A Body in the Bathhouse

by Lindsey Davis

  “Got your socks?” I heard him mocking the two Camilli. The word was new to them. When we hit the next ship, crossing the cold and wind-ravaged Gallic Strait, whichever of the two was still with us would work out the point of knitted one-toe socks.

  “We could end up with both of them,” Helena muttered quietly.

  “Oh yes. Your father thought it worth a formal bet.”

  “How much?”

  “Too much!”

  “You two are incorrigible. … Father is heading for trouble. My mother ordered both my brothers to stay in Rome.”

  “We’re taking both, then. That clinches it, sweetheart.”

  Now we were both smiling. Helena and I would enjoy watching the lads trying to choose the right moment to confess.

  Hyspale was feeling queasy before she was even on the boat. Once aboard, Helena dragged her off to the tiny cabin, taking Maia with them to help calm the woman down. I went belowdecks with Aelianus, stowing our long-distance baggage. Justinus had the thankless task of explaining to the ship’s crew that some items were wanted for the journey. We had a good system of identifier tags. Regardless of that, someone had mixed up everything. Nothing was missing as far as I could tell, but there seemed to be baggage I knew nothing about.

  It is always unsettling as you wait for a long journey to start. In retrospect, perhaps there was more tension than there might have been. Perhaps people snarled and flustered around more chaotically than usual. There are shouts and bumps as a ship is laden with cargo. The crew do take delight in not bothering to inform passengers what is going on. Casting off seems their excuse to make shipboard visitors panic.

  So for once, what happened was not my fault. I was down in the bowels of the vessel anyway. Then I heard the scream.

  As I climbed up the rope ladder to the main deck, something worried me. Thudding and rocking had given way to smoother sensations. I felt the change in air movement; then a surge underfoot knocked me almost off balance.

  “We’re moving already!” Aelianus cried excitedly. Foreboding struck me. A panicky commotion was already telling me the worst: the captain had cast off and sailed out of Portus. Unluckily, he did so while Maia was still on board with us.

  My sister was now straining at the rail, ready to throw herself over like a naiad crazed by too much sun and foam. I had never seen Maia so hysterical. She was shrieking that she had been taken from her children. Only real force from Justinus, who had grasped the situation in his quick style and then grabbed Maia, stopped her trying to hurl herself overboard to get back to shore. Like me, she had never learned to swim.

  “There’s my brother taking a firm hand with the women,” sneered Aelianus.

  “My sister knows close-contact wrestling, though,” I commented as Maia flung her savior aside and collapsed weeping on her knees.

  As Maia sobbed, something about the quiet way Helena was exclaiming over her in sympathy made me pause. I would have expected my beloved to turn to me and order me to solve this problem before it was too late.

  I leaned on the rail and stared back at the quayside. There indeed were Maia’s four young children. Marius, Cloelia, and Ancus stood in a solemn line togther; they seemed to be calmly waving us good-bye. Rhea was held up in the arms of Petronius Longus as if to get a better view of her mother being abducted. An extra small dot must be Marius’ puppy sitting quietly on his lead. Petronius, who could have tried commandeering a boat to chase after us, was just standing there.

  “My children! Take me back to my children! My darlings; whatever will become of them without me? They will all be terrified—”

  The neatly lined-up little figures were all looking quite unperturbed.

  Aelianus decided to play the hero; he obligingly rushed to negotiate with the captain. I knew the man would not turn back. Justinus caught my eye and we both stayed where we were, with suitable expressions of concern. I reckon he saw what I was thinking. Perhaps he had even been in on the plot: this was fixed. One reason the captain would not be turning back was that somebody had paid him to cast off quietly—and then to keep going.

  My sister was being removed from the reach of Anacrites. Somebody had set this up, whether Maia liked it or not. My guess was Helena. Petronius and even Maia’s children might have conspired too. Only Helena could have invented the scheme and paid for it. Maia was unlikely to see the real truth. Once she had calmed down and started to work this out, then I, her utterly blameless brother, would end up being blamed.

