A Comedy of Terrors

by Lindsey Davis

  “That is possible, Suza.” But I had a reliable informer source. Oh, he’s twenty-five. He drinks in, well, in a bar somewhere. He keeps a little apartment four floors up on Dolichenus Street. “If I’m right, Suza, he’s playing with fire, because it must be very near where Murrius, poor deluded man, goes gambling. This nephew is a real chancer! It wouldn’t surprise me if he and Nephele are snuggling up in a room right above the Cosmographer, filthily enjoying that Murrius is tossing dice with his cronies, unaware they are right upstairs. All very unpleasant!”

  “Isn’t it true love?” Suza had her standards.

  “No, pet, I don’t think so. But true lust counts as highly with some people.”

  “I don’t like that!”

  “No, and Gaius Murrius won’t like it either.”

  “Why doesn’t Quintus just say he doesn’t want to marry Berenike?”

  “Other than he doesn’t want to tell his uncle and father about Nephele? I bet he does like the marriage. Is he cynical about business? He’s cynical about everything. He sees this as professionally useful, the way his father and uncle view it. Remember, the Cornelli have already made one alliance, when Murrius married Nephele. Presume business reasons lay behind that. Now Caesius, the nasty moneymonger, wants his son to strengthen ties again.”

  “But when the affair is exposed, everything will go wrong!” Suza protested, with justice.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Caesius must already suspect. Soon Murrius will know. And young Quintus is really stupid, because any moment now Nephele’s own family will find out. He works for her dangerous brother, in a position of enormous trust. Any time now, his love affair will blow up in his face.”

  “Hmm! Now that’s all sorted neatly,” hinted Suza, “I’ll nip to fetch my beauty things. Then I can work on you.” I glared. “No, Albia. That was the point of me taking the boys to see the parrot—so I could find out how to do fashion!”

  When I still wanted to escape, she reminded me I had better look smart, or at least as if I had made some effort. Today we were going as a family to my parents’ house for a Saturnalia gathering.

  LVI

  Io? Io Saturnalia?

  “Do not say those words!” muttered Mother in my ear, as she hugged me, like a fellow conspirator. “Farting Furies, Albia! I don’t know why we subject ourselves to this vile comedy every year—I am sick of the whole hypocritical paraphernalia! Come in and have one of your cook’s lovely cakes—but spare me that sodding salutation!”

  This was a woman who taught children that swearing is only allowed in a terrifying emergency. That would be defined as a loaded wagon running over your foot, or your favourite confectioner running out of honey.

  “Should be a great party!” chortled Father. After the Fourth Cohort’s drinks, Falco appeared much less fragile than Tiberius, having had more practice. “Hostess blowing her magma plug before anybody even sets a foot in the door!”

  “I just want to say,” Helena Justina drew herself up, “if the Sun is truly Undying, there can be no point in pretending we all have to thrash around hysterically in case feckless Sol bloody Invictus forgets the planetary rules and accidentally turns up his toes at the end of the Winter Solstice.”

  My sisters, gorgeous in new violet stoles, exchanged winks with me to say tots had been taken. Well, it is a festival of excess.

  “Take vocabulary notes!” I mouthed at Suza, while Julia and Favonia clustered round to inspect my hair. I was pulled about while Suza gave a lecture on her new pinning, but at least they all rushed off to try out styles upon my sisters.

  Because Gaius and Lucius were so young, we had been invited at midday rather than the classic dinnertime. When we first arrived the atmosphere was fraught because my mother, supposedly helped by my father, had been cooking all morning on her own—honouring the tradition that all household slaves just lay about expecting to be waited on. The joke in our family had always been that Falco was so hopeless at acquiring slaves there was little difference between normal days and Saturnalia. Some extremely old souls who lived here on sufferance and occasionally tottered about with trays went right back to my grandfather. Nobody, however decrepit, was ever dumped to die on Tiber Island, not by my family. As Father said, we insisted on keeping the poor worn-out things, even if they piteously begged to be released from the madhouse.

