I would have to ask my uncles about this: what penalty pinching fine wines carried for these slaves — and would their blind intoxication exonerate the drunks from their obligation to protect their master’s life?
Next I sent for Daphnus, to see whether as server at the feast he knew about amphorae being raided. Unsurprisingly, he did. I wondered if he had a tipple himself.
This tall young man was snappy and smart, the only one who had somehow obtained an ornament (a cheap amulet, hung on a thong) and better shoes than the general issue (probably his master’s cast-offs; they looked too big for him). He had oiled hair and he oozed ambition.
He was the first to check my role. ‘Are you the one who is going to get us off?’
‘That depends on your story, Daphnus, and whether I believe it. Even if I do, I shall need to pin the deaths of your master and mistress on somebody else before you can be reprieved.’
He looked crestfallen.
His work consisted of delivering refreshments to the family and visitors, and serving formally at table; when the chef was absent (the chef was among the staff sent to Campania), Daphnus even carved the meats, a task in which he considered himself an expert. He must have been indoors doing that when the two others siphoned off half an amphora, he maintained.
‘Would you have reported them, if you saw them do it?’
‘Oh yes,’ he assured me, unconvincingly.
He told me he wanted to make something of himself, gain his freedom, start a small business. If Polycarpus could manage that, Daphnus reckoned anybody could.
‘What do you think of Polycarpus?’
‘Complete crook. He came from nowhere, has no aptitude or skills. It’s all a big bluff. He gets other people to run around and do the business, then takes all the credit.’
‘Isn’t that what his job requires?’
‘Fair enough.’ Daphnus shrugged, as if there was no real animosity between him and the steward, only envy.
‘But he got on well with your master.’
I thought I detected a slight delay, before Daphnus agreed Polycarpus was held in good regard by Aviola.
Daphnus had ‘worked his rocks off’ at the feast, he said, so he claimed he knew nothing about the burglary because he had passed out from exhaustion in one of the slaves’ cells, with the door closed. The scribe, Melander, was with him. They only woke when Phaedrus hammered on the door and yelled that someone had killed the master.
‘Is Melander your special friend?’
‘He’s an idiot. But he’s my brother.’ Daphnus executed a big theatrical start, jumping back with his hands in the air. ‘Oh! Flavia Albia, I do hope you didn’t think me and my beloved bro was in there bum-fiddling?’
‘That’s a new word for it … No,’ I replied, smiling. ‘I’d put you down as a ladies’ man.’
‘Yes, but fat chance! We are not supposed to mingle with the women — and anyway who was available? Olympe’s a child; I like them when their busts have grown. Myla was the size of a granary, and I ask you! I wasn’t that desperate.’
‘Then I take it you are not the father?’ Daphnus acted out a look of indignation and disgust, so I suggested, ‘I wondered if Myla was the household donkey — ridden by everyone?’ Many homes have one of those, but Daphnus would not comment on who slept with Myla.
I pointed out that of the potential conquests for the lad-about-the-colonnades, he had not mentioned Amaranta, Mucia Lucilia’s maid. ‘Nice!’ he agreed. ‘Old enough, a looker, tantalising hints of past experience — and, sadly, taken.’
I laid down my stylus on my waxed note tablet. ‘By? …’
‘Onesimus.’
Not a name on my list. ‘And he is?’
‘Came from the other household. Lucilia’s pet steward. Sent off to Campania. But he reckons he is in with the ornamental ornamenter.’
‘To which she says?’
‘Nothing! Very discreet woman.’
‘And you like her?’
‘Lots of people like Amaranta. If you want to know who she likes, you will have to ask her.’ Daphnus, an unashamed chancer, admitted, ‘I was biding my time. I like to play the game, but I reckon there were other people in the queue ahead of me.’
‘Care to say which people?’
He shook his head − then the cheeky chap gave me a speculative, flirty once-over, to which I returned my standard get-lost glare. This young man would try it on with anyone, though he gave up easily. As young men go, he was typical.
‘So tell me, Daphnus: would you have been willing to defend your master?’
‘I certainly would. Saving him would have been ideal for me. He would show he was grateful. I could have got my freedom and a nice little pension out of that.’
‘Good point! What about your brother, Melander?’
‘He would have joined in with anything I did.’
‘Are you close?’
‘No, but he’s a bit slow and I look after him. My master was ready to sell him, but kept him on as a favour to me.’
Daphnus thought a lot of his own worth — though I could believe he was useful to Valerius Aviola, so his confidence might be justified.
‘Are you to be freed by your master’s will, Daphnus?’
His eyes widened. ‘Never thought of that!’
‘Don’t get excited. If you are executed for murdering the man, it will never happen.’
When Melander shambled in, I could see the fraternal likeness, along with differences. He had a similar long face, mostly nose, but much less intelligence in his dark eyes. He told me they were twins, clearly not identical. They were born in the household; their mother was now dead. My notes gave them different ages, but that was wrong; Melander said they were both twenty.
He was a contrast to his lively brother. I wondered if he had been starved in the womb, as I believe can happen with twins, or if he suffered in a long birth process. Though not literally an idiot as Daphnus had called him, he lacked personality. He said he could write, but only if he was told what to put.
Other people amaze me. I would have made this one the tray carrier and trained up his sharper brother to do secretarial work, not the other way around.
Maybe Aviola did not care about correspondence and record-keeping. Not my family’s style. Some of mine are literary by nature, while even the rest keep tight control of their accounts because they are constantly being creative with their taxes. You have to get everything right when you’re fixing your declaration. Not that I ever would. Fortunately, as a woman I don’t have to.
Melander gave the impression his brother had rehearsed him. Both twins would go on swearing they had been oblivi-ous to the intruders. I kicked the scribe out.
Hoping to refresh my spirits, I had the philosopher fetched.
Big mistake. His principle was that life is a turd we have stepped in, then we die. I could not tell which school of thought he belonged to, though it must be a gloomy one.
He had been bought by Mucia Lucilia on a whim at the slave market two years ago, merely as a fashionable accessory. He described her as a nice enough woman, but she made no intellectual demands of him, nor indeed of herself. Once she had boasted to all her friends that she owned a philosopher, Chrysodorus was simply forced to look after her very old, sick, smelly lapdoggie, a pampered thing called Puff.
He had been sleeping in a store room.
‘Alone?’
‘I can never be alone, dear. My duties are ceaseless. I shared the space with Puff.’
‘Because you love her really?’