Pandora's Boy: Flavia Albia 6 (Falco: The New Generation)

by Lindsey Davis

  Desperate for a break from this tosh, I stepped outside for air.

  49

  Another maid had crept out before me. We introduced ourselves.

  ‘I’m Albia. I came with Laia Gratiana, just temporary, thank the gods. Her usual, Venusia, couldn’t be here. Laid up with gout,’ I invented merrily.

  ‘She’ll be kicking herself. Oh, no – too painful! I’m Vestis. With Statia, Mamillianus’ wife.’

  I giggled. ‘Some of the girls think she doesn’t exist, or he keeps her locked in a bucket store.’

  ‘Oh, sometimes she plucks up her courage and makes a bolt for it.’

  ‘Which is she?’

  ‘Over on the far side from the door. All teeth and tits. Which is yours?’

  ‘The blonde sitting near her. Thin, snobbish and grudge-bearing.’

  ‘You could do Pandora’s job – I sense you despise most people, but you have good bones …’

  ‘I bet I could. I love your face powder.’

  ‘It’s “hint of a tint”; I pinched it from her.’

  ‘It’s lovely on you. How come your Statia sneaked out for a twirl today?’

  ‘Himself had to rush to the vigiles. He’s on a retainer for some regular clients who call him out at all hours. They must pay him well – when they say jump, he leapfrogs. Some men have been taken in, and he has to get them out. He was grumpy, even more so than normal, because he said this time the men really didn’t do it, so putting them in custody is an atrocious liberty. Some rivals organised the crime.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Something bad. A murder? He wouldn’t have bothered going there in person if it wasn’t all urgent and serious.’

  ‘Sounds like you have fun in your house!’

  ‘It’s all right if you can dodge him and his wandering hands …’ Vestis had wedged a temple door so she could hear through the crack if anything happened. Now a rustle caught her attention. ‘Shit! Come on, Albia. We’re missing the letterboard!’

  We scampered back inside. We were in such a hurry we closed the door too quickly, letting a cold draught blow in. Participants gasped, thinking it was a visitor from the spirit world. In the dark, they could not see us. Vestis smothered a giggle.

  Pandora was now well into her act. She had hung a ring on a fine cord, and she suspended it above the flat plate on the tripod in front of her. The dish must have had Greek letters engraved round the rim, because as she let the ring swing to and fro she spelled out words. The ring behaved tentatively at first, but once it understood its role, it darted away as fast as my pa’s Egyptian secretary. What a writer! It must have more education than most of the fashionable women there.

  Marcia Sentilla and Sentia Lucretia now decided their time had come. They had been sitting together on the front row, right opposite Pandora. During the earlier proceedings, both had leaned forward intently but made no move to join in. Now Sentia stirred, then abruptly asked Pandora to try to put her in touch with someone. She produced a broken lump of stone and claimed it had been taken from the tomb where someone close to her was buried. The witch threw a hand to her furrowed brow as if troubled by a bad hangover.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ Pandora called. No, no – really, she did. ‘Aah!’ The pain must be worse. You would think a herbal expert could prescribe herself a decent headache powder.

  The ring on the string trembled. People were rapt in fascination. Suddenly it whipped across the plate to χ. ‘Chi …’ announced Pandora. ‘Is there someone beginning with—’

  ‘Kappa!’ screamed Sentia Lucretia, desperate to hear her daughter’s ghost was there.

  The obedient ring wavered, then quickly switchbacked round the dish. κ, λ ω. Enough; the helpful bauble’s work was done. This was what we had all come for.

  ‘Klodia – Clodia! It is my Clodia.’

  ‘I am sensing a child, a child in great pain … There is power in this place, there is energy … The person coming through to me wishes to speak.’

  ‘Is her soul here? Is it Clodia Volumnia?’

  ‘I see your daughter, standing at your shoulder. She nods. She wants to speak to you. What questions would you like to ask her?’

  There was nobody there. I wanted to cry out in rage. It was so cruel, yet the mother and grandmother were lapping it up. This was what they had come for, what they so desperately wanted to hear.