  “Well, let’s consider what we can do,” I heard Helena say. “The children are with Lucius Petronius. No harm will come to them. We shall somehow get you home again. Don’t cry, Maia. One of my handsome brothers will be going home from Massilia. You can easily be taken back with him. …”

  Both of her handsome brothers nodded in support—then since neither really intended to turn back at Massilia, they both skulked off out of the way.

  Nobody seemed to need me. I got my head down in my work. I tied a long string to my daughter Julia so she could clamber about the deck in safety (and trip up sailors). Nux, a first-time sailor, whined a lot, then lay on my legs. I rolled up the new baby in a warm papoose and kept her under my cloak against my chest. Then I sat on the deck with my feet up on an anchor, studying my notes from the Palatine secretariat, which administered funds for the Great King’s palace.

  As usual with official projects, where the client had the highest expectations and the producing agency had the greatest need to shine, the larger were the errors and the higher the costs. Treasury audit had been applied and had nothing good to say. Loss of materials on-site had reached epic proportions. There had also been a rash of serious accidents. Even the scheme’s architect had submitted a scared report about his fears of sabotage.

  Frontinus, the provincial governor, reckoned the program completion date had not just slipped—it had skidded right into the next decade. He was having difficulties curbing the client’s demands and possessed no decent manpower to send in on a rescue mission, due to conflicting needs of the major new works being built in Londinium (that was principally the new headquarters for the provincial governor—himself). Brutal paragraphs in administrative Greek spelled out the worst. The Great King’s palace had reached the danger stage: it was all set to be the biggest administrative failure ever.

  IX

  LUCK IS a wonderful luxury. What could better prove that some are born under a star of good fortune than the career (and the large, comfortable home) of the Great King?

  “Cogidumnus.” Justinus cautiously tried it out.

  “Togidubnus,” I corrected him. This was a provincial of such ripe insignificance that most Roman commentators never even called him by the correct name. “Learn it, please, lest we offend. The Emperor may be our principal client, but Togi is the end customer. Pleasing Togi is the whole point of us suffering this trip. Vespasian wants his house to go up nicely so that Togi stays happy.”

  “You had better stop calling him Togi,” warned Helena, “or you are bound to slip up and insult him in public.”

  “Insulting officials is my style.”

  “But you want your assistants to be smoothly oiled diplomats.”

  “Ah yes. I have the rough edges—you are a pair of sickly smarmpots!” I threw at them.

  We had been stuck at some mansio in the drabber parts of Gaul when we found time for our tutorial. Hyspale had been instructed to stop moaning about her discomfort (she had the art of making herself unhappy) and to take care of the children. So Helena was able to shine as my background researcher. Luckily, her brothers (yes, both) were used to being lectured by their big sister. I myself would never quite relax when she started explaining things. Helena Justina could always surprise me by the scope of her sources and the detail they provided.

  We had fetched up here after days of weary travel. The children seemed to be coping better than the rest of us, though Helena and I had the irritation of disapproval from foreigners. While Gauls were amazed how stric
t we were with our daughters, we thought them slapdash spoilers of their own uncontrollable brats. Some of theirs had fleas. Ours, swept off into kitchens to be cooed over for their pretty curls, would acquire them soon. Nux was attacking her Roman ones vigorously. I had had itches since Lugdunum; though if the creatures were being carried on my person, I had failed to find them. That was because I had rarely had my clothes off to search. Mansios had baths, but if you tarried in the queue to wash, you missed them serving dinner. Afterwards, the water was cold. With ruts in roads and gruesome weather, it added to the fun.

  We all sat around a large table in the dingy hall that passed for a communal dining room at the mansio, with my sister hunched slightly to one side. Maia had been sufficiently alarmed by what she saw of the ship’s crew who hauled us north past Italy; she refused to go back to Ostia alone. She had never traveled more than twenty miles from Rome before. When we made Gaul, she had no real idea how many dreary miles remained. She still thought she would be going home in a few weeks. We would be lucky even to reach Britain in that time.

