Venus in copper mdf-3

by Lindsey Davis

Chapter XXXII

  Like everyone else, I had heard that the parties Titus gave tended to be riotous, late-night affairs. People like to believe in scandal; I like to believe in scandal myself. After my second stint in prison I was ready to handle a riot at the Empire's expense, but that night on the Palatine we only enjoyed a pleasant meal with unobtrusive music and easy talk. Perhaps Titus was just a good-looking, unmarried lad who had seen in the dawn with his cronies (once or twice, when he was younger), and now he had a reputation for loose living which would be held over him whatever else he did. I sympathised. I was a goodlooking, unmarried lad myself. My own wicked reputation was so hard to shift, I didn't even try.

  Before we ate I had made myself respectable in the Imperial baths, so once I was fed and comfortably wined my energy renewed and I excused myself, with the plea of work. Might as well air my new haircut around the city while the Palace barber's lotions were still exuding interesting whiffs. When he saw a slave strapping my sandals back, Titus called out, 'Falco-I have not forgotten your present, you know!'

  'What present was that, Caesar?' I asked cautiously, thinking he meant the promise of work.

  'To thank you for my luck at the races!' Thundering Jupiter; something else I really did not want.

  That horse, Little Sweetheart, had been a mixed blessing. Titus had backed him, and I knew he was eager to demonstrate his pleasure at winning. I remembered now what my reward was to be-and I would need my most devious resources to deal with it.

  'An honour and a treat, Caesar-' I lied diplomatically, adding (with less good sense) that Titus might like to drop into the Falco residence to sample a sliver… He promised he would remember (while I prayed he would forget).

  My present, in case you wondered, was a fabulous fish.

  I left the Palatine feeling thoughtful. Titus intended to send me a turbot.

  Turbot was strange meat to me-me and most of Rome. I had seen one once in a fishing boat; it was half a yard across. That one fish would have cost five or six times my annual income-though in fact they rarely hit the markets since most fishermen who catch a turbot present it smartly to the Emperor.

  Now I was in a dilemma. I could cook. I quite enjoyed it. After five years of living solo in squalor I was the king of one-man cuisine; I could grill or poach or fry most edibles, in cramped spaces, with no decent utensils and only a basic range of condiments. My best efforts were delectable, and my worst blunders had gone into the scrap bucket before they made me ill. But it was obvious not even I could barbecue a turbot in a dribble of olive oil on a household skewer over a few burning twigs. The marvel Titus promised me would call for a monumental fishpan and a massive serving platter, the high arts of a first-rate sauce chef who had access to a sophisticated cooking range, a train of uniformed bearers to present the royal creature handsomely to my slavering guests, an orchestra, and an announcement in the Daily Gazette.

  My only real alternative was to give the fish away.

  I knew that. And I knew what I would probably do instead.

  Wandering into the Forum, I paused by the Temple of Vesta. To my left, at the Rostrum end, some magnate was being taken home from a banquet in a canopied litter flanked by eight marching bodyguards whose torches bobbed like well-drilled fireflies as they negotiated the steep curve of the Vicus Argentaru.

  At the Palace I had lost all track of time. It was a hot August night, with serene violet light tinting open skies. Cookshops were still doing heavy business, and although some booths were shuttered and bolted I passed a cabinetmaker, a mirror-seller and a goldsmith who had all kept their folding doors open and lights burning in the interior; dogs and toddlers and companionable women could be glimpsed inside. Folk still hogged pavement tables, reluctant to abandon their wine beakers and gaming-boards. The dangerous men who took control of Rome during darkness were probably about by now, but the citizenry had not yet surrendered the streets to them.

  There was plenty of action. I stopped to gape at a house fire. It was a four-storey block, smouldering from the ground up. The lesser tenants had come rushing out with their possessions in bundles; the main householder was struggling to drag his tortoiseshell bedstead out of the doorway, hampering the municipal firefighters as they and their buckets waited to go in. Eventually he and they were all driven away as the whole building flared ablaze. The man sat on the pavement with his head in his hands sobbing, until some passing tycoon jumped out of a greasy brown sedan chair and offered to buy up the ground lease. I could hardly believe it. The oldest fiddle in the world-but the fool with the burning bed just clutched a pillow to his heart and accepted on the spot.

