A Capitol Death

by Lindsey Davis

  “The Third!” I scribbled on my trusty note-tablet again. “I wonder if my husband knows your centurion.” Tiberius knew no Praetorians, I thought—though he had somehow been able to warn me in advance that this man was to be avoided.

  Nestor said he was currently based on the Capitol. He was the guard the caretaker had mentioned; his duties were to carry out security checks on anyone who turned up there in the days before the Triumph. “Were you stopping visitors when Gabinus took his tumble off the Rock?”

  “Night off.”

  “He died in the morning.”

  Nestor looked oddly unhappy. “I was still at the camp.”

  “On your night off, does your officer send out a substitute?”

  Nestor gave me a nasty look. “No, there is a barful of men who will tell you I was getting bladdered with them!”

  “Do you mind telling me where?”

  “I do mind.”

  “Be nice and tell me anyway.”

  Slightly to my surprise he named the bar. It was called Nino’s, near the Esquiline Gate. “Ask Nino. He’ll tell you.” I would ask him, though I did not say so to Nestor.

  “Thank you. You must be very busy, Nestor, with Praetorian resources so stretched. Somebody ought to be up on the Hill. I suggest you go back to your duties.”

  “I’ve got no secrets,” Dillia intervened.

  “Very well. I need a quiet talk with you. Worrying things were said when I was up on the Capitol. I have to impress on you the need to be discreet for your own safety.”

  “I can cover that,” said Nestor.

  I despaired. “What time does your watch end?”

  Nestor stood up. He was not yet leaving, simply making himself look large and more imposing. I snapped that he had better present himself on the Hill. I had been on the Capitol and Arx all morning; I had seen no security checks. Suddenly efficient, he demanded I show him a permit to prove I had a right to go there.

  This was becoming ridiculous. I pointed out that any free Roman citizen could visit the sanctuaries for religious reasons. But I thanked him for his diligence, gravely promising I would bring my docket for him the next time I was up there.

  I would have to ask Tiberius to invent something.

  To my surprise Nestor slung a cloak around him so it hid his sword, though he threw on the garment—a woolly brown civilian thing—with a Praetorian swagger; they always let people see they are bearing arms. Giving Dillia a smacking kiss, he departed. He must have been worried that, if his superiors heard of it, his absence from the tops might be frowned on. Myself, I thought those in charge might have given him that job simply to keep him out of their way.

  Once he left, I decided not to upset his hostess by asking how he had latched on to her. Instead, I warned her not to talk any more to anyone about what she had seen. “Not until I find the culprit. Promise me.”

  Looking vague, Dillia promised.

  In the end, I could not leave until I had gently suggested she exercise caution with her new friend. When I said best not to mention any valuables, at least until she knew Nestor a lot better, her eyes went to the bed. The money was under her mattress.

  It must be uncomfortable. Every time she turned over, her old bones would be rolling on her savings. The mattress there was even thinner than the one I had seen in the caretaker’s hut. Most of Rome was spending disturbed nights, trying to sleep on little more than a folded horse blanket.

  X

  I went home.

  The Aventine is much larger than the Capitoline. Its double peaks are more spread out, without such an obvious dip in between. Our hill has an old antipathy to the Capitol where I was working: plebeian versus patrician. I would not normally have thought of it, but visiting the Auguraculum must have put me in mind of how Romulus and Remus each chose a divination spot when founding Rome. Remus, who wanted our hill, observed six favourable birds, but Romulus claimed he saw twelve above the Capitol. It ended badly. Lying beyond the ancient city boundary, the pomerium that Romulus ploughed, the Aventine had always been the hill of outsiders. We had even more temples than the Capitol, including the Temple of Liberty where slaves were traditionally freed. Diana of the Aventine, Ceres and many more stare balefully across the valley of the Circus Maximus to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, the official top gods.

