‘Will that baby know what her mother did?’ asked Dromo, very subdued.
‘Who can say? By the time she is old enough to understand, people around her may have forgotten. In any case, the people she grows up with may not know — I believe she is to be sent to a happier life on a farm in the country.’
‘The country?’ Dromo was disgusted. ‘I think I did the wrong thing.’
‘No, Dromo.’
‘I bet you blame your mother for leaving you.’
I felt myself grow tense. ‘I may have done from time to time, but no longer.’
‘Why not?’
‘I came to realise my parents must have loved me. I was not abandoned from choice. They may have known they would be killed. If they did survive the rebellion, they may have tried desperately to find me afterwards … I grew up an extremely unhappy person, but I am not now.’
‘What changed you?’
‘Something I saw many years later.’
‘What?’
‘Dromo, don’t pry any more,’ murmured Tiberius. In my view, it was high time he intervened.
Dromo was still glaring at me, wanting answers.
I sighed again, then gave in again. ‘Dromo, have you heard about the huge volcanic explosion in Campania? Have you heard about the great fire in Rome later that same year?’
He had. Everyone knew about Vesuvius, and though an infant at the time, Dromo had been in Rome during the fire, safe up on the Aventine, which escaped the inferno. Since I had been drinking, today I lost my usual reserve. I told Dromo what had happened in our family that year, and how it changed me.
My father had a favourite nephew, Larius, a talented fresco painter, who worked at Stabiae on the Bay of Neapolis. He lived there on and off; despite a few wild episodes, he had a local wife and a family. When Mount Vesuvius so catastrophically erupted, he was the kind of fixated artist who would have tried to finish his wall, even though the whole house where he was painting faced violent destruction. As soon as we heard about the eruption, my father went to see if he could find Larius, though he never did. Falco spent weeks there, in anguish as he tried to dig down through twenty feet of mud or ash. He could never find any trace. We decided the whole little family must have tried to escape too late; Larius was killed, along with many other people, most of whom were never found.
Shortly afterwards, a huge fire in Rome destroyed many monuments, including the Saepta Julia, a gorgeous two-storey gallery where we had a family antiques business. Father worked there with another nephew, Gaius, who had always seemed a tricky, fly-by-night character, though the ragamuffin had a heart of gold. When the fire came tearing through the district, Gaius became a hero; he refused to run and save himself but stayed to help other people. The roof collapsed while he was still in there. The firefighters never recovered his body.
‘So we lost both brothers, but that did not mean nobody cared. Dromo, when I saw how desperately my father struggled to find Larius, how he raged over his helplessness, how long he kept up the search, and then when I saw how distraught everyone was over losing Gaius, I found some faith. I was able to believe that when I was a lost baby, I had that same degree of love. I no longer hated my parents for abandoning me; I stopped feeling bitter. I saw I was fortunate to have been saved, and eventually to be rescued a second time by the fine people who are my family in Rome.’
‘Will Myla’s baby think she is fortunate?’
Dear gods, I doubted that. ‘I hope so, but who knows?’
Faustus, who had listened in silence to my story, leaned forwards to his boy. ‘You must thank Flavia Albia for telling you this … The point is, Dromo, only Fortune can know what will happen to any of us, including that baby you saved. You cannot tell. What matters for you is that when you had to choose, you did what your conscience told you was right. You gave Myla’s baby a chance.’
‘You have to answer to yourself, Dromo,’ I added, seconding his master. ‘You saved her because your own human kindness required it.’
Dromo had started to squirm now. He looked self-conscious about sitting in the chair. His eyes glazed a little; he was losing interest in talking. Personally, I was amazed he had managed to last this long.
‘So that’s it, isn’t it?’ He looked from Faustus to me then back to his master. ‘In that work you do, you and Albia. On the night in this apartment when those people were murdered, the slaves here ought to have tried to help them. Because even slaves like us ought to have human kindness. And they didn’t, did they? None of them?’
Yes, said Faustus. That was it.
53
I cannot claim to have achieved much else that day.
The aedile was leaving to return to the Aventine. Faustus stood and gazed at me. ‘I ought to be more respectful. I do admire your expertise −’ Thank you, aedile; that is what I like from a client. ‘− especially with a splitting hangover!’
I had not reached even the real beginning of the hangover, but his teasing praise worked better than the usual Roman cure of parsley. For one thing, you were supposed to eat the parsley before you started drinking, which I had failed to do. I read in an encyclopaedia that topping a canary and deep-frying it in olive oil for breakfast does the trick — if you want a crunchy, fat-filled methodology. It probably worked because you had to jump around so much while you were trying to catch the birdie …
I could not decide how serious Faustus was, so I replied stiffly. ‘I have been edging towards answers for a while.’
I probably had been, though you never sit around thinking, Oh,I am edging towards answershere, using my admirable expertise … I had been lucky. On the other hand, controlling your luck is part of an informer’s professional toolbag. Had I been unlucky, I would have soon faded from the scene.
‘Who were those women, incidentally?’ Faustus asked. ‘Friends of yours?’
‘My drinking pals? Witnesses and suspects.’
‘Suspects?’
‘Not high on the list. Having a little nip together helped me rule them out.’
Faustus managed not to humph.
He left. Since he was an aedile, I trusted him to take the silver away with him. On his way down the Clivus Suburanus, he would return it to Sextus Simplicius, to be reabsorbed into the Aviola estate. Dromo went with him as escort. An aedile may be sacrosanct, but it was crazy to hope he could carry a large sack, obviously full of bullion, down a public street yet not have it snatched from his sacrosanct grasp by irreligious criminals. And then have his skull kicked in by them, for taking a stupid risk.
As soon as Dromo came back and I had let him in, I went to bed. Clearly this was never going to happen with Manlius Faustus. Had I been sober, that thought would not even have occurred to me. Perhaps.
For some reason, as I lay awake, I thought back to the bar where we kissed. He was just play-acting. Just as well. If I had an affair with a magistrate, what trouble that would cause! I had no idea how I would ever confess to my father, whose views on the elite were firm and frequently stated. Still, I believed Faustus would not kiss and tell, and if there is one thing loving daughters learn early, it is how to keep secrets …
Not relevant, Flavia Albia.
Next day I prepared to finish my case.
Out of bed early. Stand-up wash, in cold water. There was not even the lukewarm pan that Myla used to tend in her desultory way. Dromo complained. I explained to him that now she was gone, somebody else had to do her work. He could have stirred up embers and put pots on trivets. I, however, could not because I felt queasy and should have been looked after by those whose duty was to tend to me.