  Any special tension was because the ageing parents had tired themselves out. Holiday role-reversal suited Helena, who from choice would always wear a simple gown, no jewellery, and her hair speared up with three old ivory pins. She enjoyed preparing the meal, while Father stood handy as a taster, acting like a slave in a play, spouting cheeky commentaries and forgetting errands. In between he smooched my mother. Or if there was any threading on skewers or basting needed, he took that over. To watch how this pair worked together, with constant banter yet no quarrelling, had been my first serious life-lesson.

  Today everyone wore their liberty caps, while as an extra gesture Father brought out his busts of Brutus and Cassius, each with a knitted pileus deposited on his stone head. They had turned up for an auction once (minus hats), but nobody bid because possession of historic conspirators was illegal. Falco loved to point this out, as if daring someone to report him. No one ever did. Nevertheless, in a period when real conspiracies were being contrived against Domitian (we hoped), bringing out the Liberators carried an extra frisson.

  Whatever Mother said about it, in a speech she made every year in fact, Saturnalia at our house was wonderful. All the rooms we used for feasting had been decorated by my sisters, who were both artistic. Once festival food was safely steaming in pots on the cooking bench, and a tincture finally taken to celebrate not burning the kitchen down, my parents threw a fine party. After my grandfather died and left us a fortune, there was always enough money, for one thing. At least, on the first day, neither food nor wine ran out. Our customs were quaint, present-giving could be fitful, outside guests tended to look baffled, but the family mucked in and the staff felt appreciated. Even the peculiar ones.

  On this occasion the parents had decreed no relatives outside my household could come. They had told the numerous Didii we had seen them all much too recently; we wanted a quiet occasion because Tiberius and the boys would be missing their mother, who had died only this month. “We only do Saturnalia for the children, really.”

  My mother had decided she would also do it for Tullius Icilius. She had a theory that every party should include a charming old buffer, a role my father would never fulfill since his charm was of a specialist nature. Some people put him on a plinth as a romantic icon; others thought him a clown. According to Helena Justina, that was because he possessed, as his mother once described it, “a smile you could crack nuts with.” Besides, not many heroes can whip a traitor or a multiple murderer into line and drop any bodies down a sewer while making the best jokes you have heard all year.

  Uncle Tullius arrived, bringing his special presents. Mother was kind to him; he was even polite to her. Tiberius and I were still convinced he would come with miniature military uniforms, ignoring the risk of tiny fingers being painfully pinched in segmented armour, or with heavy wooden swords that would be so unwieldy they knocked things over by themselves, or dangerously sharp sidearm daggers. Not so, however. Next year, promised Tullius.

  We had had an early exchange of gifts because Gaius and Lucius could not bear to wait. Some families save presents for the fifth day of the festival, but ours was never like other families. The little boys had been showered with small treats, sweets, tops, dolls and clay horses to pull along, while Tiberius gave them each a bulla to ward off the evil eye. They looked like gold. I knew they were only lead, covered with gold foil, because of the high chance of them being lost. They are round medallions hung on thongs, to show children they are cherished. Postumus suddenly decided he would wear his own, which he normally hung on his ferret, so we all joked that the evil eye would take one look at Postumus then flee.

  Father had prod
uced (from an auction: he did not deny it was a fortuitous find rather than the result of devoted searching) an automaton: a mechanical man was placing food for a crocodile that would run for it, though this came with no provenance and no instructions. Gaius and Lucius were already having arguments about who could work the man and who the hungry croc, while I foresaw that those strings working the movements were doomed to snap. The boys soon dropped the automaton (literally) once Tullius came.

  The old grump had brought them musical instruments. It could have been worse—a drum, say—but it was bad enough: child-sized legionary horn and trumpet. Small but desperately loud. The cornu was the most dramatic: shaped like a letter G, with a crossbar to support a huge encircling tube. The tuba was extremely long and straight, with more prospects for hitting things. Both were liable to run painfully into the tender roofs of little mouths. They were accompanied by bearskin headdresses that must have been made from a pair of tragic cubs. My sister Julia sniffed one and mimed violent vomiting.