  Helena had “found” a letter “hidden” in her luggage from Marius, explaining that it was the children who had decided to send their mother away to safety. Maia believed Petronius Longus must have helped them, and that it was a ploy to steal her children now his own were with Silvia. Maia sat around the whole journey, planning to poison him with toad’s blood. We stopped trying to include her in conversations.

  “Our uncle Gaius has sent me some information about the area and the project,” said Helena briskly. “You two boys have never met him. You have to pretend this is being expounded by a neat, enthusiastic, lifelong administrator who has a huge knowledge of his province and insists on telling you everything—”

  Gaius Flavius Hilaris was married to their aunt, a quiet, intelligent woman called Aelia Camilla. He was currently at the end of a long term as financial procurator in Britain. As far as we could tell, he had no intention of retiring back to Rome. He had been a provincial, born in Dalmatia, so Rome had never been his home base anyway. He worked like a dog and was absolutely straight. Helena and I both liked him enormously.

  “Imagine Britain as a rough triangle.” Helena had a letter in her hand, so well studied she hardly referred to it. “We are going to the middle of the long south coast. Elsewhere there are high chalk cliffs, but this area has a gentle coastline with safe anchorages in inlets. There are some streams and marshland, but also wooded places for hunting and enough good farming land to attract settlers. The tribes have come down from their hill forts peacefully here. Noviomagus Regnenis—the New Market of the Kingdom Tribes—is a small town on the modern model.”

  “What makes this different from any other tribal capital?” asked Aelianus.

  “Togidubnus.”

  “So what makes him special?”

  “Not a lot!” I grunted.

  Helena shot me a mock-severe look. “Convenient birth and mighty friends.” With her serious air allied to a lighthearted tone, she could make plain facts sound satirical.

  “Would he introduce me to his friends?” Justinus said, grinning.

  “Nobody with any taste would let you near their friends!” Aelianus snorted.

  “Has Togi good taste?”

  “No, just top pals and a lot of money,” I said.

  “His taste may be exquisite,” Helena murmured. “Or he may simply employ advisers who know class. He is able to call on all types of specialists—”

  “Who charge huge fees and know how to spend lavishly,” I grumbled. “Then Togi gets our famously frugal Emperor to foot the bill. No wonder Vespasian wants me there. I bet the invoices for this pretty pavilion need scrutinizing at arm’s length using blacksmith’s tongs.”

  Helena Justina was a dogged lass. With only a slight rattle of bracelets to reproach me, she tried to reassert sense. Too much tetchy prejudice was rampaging through this group of exhausted travelers. “Togidubnus straddles the transition where barbarian Britain became a new Roman province. Once, thirty years ago, his tribe, the Atrebates, had an old king called Verica, who was under pressure from rivals—the fierce Catuvellauni who were marauding across the southern interior.”

  “Fighting fellows.” To the fore of the Great Rebellion when I was there. “Good haters and encroachers. Boudicca was not their queen, but they galloped after her with panache. The Catuvellauni would follow a dung beetle into battle, if it led them to some other tribe’s arable pastureland—better still, to slicing off Roman heads.”

  Helena waved an arm to silence me. “A huge system of earthwork entrenchments protects the Noviomagus area from raids by chariots,” she continued. “But in the reign of Claudius, there was anxiety nonetheless; Verica called in the Romans to help him fight off trouble. That was when Togidubnus, who himself may already have been singled out to take over as king, met a young Roman commander on his first posting called Titus Flavius Vespasianus.”

  “So the invasion landed at this place?” Justinus was not even born when the details of Claudius’ mad British venture came flooding back to Rome. I could barely recall the excitement myself.

