I guessed Claudia could not bear to watch painful medical processes being inflicted on Quintus. She would have gone off to see to the bodyguards.
She had been followed back here by a maid bearing a big jug of hot mulsum and enough tots to serve everyone with this sweet, soothing beverage, relieving shock. Aulus certainly needed it; he tossed his beaker back in a single movement. The maid came round of her own accord pouring refills. This left the tender mother free to see that each child kissed Quintus and whispered private endearments to him, before being carried away to bed. That done, Claudia organised Faustus and me.
‘Albia, I have put you in little Aelia’s room. If she wakes in the night she can creep into your bed for comfort, if you don’t mind. You have always been so good with children … Aedile, you must naturally stay with us. It is too late for you to go up to the Aventine, unless many guards were to be sent with you. I want our people all under our roof; you will understand. You will be most comfortable in a room at my brother-in-law’s house; I have spoken to my sister-in-law, who has everything ready.’
Faustus opened his mouth, then subsided in the face of the Baetican whirlwind. I secretly wondered whether dear Claudia, a high-minded woman, was making sure no sly creeping along corridors occurred between Faustus and me.
‘Your sister-in-law is still in situ! Aulus still not divorced?’ I asked dryly. I rather enjoyed the notion of his wife having to give hospitality to a friend of mine − the third wife who had given up on Aulus (and who could blame her …). And that grouch Aulus would hate having to offer a nightcap and smalltalk to a fellow they must all think was having an affair with me … A fellow of such fabulous reserve I could trust him to give no clue as to whether it was true.
Hades, Faustus never even gave much of a clue to me.
Claudia pulled a face and rattled her bangles with disapproval. ‘The poor woman is still waiting for Aulus to make arrangements. I suppose he will bestir himself in his own time. They share the house but lead separate lives.’
‘Didn’t they always? … And where is ridiculous Aulus, incidentally?’ I noticed he was missing. He must have slipped out of the room during the hot drinks.
‘Gone to the vigiles. He insisted on escorting the prisoner personally.’
‘What prisoner?’
That was when Faustus and I were informed that as Uncle Quintus went down under a hail of blows, he shouted to his bodyguards, ‘Never mind me — just take one of the bastards alive!’
Being devoted to Camillus Justinus, as all his stray lambs were, that is what the two ex-soldiers snapped to and did.
This capture could be vital. Whoever ordered the ambush had made a mistake. They could be traced. The vigiles would fully interrogate this prisoner, where ‘fully’ meant using a torturer. He would name the Rabirii if they were his masters. If his orders had been from the rising young blood Roscius, Roscius’ easy times were over. The prisoner himself was as good as dead, though the bloodied relics of him would sing like a caged finch before he was executed. Execution was inevitable. He beat up a senator.
The gang had forced the vigiles’ hand. It could escalate. Questions were bound to be asked in the Senate about the dangerous condition of the city if mobsters dared to attack one of its noble members.
Aulus Camillus Aelianus would be on his feet in the Curia, for one. This was his younger brother; he would be expected to make much of it. A Roman has to represent his family when they suffer an outrage.
I imagined Aulus already scripting a speech about Justinus innocently going home to his own house, after a civilised dinner with a widowed niece (an equestrian’s daughter) and with a serving magistrate … Such details would be received as touching and significant.
Normally Aulus needed to be wound up on a ratchet, but he was trained by Minas of Karystos, the eminent Greek practitioner. Once the noble Aelianus let rip, he could hold an audience. (Aulus once spoke for almost half an hour on whether it was permissible to clean up the copious shit deposited by the augurs’ chickens on the Capitol − who conceivably shat holy guano − and hardly anybody left the chamber. A Vestal had slipped over on the poultry excrement. There was a lot of interest in my uncle’s declamation, with some people not even sniggering.)
If the Rabirii were very unlucky indeed, our emperor would jump on the idea of a moral campaign to eliminate the criminal element in Rome.
‘Of course,’ announced Claudia, who had her peculiar moments, ‘there will be more questions asked, and even perhaps useful action taken, if my darling Quintus dies from this.’
That doesn’t mean she was hopeful he would. Claudia Rufina merely wanted to emphasise how stupid it was for anyone to attack a senator.
Slaves were waiting to lead Faustus and me to our separate quarters. He would have extremely smooth sheets and neatly aligned pillows. I would be on a pull-out bed, spending the night cuddling Aelia, the only daughter of the house, four years old, her father’s pet (and didn’t the sweet little piece of mischief know it).
As I glanced back, Claudia had taken over as nurse. I saw her stationed at her husband’s side, patient, brave, disposing herself to the will of the gods, not allowing herself to cry because that would be no help to anyone.
Uncle Quintus lay with his eyes closed. He showed few signs of being in our world. But I noticed that he moved his right hand and covered one of Claudia’s. She shed tears then, though silently and without moving a muscle, so as not to disturb him.
25
Claudia was clearly wrong to worry. I would not go wandering corridors that night, looking for the aedile.
I was a free woman. I was twenty-nine years old, so people had no obligation to tell my mother what I got up to. But in the homes of close relatives, you are never truly independent. If I was seen chasing a man around my uncles’ two houses at midnight, not only would both my parents hear about it (and my sisters, and my young brother), but the story would be retold to innumerable other relatives every Saturnalia for the next four decades …
I was twenty-nine, which is old enough to know when to follow their rules for a quiet life.
26
Well, all right, I did go. But not immediately.
My niece took an age going to sleep. After that night’s upset, the house took what seemed like hours to fall still and silent. Even then, to be frank, I spent more time than you may think in deciding that looking for the aedile was what I wanted to do, plus even more while I plucked up courage.
I only went because I was worried that if he came looking for me, he would waken little Aelia.
He too had decided we should liaise. His timing matched mine too. We met one another half way. It is true we had exchanged a glance when Claudia packed us off to our rooms, but there was no pre-arrangement. And we certainly made no bedroom assignation. Barefoot and each carrying a tiny lamp, Manlius Faustus and I came face to face in a colonnade beside a small garden, just this side of the link between the Camillus brothers’ two houses. Neither of us remarked on the other being there. No explanation was needed. He steered me to a bench beneath some fancy wickerwork, where we sat with our heads close, whispering.
Forget intrigue. For heaven’s sake. If he was weary before, the man was completely past it now. I was drained by tension myself. We were not seeking thrills like adolescents on holiday. We just both needed to talk about what had happened.
‘What do you think?’
‘This was to warn us off, Tiberius.’
‘Arising from our enquiries of the vigiles — and you tackling that man, Gallo.’
‘If Gallo took offence at the bar, it could have been me who ended up being hammered.’