I changed to the more comfortable chair, still warm from his presence. I stayed for a while there in the courtyard, wondering if Faustus would return. He did not. That did not surprise me.
My mischievous uncle may have left us together on purpose − such a waste of thoughtfulness. Still, Holy Venus. How bad was it to be spurned because a man was tired?
I was still there, unintentionally drowsing, when another commotion woke me. People — several this time — were in the street outside, hammering on the door for attention.
Manlius Faustus shot from his room. He pushed me behind him as he unzipped the grille and cautiously looked out. When he demanded to know who was making such a disturbance, we heard it was slaves from the Camillus brothers. Aulus had sent them. They had horrible news.
As Uncle Quintus made his way home that evening, he and his bodyguards were ambushed. His men managed to drag him to their house, but Quintus had been hurt.
Oh dear gods. It was Nicostratus all over again. My imagination filled with the terrible image of the door porter’s corpse, covered with blood from those many gruesome wounds, those injuries from which he never recovered consciousness. The injuries that killed him.
24
‘Is he alive?’
The slaves knew nothing.
I realised what had happened. Those men I saw earlier departing from that bar opposite were not innocent drinkers, but criminals. Watching the house. Waiting for someone to leave, with specific orders to look for a senator. The Rabirii sent them after us. The men tailed Justinus until he reached a suitable spot, then brutally set about him.
It was no random act. It was a warning. We had taken too much interest.
‘Tiberius, I have to go!’
‘Stay here, where you are safe.’
‘Was Nicostratus safe? Aviola and Mucia Lucilia?’
‘Albia, do as I say, please.’
‘Don’t give me orders.’
‘Only advice.’ Well, aedile, that is always irritating.
We were standing in the street by then. The damned man was so stubborn with me, he might as well have been one of my family. I was trying to break away and he was trying to shepherd me back into the house. I wanted to kick him, but I was wearing only house slippers. Besides, I would never have aimed right, as I havered in panic over whether to pelt straight off to the Camillus house or first rush indoors for shoes I could run in.
People were looking out of windows and doorways. The disturbance brought Polycarpus’ wife down.
‘Dromo — come. With your cudgel, fool!’ Faustus finally went along with me. I calmed down. Better he decided to help me than I rushed off by myself. I knew from experience he made a good ally.
Polycarpus must be out but, assuming responsibility on his behalf, Graecina produced a carrying chair. It must be Mucia’s, sent back by the Temple of Ceres after the slaves ran off. It had been kept in a lock-up while attempts were made to clean Nicostratus’ blood off the seat. Not very successfully, I noticed.
The steward’s wife also gave us a lantern-carrier, a callow lad who worked for her, and a cloak of her own — I was shaking — which Manlius Faustus bundled around me, a practical man, ignoring how angry I had been with him. He noticed I was on the verge of tears and murmured, ‘Don’t go jittery. This is not your fault.’
‘I don’t jitter. Let me go. I need to go.’
‘I am coming with you. Get in — go, go!’ He was shouting not at me, but the Camillus slaves who would be carrying the chair containing me.
Thank the gods it was downhill to the Capena Gate. It felt as if we were travelling across half Rome, a rough journey at the speed they ran, and I was so keyed up I soon felt sick. We had to scramble from the Fourth district, past the Fifth, across the Second and into the Twelfth. At least it was not as far as the Aventine.
It was a quiet evening by Rome’s standards. The streets were negotiable. The Rabirius gang had done their worst for one night. Nobody attacked us.
When we arrived, the men took the chair right into the house and I fell out of it in the atrium, almost before they were stationary. Someone gestured to a room. Quintus, stripped and sporting livid marks, was lying on a couch.
Aulus was attending to his brother. He had rejected the family doctor, a freedman they kept for dosing the children, who had tried to use lambswool for cleaning the wounds, only to be ordered away in case fibres killed Quintus with an infection. The doctor was still maundering on about this, while Aulus explained his reasons through gritted teeth, apparently not for the first time.
Aulus used a sponge. He must have already spent some time cleaning Quintus up. Several bloody bowls of water stood on the floor around the couch. Even so, I could see no sword or knife wounds, only bruises and scrages where dark blood welled but only to the surface. The damage was extensive. He would hardly be able to move tomorrow. But he would safely have a tomorrow.
Aulus had knocked Quintus out with a strong dose of poppy juice, judging by a beaker I sniffed and by the patient’s smiling, unspeaking acceptance of everything that was happening. Quintus knew people were there. He had no idea who we were or what was up with him. Tomorrow would be soon enough — too soon — to grapple with his pain.
Six entirely silent children held hands in a row on the opposite side of the couch from where Aulus was perched. Children here were generally sheltered, but not excluded when they wanted to know what was going on in a crisis. They were a bright, pushy bunch.
Aulus looked up and nodded to us without speaking, since at that point he was suturing a cut on his brother’s elbow, the kind people get when they go down heavily on one arm. You had to know Aulus very well to understand how nervous he felt. Some of the little boys on guard beside their father were critically watching every move their uncle made. When he tied off the thread, he puffed out his cheeks, suddenly sweating.
‘He’ll live.’ Now he was calmer, bandaging with a slow rhythm. ‘No broken bones, just this cheese-grated skin, which was full of grit from the roadway. I hope his internal organs are intact. The worst is bruising. He’s already feeling that.’
‘Weapons?’ murmured Faustus, standing behind me.
‘No. Fists. And boots. But they must have been big buggers.’
I wondered what had happened to the bodyguards. I assumed they were similarly beaten. Faustus murmured to me that this looked different from the attack on Nicostratus. Was that bad or good?
I made soothing noises to reassure the children. They viewed me as a peculiar aunt, but my being from Britain explained most of it. A row of dark brown eyes stared back at me with the sketchiest politeness, then they concentrated again on their father. Their mother came in; Claudia hugged me, as if consoling other people helped her cope. A couple of the youngest children set up pathetic cries, wanting her attention.
‘Silence in the ranks!’ commanded Aulus, no lover of the young.
Although Claudia Rufina often seemed distracted, in emergencies she grimly took it upon herself to be the one person who stayed strong. While everyone else was weeping over a broken vase, Claudia would sweep up the shards and move the other antiques along the shelf so the gap was less noticeable. In any crisis, while disorganised Romans were colourfully panicking, Claudia Rufina came along, tutting under her breath, to show practical Baetican womanhood in action.
I was surprised she had let Aulus tend her husband. However, Quintus was her weakness. Claudia stayed with him out of love; yes, he was the father of her children, which limited her freedom to leave, but they had been together for ten years through many personal upsets. It was a testament to what people can do when they make their minds up. In other words, it was like many marriages.