I answered him quietly. ‘If you want to talk about it later, we can do that. Here is my advice, don’t brood. Right now, it is better for you to keep busy. I have a little job for you. While we are so near, please go up the Aventine and tell Manlius Faustus what has been happening. You can find your way. Over the market — don’t slip in the blood. There’s the Trigeminal Gate waiting for you, then straight up to Ceres.’
‘You have to write it all down, what you want to tell him. The messages I take are written.’
‘Get a grip, Dromo. You can describe what you saw this morning. You were there and I was not.’
Dromo remained agitated. ‘No, he likes it written by you; he has a laugh, the way you put things.’
‘Well, none of this is hilarious, so you can go and tell your master for me.’
Dromo still gnawed away. ‘I’ve seen him read your tablets, having a good chuckle-’
‘Not today. Go, Dromo.’ I had nothing to spare for the slave boy; I wanted Faustus to see his distress and take over. Faustus ought to comfort him. The boy belonged to him, so he must do it. I had my own sadness to deal with.
I watched Dromo set off, stumbling over his feet in his unhappiness. Then the rest of us began to trudge homewards with the orphaned baby.
Behind us, ships plied upon the river, people went to the cattle market, the vegetable and flower markets, the Temple of Fortune and the Temple of Portunus, while the hot June sun beat down upon the bridge, where the pavement was already drying.
47
Galla Simplicia, to whom rumours flew like messenger pigeons, was waiting for us on the apartment doorstep. A carrying chair stood nearby, with two carefully matched bearers; a couple of maids were flittering about in attendance. She had the full parade. Galla seemed to grow in importance daily, as she reclaimed her position as the matron who mattered.
She said she had come to see Graecina, after being told she was scalded. From what Graecina had told me about Galla, this closeness was new, though useful to the freedman’s widow. I saw it as one way Galla was reasserting herself in the family from which she had once been divorced.
Just as we arrived, Graecina returned from having treatment for her blisters. Full of concern, Galla took her into the ground floor apartment, along with Myla’s baby, whom she took from me as her property. Fauna tagged along indoors too. The inquisitive neighbour did not intend to miss a moment.
I stopped behind for a moment to talk to Myrinus and Secundus. I had a point I wanted to take up with them.
‘Right, my boys! You need to explain yourselves …’
They plumped down on stools in their shop, heavy-hearted. Men are so easily deflated by a bad experience. I stayed on my feet, arms folded, anxious to knock their knowledge out of them while they were emotionally low. As I had said to Dromo, it helps to stay occupied. I was not drained in the same way as them; after what happened to Myla, I felt bitterly businesslike.
‘Don’t think I missed this. Earlier today, Myrinus, you let slip something significant. When Graecina and Myla had their fight indoors this morning, you said you heard it from the back of your premises. So you can hear anything noisy that goes on in the Aviola apartment?’
They looked shamefaced. On an earlier occasion they had said it was impossible. I told them if they answered honestly now there were unlikely to be consequences. They must have heard that kind of lie before, but they could see there was no escape. ‘It’s me or the vigiles — and the vigiles will not ask you nicely!’
They came clean. Their mezzanine sleeping ledge was in a half-way, half-height nook at the back, which they went into via a short ladder; through a poorly-built wall Secundus and Myrinus could hear quarrels, fights, dogs barking and music — any loud or sharp noises. They were not bothered by events in daily life. Normal sounds went on like all the background hum of Rome: the cries, creaks, bells, barks, crowing, mooing, whistling, laughter, singing, hammering, barracks trumpets, mystical incantation and sexual moans that we all lived with on a daily and nightly basis. But they would take note of any real excitement from inside the apartment.
‘I have been told there was quite a lot of that!’ I commented. I felt sour. I liked this pair and was sorry they misled me earlier.
On the night of Aviola and Mucia’s dinner party, after the guests left, Secundus and Myrinus had sat in their shop with their friend Libycus. He was saying goodbye. He knew he was either going to Campania the next day with his master — or else he was listed to be sold at the slave market.
‘He thought that was a possibility?’ The two leatherworkers nodded. ‘Really? I thought Libycus had been with his master for years, worked intimately with him, and was so much trusted he is due to be freed under Aviola’s will?’
Secundus and Myrinus said that was true, yet it could never be relied on. Neither of the personal attendants felt safe. Mucia Lucilia had been afraid Amaranta was so pert and attractive it was dangerous to keep her, in case Aviola was tempted. He in turn, the two friends confided with sweetly coy expressions, was none too keen on having a handsome black man in the house. I assumed this was because of North Africans’ reputation for sexual prowess, which was not mentioned to me by these polite men, though naturally I had heard of it. Who hasn’t?
Mucia and Aviola were thought by Libycus to have struck a bargain: ‘I’ll sell mine, if you sell yours.’ He suspected they would both ruthlessly get rid of their body slaves, and buy new, unthreatening ones. Slaves are supposed to be loyal to their masters; masters have no moral requirement to be loyal back.
With this unjust threat of sale hanging over him, his friends said Libycus had been glum that night. As they all had a drink, he sank into deep thought. In the absence of conversation, even from the shop it had been perfectly possible to hear terrible shouting start up in the apartment. Whoever it was sounded crazily angry.
‘Out of control?’
‘Screaming mad at somebody.’
‘Just one person?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Was it a woman?’
They were not sure.
‘You heard Myla sounding off today — make the comparison, please: was it her that night?’
Secundus and Myrinus thought not. They were more inclined to think the voice was male.
‘Aviola?’
No. He had a much stronger, deeper voice. It was not him.
Whatever was taking place, it spelled trouble. Libycus shot off back home at once. He was afraid he was about to be found out and punished. Secundus and Myrinus did what they usually did when there was a row in the apartment. Thinking it no worse than normal and supposing the commotion would soon die down, they went over to the bar for a quiet drink.
Later that night, they came home to silence. Libycus could not return to their shop then, but the next morning he burst in, very upset. He told them about the killings, said the vigiles had been asking questions and that Titianus was obviously intending to accuse the slaves. They all knew that meant execution. He told his two friends that he and the others had decided they had to flee to the temple for sanctuary. It was their only hope of appealing for justice and making anybody listen.
‘And they were all innocent?’
‘That’s what he said.’
I mused for a moment. ‘Did Libycus say whether Aviola and Mucia were already dead when he got back to the apartment?’
‘Yes.’
‘His exact words?’
‘He said he ran indoors and they were dead.’
So this gave a new picture: there was a sudden burst of disturbing shouts, from one person, who seemed to be male, then the couple died in the next few moments. The speed of it explained why they could not escape, even perhaps explained why nobody reacted and came to their aid.