The Ides of April: Falco: The New Generation (Falco: The Next Generation)

by Davis, Lindsey

  When I stood my ground, it unsettled her. Grudgingly, she deigned to mention that the aediles worked from an office in a side street alongside the temple. I guess she only told me because I could have found out easily from anyone.

  We parted on poor terms. If I had known then that Gratiana and I were to have history, I would have felt even more sour.

  My two romantic little sisters believed that being so carefully dressed up as I was that afternoon guaranteed that you would meet the love of your life. Not today, apparently. My first encounter was certainly dire; while I sized up a nondescript building that must be the aediles’ headquarters, a male menace barged out into the street and crashed into me. He snorted with irritation. It was his fault, absolutely. He was too busy hunching up to make himself look like a nobody, an effect he achieved without trying. The shifty blaggard was all hemp tunics and chin stubble. Absolutely not my type. Sorry, hopeful sisters!

  ‘Oh, don’t bother to apologise! − Is this the aediles’ office?’ He refused to answer, skulking off head down. Rubbing my bruised arm, I sent a soldier’s gesture after him, though I fear it was wasted.

  As I tripped inside the building, I replaced a scowl with my bright-eyed charming face, to impress any occupants. There was no one in sight.

  Small rooms led off a dark little entrance hall. Beyond it was a meagre courtyard with a miniature fountain in the form of a shell. It produced a trickle of water that glugged in pathetic hiccups, then leaked into a trail of green slime down the outside of the collection bowl. Mosquitoes clustered hopefully.

  I stood still for a moment, listening. I didn’t knock or clear my throat. My father was a private informer too, and according to some (him, for example), he was the best in Rome. I was trained to take my chance, to open doors, to look around.

  You always dream of finding an unattended diary that reveals an eye-watering love affair – not that I ever had. Everyone was too careful now. Under our latest emperor, when people committed adultery – as they did like rabbits, because he was a despot and they needed cheering up – they did not write down details. Domitian saw it as his sacred role to punish scandalous behaviour. His agents were always looking for evidence.

  Repression had spread to the aediles. Encouraged by our austere and humourless ruler, the market monitors were extra conscientious these days. They were cracking down on docket-diddling, fraudulent weights and pavement-encroachment, though their most lucrative target was prostitution. Here in their lair, I saw massive armoured chests, where all the fines from miserable bar girls could be stored. Bar girls were fair game for the purity police. Traditionally, whenever a waitress served a customer a drink, he could order a bunk-up as a chaser. That’s if he wanted to catch the crabs or risk having to slip an officer a backhander if the authorities paid that bar a surprise visit, looking for unregistered whores – and inevitably finding them.

  Bribes, I presumed, would go straight into the aediles’ belt pouches. Could Manlius Faustus be paid off with a bung, I wondered? How much of his income came from sweeteners?

  The building smelled of dust. It was a place of unused reference scrolls and faded wall maps. Old wooden benches inhabited uncomfortable interview rooms in which members of the public, hauled in for questioning, could be made to feel guilty about the kind of rule infringement everyone expects to get away with. One thing startled me: a cage containing leg irons, though currently no prisoners.

  Someone had turned up behind me.

  ‘I see you are admiring our facilities!’ I spun around. The charmer, who was neat and suave, purred appreciation of my physical appearance. He pretended to assume I had come for a guided tour. ‘His eminence has already cleared out the captives today, so I can’t show you any, I’m afraid.’

  Some days the sun just comes out and lightens your world. We understood one another immediately. That magic spark.

  I gazed at him, a pleasant experience. He was roughly my age, not a real redhead but he had gingery-brown eyes, hair, eyebrows, beard and moustache, even the fine hairs on the backs of his hands and his arms – the complete matching set. Background? – hard to say, though his accent was cultured. If he worked in a public office he was almost certainly a freedman, probably first-generation. I don’t despise ex-slaves. I could be one myself; I shall never even know.