  Around our temples there had always been a rude, rough, noisy, reeking district, packed with lowlife—and I don’t just mean amateur poets in that tragic group, the would-be authors’ guild. Only now, precisely because this hill stood apart and private, were the packed tenements being pulled down so the neighbourhood could be gentrified. If Tiberius and I managed to dodge the diseases that decimate the urban poor, we would have fancy fellow residents: big spreads were being developed into the lush homes of wealthy men, even men who would in our lifetime turn themselves into emperors.

  One of the smaller properties under reconstruction was our house. Tiberius had bought it from an ex-client of mine. She died; we took advantage of insider knowledge, which is the norm in Rome. The back-scratching was two-way. Her stepson now rented a shop attached to a warehouse that belonged to Tiberius, who gave him favourable terms in return for a regular supply of the cheese he produced.

  Stripped out and opened up, the house was airier and larger than we had first thought. It had the potential to be pleasant, even grand, if we wanted to spend enough money. The building yard alongside was a business Tiberius wanted to run. No fanciful hobbyist, he was developing a sound commercial practice. The disadvantage was that when you own a construction firm, your own house only gets attention in the gaps between paid projects. Some rooms had been hurried along and finished as a marriage gift to me. The rest remained bare, their function and decoration as yet undecided.

  I had my own key. It was needed, because we had no door porter.

  I walked through the porch, one feature that had been finished, into the small atrium, which was also decorated. I did feel I was coming home. It was the start of November. We had lived here for two months. Next January, Tiberius would stop being a magistrate and devote himself full time to the building firm, while I, too, would work from our new home.

  The property was well-positioned. On a corner of Lesser Laurel Street, we were near good roads, close to temples, above major meat and vegetable markets. If we had built a tall tower we would have had fine views across Rome. But our house turned inwards in the Roman way. Its heart was an internal courtyard. There, or in the rooms adjacent if it rained, we sat privately or welcomed visitors. The best bedrooms were on the upper storey, overlooking this area. One day we would have an adjacent dining room with big folding doors. A carpenter was making them, or would be when he had thought out how to tackle them. Meanwhile, I was planting roses, like those my parents kept on their roof terrace; when I had asked Tiberius to sneak me horse-dung from the Triumph, it was with a real purpose.

  This, then, was our delightful, contained domestic haven. As often happened, in my absence it had turned into lively chaos.

  * * *

  I stood at the edge of the courtyard.

  Fornix, the new cook, was angrily banging at old pans in the corner by the passage that led to the kitchen. Each cauldron had layers of burned-on cinder that he would need to batter off. A row of brightened griddles showed where he had already been active, but it was noisy, hard work: Fornix was sweating. I decided not to tell him I had seen an out-of-season artichoke today or he would dive off to look for some. We had snaffled our fine cook from a celebrity restaurant; he liked a challenge.

  Paris, our new runabout, was running about, trying to catch our new dog. In a stand-off I had missed, the watchdog had come in through the adjoining door from the yard; jealous, he had bitten our dog.

  “What’s her name?” gasped Paris, normally unflappable.

  “I call her Not-My-Dog.” The creature had adopted me. I gave her no encouragement.

  “Barley!” That was the name Tiberius had given her, based on her light fawn colour.
It was Dromo, his slave, who snorted this. “And it’s not my job to look after her.”

  “No, we can all see that!” said Paris, dourly, as Dromo slouched and did nothing to help. Paris cornered Barley, who bit him as he grabbed her, though it was only a nip. She wriggled free then dashed into her kennel, crying and bleeding all over her blanket.

  “Where is your master?” I asked Dromo.

  “Gone out.”

  “Why aren’t you with him?” It was Dromo’s job to tail Tiberius, so he could take messages, fight muggers, and pretend to be an impressive escort. As far as I could see, this had never worked. Dromo was untrainable.

  Tiberius liked to wander the Aventine, often in a rough disguise, seeking public misdemeanours for which he could extract fines. Staff at the aediles’ office had told me, with nervous admiration, he was the most productive magistrate anyone remembered. I think they were afraid it would lead to complaints of over-zealousness. However, if any culprit raised a voice against his stern behaviour, Tiberius just threatened to slap them with another fine for insulting the office of aedile. He was always courteous, as if saddened that it fell to him to impose order. Other aediles could be ranting bullies. His manner was such a surprise that people thought it a privilege to be fined by him.

