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

by Lindsey Davis

  Tiberius began to move among the crowd, questioning witnesses. He was the right person for it; he had enough authority but people accepted him. He found out what had happened.

  Vincentius had been strolling towards the Temple of Salus. He was almost there, so close that if he looked down the slope he could see his destination. He had one slave, walking behind him, who had now vanished. That boy was probably the sneak who had been bribed by the rival gang to rat on his movements. There was never any doubt that the rival gang had done this.

  An ambush had been laid for him. In some ways, what had happened next looked like a street accident, but it was nothing of the kind. His family were meant to know. Vincentius could simply have been stabbed as if in a mugging, but that was not the purpose of his savage death. This was a message-killing.

  People told Tiberius a cart had been driven up to here from the Campus Martius side. Despite the daytime curfew on wheeled vehicles, no soldiers stopped it because it was dressed with banners – stolen – so it looked like one of the vehicles that were in use officially, preparing for Domitian’s Triumph. It was a heavy double ox-cart, the kind that is used for transporting huge wine containers, or dead-weight building materials. A group of men, strangers according to the locals Tiberius spoke to, were sitting in the back, acting like day-workers who were waiting to be dropped with their tools. It was trundling very slowly, taking up most of the street’s width. As often happens, a couple of the men peeled off to hold up any other traffic while it manoeuvred. This cart then had sole possession of the street.

  As the cart reached Vincentius, two men jumped out in front of him. He recognised trouble; he skipped across the street. More men jumped him. It was carefully choreographed. He was thrown into the road. A rope was whipped around his wrists, behind his back. Fighting for his life, he freed one hand somehow. It did him no good. He was kicked until he lay still. The cart was then driven right over him.

  Vincentius survived that; he began crawling towards the altar. The cart turned and was driven back over him again. Since it then pointed the wrong way for their planned escape, the driver even made a third pass. All the attackers leapt on board and drove off. The cart was later discovered, abandoned on the Campus, though its valuable oxen had gone missing.

  The way they headed off confirmed for most people that the assailants had come from haunts near the river. If anyone had doubted who they were and who had sent them, this confirmed it.

  Veronica lifted her son’s mangled body. Holding what was left of him in her arms, she raised her face to the sky while she screamed curses upon the perpetrators.

  ‘I call upon the gods, all the gods, you gods of light and dark, visible and invisible: hear me and give me retribution. You who have taken him, I curse you. Go mad and blind, go dumb, become liquid like water. I deny those people health, deny them life, may evil consume them. I curse their words, their thoughts, their memories. I curse their brains, their hearts, their livers, the blood in their veins. May they not eat, drink, sleep, sit, lie, defecate or urinate. Worms, tumours, parasites and vermin shall invade their heads and limbs and the foul marrow in their bones. May they not wish to live a day longer, yet may they never be allowed to die!’

  People covered their heads. Some remained rooted to the spot. Others scurried away to their homes, fearful and shaken.

  After her curse, Veronica fell silent. Still cradling her son, she could only rock with exhaustion. That was when Polemaena spoke. The tall woman raised her voice so everyone in the vicinity would hear her message: ‘Revenge! This will have its revenge! It is war now!’

  I saw Scorpus and some of his men arrive. Pushing to the front, they assessed the scene and decided to hold off. They stood slightly back, not needed for crowd control, their normal aggression muted. Scorpus had his arms folded as he observed, feet apart, looking fatalistic and depressed. At his shoulder stood the agent, Karus. They seemed like men who would have grim work to do, but who were in no hurry to start. Whatever had begun here today would have a long timescale.

  Karus wore a blank expression, but I could see him looking around. He thought someone would be watching, someone from the other gang. Eventually he homed in on a man up on the temple steps, identifying him as I did myself from his stillness and attitude. As soon as he was spotted, this man slipped away.