  ‘Is she happy?’ asked her mother. Her voice was tremulous. She was shaking. Her own mother, the scrawny Marcia Sentilla, covered her face with her veil, apparently in tears. But Sentia Lucretia was in more anguish. All her concentration was upon the questions. ‘Is Clodia happy? Is she well? Is she frightened of where she is now?’

  That would have been too many questions for a ring to spell out, however well educated. Pandora lent it a hand in an eerie voice. ‘Clodia inhabits a happy place. She has no fear. She is gone from you, but it was peaceful, wasn’t it? Her passing was quick at the end?’

  ‘She died in the night …’

  ‘I thought so.’

  Sentia Lucretia had almost collapsed. Marcia Sentilla took command. ‘Ask! Ask, did she drink any potion? Ask if that was what killed her?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Pandora said soothingly at once. ‘She is telling me she took nothing of that kind. Why, she says to you, would she have done something like that?’

  Dear gods, I would be forced to speak. The bereaved are so vulnerable to fraud. Their pain was overwhelming Clodia’s poor relatives. To be told that she could speak to them again, and the hope that she would solve the terrible mystery that had torn apart their family, overrode all their critical faculties. Otherwise, they would never have approached Pandora of all people – and never believed this cynical manipulation of them.

  There was no ghost. Even if there had been, how could they expect Pandora to admit that a love-potion existed? What ghost would publicly condemn the very vessel through whom she was making contact? The guilty medium would tell that ghost to keep its spiritual mouth shut.

  I would have gone forward and shouted. I did not have to. Instead, the temple doors crashed open. It was not malevolent beings from the occult world, but a crowd of extremely real soldiers.

  Leading them in were Volumnius Firmus and his mother. Even the overweight Volumnia Paulla rushed into the temple at some speed, though leaning on two sticks as she tumbled into the cella. She screamed that these were witches, engaged in magic practices, defiling the memory of her precious granddaughter. Firmus instructed the centurion in charge to arrest everyone present.

  50

  I have never seen a tripod and platter folded away so fast. Any restaurant would be proud to have its serving tables cleared so neatly. All the occult paraphernalia vanished. Its existence could have been a dream.

  In one way, I wish there had been a ghost. I would have liked to see a big dumb-bell in a red cloak attempt to put chains on a visiting spirit.

  Pandora must have quietly tiptoed away, though I never saw her go. She must have been wrapped in mystic clouds of invisibility – or she had checked out a side door in advance. Meröe and Kalmis also fled, though not before they quickly opened bags to receive gifts of jewellery. Those who were glad to have been put in contact with their long-lost uncles showed their gratitude in the accustomed way. Bling has its uses. I wouldn’t mind if my own fees were paid in oriental pearls.

  When I was in Volumnia Paulla’s apartment earlier, she must have worked out that my message from Laia meant something significant. She had made it her business to find out. There were enough well-coiffed socialites gathered here for somebody connected with them to have given the game away. Half the Quirinal must have known there was to be a seance. A quadrans to a slave probably did it. Volumnia Paulla then hurried to inform her son.

  Firmus knew about the legionaries who were preparing for Domitian’s Triumph. Since his efforts to interest Rome’s own finest earlier had failed, he had gone down to find the men from the army. They were nearest. They
were also least equipped to judge whether a neighbourhood problem was harmless or madness. But they were bored to tears with fixing up decorations on shopfronts, only to have them pulled down behind their backs by aggrieved shopkeepers; their centurion said most certainly he would be pleased to help, then he broke off their valuable work with garlands and marched his whole unit up the hill.

  They looked shy, as if some of them had never been inside a temple before. Now we had eighty soldiers trying to yell instructions to fifteen Roman matrons. None of the women ever listened to their husbands, so they were never going to obey strange men. For the big-belted warriors, it was very different from grabbing barbarians by the hair. The women were winning. For one thing, their hair was so intricately pinned to their heads it would have been impossible to gain a handhold.

