‘Well, that will give us a lead,’ I managed to interject. ‘Two deaths the same is always helpful. We could leave a chest with its lid up helpfully, somewhere in that granary storage place.’
Fundanus beamed with patronising approval. ‘Well, that’s better, girl. You’re learning!’
I was glad to see the back of him.
I lie: his padded rear, swaggering across the porticus as his fat legs bore him off to lunch, was a foul spectacle.
The thought of a man who had such intimate dealings with the dead eating lunch always made me queasy. He prodded human offal, then looked as if he never washed his hands.
The Boy Taking a Thorn out of His Foot came up on offer again. Most of the punters were wandering away by now and took no interest. The man in the puce tunic plucked up his courage and bought the statue. That was all he had wanted, all along.
Apparently.
15
The sun was high overhead. In the post-noon bake, I began to flag. The marble-clad porticus buildings sweated heat from every stone, until my heart was pattering uneasily.
Gornia noticed me looking flushed. His ninety-year-old frame was exhausted too. We conferred, carrying out an inventory by eye: there was enough stock to continue the sale tomorrow when staff and buyers would be fresh, rather than struggling on when everyone was past caring. So we finished for today.
I made Gornia ride Patchy back to the Saepta. Our people stayed in the porticus to guard the lots overnight. I left and walked wearily towards the Aventine. After passing the civilised Porticus of Octavia, the closed Theatre of Marcellus, the teeming vegetable and meat markets, I came level with the Circus Maximus and faced a choice. Maturity struck me. Instead of forcing myself to make a suicidal climb up the steep hill, I went gently along the Embankment to my parents’ house and rested there.
A slave let me in, then left me to myself; they all knew me as the peculiar one, often reclusive. With my family still away, the empty house felt melancholy but I made good use of the coolness and peace. Reflecting on the auction, I wondered again about the interested parties, those I had spotted and others who might have escaped my attention. I mulled over the two idlers who had parked their stupid bodies by the armoured chest while I was selling it: were they not so stupid as they looked? I considered other faces. I even paid attention mentally to the man in the puce tunic, the strange loafer who had bought the thorn-in-foot statue.
Getting nowhere with that, I chewed over Manlius Faustus bidding for the bench. I failed to solve that puzzle either – or not in a way where it felt safe to venture.
Early in the pleasant summer evening, I went home. No one I knew was at Fountain Court. I tidied my apartment and carried out chores. I collected old food scraps to feed to a fox who visited a local enclosure, gathered laundry, went down the alley to leave it, carried on to Prisca’s Baths and asked Prisca’s trainer to give me a few exercises, steamed myself, bought fresh provisions, then swore at Rodan on my way back in, just so he knew life with me at home was back to normal.
‘Something came for you,’ he grouched. My new bench. Anyone would think there had been no delivery man or any competent person to supervise. Of course there was: he was still here, out on the bench, working on a scroll. I could tell Rodan had never lifted a finger when the stoneware was lugged into the courtyard. He was moaning because he hated change. ‘We never had to have a seat before! We’ll get people sitting on it.’
‘Juno, that would be terrible! It’s only for me. I don’t want anybody else parking their dirty bums on it.’
‘Tell him, then!’
‘We’ll allow him. It’s his bench.’
The slave, Dromo, had been taking his ease alongside Faustus, but he was turfed off when I walked out into the courtyard. They had positioned the bench where the old teasel-carding racks had once stood when this was Lenia’s laundry, famous for its owner’s drinking habits and for losing people’s best belongings; the two were directly connected. Now nothing occupied the deserted yard except my cheeky-looking dolphins, the generous man who had bought them and his awful slave. ‘Where am I supposed to go now?’
‘Quit moaning, Dromo. Sit over there quietly, in the porch.’
‘Oh, no! Master, don’t do that to me, not with smelly Rodan!’ Dromo knew he had to go, but made his way as slowly as possible, dragging his feet in their scruffy sandals and glaring back balefully. He shouted out, ‘At least from here I don’t have to look at you two mooning over each other.’
‘Get lost or I’ll beat you.’ Dromo knew there was little chance of that. His master made the mistake of adding, ‘Albia and I do not moon!’
‘You would, if I wasn’t looking out all the time to catch you at it.’
Manlius Faustus gripped his belt with both hands, gave up on his slave and spoke through gritted teeth to me: ‘Sorry!’
‘No need.’
‘I could sell him.’
‘You never will.’
‘Perhaps not. He is mine. He is rude, he is defiant, yet he is my familia.’
‘Counts as a relative. Bound to be maddening … Be calm, Tiberius.’
He made a gesture of acquiescence. He had high standards, yet tolerance of those who had a reason to be truculent. He believed that finding yourself a slave was an unfair accident of Fate.
He was tolerant of me too. I could get away with anything. I knew that.
‘Now they’re saying, “What shall we do about Dromo?” I bet,’ scoffed the boy, so we were bound to overhear. Faustus ignored it. However, I heard pent-up growling from him.
The aedile rolled up the scroll of senators’ names he had brought, too jaded to continue making notes. Instead, we discussed the auction and my failure to gather any useful clues.
‘Now, Tiberius, I saw you speaking to the Callistus brothers and their cousin.’
‘Good manners. We just said hello.’
I mentioned how Callistus Primus had inexplicably ordered the repurchase of the armoured chest. ‘The family is presenting this as an act of respect, in order to stop anyone else taking an impious interest in the victim. I don’t believe their explanation.’
Faustus looked sympathetic but proffered no ideas.
‘I think they know who the dead man was, but I’ll never get them to say.’ I changed the subject. ‘The strongbox is my problem … Laia Gratiana was jibing at your friend today and actually has a point. Sextus is married. Why do we never see his wife?’
Faustus shrugged. ‘I suppose for the reason he said. She dislikes large groups of people. You cannot make a shy person enjoy public campaigning.’
‘Do you know her? “Darling Julia”?’ I quoted Laia Gratiana, though was less sarcastic in tone. Anyone Laia was catty about was a friend of mine.
‘I have met her. Quiet girl. Never has much to say for herself, but she has always been devoted to Sextus – she is famous for it.’
‘In that case,’ I mused, ‘you might expect her to be brave and turn out to support him sometimes.’ Faustus made no comment. ‘Is it not part of your duties as his manager to try to persuade Julia to appear among his supporters?’
‘I can have a word. I don’t know her very well.’
‘Did you go their wedding? How long ago was it?’
‘Yes. About eight years.’
‘Do they have children?’
‘A boy and a girl, I think.’