  I asked if he had gone out on the prowl.

  “No, he said he wanted a quiet walk around by himself.”

  I could see why that might be.

  A man I had never seen before came out from the kitchen corridor, carrying a pile of disreputable pannikins for Fornix. Later, I would learn this was our chef’s elder brother, who had come over to inspect his sibling’s new place of work. They were both round-bellied and affable. Seeing me, the newcomer handed over the skillets, nodded to Fornix, then left rapidly.

  As mistress of the house, I was aiming to be like my mother. Helena Justina was viewed as a sweet woman, a senator’s daughter with the breeding that that implied, who stood no nonsense yet was welcoming to all. Apparently I lacked this art. When the cook’s brother skedaddled, I was shocked at how fearsome my reputation must be.

  Still, that can have its uses.

  Two painters, who were supposed to be at work on a reception room, came out in the midst of a blazing argument. When they saw me, instead of cooling it, they increased the volume. Larcius, our foreman, put his head around the door from the building yard and remonstrated with them. Then, as they calmed down, he rounded on me accusingly. “Your dog had a fight with Drax!”

  “She is not my dog, Larcius.”

  “You need to take her in hand. I can’t have our Drax upset.”

  Drax, a skinny hound who whined a lot, put his snout around the doorframe, looking self-righteous. Drax had lived here even before we did. He had been guarding materials in the yard for years, often chained up and rarely fed much. He could hardly be blamed for feeling indignation that this pampered new pet had turned up of her own accord, only to be spoiled with her special Greek temple, not to mention her comfortable blanket, her elegant bowl (a wedding present, costly but hideous) and her personal fine-toothed grooming comb.

  “I heard Drax picked the fight—and he bit Barley.”

  On his knees in front of the kennel, Paris succeeded in pulling Barley out, which confirmed that she had suffered wounds.

  “She must have goaded him!” Larcius swore, full of bitterness as he retreated back to the yard. Drax barked, thinking he had made a point, then trotted after Larcius. Paris began cleaning up Barley.

  I sat on the stone bench and let turmoil seethe around me. Dromo took it upon himself to join me. He said Tiberius had de-fleaed Drax as well as Barley, which the watchdog had taken badly; Dromo, who viewed it as an insult that we made him go to the baths—and actually strigil himself down—was taking Drax’s part.

  “How did your master manage to deal with their infestations?”

  “Put them in half a barrel of water so the fleas floated off. Ugh! Then he made me catch them. The fleas. I wasn’t going to catch the dogs. Drax hated being wet.”

  “What about Barley?”

  “She just stood and shivered horribly, all dripping.” Although she had had the nous to follow me home and get herself adopted, Barley was a nervous soul.

  As soon as Paris had washed the blood off her, she came across to me. She put her nose on my thigh, then one paw crept onto the bench. Dromo stood up and stalked off; I had a suspicion he was scared of dogs. By the time I had smiled over that, Barley had managed to sneak up a second paw. She was medium-sized, with a skinny whippet’s body and pointy nose, pale brown, with her ribs showing.

  “You are not mine, Barley.” I might be a magistrate’s wife now, but I, too, had started life as a street child, unwanted and abused. She licked my hand. There was no way this dog could know how I had grown up in faraway Londinium, or that if she nudged the right dice in my direction, she would win our game, a walkover. Even so, three legs had made it to the seat already and as I turned to shove her down, the fourth came up so she was lying in my lap.

  I did nothing about it. Instead I asked Paris to take himself up to the north of the city, when he had finished washing the blood off the dog blanket, in case he could find a bar called Nino’s. “It’s where Praetorians drink, so be prepared, it will be rough. If you can get the owner in a corner on his own, see if he remembers a guard called Nestor, supposed to have been drinking there the night that man jumped off Tarpeia’s Rock.”