  The centurion had been in Pannonia with Domitian. He knew what would happen if Our Master and God took an interest; even a centurion could see that these smart women were more misguided than seditious, more daft than dangerous to the Empire. Most of his kind acquire some basic judgement. They have to know when keeping their heads down is not insubordination, just wise. So he had enough about him to try to clear the shrine discreetly.

  ‘I am going to count to three – then anyone still here will be arrested.’ Nervously the centurion assessed the women who, once the spiritual aura was broken and they had jumped from their seats, milled about in bemusement. Some were trying hard to find the shoes they had taken off, though it was too dark. Most had lost contact with their maids, on whom they always relied to organise things such as transport home from a party. ‘Make that ten. Are you listening, ladies?’ They were not. ‘One, two, three …’ Flustered maids began grabbing their mistresses to steer them outside. I didn’t bother to try to find Laia. ‘Fuck and shit, just get them off the premises! Don’t bother to match them up with the right bearers. Take them away. You can sort out where they all belong afterwards.’

  Fortunately, we had a distraction. More men arrived. It was those excellent lads, the First Cohort of Vigiles. As they came swarming in, like grubby beetles whose nest had been disturbed, the soldiers took their eyes off the women. Most Quirinal dames seized the opportunity and scarpered. None of them wanted to have to explain this incident to their uppity husbands.

  Infuriated by legionaries coming on to their patch, the vigiles squared up. Red in the face with indignation, Scorpus went for the centurion. I stayed to watch.

  Scorpus was roaring in frustration that the army had destroyed a sting he had carefully set up. The First had been watching the seance, planning to move in at the right moment. Now some overpaid, over-promoted arse had wrecked his plan. Pandora and her practices had been the subject of a long-running, minutely controlled operation that was now utterly buggered. There would be high-level questions about how this cosmic embuggerance had occurred. Absolutely highest level. Scorpus intended to take his grievance to the very top.

  That had no effect on a centurion.

  There was only one way to negotiate: a punch-up.

  The soldiers were unarmed; they had been made to leave their weapons in a pile on the Via Lata, in accordance with the rule that no one should bear weaponry in Rome. Without swords, these fine specimens were helpless. In theory, the vigiles were unarmed too, partly because they were ex-slaves. But for them this was normal. They instantly produced the tools they used as firefighters: staves, grapplers, ropes and axes, not to mention their hardcore truculence and their famously bad language.

  Blood flowed. Whistles shrilled for reinforcements. Bodies crashed into the cult statues. Jupiter toppled.

  Still furiously trying to cope were all the relatives of Clodia Volumnia. Her father was shouting that this was an utter disgrace. Her mother broke down in heartfelt tears. The two grandmothers reacted in their special way: the skinny one grabbed the other by the throat while her heavy opponent whacked away with sticks. All around them flowed and ebbed grotesque masculine violence, amid roars, grunts and curses that made Race Night in the bars by the Circus Maximus sound tame. It stands to reason that if you know how to haul someone out of a building in flames safely, you also know how to drag them around in a temple. The squaddies were thumping the more casual smoke-eaters, who did not hold back. The syphon-truckies were capable of serious physical damage, while simultaneously insulting the bucket-nuts in vivid terms. ‘Go and build a pontoon!’ is the nice version.

  This came to an end when several bodies landed too hard on a structural feature. With its elderly architecture so poorly maintained due to that common administrative flaw, lack of interest, part of the Old Capitol fell down.

  Half a wall fell on the battling grannies. Some of the soldiers were injured. Swearing vigiles, men who respond instinctively to demolition with casualties, pulled everybody free of the debris. They were not gentle. That was partly because – as they yelled with gusto – they were shit-scared that the whole temple was about to tumble on them. ‘Evacuate! Bloody well evacuate!’

  The First swung into their rescue routine. Scorpus, as an officer, jumped out of the way. The rest grabbed anything human and towed it to safety. The wounded were lined up outside, on the ground in Old Capitol Street. Soldiers stood and groaned in shock on one side, vigiles looked proud of their expertise on the other. The public were told to go home because the sideshow was over. A scribe from the Daily Gazette (who the hell had told him about this?) had out a note-tablet in which he was busily scribbling.

