‘No more uncertain and dangerous than getting yourself married!’ as Galla put it. We were all rather silly by that point.
Not too silly for me to wonder, ‘Did the killer of Aviola and Mucia then kill Nicostratus? The story goes he was attacked first, by the robbers as they burst in. That depends on robbers being here, and on them committing the murders. Suppose this: suppose everything was, as the vigilis Titianus always said, an inside job. The stranglings came first. Then came the plank attack on the porter. Perhaps the killer tried to leave and Nicostratus got in the way — on purpose even, since no one has ever suggested he was incompetent. The rope had been left behind around Mucia Lucilia’s neck, so another weapon was needed.’ I thought of a quibble. ‘Mind you, in any apartment that had been used for a wedding yesterday and was decorated up for a dinner party tonight, why would a plank of wood be lying around?’
‘Oh, some homes are very untidy!’ sniffed Galla Simplicia, eagerly disparaging this one that had ceased to be hers.
‘Not with my husband in charge!’ Graecina corrected her. She spoke with the tight, demure manner of a woman who had been resolutely drinking even more than the rest of us. I blamed the pain from her scalds for that.
We all sat silent for a time, in deference to the late Polycarpus. We were drunk, but nonetheless capable of good manners.
49
We passed through a period of silence. No one was drinking now. We had speculated ourselves to a standstill, at least temporarily.
We were women completely at ease with each other. We could have been going to the same baths at the same hour for the past twenty years. We could all have been mothers, or more likely grandmothers, watching small children perform in a rustic masque — criticising the costumes other women had made and making lewd cracks about the musicians. That hand drum player is fit. Hair too long, but a wicked look. He can patter me up and down any day he likes …
We might even be members of that awful cult that the devotee matrons ran at the Temple of Ceres, where they fussed around with ritual vessels and showed off to the public in fake ‘Greek rites’ at festivals … Laia bloody Gratiana. She would not fit in with us.
It was significant that we were women not girls; we had all lived. Graecina and I were the youngest, yet married and widowed, both familiar with work. Galla and Fauna might like to pretend, but they were both around ten years older. Fauna, for one, had had a hard life.
From what I had heard, I thought Mucia Lucilia would have made an easy fifth in our gathering.
I thought about the dead woman, as we sat in this bare courtyard that she can hardly have started to call ‘hers’. Her fresco improvements to the summer dining room implied she would have made this space better too. Out with the deadbeat gardener first (goodbye, Diomedes; anyone can see why you are doomed to sale!). Tie up and water the bedraggled climber. Better still, since it was only ivy, slash it down, dig up the roots and dump it. In with some big lily pots and oleanders, or at least lavender. Surround the yard with box hedges. Have roses. Position a fountain and water channels. Haul in proper, permanent benches so this garden area could be like all those other wonderful sitting places in Rome houses, where people met, rested, talked, ate and enjoyed a real social life.
The pockmarked pillars could have been mended, then if necessary rendered, maybe painted as mock-wood or mock-marble. If she could have winkled enough cash out of Aviola, or even used money of her own, the wall space between rooms could have had horticultural painting too: plants, birds and butterflies, with theatrical masks and musical windchimes dangling among them.
This was a woman embarking on a new life: new husband, new home — and if it made life easier, new staff. Old friends, though. She still valued those, and dined with a group of them before leaving town. That last dinner together had been important.
Mucia Lucilia was not rushing into change for change’s sake. Not ripping out everything all at once, but nurturing a project. A woman in her prime, still full of energy and lively ideas, she had brought something of value to her new husband. Aviola, who had been divorced for nearly twenty years, would have gained not only willing sex but conversation and companionship. Perhaps before they married, he had been lonely. I guessed she had.
Mucia chose marriage, as far as I could tell. Nobody shunted her into it for their own social or political gain. It may even have been her idea. It was too easy to assume Valerius Aviola proposed it. Friends could have made sly suggestions in order to ease the process, yet Mucia may not have needed even that. She knew her mind. I could imagine her broaching the subject with Aviola. Delicately no doubt but yet, even though they had never previously been lovers, making him feel a marriage would be useful and comfortable for them both.
I knew a little of what she looked like, from that plaque Sextus Simplicius had shown me when I first visited him. Of course the artwork was heavily stylised, but thinking about it again, I had some sense of Mucia as a warm and living creature. How she must have been before her thread was snapped off, not at its due date by the Fates but by some corrupted human in a few moments of rage.
As I mused, I had to remember that I was investigating the unlawful deaths of real people. They had rights and deserts. My commission had given me a duty to them.
The terrible acts that happened here that night deserved solving. The legal aspects might intrigue my uncles and the practical outcome at the temple bothered Faustus, but at its heart was genuine tragedy. It mattered that I should name whoever burst into Mucia Lucilia’s bedroom, killed her man and put that rope around her throat. It mattered, too, that if people should have helped her, I should identify them too.
50
Galla was also thinking about the apartment. ‘This is where Aviola came when we were divorced. I never lived here. But when the children used to visit their father, it was a happy home.’
‘Will you sell up?’ asked Graecina.
‘Not for me to say. My cousin reckons that will be easiest for the probate. In any case, my son could never live here, not now. None of us can bear the place.’
We all understood that.
Fauna went indoors for a comfort visit. She took the jug but came back saying there was no fresh water left in the kitchen. ‘Have to drink that wine neat!’
‘Shocking!’ said Galla, apparently not shocked at all.
Sighing, Graecina apologised that no water had been brought in, which was a constant source of aggravation. Myla had never bothered, even though all she had had to do was mention to Polycarpus that the water carrier was needed again.
I asked what was wrong with the well. Polycarpus had told me when I first arrived that it was unusable.
‘It has bad water,’ said Fauna, letting Galla pour her a refill of wine (Galla’s excuse for having more herself). ‘The family who were here before all died of dysentery. About five of them. The landlord keeps saying it was good before that, so he refuses to fill it in, but he never bothers to clean it out either. So there it sits.’
We all stared over at it. Yes, there it sat. Boarded over at ground level, with an urn stood on the boards.