  I thought everyone had heard how Crassus came by his legendary millions-touring Rome looking for fires then preying on people while they were still in shock. And I thought everybody nowadays knew to reject any helpful shark who popped up offering a pittance for a smoking building site-aiming to redevelop at a profit as soon as the ashes cooled. Evidently there were still idiots who would succumb to the lure of cash in hand… For a second I considered intervening, but the acceptance of terms was too far advanced; thwarted property developers are notoriously vindictive and I could not risk involving myself in a breach of contract case.

  Halfway along the next dark alley I kicked something which turned out to be a tinderbox; it was lying near a tangle of rags which someone in a hurry had dropped in the street.

  Apparently speculators no longer relied on luck when looking for their next site. It would be hard to prove now the building was burnt to a cinder, but that fire had been arson without any doubt.

  Stars winked above the Capitol. Small slaveboys slept on their lanterns as they waited in doorways for masters who were still being entertained. The air was full of rumbling wheels as the carters plied their evening trade; then above the chinks of cheap metal on harnesswork came the sweet shiver of silver bells on the slim ankles of the dancing girls in some overpriced saloon. Passing along the gloomy lanes I knocked into empty amphorae which careless tavernkeepers had put out in piles; among the dried mud and mule droppings on broader streets I trod upon loose flower petals which had flittered from dinner garlands as their wearers came and went. It was a vibrant night. I was a free man in my own city-and not yet ready for bed.

  It was too late to call at a senator's house. I also failed to drum up any desire to visit my own relations. Instead my feet took me northwards. The Hortensius crowd always gave the impression theirs was a home which kept long social hours. I would be fully justified if I apologised to Sabina Polia and Hortensia Atilia for having been out of action for the past few days. Besides, I did need to ask the ladies if they had noticed any developments after my meeting with Hortensius Novus at Severina's lunch party.

  The whole Pincian area was lively at this hour. By day these private palaces seemed sedate enough. By night houses and grounds throbbed with activity. Contracts for business and pleasure of every kind (legitimate or otherwise) were being worked out on this elegant mount. Some were already sealed and concluded. One of those affected me.

  From the Forum to the Pincian, avoiding dossers, drabs and happy drunks, takes half an hour. By the time I turned off the Via Flaminia a subtle change had transformed Rome. The violet had drained from the skies, leaving greyness and a more wary atmosphere. Now the good would go home while the bad came out to play. Even my own mood was different. I slipped along, keeping to the centre of each street. My concentration stayed on the alert. I wished I had a knife.

  There was no one at the Hortensius gatehouse. I walked through the gardens, staring twice at every darkened bush. Near the house torches lined the driveway, some still lit, a few atilt and smoking, but most burned out.

  Clearly the family had been entertaining. The main door still stood open, with lamps aglow throughout the reception halls. I could smell the kind of perfume which is used to drench dinner guests-that light but cloying odour of rose petals, which to me always seems too close to the tang of decay. But there was no music, and nobody about
. Then a gaggle of servants emerged through a curtain, with a relaxed air that betrayed the fact they were unsupervised.

  One of them was fooling about with a tambourine; another was swigging wine, spilling it down his tunic as he took it straight from the lip of a golden ewer. They noticed me just as I recognised the runabout Hyacinthus, the thin slave who had first commissioned me. Like the others he was wearing a tunic with more ornament than cloth, a bawdy concoction of glittering guilloche which must be the Hortensius party livery-on a night like this, unbearably heavy and hot. 'Looks like you've been having fun here tonight!' I said.

  'Welcome, stranger! Rumour had it you were in prison.'

  'Malicious gossip! What was the party-special occasion?'

  'Just dinner with an old acquaintance.'

  'Business or pleasure?'

  'Business.' I should have known. Everything was business in this house. 'Did you have an appointment? Pollia and Atilia have both gone up to bed -'

  I grinned. 'I'm not brave enough to disturb either of them in the bedroom!' One of the slaves giggled.

