‘No attendants?’ asked the freedman. He meant females; for chaperone purposes Dromo didn’t count. Polycarpus had judged me as not quite respectable − theoretically correct. I watched him wonder if it was an invitation for groping.
‘Touch me and you’re dead!’ I mentioned quietly. He extinguished the hope without remorse; he would give me no trouble, well, probably not much. This was Rome. He was a man. He had to dance the dance. ‘Let’s get one question out of the way, Polycarpus. Where were you when the attack happened?’
He pretended affront at the question (again as a matter of principle) then confidently declared: ‘I left after dinner for my own home.’
‘Which is where?’
‘A small apartment upstairs in this building.’
‘I may need to see your accommodation … Who can vouch for you leaving?’
‘My people, and everyone here.’ His alibi was unsound, since everyone he mentioned would be biased, and moreover he could have bribed them. I made no comment. I would return to the subject later, if I had to.
‘As a freedman, you still worked for your original master?’
‘Aviola found me indispensable. I continued with my old duties as his steward.’
‘How long?’
‘Past five years.’
‘Paid?’
‘Enough to live on. I moved out; I have rooms, with a wife and family. I come in on a daily basis.’
Separate living quarters were now his entitlement. He was a citizen, though he could not stand for office; however, any descendants would hold full civic rights. He managed not to sound too proud of it, just letting me know he had a normal life, able to come and go. His own place, his woman, his freeborn offspring.
‘Are there other freedmen associated with this household?’
‘Yes, but all gone away to run the master’s country estates.’
Time to tackle the crimes. ‘So! When and how did you learn of the tragedy, Polycarpus?’
‘I don’t know why, I just had a strange feeling that night, so I came back.’
‘No one fetched you?’
‘Oh, they would have done. But in fact I walked in during the hubbub straight afterwards.’
‘Had the thieves left?’
‘No sign of them. It was me who called the vigiles.’ Polycarpus wanted me to know that. Since suspicion had fallen so quickly on the household, he was anxious to seem law-abiding.
‘Did you go to fetch the vigiles yourself?’
‘I stayed here to supervise, to make sure no one touched anything …’ He had the subdued look of a man remembering horrors. I reckoned it was genuine, but I kept an open mind. ‘A slave went.’
I asked which one, but he still seemed too affected by shock to answer. I could ask them directly. I gestured to my list. ‘I have these details of the slaves in the temple. Did the whole household flee? Are any left in the apartment?’
‘Myla,’ said Polycarpus. ‘Heavily pregnant at the time. Too unwieldy to run. She popped a child out three days ago. Anyway, she seems to think her condition will rule her out as a suspect.’
‘I think I’ll run that idea past our legal advisers!’
Polycarpus caught my sceptical tone. ‘Not a defence?’
‘In Roman law? Probably no,’ I told him cynically. ‘Roman law probably says that the foetus should have broken out of the womb to defend Aviola and his wife, whose property it was … What is her role here?’
‘Oh, she’s just Myla. Been with us for years. She does whatever is needed. You’re bound to see her pottering around. Feel free to ask her for anything.’
‘What — even though she just gave birth?’
‘I had her back on duty straightaway. She knows what is expected. She was verna — born in the house.’
‘As her child will be,’ I commented. ‘Boy or girl?’ The freedman looked blank. ‘What is this baby Myla has produced?’ He shrugged; he had no idea. ‘Don’t you have to list it as a new possession?’
‘A scribe’s job,’ Polycarpus reproached me huffily. ‘I run the home. I never touch anything secretarial.’
Melander, 20, scribe, was in the Temple of Ceres.
The steward must have seen my face so he decided to elaborate. ‘I have to know manpower numbers, yes, and their capabilities. We use them young, carrying the odd towel or basket, but I don’t want any disturbance, no little wobbler going arse-over-tip. So I’m not interested in a babe-in-arms that will probably die in the next few years anyway. It’s no use to me until it’s decently walking.’
I said that was fully understandable.
Polycarpus was not to know that I had once been a small child in a house where I was expected to fetch and carry for people who viewed me as a commodity. I tried not to dislike him for this conversation — though I did not try hard.
5
As afternoon subtly became twilight, the youth Dromo reappeared. He had been taken away by Faustus, but came whistling back with a high-piled handcart. The aedile must feel guilty about my bare room, so his slave produced various items to improve my comfort: writing materials; a set of bowls, beakers, spoons and scoops, all on a tray; two cushions and a bolster, with embroidered covers; a couple of floor-mats; a small side-table with curved legs; three lamps, oil to put in them and a lighting flint (a thoughtful man); even a comfortable lightweight wicker chair. And a cudgel.
‘What?’
‘That’s for me to use,’ protested Dromo, grabbing it as I tried its weight.
‘For protecting me?’
He sniggered. ‘No! For protecting all this stuff of my master’s. I bet I know what they are like here. He’s asking to have everything pinched. Don’t you go looking at that handcart; I’ve got to take it back.’
I smiled at his presumption that I would snaffle a handcart for personal use. Mind you … ‘You can take it tomorrow when I send you over to Faustus with a report.’
‘You think I’ll forget it!’
I knew he would. Dromo regarded himself as the archetypal clever slave, but really he was much less clever.
He slouched off into the colonnade outside my room, where he started making himself a nest, laying out the best of the mats, then arranging his choice of crockery around it with the cudgel as a phallic centrepiece. I pottered indoors, doing what I knew he would consider suitable women’s work like positioning cushions. I soon grew tired of that.
I marched out and was about to begin investigating the apartment’s floor-plan when someone arrived with my supper. Dromo snatched it from the take-out waiter (who would be annoyed because he lost his tip). I was ushered back to my room. Dromo disapproved of where I had put the side-table, so he moved it, plonked the tray down, relocated my chair too, rattled me up a bowl and spoon, then produced a napkin grudgingly.
I lifted covers and found two kinds of cold bar food, one beaten-up bread roll, a wilting side salad and some spotty fruit.
‘I expect I have to make do with your leftovers,’ said Dromo, fixing me with a glare.
‘What if there aren’t any?’ I asked mildly.
‘Better be, or I’ll starve.’
Gods, this was hard work. I remembered why I did not own slaves myself.
I soon gave up on my unpalatable dinner, so took what I didn’t want to Dromo then set off to explore.
The apartment was unsymmetrical due to the street-plan outside. The front row of street shops meant there was a very long entrance corridor through them, after which came a decorative space that would have been an atrium, except that upper storey apartments overhead prevented it having an open roof. Where a collecting pool for rainwater might have been stood only a marble table: rectangular, heavy supports at each end, nothing on it. Unexciting. I would have kicked it out and got a rude statue.