  We stayed on the scene until members of the family arrived to take the corpse and lead the mother away. Set-faced men turned up, took the corpse from his mother, rolled Vincentius’ remains in cloths, then lifted him and carried him off. A few wailing women surrounded Veronica, who had blood all over her, as she followed behind. It was to her house they were taking him.

  There was a clear distinction between that family and the rest of us. None of them spoke to any of us. None of us risked speaking to them.

  The vigiles produced buckets. They washed the blood from the street.

  A short time before, back at the Temple of Salus, that goddess of healing and welfare, I had dared to fantasise. I thought about Rubria Theodosia, naming herself for the mythical first woman, Pandora, on whom goddesses had lavished beauty and fine things. I thought of Pandora’s Box, imprisoned within which were death and all the ills of the world – and the myth that when Pandora struggled to close her box to stop those ills escaping, the one good thing that remained in the bottom was hope.

  A blood feud was starting. The murder of Vincentius would exact a price. Whatever was done by his family to punish those who carried this out would in turn be paid back against them. The Rabirius clan and their rivals would make death a commonplace event. Ordinary people, who played no part in criminality, would live with danger and violence on their doorsteps. The forces of law and order would struggle to exhaustion point, themselves suffering and dying in their fight.

  On the hills and in the valleys, the ills of the world had been released again. Everyone who had seen Vincentius Theo dead in the arms of his mother knew: on the streets of Rome there was no hope.

  62

  Not long before nightfall, Tiberius and I packed up and left the Quirinal. I exchanged a few formalities with my clients. Then we set out together to return to our own home. On the way, we said a fond farewell to Min. He stood proudly erect in every sense, taller than a man with his double feathers crowning him, once more the most striking advertisement anyone could have for broad-leaved glaucous lettuce.

  Dedu gave us some to take home. It made a welcome base for a simple supper, a favourite meal while we sat in our own courtyard on our worn stone bench. We had missed this kind of domestic treat. You can grow tired of eating in snack bars, even if that is interspersed with occasional celebrity dining. We treasured our night at Fabulo’s, though mainly when we reminisced afterwards, as we often would, we talked with fondness and regret of our lost friend Iucundus.

  Fabulo’s is no longer there. The thermopolium burned down. Arson was suspected. The owners took a claim to an arbiter, we heard. He found against them, on the grounds that they had allowed too many flame-cooked dishes at the tables, too close to diners in flimsy, combustible party robes. By then they had a new chef, deemed deeply inferior by the one we ourselves now had: Fornix (as he newly styled himself) was happily ensconced at home with us, where he could cook hams and cheesecake to his heart’s content, feeling little stress except when Dromo hung around the kitchen.

  We had acquired other wonderful things too. Our household was expanding. Paris would be coming to us, to be our runabout. First, acting as Iucundus’ executor, he had to set up the group of slaves Iucundus had freed in his will, all he owned, who were to be established in smallholdings and shops. There was a significant estate auction too. My father did well; it helped heal any lingering rift between him and me.

  When Paris did arrive, he was able to explain something: on our return home, we had discovered a huge ancient Greek vase over which sprawled a lively octopus, all goggle-eyes and waggling arms, interspersed with scraps of seaweed. Ironically, it was a pithos, a storage jar
of globular form with two lug handles, which stood on a narrow foot with a similarly narrow neck; that is supposed to be the ‘box’ that Pandora really opened.

  Paris said the octopus jar was Iucundus’ favourite piece from Father (who grumbled with jealousy when he saw we had it). Lovely Iucundus had sent this house-warming gift in thanks, after our night at Fabulo’s. Paris reckoned that since it had come to us while he was still alive, Iucundus would find it hilarious that we escaped having to pay death duties.

  I had another unexpected present. My fee from the Volumnius family was paid promptly, with polite thanks. I could not expect warmth. However, shortly afterwards, I was startled by a parcel brought to our house by none other than Dorotheus. Clodia’s mother and two grandmothers had sent it. They had generously given me the fitted vanity box that Clodia had chosen with greedy delight yet never lived to own. If I could keep my sisters’ hands off, I would have it in my bedroom. Every time I opened the lid to use it, I would remember Clodia.