  'The men should still be available,' Hyacinthus added.

  I had had no dealings with Crepito or Felix. It might be useful to speak to Novus, but if I wanted to improve on our minimal chat over lunch I would need to see him on his own. 'Is Severina here tonight Hyacinthus?'

  'She's been here since the afternoon but I haven't seen her lately.'

  Someone else said, 'Her chairmen have gone; she must have left.'

  'Can I see Novus then?' A young lad volunteered to ask

  The slaves were still joshing among themselves, and they wanted to be rid of me. Luckily the delay was short; the lad returned to say Novus was not in his own bedroom, not with Crepito and Felix though they were expecting him to join them for a late-night glass of wine.

  The houseslaves lost interest but after I had walked so far, heading back with nothing to show for my blisters was too dispiriting. 'Novus must be up and around somewhere!'

  The man with the golden wine flagon laughed. 'Last I saw he was up all right-doubled up and running!'

  'Something he ate disagreed with him?' It was a sultry night. My tunic stuck to my neck and chest unpleasantly as I asked.

  'Probably the amount!' sneered the drinker. I remembered the ill-mannered gusto with which Novus licked his plate.

  'How long ago did you see him on the trot?'

  'About an hour.'

  I glanced at Hyacinthus. 'Any chance he's stuck in a lavatory,-flaked out, or still chucking up?' The slaves exchanged bored glances. 'Would he call for an attendant if he had a bad attack of the gyp?'

  'Only to bawl at us to leave him on his own-he likes privacy when his gorging upsets him. Anyway -' the man with the flagon was a caustic social satirist'-there's not much help you can offer; shitting is one thing the rich have to do for themselves…'

  Hyacinthus, who had been standing silent, finally returned my thoughtful stare. 'No harm in looking,' he said, The others refused to make the effort, so the search was left to Hyacinthus and me.

  As in most houses which possess their own facilities, the Hortensius lavatories were situated alongside the kitchen so any water which was sluiced out of pots and sinks could be utilised to swill the channels clean. The freedmen's house boasted a triple-seater, but we only found one occupant.

  Hortensius Novus must have burst in and let the heavy door swing behind him; the clatter from the kitchen where the remains of the dinner party were being cleared would have suddenly stilled: after that he was alone, in this dark, quiet place. If he was sober enough to understand what was happening, he must have been terrified. If he had called out, before the ghastly purge became paralysis, no one would have heard.

  It would have been painful and degrading. But the speed of it had some mercy. And it was a private death.

  Chapter XXXIII

  'I-o!' exclaimed Hyacinthus. He instinctively turned away towards the kitchen, but I clapped my hand over his mouth and held him still.

  'Don't raise the alarm yet!'

  Hortensius Novus was lying on the floor. He had been felled in mid-stride; halfway between the door and the latrine seats. Cut down by death, the last embarrassment of all. If he was lucky, he was gone before he crashed face first onto the slabs.

  Stepping carefully I bent to feel his neck, though I knew it was a formality. Then I saw his wild grimace. Something far worse than the violent purge had overwhelmed him. Perhaps the horrific certainty of approaching death.

  He was warm, though not warm enough to be revived. I was no doctor; but I knew it was more than the strain of digesting too much dinner which had stopped the freedman's heart.

  'Somebody got to him after all, Falco!'

  The slave became hysterical; I felt a rush of panic myself, but I had been in this situation often enough to control it. 'Steady. Don't let's overreact.'

  'He's been murdered!'

  'Could be. But people often pass away during a fit of diarrhoea

  … and gluttons do die from overeating occasionally Hyacinthus -'

  The speech, too, was a formality. I was filling in time while I looked around.

  Novus had clutched his light banqueting gown up around his waist. I steeled myself then tugged away his left hand, with its jasper betrothal ring, and dragged the garment down. The dead deserve some decency.

  I stood up quickly. Then I gripped Hyacinthus by one elbow and wheeled him outside the door. There might still be time to find some evidence before it was destroyed -either accidentally or by someone with a vested interest. 'Hyacinthus, stand there and don't let anyone go in.'