  “One main thrust took place on the east coast,” I said. “Many tribes who opposed us were grouped around their sanctum, a place called Camulodunum, north of the Tamesis. No question, though; our takeover was facilitated by the Atrebates. It was well before my time, but I guess they may have hosted a second—safer—touchdown base for the landing force. Certainly when Vespasian’s legion moved west to conquer the tribes there, he operated out of what is now Noviomagus.”

  “What was it then?”

  “A bunch of huts on the beach presumably. The Second Augusta would have thrown up solid barracks, stores, and granaries—then they began a subtle system of lending Roman builders and fine materials to the tribal chief. Now he wants marble cladding and Corinthian capitals. To indicate his benevolence to subservient peoples, Vespasian is paying.”

  “Having a friendly base when your army drops anchor in remote and hostile territory would count for a lot.” Justinus could work things out. He shifted uneasily. Splinters from the crude bench on which we were perched were working their way through the wool of his tunic.

  “And Togidubnus was swift to offer beer and bannocks,” Aelianus sneered. “In the hope of reward!”

  “He welcomed a chance to be Romanized,” Helena amended moderately. “Uncle Gaius doesn’t say, but Togidubnus may even have been one of the tribal chief’s young sons who had been taken to Rome—”

  “Hostage?” asked Aelianus.

  “Honored guest,” his sister reproved him. She had all the tact in her family.

  “Being civilized?”

  “Tutored.”

  “Spoiled out of his mind?”

  “Exposed to the refining benefits of our culture.”

  “Judging by his desire to replicate the Palatine,” I joined in the cynical backchat, “Togi has definitely seen Nero’s Golden House. Now he wants a palace just like it. He does sound like one of those exotic princelings who were brought up in Rome, then exported back to their homeland as polite allies, who knew how to fold their serviette at a banquet.”

  “Just how big is this fantasy house he’s being given?” Aelianus demanded.

  Helena produced a rough sketch plan from her uncle’s letter. Hilaris was no artist, but he had added a scale bar. “It has four long wings. About five hundred feet in either direction—plus pleasure gardens on all sides, suitable outbuilding complexes, kitchen gardens, and so forth.”

  “This is in the town?”

  “No. This is dramatically set apart from the town.”

  “So where does he live at the moment?”

  Cautious, Helena consulted her document. “First he occupied a timber dwelling beside the supply base—provincial, though impressive in scale. After the invasion had succeeded, Claudius or Nero showed imperial gratitude; then the King acquired a big, masonry, Roman-style complex to demonstrate how rich and powerful he was. That
is still there. Now that he has proved himself a staunch ally in a crisis again—”

  “You mean he supported Vespasian’s bid for Emperor?”

  “He did not oppose it,” I said dourly.

  “The legions in Britain were equivocal?” Even Aelianus must have done some homework.

  “The Second, Vespasian’s old legion”—my legion—“were always behind him. But there was a weak governor and the other legions behaved oddly. They ditched the governor, in fact; then they actually ran Britain themselves with an army council—but we don’t talk about mutiny. It was a time of civil war. Afterwards, all sorts of peculiarities were scratched out of documents and discreetly forgotten. Anyway, that’s the kind of crazy province Britain has always been.”

  “If the legions wavered, even lukewarm allegiance from a king was a bonus,” Justinus added. “For Vespasian, it would have had reassurance and propaganda value.”

  “Judging by the size of Vespasian’s honorarium, he thinks Togidubnus was thrilled to see him as Emperor,” Helena decided. “They look unlikely friends, perhaps. But Vespasian and Togidubnus were both young men on the make together back in the invasion days. Vespasian has founded his whole political life on his military success then; Togidubnus took over from the ancient Verica. He acquired the status of a respected ally—and by one means or another, he obtained substantial wealth.”

  “How—”

  “Don’t ask where the money comes from,” I intervened.

  “He is bribed?” Justinus jumped in with the libel anyway.

  “When you conquer a province,” his brother explained to him, “some tribes get catapults hurling big rocks up their backsides—while others are courteously rewarded with ample gifts.”