  ‘The used gruel bowl looks recent.’ I nudged it with my toe. The toe had been pedicured; my sandal was new. I often wore shoes more suitable for a lame old lady, laced from front to ankle, in case I had to do a route march; on this visit I had treated myself to more feminine footwear. The soles would make a mark if I kicked someone, but the uppers consisted of just two thin gold straps on a toe-post. If this clerk was anything of a foot fetishist, my high instep would set his pulse racing. ‘I’m glad I am not compelled to steal the keys and set someone free behind your back.’

  ‘You sound as if you would really do it!’ he murmured admiringly.

  ‘That’s me.’

  The tips of his ears had a little turn forward that gave him character, which I could tell involved personality, humour and intelligence. His slim build suggested a plain life; like me, he had probably known struggle. What I liked most was that he looked as if the sun came out for him too, when he found me in their anteroom. I fell for it happily.

  ‘Andronicus,’ he introduced himself. ‘I work here as an archivist.’

  ‘Hundreds of records of market fines?’

  ‘That would be tedious!’ Andronicus said, although I myself had been neutral. Scrupulously-kept public records can be a windfall in my line of work. I never despise bureaucracy. ‘The plebeian aediles receive decrees from the Senate, which they must deposit for safekeeping next door in the Temple of Ceres. All those records become my responsibility.’ He was exaggerating his own importance, though I did not blame him. ‘I tend them devotedly, even though no one ever asks to consult anything.’

  ‘But of course if you ever did misfile a scroll or let a mouse nibble one, that would be the only occasion ever that some pompous piece in purple would requisition it.’

  ‘You know the world!’ Andronicus’ grin was rueful and charming; he was very aware of that. ‘Life has its high spots. Sometimes, the aediles hold a meeting, all four of them – we have two plebeians and two patricians, as I am sure you know. To save them getting ink on themselves, I then have the privilege of being their minutes secretary. I bet you guess that means compiling action notes that none of the spoiled boys will carry out.’

  I knew he was playing me, or he thought he was. Even though I was enjoying the moment, I never forgot that men were sneaky. ‘Do you always flirt with visitors?’ I asked him.

  ‘Only the attractive ones.’ He was respectably dressed; his tunic was clean, not even splattered with ink – yet he managed to give the impression his thoughts were dirty. I liked him enough to share them, though I didn’t show it.

  ‘Ah don’t expect me to fall for blather, Andronicus. I spend a lot of my time explaining to inane women that plain male treachery is the reason their husbands have vanished. Even though my clients’ husbands are always supposed to be the loveliest of men, none of whom would harm flies, nevertheless, my enquiries tend to show they have uncharacteristically run away with a bar girl. A piece with an ankle-chain, invariably. And by then, five months pregnant.’

  ‘Ooh,’ the archivist crooned. ‘Are you part of the emperor’s morality campaign? Do you take these absconders to court?’

  ‘No, I track down loose husbands for abandoned wives who can’t afford to go to law. My clients have to settle for battering the bastards with heavy iron frying pans.’

  ‘I get the impression you hold the men down while it happens?’

  Andronicus was smiling broadly. Why spoil his party? I smiled back. ‘That’s my de luxe service … You mentioned your superior,’ I hinted broadly, dragging us back to the point of my visit. ‘I think it’s him I need to see. Is the notable who calls himself Manlius Faustus available? Or are you going to spi
n me the old line – “sorry, you just missed him”?’

  He gave me a wry gleam. ‘Faustus is, genuinely, out. I hardly dare say this, but he did leave the building just before you came.’

  ‘Not that lout who nearly knocked me over on the step?’

  I thought something flickered in the archivist’s gaze but he answered calmly, ‘Oh that would have been our runner.’ He paused, then added, ‘Tiberius. Did you speak to him?’

  ‘No.’ Why would I? ‘He was a grim bastard. And what’s Faustus like?’

  ‘Couldn’t possibly comment. He is much too aware that I owe him this job.’

  ‘Not on good terms?’ I guessed.

  ‘Let’s say, if you think our runner is dour, you will not like Faustus.’

  Andronicus seemed keen to move on the conversation. He asked what brought me, so I explained about the accident in the Clivus Publicius and that notice calling for witnesses with Faustus’ name on it.