  One glance in the kitchen confirmed my fears. The house was slackly run. Flies circled over the work surfaces with a languidly possessive air. But the used utensils from the banquet, which might have furnished clues, were already lost to me. The tousled skivvy who washed the platters knew she would have to do it some time so she had already made a start at scraping away, before the food on the dishes and serving tureens had caked too hard. When I strode round the door she was on her knees beside a cauldron of greasy water, surrounded by finished piles of gold plate. I saw her squint at a huge silver dish, which I recognised as the one Severina gave Novus the day we had lunch; the tired drudge tried to persuade herself the comport was clean, but found a sticky smear and listlessly dunked it into her tub.

  Only the skivvy was working. (Any skivvy will tell you that is a perfectly normal event.)

  Some of the cooks and carvers were lolling around now the toffs had dispersed. They were picking at the leftovers with the sluggish air of kitchen workers who knew some of the meat had looked slimy when it came from the butchers, which of the sauces had not wanted to thicken, and how many times the vegetables had fallen on the floor among the mice droppings in the course of being prepared.

  'Who's in charge here?' I demanded. I guessed it was the kind of slapdash servery where no one would be in charge. I guessed right. I warned them that one of the guests had been taken ill, and none of the underlings looked surprised. I then said that the illness was fatal, at which they did suddenly lose their appetites. 'If you can find a dog that no one likes, start feeding him these leftover titbits one at a time,..'

  I strode back to Hyacinthus. 'We'll put a bar across this door -' That would serve my purpose; people would think the lavatory had flooded: common enough. 'Now before some busybody tidies it up, I want you to show me the dining room -'

  A house where nobody empties the rubbish pails and the kitchen boards are never scrubbed may nonetheless feed it visitors amid breathtaking opulence.

  The blazing candelabra were beginning to die down now, but not enough to dim entirely the gilding on the pedestals and finely fluted pillarwork, or the shimmer from the brocaded swags of curtaining, cushioning and valencing which made the room and its three gigantic couches suitably luxurious for a set of jumped-up lamp-boys and the female trash who married them. I could not be bothered to take in all the details, but I rememb
er there were huge paintings of battle scenes and highly polished onyx urns. Grilles overhead in the vaulted ceiling remained open after raining down a sickly perfume which made my throat clench.

  A pageboy was curled up with his thumb in his mouth and a peach in his hand. He was so fast asleep he looted as if all breath had left him. Hyacinthus kicked at him anxiously, but the child started awake and stumbled away.

  I gazed around, searching for clues. Here the worst signs of domestic upset were the wine-stained napery which would pose problems for the Hortensius linenkeeper, and a sea of spilt lamp oil on one of the couch coverlets. I kicked a hardened bread roll out of my path. 'Who was here tonight, Hyacinthus? How many of the family?'

  'All three, with both women.'

  'The guests?'

  'Just one. A business associate.'

  'And Severina.' Seven. Plenty of elbow room on the couches. 'What was the table plan?'

  'Mealtimes are not my province, Falco. You want the chamberlain.' The chamberlain would be full of himself, a wearying talker (I had met them before). He could wait.

  I walked all around the triclinium, but nothing caught my eye. Wine flagons and water jugs had been left on several side tables after the meal, with a litter of spice bowls and straining equipment. The only relic of the food was a complicated structure on a low central table. It was a tree, sculpted from golden wire, which must have arrived festooned with the fruit for dessert. Bunches of grapes and apricots still hung from its twisting arms and loaded its plinth.

  I was still lost in thought, and Hyacinthus was hunched miserably on a dining couch, when the stillness was interrupted by a man arriving explosively.

  'Someone has died-yes?'

  'Someone may have done,' I answered sombrely, giving the wild apparition a once-over. He had a bald forehead, a wide mouth, a nose two sizes bigger than his other features and darting mid-brown eyes. His stature was unexceptional but he filled extra space by exuding the operational energy of a well-oiled Cretan windmill left with its brake off in a steady gale. 'Who gave you the information?'