  Paris, who was beginning to enjoy helping me with casework, spread the wet blanket on the kennel roof to dry, then went off happily. He would stay at home to break up a dogfight, but he liked to be out and about.

  Next I called across to Fornix to abandon the worst pots and pans: we would buy new ones, using my earnings. I hadn’t been paid yet for the Gabinus case, but in Rome you live on credit.

  I told Dromo to take Fornix to Fountain Court where I used to live. There was a kitchen supplier opposite the apartment block. Dromo loudly claimed this was not his job.

  “It’s not a job, Dromo, it’s you being helpful. You will eat what Fornix cooks, won’t you? Take your handcart so you can bring back purchases.”

  Fornix flashed me a scheming look, discreetly. I told him to obtain whatever he needed; he should tell the shop-keeper it was for me and payment would be sent later.

  “Dromo, you could take the dog out with you for a walk.”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got my handcart to look after when we are out.”

  Barley snuggled deeper into my lap, letting me know she wanted to stay there. She might not be my dog, but I belonged to her.

  As they left, Dromo yelled, “There’s a man at the door! He wants you.”

  “Ask his name and let him in nicely, then.”

  No luck. Dromo had gone. The man let himself in. He looked back over his shoulder as if making a note of poor service. I could have been offended at this, but I recognised him and felt relief. My household badly needed someone who would, on his own initiative, make action lists.

  The newcomer was taller than average, lean and refined. He wore a crisp white tunic with scarlet braid running over the shoulders; he looked like someone who might even have sewn on the neat braid himself. His manner was wry and intelligent; I knew he was competent. His name was Gratus.

  I had first met Gratus when he worked as a very slick home steward for a slightly unpleasant man. He was at the point where that loyalty was wearing thin, so I kept in touch. When I first married Tiberius, Gratus had found me a housekeeper, though it had not worked out. Once a slave, I had heard that he had bought his freedom since then.

  After the usual greetings, I explained, “We thought Graecina was too fond of vase mats and room rugs for our style. She, I am afraid, just thought we were nuts.” Gratus, I knew, was a man with whom I could be satirical.

  “Could this be the moment for you to poach someone else?” he asked frankly.

  “Only if they can fit in here, Gratus.” I was delighted by his offer. “As you se
e, we are somewhat informal. It is Saturnalia every day in our house.”

  “I dare say I can put a stop to that!” he answered. “Is that your dog?”

  “No, but she thinks she is.” I went so far as to stroke her head.

  After congratulating him on his new status in life and the freedom it gave him to choose where he worked, I ran rapidly through employment terms, mentioned a couple of house-rules, outlined the staff we had, and those we badly needed.

  By the time Tiberius came home, we had a new efficient steward. As Tiberius came in from the porch, he called, “There was a man outside. Since nobody was answering the door, I let him in.”

  XI

  As the next visitor stepped out into our courtyard, his face fell. He had entered by the finely painted porch, then through our handsome atrium. We had no pool; our entrance was roofed. Instead we had placed in the hallway a solid marble table (only one leg mended, with the work done skilfully) upon which we displayed a huge Athenian vase where a characterful octopus crazily writhed. Our statement piece. Any of the oldest, wealthiest, snootiest families in Rome would yearn to own this. But a very good friend had given it to us.

  Sadly, once people passed the octopus pot, any statements were much less impressive: this was the home of a new man, with a newer wife. We were living in a building site; we were too used to it to notice. With our ramshackle style, the visitor would not be offered silver snack trays with tots of ancient liquor. He would be lucky to find a seat.

  He paused, looking wary. Big mistake. Our slave crashed into him from behind, then careered on in a mighty rattle of metalware and pottery. As the man stepped to avoid this buffeting, he moved into a sideswipe from the rolling bulk of our chef. Always have a big chef who enjoys what he cooks.

  Fornix advised him to look where he was going.

  “Good buying spree?” I called, as the chef hurried to his kitchen, eager to start playing.

  “Tops!”

  “Run after Dromo before he breaks things.”