said. She had lost her animation suddenly, and was now speaking in the wheedling, apologetic tone I had heard her use before. ‘Your grandmother sent for him. Don’t scowl, dear. I expect the gentleman will want to talk to you. After all, you are your father’s heir.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t send for him, and I don’t want to talk to him,’ Filius burst out, his voice suddenly emerging in a squeaking falsetto, which rather undermined his dignity. ‘There’s nothing to tell him anyway. I was sleeping in the annexe with you. I didn’t hear about this rotten old murder till this morning – and then no one would let me come anywhere near the place. I didn’t see anything until you took me in there, and then they had him covered up, so there wasn’t anything to see.’ He turned his back on me and would have walked away.

  ‘So you are Monnius’ heir?’ I said, hastily taking Lydia’s lead. It occurred to me that if anything was going to capture this spoiled young man’s attention, it was likely to be the mention of money.

  I had guessed correctly. Filius stopped and half turned back, although he still did not favour me with another glance. ‘There is no secret about that. It is all in the will, and that’ll be read in the forum in a day or two,’ he said, insolently twisting one of his chestnut curls in his fingers and looking pointedly at Junio. ‘Father is leaving his country house to Fulvia and everything else to me.’