  Gaius and Lucius soon mastered how to blow through the mouthpieces, which Tullius solemnly demonstrated were perfect copies of real sized ones, “Fully detachable!” He nodded at me, suggesting the critical parts could eventually be “lost.”

  As we had rehearsed, Tiberius and I exclaimed, “Oh, darling Uncle Tullius, that is wildly generous! You really shouldn’t have!”

  As Tiberius had prophesied, Uncle Tullius answered back, “What are rich uncles for, if not to spoil the little dears?”

  The spoiled little dears marched around for the next few hours being bucinatores with their red cheeks puffed out, blowing military signals to which people had to respond or there were tantrums. My parents were good people: they endured the racket and never complained. On the other hand, they knew we were taking the terrors home at some point.

  Orders should really have been given by the King-for-the-Day, but that role had been awarded to my brother’s tutor, who was too polite. Instead, the tutor was being taught a complex board game by Postumus. Glaphyra, who knew him of old, woke from her nap to scold, “Postumus, when you are playing against a novice, it is kind to let him win.”

  My brother looked up, with his sweetest expression. “Of course.” He looked down at the board again, muttering, “Once!” Though a passable intellectual, Vitalis was not sharp enough to avoid playing for real money against our dangerous twelve-year-old. His entire Saturnalia bonus was sliding away into my brother’s slick hands. Postumus, naturally, knew exactly how much the bonus was. He stopped playing as soon as he’d grabbed it all.

  I asked why Vitalis had not been allowed to spend the festival with his own family. “Of course he could go. He has quarrelled with his mother—he ran away from home. She just let him. You will find,” warned Helena, “as soon as you have children, that you decide everybody else’s have received a very poor upbringing.”

  “Will people think the same about ours?”

  “Probably.”

  We had brought half our household. Dromo kept sitting silent by himself, with the unworn gourd suit. Suza was keeping very still, afraid to dislodge a towering head of imperial court curls that my sisters had now woven for her. The rest mingled cheerily with my parents’ oddball staff. Falco and Rodan were chatting like brothers. Nobody would realise Rodan had acted for years as a rent enforcer for Pa’s old landlord, Smaractus, and had on at least one occasion beaten up my father so badly he almost died. Saturnalia is a very peculiar time.

  The girls were looking after Gaius and Lucius, tirelessly marching around for them as they played their horrid instruments. Uncle Tullius might have been expected to make an early departure, but had stayed, working his way down a flagon of fine wine that he had brought as a gift.

  When the hired ghost arrived, my father decided to embarrass Tiberius and me. He whispered loudly that we could slide off now, if we wanted time alone together. He meant— Well, we knew what he meant. We pretended not to understand, while losing all interest in the subject.

  The ghost was Zoilus. A whisper went around that this was for the children. Further commentary said, no, Falco always felt sorry for Zoilus. Zoilus was a tradition. We had to keep the undead alive. Every year this ghastly ghost was allowed to earn money from appearances at family parties. Under his elderly shroud, the spook was papery from poverty. Once, he had been able to glide around as if suspended above floor level, zipping himself into fabulous hook-shouldered movements while throwing his voice in such a way that his eerie whoo-hoo sounds seemed to reverberate from behind the furniture. Now the shroud really did look as if it had been dug out of an ancient grave. He could still say Hoo-hoo in a wavering tremolo but was far too arthritic for more athletic haunting.

  Postumus pointed out loudly that ghosts were not supposed to age.

  Zoilus was offended. The supernatural actor floated off to find something to eat. He knew the way to the kitchen; he had materialised there to sate paranormal hunger many times before.

  Postumus declared that spirits should not need human food. Vitalis, his tutor, was unexpectedly fired up to discuss the afterlife, reminding us of how many people feasted beside their ancestors’ graves, some posting food and drink down tubes for the festering corpses buried below. My brother immediately wanted to go to a necropolis; he would dig down to see whether any food and drink had been consumed. We generally encouraged his pursuit of knowledge unless it involved roadkill with maggots. On this occasion, quick-thinking Favonia told him every necropolis was closed for the festival.