  ‘Sounds like him,’ Andronicus commented. ‘He’s quite a meddler.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it is his job … Have any witnesses shown up in response?’

  ‘Only you.’

  I smiled with the complicity we had developed between us so nicely. ‘I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t been stuck … Are you going to mention me to Faustus?’

  ‘Why? You haven’t told me anything.’ Andronicus gave me his own conspiratorial grin. I did like dealing with this man. He came so much cheaper than the clerks I usually had to badger or bribe.

  ‘I want to ask a cheeky favour. If anyone does bring in a story, could you possibly let me know?’

  ‘Love to.’ Showing how keen he was, Andronicus then asked, ‘So where do I contact you?’

  I always considered this carefully. People can find my office; I could not work otherwise. But there was a difference between clients who were too preoccupied with whatever trouble they were already in to cause any other trouble, and chancers who might have tricky personal motives in coming after me.

  Andronicus worked for a magistrate. That guaranteed he was reliable, surely? I told him where I lived.

  Anyway, I had Rodan. ‘It’s a climb and not easy to find. But my doorman brings up visitors. Rodan will show you.’

  ‘Sounds exclusive!’

  I snorted. ‘That’s right. Fountain Court is the most exclusive slum on the Aventine.’ And he had not yet seen Rodan. I wouldn’t spoil the surprise.

  ‘Best you can do?’

  ‘I am only a poor widow.’ Never imply you have money.

  ‘Oh is that so?’ scoffed Andronicus. He sized up my outfit pointedly. I like a man who sees through banter. Indeed, I like a man who notices that you have dressed nicely to meet him. Still, he had not gained the full measure of me. Not yet. ‘And what is your name when I ask for you?’

  ‘Flavia Albia. Just ask for Albia. Everyone knows me.’ A lot of people did, though ‘everyone’ was pushing it. This was another ploy for protection that I had learned; it gave the impression there might be many people looking out for me.

  I said I had to be going. He said he had enjoyed meeting me. More people were now arriving for official reasons, so I saw myself out, which seemed to be procedure in that office. In mine, I like to be quite sure visitors have left, but Andronicus did not need such precautions.

  So, no aedile. That had been a wasted trip, like so many others. I was used to it. In the street I paused, turning up my face to the Roman sky. Heard the hubbub surrounding me on the Aventine and also coming from far away all over the city. Smelt hot oil on lunchtime griddles. Felt the oppression of the Temple of Ceres, gloomily shadowing the street.

  Mentally I apologised to my romantic little sisters. Despite my smart get-up I would not be meeting the love of my life this afternoon. Nevertheless I had just had an extremely pleasant experience. That was an improvement on normal.

  In any case, I had met the love of my life already, met him long, long ago. You will not be surprised, any more than I was at the wise age of seventeen, that the man toyed with me, then dropped me when he feared it might be serious. The pain had not lasted; I soon met and married Farm Boy, and if people thought that was love on the rebound, they understood nothing about me. There was nothing fake in my affection for him.

  He was still around. Not Farm Boy; Farm Boy died. The other one. For family reasons I saw him at social gatherings and sometimes I even worked with him. These days, our past seemed to bother him far more than me.

  There had been one result from visiting the aediles’ office. If the rapport I had built with the archivist today ever came to anything, that would be fun.

  Something would happen with Andronicus. Hades, I was an informer. I could tell that.

  3

  The surly man they called Tiberius was standing at a bar counter further up the main street. Most people would have passed without remembering the aediles’ runner, but my job needs good observation. I walked by quietly on the other side of the street, making no eye-contact. I bet he did not notice me.

  Whatever kind of running the aediles employed him to do must make few demands. He had a beaker and the bar’s draughtboard in front of him; he looked set there for the afternoon. I was tempted to march up and exclaim, ‘Three radishes says I can thrash you!’ I knew I could. Farm Boy, my late husband, had taught me draughts, sweetly allowing me to beat him on a regular basis. He never cared who won; he just liked us to play. He liked most things we did together and, as the uncle of mine he worked for used to say, he had a heart as big as Parthia.

