‘Thank you, Lucius,’ said Gornia, solemnly.
That was when Callistus Primus hove into sight, coming down the porticus with a clutch of new security: matched toughs with short legs and no necks. I watched our own guards confer. They normally spent a lot of time bored, but a rumpus looked promising. Secundus and the cousin muttered to their own heavies.
Gornia kept going: ‘This is a fine antique chest of exceptional size and armouring, and only ever in the possession of a single family …’
Primus closed on us. Scampering behind as best they could on high cork heels were the brothers’ two prettied-up wives, plus Julia Laurentina, wife of their cousin. They had brought maids to tend their curls, carry their kerchiefs and pretend to be providing chaperonage.
Now it was Callistus Primus who held an outstretched arm above the strongbox and declaimed, ‘Do not take offers on this box! I forbid the sale! This is an act of hideous impiety!’
That would have been fine. His family owned the box; we would not quibble.
Instead, Secundus ran forwards unexpectedly and barged Primus to one side so he fell into a pile of miscellaneous swags and moth-eaten curtains (some grey, some rainbow-striped, all horrible).
‘You don’t know!’ Secundus yelled at Primus, falling on top of him.
‘I bloody do!’
‘We were told it wasn’t him.’ The cousin dragged Secundus upright again.
Still cradled in old curtaining, Primus sounded full of misery. ‘You are a cloth-eared pair of innocents. You can’t bear the truth.’
‘Ignore this man!’ bellowed Secundus, to the world at large. ‘He’s crazy. Just get on and sell the chest!’
‘Sell it!’ screamed the cousin, joining in with a wild squeak like an agitated Syrian hamster. ‘Sell the damned thing now!’
‘Don’t sell it!’ shrieked the wife of Niger, suddenly breaking free from Lappius and hurtling into their midst.
‘What am I bid?’ enquired Gornia, hopefully, from his plinth. ‘Anybody start me?’
Only a lunatic would have placed a bid for an item in such an ownership dispute. The wiser dealers told him so laconically.
Even in ordinary circumstances this would have been an awkward moment to be joined by a substantial party of election candidates in their pristine whites. But, sure enough, into the Porticus of Pompey they all came strolling and smiling. These worthies were about to partake in circumstances that were in nobody’s definition ordinary.
31
A bad situation ripened to glorious.
Deep-throated barks from a huge dog announced that Trebonius Fulvo, fired up by the taunts Vibius had thrown at him earlier, had sent for his hunting mastiff. The new Incitatus had never had such a tremendous day out. He broke away from his handler, simply by pulling his head out of his horrible spiked collar. Ecstatic, Inky bounded about; he urinated on the unsold lots, tore to shreds anything he could get into his slobbering mouth, then made a run at his master and lovingly jumped up at him.
The dog stood four feet tall with his four paws on the floor. This was an expensive, heavy beast that had apparently been bred for bringing down wild bulls, far too strong for Trebonius. Trying to avoid his pet’s frantic licks, the candidate fell over in his chalk-white toga. Since he was turning away from the dog’s tongue at the time, he landed face down or, as Inky saw with much delight, bottom up. The dog fell in lust with him. Insults would be easy now: never mind his respectable wife cooing gooily at him in public, Trebonius was a man whose dog had copulated with him, in full view of the baying public.
The thrilled crowd thought this was better than buying old platters and squashed couches. Dealers pushed in for a better view, forcing their way past the two massive metal wine kraters (faux-silver, faux-Celtic chasing, faux pas decidedly); both grandiose vessels toppled on their cranky stands and started rolling to and fro. Anyone caught behind the knees was felled, usually dragging someone else down with them.
The Callistus brothers were now engaged in violent fisticuffs. Invading Gornia’s carefully created room set, they floundered about throwing punches. Primus broke a side-table. Secundus shattered lamps. Their cousin tried to intervene until they both turned on him. One of them yelled, ‘Get this fool!’ Heavies with cudgels rushed at the cousin, who soon had an ear torn half off and was reeling. Every time someone tumbled out of the mêlée, our laughing auction guards picked him up and threw him straight back in.
The three wives stood on the sidelines, squealing; it was impossible to tell if they wanted the fight to end or were calling for more blood.
Beside a colonnade, the struggle against the mastiff continued, Trebonius gasping helplessly while crude people cheered. Arulenus Crescens might look effeminate but he was a loyal co-candidate and carried a lot of weight, literally. He grabbed Dillius to help. Dillius looked squinty and sozzled, but they managed to rescue Trebonius.
Incitatus ran away. We saw him bounding towards the art gallery where, being a true dog, he was soon pulling down curtains. Yes, I do mean the fabled gold brocade hangings about which you may have read in reverent guidebooks. Soon the cries of horrified art-lovers were heart-rending.
Back at the auction, Vibius and Ennius showed their potential as men of law and order by taking on the fighting Callisti. Unexpectedly, the two candidates grappled the brothers until others came to help.
A wife plonked herself by each Callistus and loudly complained of being shown up. Their cousin was in deep trouble after his thrashing by the guards. Bent double, he started woozily vomiting into one of the wine kraters; I suspected he was concussed. His angry wife Julia Laurentina told him he was disgusting, though concerned dealers attended him. He was now floundering on top of the big wine vessel as if he had no idea where he was.
While Ennius still grappled Secundus, Julia Verecunda had to decide whether to approve of her son’s initiative or reprimand him for joining a brawl. ‘Keep out of it and let them kill one another!’ He feigned not to hear her. Brave fellow.
Sextus loosened his hold on Primus because the older brother suddenly broke down. Sextus had to support his burly frame while Primus shuddered his heart out in what we all could see was unbearable grief.
For whom?
The three wives bunched together anxiously. I strode up to them. ‘What on earth is going on?’ None answered.
More people were arriving. One was Manlius Faustus, bringing Patchy back for me. Dromo and the boy were both riding the donkey, kicking at his flanks with their clumsy feet. Patchy crashed into Ursa, trying to shunt the lads off his back. The stuffed bear teetered and wobbled, then crashed to the floor. Her head fell off. Our porters cried out, grief-stricken. We had had Ursa a long time.
On his way here, Faustus had been accosted by a member of the public. This striking dignitary carried a jug in her left hand and a rattle in her right – not what most women would choose as accessories. Her veiled ringlets were crowned with a small mock-gold palmette, and over her long, heavily pleated tunic she had a many-folded shawl with a fringed edge, tied in a large knot of mystical design in the centre of her bust. (I agree: one fancy item too many. My sisters would have redesigned her outfit from scratch, with cries of horror.)
This woman was instantly recognisable as a priestess of Isis. All she needed was a snake wrapped round her wrist, but she had left it at home that day, probably because her arm was bandaged from thumb base to elbow. I remembered that Trebonius’s dog had famously bitten her.
Isis was a respected foreign goddess in Rome, favoured by Vespasian and Titus, who had been in the east, and by Domitian, who had once taken refuge among the cult’s followers when his life was threatened. Domitian had rebuilt the Temple of Isis and Serapis in fabulous style and this priestess carried herself as if she personified the goddess: Isis, the universal mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all matters spiritual, queen of the dead, queen of the sea, queen also of the immortals, the triple goddess of the underworld, the heavenly one … Not a neighbour to offend. To fend off the wrath of Isis you might need more than a phallic wind chime.