  “But I want to go and see!”

  “Well, you can’t.” Vitalis for once sounded stern. “Now do not ask why not, Alexander Postumus. I am King-for-the-Day and I say so!”

  We were all impressed. I noticed Dromo sat up, watching jealously.

  Zoilus had disappeared for such a long time that Tiberius and I were sent to resurrect him. We found him staring into space, even more miserable than usual. We asked him why. After renewed hooing, he told us. He was a scavenger. Most of the time he earned nothing; this month he had ended up in debt because he had found a place to sleep but had had to bribe a man to let him. Someone told him how to get a loan. He would never be able to repay it, not even after he’d worked here tonight and at various other parties.

  I said I would ask my father if he could think of anything that might be done. (Falco would probably cover the debt).

  Tiberius, in magistrate mode, then asked the spook who had given him the loan.

  “Bad people,” answered Zoilus, trembling. “Hard men. A hard woman. She will come for me.” He must have seen Tiberius glance at me. Sadly, he added, “The Cornellus brothers. One seems kindly but the other is entirely cruel. And the woman who must receive the repayments. Laetilla.”

  “Whoo-hoo!” exclaimed Tiberius, very gently.

  LVII

  We could have left it there, but I asked Zoilus however he had come to use Aventine loan sharks. I thought he lived out among the tombs on the Via Appia. That necropolis beyond the city boundary was where really destitute beggars lived, beggars who were too squalid even for the streets of Rome. Some old tombs stood empty; others had been broken into. It was a cold, lawless, violent environment but a few beggars preferred it to crouching in Rome’s hostile doorways, behind bloody stalls in the meat market or under bridges. There they would be robbed and raped by other vagrants or moved on by cruel paramilitaries, whose method of persuasion was to kick and cudgel them half dead.

  Zoilus told us that this autumn my soft-hearted father had let him squat at the Eagle Building, although once it was sold, he decamped voluntarily before the demolition squad decided it was their turn to kick and cudgel him. At one point he found himself a doss in a warehouse. It was undercover and dry, but he had to pay bribes to the building manager. The amounts might be small, but he had nothing. That was why he listened when somebody talked to him about loans.

  “But you have to pay them back, Zoilus. And with horrible interest.”

  “What can they do to
me, Albia?”

  “A lot!” muttered Tiberius.

  Zoilus was looking forward to his fees for parties—though not because he could repay the Cornelli. Ignorant of what he had got himself into with them, he intended only to buy drink. That should ease his pain. Afterwards, he would have to vanish back to the Via Appia, hoping the loan sharks would not recognise him when he came again (if he was alive) next year.

  “I’m afraid they will. They are used to debtors who try disappearing. Who put you on to these terrible lenders, Zoilus?”

  “A man in Fountain Court.”

  “Oh, no!”

  I began gently questioning Zoilus as a witness. When he stayed at Father’s building, had he seen anything of the people who were using the lock-up called the Lumber Room? Zoilus was an unreliable source; to screw anything out of him I had to suggest it myself, which is a poor way of obtaining evidence. He knew the old shop was being used for storage, though people there issued threats against anyone who seemed nosy. Like Rodan, he had had a run-in. Greius had threatened to burn him alive, saying being undead would not save him. Unlike Rodan, Zoilus was physically grabbed—though they let go abruptly when they smelt how he stank. “Death and corruption—whoo-hoo!”

  He hastily pointed out that he had been to the baths today. Some premises made no charge. If slaves could use them, then ghosts, too, could strigil off their spectral dirt.

  “Zoilus, we don’t mind a pong. Tell me about the old shop. Was it being used for Saturnalia nuts?”

  “I don’t know-ho!”

  “Ha, ha. Did you see any waxed tapers hung up to dry in our courtyard?”

  “No-o.”

  “Would you recognise any of the people there?”

  “I don’t want to see them. Never again!”

  “All right, settle down, you don’t have to.” There was little to gain: legally he was useless, far too weird to use for formally identifying anyone. Anyway, he would clam up from terror if we tried a face-to-face.