  Scorpus and I ascertained that the Volumnii were just badly bruised. Marcia Sentilla and Volumnia Paulla, the two grandmothers, even then could not stop arguing. When they laid into one another with more physical stuff, Scorpus gave up: he arrested them both. Clodia’s parents had quietened down, so we left them to their own devices, though we were not confident of reconciliation.

  Scorpus ordered the military off his ground; they left, carrying their wounded. His two elderly prisoners were removed to the station-house, still flinging insults at each other through the windows of their chairs. Remaining vigiles secured the scene. He and I adjourned to a bar.

  51

  I gave Scorpus a full description of the seance. He said thanks, though had to add that a witness statement from an informer was only useful as background. It would never hold up in court because my reputation was nix due to my lousy profession. I said, well, thanks for that too – but I had no intention of appearing against one of the Rabirii. I was a new bride and I wanted some married life. If somebody had to croak prematurely, I suggested he try to persuade Laia Gratiana to do the dirty. The only blot on her reputation was obnoxiousness and the cult queen might feel giving evidence was her public duty.

  ‘Surely you don’t want to put someone you know in that dangerous position?’

  ‘She is my husband’s ex-wife, Scorpus. I’ll live with it.’ The vigilis snorted. I smiled sweetly. ‘If I may offer suggestions, your best bet is to send men to Pandora’s apartment and lay hands on her seance equipment. Look for a tripod and a Greek letterboard covered with occult signs.’ I gave a list of the other items I had seen that day. ‘Everything kicked off with a heady drink; you can charge her with using drugs for magic. Find a big tureen and the rustic ladle they stirred with. There may even be dregs.’

  Scorpus shook his head. ‘They know we’ll be coming. They will have done the washing-up. Still, I can search her house all right. A spot of domestic aggro never does any harm.’

  ‘And the warehouse.’

  ‘What warehouse?’

  ‘The warehouse that Salvius Gratus rents to her, my husband’s ex-wife’s pitiful excuse for a brother. The “Aventine ponce who doesn’t want to lose rent”, as you once called him. Scorpus, Pandora produces her products on an industrial scale. I imagine that’s where she does it.’

  ‘Oh, that warehouse! I’ve been trying to close her down for years. You can’t run a business that produces noxious smells in the city – but who’s going to complain about iris root and terebinth? I shall have a look
,’ said Scorpus grandly, not bothering to sound grateful. In fact, not even bothering to sound as if he would do it.

  ‘Don’t strain yourself.’

  I raised what Vestis had said. Scorpus gave me his version: Anthos and Neo had been spotted and arrested. While they were protesting innocence under battery, the Rabirii sent Mamillianus to the station-house to pay their bail.

  ‘The eagle’s beak claimed that you, Flavia Albia, can provide an alibi. Apparently, you know that their modus operandi is belts.’ I had to concede I had seen this, though I thought they intended whipping, not strangulation. Scorpus said it did not matter because they had been released, and whether or not they had done the killing, they were bound to skip from Rome.

  ‘You let them go?’

  ‘Forced to.’ Scorpus sounded glum. ‘Mamillianus brought a release note from a praetor. So much for probity. Either the praetor is being blackmailed for something, or he has simply named his preference and is awaiting a cart of vintage wine.’

  ‘Well, the maid, Vestis, said Mamillianus has been heard to say some other criminal outfit were underbidders for Fabulo’s. He genuinely denies Anthos and Neo killed Iucundus.’

  ‘Mamillianus never mentioned this,’ said Scorpus.

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ I reckoned. ‘If this is your gang war, the Rabirii will settle the dispute themselves.’

  There was only one way to find out, said Scorpus: ask Mamillianus. Since he had already been aggressive with the First, it was decided – by Scorpus – that I would have to do it. ‘Or you can try. Don’t worry,’ he assured me. ‘Nobody is ever allowed in. While you are getting nowhere, I’ll think up another action plan.’

  We went to the house by the Temple of Jupiter the Victor. Scorpus waited outside in a doorway. I was sent in on my own.

  The slaves made the usual claim that their master was out, would not see visitors, never did. I had a pre-planned ruse to counter that.