‘He was a decent man.’ His daughter fought a sudden rush of tears.
She was a decent girl — even though she had just evicted her baby half-sister from the family cradle for having the bad fortune to be born to a slave.
43
A change in the activity out in the courtyard signalled that people were leaving. Simplicia stood up and went to rejoin her relatives. She said no farewell to me, simply inclined her head and walked out. In a way, this chit of nineteen treated me with less respect than she gave her father’s slave.
It was a familiar experience. I might be a free citizen, a widow and ten years her senior, but I worked. For many people that put me down at the level of bar staff and public entertainers. To girls like Simplicia, I was practically illegal.
I, too, returned to the courtyard. Most people had gone and the last stragglers were disappearing. Gratus had everything swept up, put away, taken out to a mule in no time. His staff carried off food hampers and baskets of tableware. He came and said goodbye to me.
‘These were here — shall I leave them out or put them indoors?’
He meant the two chairs. I said he could leave them. I had lost any sense of responsibility towards this apartment and its contents. ‘You are very observant, Gratus. The ungrateful Simplicii don’t deserve you. If I can think of anyone I know who needs a good steward, I shall put in a word on your behalf.’
I could try leaning on my parents; they collected waifs, though they probably had enough already. Another possibility might be Manlius Faustus, though his uncle, who ran their household, was a slightly unknown quantity. Uncle Tullius had bought Dromo, for one thing.
I shook hands with the steward and on Graecina’s behalf thanked him for his attention to everything today.
The last person to leave was Sextus Simplicius. He told me he would like to know as soon as the investigation was closed. He was eager to close up the apartment, sell the contents and terminate its lease. That was more urgent now Polycarpus was not around, though Simplicius had asked Graecina to keep an eye out, temporarily. She must have seen how her husband ran things. I made a mental note to suggest to her becoming a concierge as a way of earning. Another good deed for the unfortunates I had met in the course of the case.
‘I gather,’ I said to him, ‘you are ready to sell off the slaves?’
‘Any who survive your enquiries without being executed!’ Sextus Simplicius agreed. ‘Not to mention you-know-who.’
Indeed, he did not mention Myla by name but I noticed she was lurking in a colonnade again and heard him.
Since funerals are night-time events, it was now very late. Dromo was pointedly ‘asleep’ on his mat. Fake snores made it clear he was not intending to take a report to Faustus now — not that I would have sent him out on his own in the dark.
Despite the time, as soon as Simplicius left I called out to Myla. She would have been able to tell from my tone there was no point in playing deaf. So she shuffled up at her own slow pace, complaining rudely, ‘I was going to bed!’
‘So am I in a minute,’ I retorted, not letting her see how she vexed me. ‘This cannot wait. I want a serious chat with you.’
Analysing how I felt towards Myla, I could not decide whether I was sorry for her plight or simply felt too much distaste — not distaste for what she had done with Aviola, where she had no choice, but for the attitude she adopted in consequence. I had noticed her looking hopefully at other men who might take her on. I despise women who rely on men entirely for their own existence. I like men, never think otherwise. Today, seemingly hours ago, I had kissed one with memorable pleasure. But a woman should keep her self-respect — because if she does not, men will all too easily lose their respect for her.
I had had a few moments to think through my new information.
‘I have been hearing about how things were here, Myla. I know this household looked good on the surface but there were all kinds of jealousies and bad feeling. It is the same in many houses in Rome; some are far worse. But here a master and his bride were murdered.’
I saw Myla’s face set. As faces go, hers would have been acceptable but it was ruined by her constant surly expression. Perhaps she kept a better one for Aviola.
Perhaps he was not interested in her face.
If I wanted to be generous, I could say it was possible the very way he had made use of her over the years accounted for her graceless manner. She may not always have been so miserable with the world.
‘I am intrigued,’ I told her. ‘All those slaves who went to the Temple of Ceres, the slaves who are accused of the murders, had little reason to have turned on their master. Whereas you, Myla, have managed to be excluded from the investigation even though you had a big motive.’
Myla still said nothing, though she had been vocal enough when she argued with the Simplicii. She stared at me truculently, and I knew why. There was nothing she could do about me. She ogled men who came here, presumably hoping to gain their protection in the limited way at her disposal. I was a woman. I was an enemy over whom she had no power.
‘You know you are shortly going to the slave market. You were already listed for sale, before your master died. This may be your last chance, Myla. If your master had led you to believe something different, now is the time to tell me.’
When she yelled at Valerius Junior, Myla was bursting with grievances. Even though he was a young man with limited experience, Valerius saw trouble coming and immediately walked away. I would listen to her grudges, but I think she knew I would not respond in the way she wanted.
‘I was promised my freedom,’ Myla declared.
‘Did he say that exactly?’
‘It was understood.’
‘Ah, that tricky situation! Almost certainly not understood by Aviola … I hope you were not expecting him to honour unspoken promises, Myla?’ She seemed silly enough.
‘Yes I was! I was going to be a freedwoman and then he would have married me. He was just waiting for the right time.’
‘Oh, Myla! And while he was waiting for this mythic moment, he happens to have married someone else?’ I did not believe Valerius Aviola ever made such a promise to Myla, or even hinted. I knew too much about the kind of women he chose as his wives; this slave was not what he wanted. Possibly Myla raised the issue and he avoided answering. Perhaps he answered bluntly but she would not listen. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. After so many years of you being a convenience, why had he never changed things before? Myla, you were fooling yourself.’
‘No! He said this baby would be born free.’
‘Did he really say that, or was it just what you wanted? I think you convinced yourself of something he never intended. If he had, he left the formalities dangerously late.’
A child follows the condition of its mother; when Myla gave birth as a slave, her daughter was a slave too. Many people take a lax attitude to this rule, but it is asking for legal problems in future. Of course many lawyers earn a good living from that. Informers too, frankly.
‘That was the wife, stopping him,’ Myla claimed. ‘The wife thought she had got rid of me, but she was wrong. I never would have gone away.’
‘I’m sorry, Myla, I think you would have done — but in any case you will be sold now.’
‘I won’t go!’
She was deluded. They had intended to sell her, and they would. If she refused to comply, force would be used. She would be dragged out, hysterical and screaming. Originally it was supposed to happen once Aviola and Mucia were safely travelling. Polycarpus would have organised her removal from the apartment, then a vicious slave-master at the market would have taught her the realities with a knotted whip.
‘How old are you, Myla?’