Romans are great snobs. Was this what Quintus Cicero had meant when he instructed his brother to talk even to people they despised? In deference to my uncles, with their foreign wives, I kept quiet. Quintus apparently loved Claudia. Aulus was on better terms with Meline since they divorced than when they were married. (Well, ever since he divorced two later wives, when Meline for some weird reason came back and helped him through it.)
I was probably foreign myself, though could not offer to cajole any senators from Britain. Hades, I dread even to think what they would be like.
17
The Camillus brothers lived immediately beyond the Capena Gate, which was also convenient for our next call. Like many imperial freedmen, my father’s old contact Claudius Laeta had acquired a large, elegant villa outside Rome, though not far outside. It was as if, even after they were allowed to retire, palace servants felt they must remain near the court. This often came in handy when there was an imperial assassination, because the loyal freedmen or women would make their beautiful gardens available for otherwise-awkward funerals. Phaon had let Nero commit suicide in his villa garden. Dispossessed emperors or their disgraced relatives never had to lie unburied. The freedmen stepped in when a state funeral was out of the question, thus avoiding any disrespect for the once-important.
Laeta’s villa happened to be down the Via Appia, which exits the old Servian Wall through the Capena Gate. After we left my uncles, Faustus and I went straight there. I had Patchy the donkey, though I walked alongside. We strolled out past the Gardens of Asinius Pollio in warm sunlight without conversing until we reached the old man’s handsome spread.
As far as I knew, this property had never yet hosted a cremation, though someone might one day have to salvage the bloody corpse of Domitian … Once, Claudius Laeta had been the kind of administrator people might turn to for removing a despotic ruler (my father always thought that in his younger years Laeta must have worked behind the scenes when Nero was ousted). He was past all that now. Retirement meant Domitian should leave him alone – although the Emperor did bear grudges against ancient freedmen, and notoriously executed them, even decades after their perceived sins. A despot may well brood over anyone who has a history of removing despots.
We arrived, wormed our way in past the defensive team who cared for Laeta and were led to him in his long chair. We may have looked like a pair of would-be conspirators. Our host would have been used to that in younger days. Plotting was in his blood.
Tiberius Claudius Laeta had had a long career as chief secretary, a post where he reckoned he ruled the Empire using old Vespasian as his mouthpiece, while the easy-going Vespasian valued him enough to let him think it. Laeta could be any age between sixty and seventy, older than average. At the palace he had led a pampered life. He still had all his hair (dry-looking grey stuff, cut short and straight); his face was an unhealthy red; his eyes were dim and watery. He wore a white tunic that fitted awkwardly on his slack frame. On one liver-spotted hand he kept the wide gold ring of the middle class, but he twisted it uneasily as if his fingers had grown too fragile for the weight of the metal.
My father had told me Laeta’s aims were always long-term and his motives devious. He was intelligent and could be vicious, a man who consistently disposed of his rivals, generally before they saw him coming. For instance, with my father’s assistance, he had won one long-standing feud, with a dangerous Chief Spy whom nobody else would have managed to oust. Don’t ask how, or how I knew. It was still unsafe to mention.
Many of Laeta’s schemes had been like that. His relationship with Falco had lasted many years, on both sides a mixture of reluctant admiration and steely distrust. If there was one man on earth who had wheedled out the truth of my father’s own troubles with Domitian, this was he – but, if so, it was not Falco who had told him.
We had met before, though in view of his frailty I introduced myself anew. ‘I am Flavia Albia, eldest daughter of Didius Falco and the noble Helena Justina. I know that you and Father worked together.’
For a time it seemed he would not respond. Could he even remember Falco? He seemed to need to recall the memory, but he suddenly piped up, ‘Plenty in common. Much we disputed … I sent him to Baetica.’
‘He often speaks of it.’ The words ‘olive oil’ still made Falco groan. ‘And to Britain.’
‘Hah! I never count Falco’s escapades in Britannia as real!’
I did. That was how I came to be adopted and made Roman. Just in case this devious man would query my citizenship documents, I kept quiet. He liked to know something against everyone. My position was legal, my adoption duly certified, but once you have been outside acceptable society, you never relax.
‘And who is this?’ Laeta was staring, his face alert and inquisitive.
‘This is my good friend Tiberius Manlius Faustus, one of this year’s plebeian aediles. He wants to talk to you about the next election.’
‘Take him away! No one talks to me, these days. I have absolutely no influence.’
‘Flavia Albia thought you might nevertheless have advice for us. Better advice than we can obtain from your successor.’ Faustus knew how to get along with stubborn pensioners, apparently. ‘I am acting for one of the candidates.’
‘You want me to subvert senators.’
‘I couldn’t possibly-’
‘Then I am glad you are not my agent!’ This was proving harder than I had hoped. ‘Get the buggers on your side. It’s no use hoping they will just like the look of your candidate’s scrubbed face. Bribe them!’
Faustus had become rather stiff. ‘I am aware of your past work, sir – and your legacy to today’s state servants.’
‘Bloody Abascantus! Scented fool.’
‘Domitian has sent him away, sir.’
‘In irons?’
‘I believe not.’
‘Suggested he top himself?’
‘Perhaps a temporary seaside sojourn?’
‘Domitian’s gone soft! Abascantus will creep back. Long-haired lightweight. No sense of tradition. They say his wife pushes him. The man is unbelievable …’ The old stylus-pusher added waspishly, ‘You know the type: poets think him wonderful!’
Faustus must have been aware that Abascantus, until recently the most powerful freedman at the palace, was generally regarded as a talented young man. While Laeta was still sniggering to himself over poets, my friend pressed on valiantly: ‘Sir, even if his exile proves to be temporary, Abascantus is no use to us if he’s on gardening leave. I can find nobody of his calibre, let alone of your calibre. You are sadly missed.’
Laeta took some thick invalid drink from a redware beaker. He swallowed it with studious care, very slowly, then grimaced to himself. ‘What do you want from me?’ Before Faustus could say anything, the old man answered himself: ‘Who does Domitian support? Why that one? What is wrong with the others? Will he damn your own man? Which way will the Senate jump? Does anybody dare cross Our Master-Who-Believes-Himself-A-God?’
Faustus gave a wan smile. ‘All those questions, please. We originally understood that Our Master supported Volusius, though Volusius has inexplicably pulled out.’
‘Volusius Firmus?’ Laeta was on it immediately. ‘Family in oar-making, or some watery industry? Married to Verecunda’s daughter? Has, therefore, the mother-in-law from Hades? That woman is loathsome, and all her girls are Furies – she brought them up deliberately to be full of hate.’
‘You are still well informed!’ I commented.
‘I keep up. Somebody has to. Abascantus never has any idea what is going on. Does what his wife tells him – not my way! No contacts. No initiative.’
‘No subtlety,’ I said, smiling. Laeta gave me a sharp look as if he suspected satire. Manlius Faustus did the same. Our eyes met. Faustus understood: I believe that ‘subtlety’ equates with fraud.