  Dorotheus said his arm had healed. He was only a slave, so it had not been set well. That too would be a permanent reminder.

  The parents were back living together. The brother, deeply unhappy, was to be taught business management so he could look after his inheritance one day. He saw none of his old friends, except occasionally Ummidia. She had gone back to her sword-skill lessons, a good discipline for mind and body where she was praised for her balance and application. I liked the idea that a family with women who could barely read and write might acquire one who could swipe someone’s head off …

  They were all chastened by the terrible loss of Vincentius, though none of them had attended his funeral. No outsiders went. Sabinilla had also been gravely ill with some ailment, though it was thought she was now rallying. Numerius Cestinus was to marry Anicia, or at least be set up in an apartment with her, without a wedding ceremony since Stoics did not believe in that kind of civic bondage.

  There was one more addition to our household.

  ‘Some dog is here.’

  ‘Is it a brown one? Don’t let her in, Dromo.’

  ‘She came in already. I am not looking after a dog. That is not my job. I have enough to do taking care of my master.’

  ‘Turn her out. She knows she is not mine.’

  ‘I am not touching a dog!’

  ‘Get your master to shoo her.’

  ‘I can’t. He’s busy in the yard with Larcius, looking for some wood so they can make a kennel for her.’

  Silence.

  However much I am provoked, I shall not criticise my husband to a slave.

  ‘By the way, that woman came again. Laia Gratiana, the one he was married to. Do you want to know what she wanted? Well, nobody tells me anything, I’m just Dromo … It was nothing anyway. She just came demanding how you had got on with that job she gave you. Then she left again. My master told her to get lost.’

  This time I smiled. He was a good husband. Well, he would be, with a little training.

  The fawn-coloured dog, who had managed to find me, saw I was smiling, so she wagged her tail gently, nothing extravagant, just before she sat down beside me as if she was mine.

  From over the wall in the builder’s yard came the sounds of two men pretending a task was complex and demanding, as they happily hammered wood-nails into planks.

  Author’s afternote: the Min Challenge

  In August 2016, while I was starting to think about writing this book, I chaired a debate for Andante Travel. It was about women in antiquity, and the speakers were Denise Allen, Joyce Tyldesley, John Shepherd and Tony Wilmott. The debate took place in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, a venue which turned out to be significant.

  Before we took our seats on a dais and were introduced, we waited out of sight in a side gallery, where we were all fascinated by two large Egyptian statues of the fertility god, Min. We held a discussion of Min’s attributes; actually the attributes are missing from both statues at the Ashmolean, which are very worn, but you can tell what Min is up to and get his measure. The rest of us learned from Joyce about his interesting association with lettuce. Those who remembered the Goons quietly sang a few bars of ‘The Ying Tong Song’ …

  By the time the evening ended, after wine and refreshments had been taken, a challenge had been issued to me, and accepted: could I include the noble Min in a future book?

  Easy. The only thing that surprises me now is how intricately a statue of Min would fit into the plot and just how many low jokes can be made upon this subject.

  Editor’s note to Chapter 30, paragraph 6: if only I knew when starting out in publishing that one of my commissioned books might have a sentence like this …

  If you enjoyed Pandora’s Boy, you’ll love

  The Third Nero

  by

  Lindsey Davis

  Flavia Albia’s day-old marriage is in trouble – her new husband may be permanently disabled and they have no funds. So when Palace officials ask her to expose a traitor in their midst she is ready for the task.

  Ever since the Emperor Nero committed suicide in AD 68, Rome has been haunted by reports that he is actually alive and ready to reclaim his throne. Two Nero pretenders have emerged from the East and met grisly fates.

  But now a new pretender has been smuggled into Rome by the traitor. Flavia must negotiate with spies, dodge assassins and reveal this third Nero before he can make his move. Will she act in time or will Rome once more be plunged into civil war?

  Now available in paperback and ebook