  I was at a loose end myself now, but a presentable woman of twenty-eight may not take herself to bars alone, apart from the speedy-breakfast kind where you can have a pastry and a hot drink before most members of the public are up. Even then, you have to look as if you keep a salad stall; riding in on a donkey at dawn from a market garden way out on the Campagna gives even a woman a legitimate cause for sustenance. Otherwise, it is obvious to everyone you must be touting for paid sex. The men with randy propositions are bad enough; the furious grannies hurling curses at you soon become unbearable. Roman grannies really know how to hustle a flighty bit off their street by giving her the evil eye. The worst of them do it to everyone, just in case they miss one.

  Considering unpleasant old dames led naturally to thoughts of my client.

  I had to grit my teeth to make me visit her, but in my career of nearly twelve years as a solo informer, that had been my feeling about many people who employed me. It’s not a job where you meet the cream of society. Indeed, if you want to see the worst manners, filthiest motives and saddest ethics, this is the profession. Informers deal in hopelessness at every level.

  Salvidia, as I mentioned before, had inherited the construction firm when her husband died. Nobody had much to say about him, but I sensed that originally he had been typical of a builder with his own business: sometimes hardworking but more often lazy, and always a poor manager with money troubles. Salvidia soon toughened him up. She stormed in and buffed the firm into an extortion machine until Metellus and Nepos became the high-quality renovation shysters they were now. Nepos vanished, probably squeezed out deliberately, while her husband Metellus expired after a few years in the face of Salvidia’s driving efficiency.

  Salvidia was running the firm at a huge profit, but you would not know it from the untidy builder’s yard they still used and the cramped living quarters she maintained alongside. They had always operated out of premises on the Vicus Loreti Minoris, Lesser Laurel Street. Like most of the roads that passed among the great cluster of temples on the Aventine, it thought itself superior yet had its bad smells and seedy side. It ran from near the Temple of Ceres, so was in the north-west corner of the hill above the barbers’ quarter and the corn dole building; it climbed slightly towards the once open area where Remus took the auguries in the contest to see who would found a new city, Rome. You know the story. He lost out to his twin brother Romulus, who had all a great leader’s ideal qualities − by which I mean he che
ated. Nowadays, the Aventine high tops were completely built up. From most vantage points you could barely see the sky, let alone count enough birds to foretell the rise of a great nation.

  Lesser Laurel Street ran into Greater Laurel Street at the crossroads with Box Hill and the Street of the Armilustrium, a long byway that passed close to where I lived. These were some of the earliest roads I learned when I first moved up to live in Fountain Court. They all occupied the part of the hill right above where my parents had their town house on the river embankment. That was downstream of the salt warehouses and the Trigeminal Porticus. When life was hard, I could head for the steps, scamper down the steep escarpment and hide away at home. Often I went just to see them. They were good people.

  No need of a refuge today, however: I was fired up, in full professional mode. I had decided it was time to tell Salvidia she could keep her commission. ‘Keep’ was a more polite word than the one in my prepared speech.

  I was all the more impolite when my plan was thwarted.

  I had gone to the yard first because my client was usually there, making miseries of her workmen’s lives. It was a jumble of planks, sheets of marble (mostly broken), handcarts and old buckets full of set concrete. A pall of dust over everything made it an asthmatic’s graveyard. Two labourers in ripped tunics were squatting on a horizontal column; a chained, skinny guard dog pretended he would bite my leg off if I came within reach. The men seemed too depressed to speak and the hound shrank against a piece of dismantled partition when I glared his way. I refused to give the men the time of day, but I spoke to the dog, who then remembered me and whined hopefully. Last time I had given him the end of a rather poor meatball I regretted buying, but today I had nothing for him. At least it would save him a bellyache.

  I picked my way to the office, trying unsuccessfully to keep my sandals clean. A runt who called himself a clerk-of-works was hiding in a cubbyhole amongst mounds of filthy dustsheets. He told me the bad news. There was no chance of me being paid, even for the work I had already done. Salvidia was dead.