Deadly Election (39 page)

Faustus whistled through his teeth, very softly. He knew what I was suggesting. ‘Now I am worried too. Did we have it wrong? Is the violent one not Sextus but
Julia
? Does she keep losing her temper and battering him?’

‘Sextus vowed to you he never hits his wife, and I don’t think he lied. We ourselves have seen what happens with them.’ I said. ‘It felt extremely unpleasant. In front of us, Julia Optata snapped at Sextus over the children’s schooling; when he went off to talk to her, he looked very anxious. Now I think he may have been expecting violence.’

Tiberius explored the idea. ‘If this is true, did she behave in the same way when she was married to Callistus Primus?’

‘Primus wouldn’t stand for it. That might be why he divorced her, and so rapidly,’ I said. ‘And why the circumstances were hushed up.’

Faustus agreed. ‘It’s why her sister, who must have known the situation, took away the newborn baby, saying Julia Optata should not bring up a child – and why Primus insisted on custody.’

‘He only lets Julia Optata see Valentina with careful arrangements,’ I said. ‘Mind you, he never acknowledges any of this. He blanks all questions.’

‘Because he has to protect the child from scandal,’ explained Faustus. ‘That’s why reasons for the divorce have never surfaced and the battle for his daughter ended with a private settlement.’

‘Julia Optata’s mother knows,’ I decided. ‘Optata and Verecunda share the same traits. Not only a violent temper but unjust suspicion, especially where men are involved.’

We began to descend the long flight of steps out of the complex, which was steep. Tiberius offered me an arm; for safety I took it. He was still working out answers. ‘This is why Sextus and Julia rarely socialise. This is really why she left Rome when Sextus kept saying obliquely, “We agreed it is best.” Julia may genuinely not like crowds and she clearly wanted to look after her sister Pomponia. But the main reason was to ensure that Sextus never had to appear in the Forum showing the marks of domestic injury.’

We reached street level and walked on, round the back of the Palatine, towards the Circus Maximus.

‘This is extraordinary.’ Tiberius seemed baffled.

‘It happens.’ I lifted his hand, ruefully showing him the scars where I had once stabbed him.

‘Ah, you would not do that now.’ True. I could never hurt him; indeed, I would fight to protect him. ‘Besides, the difference is, Albiola, I was seriously in the wrong on that occasion.
I
would never offend you in that way nowadays.’

I nearly took him to task on what his uncle had said, but this was the wrong time. ‘Tiberius, even when a husband hits his wife, the situation tends to be well concealed. How much more so, when the wife is dangerous? A man, letting a woman batter him? It makes him no more than a slave. Think of the shame for Sextus. For her too, if she admits her temperament.’

Tiberius sighed gloomily. ‘We brought her back to him. What have we done, Albia?’

I had no answer.

As we carried on past the great curve of the Circus, we fell silent. When we spoke again, Tiberius changed the subject. He told me the messenger at the temple had come to say the vigiles had found a body. It sounded like Aspicius. The corpse had been dragged out of the Tiber that morning, an apparent drowning. If no one came forward to claim ownership, the man would be cremated at public expense and all record of him discreetly lost.

We agreed not to pursue the matter officially. Tiberius would tip the nod to Ennius, and let him decide whether to warn his sister Pomponia that she had probably lost her husband. We could never prove how Aspicius had ended up in the river, but we knew three substantial, capable men with detailed knowledge of the Tiber. They might, if they thought someone deserved it, get together on the riverbank with him. One might hold his feet, one take his arms, the third push his head underwater until he stopped kicking …

If that was what the Callisti had done to Aspicius, there was nothing to gain by accusing them and we agreed we could not blame them.

In a muted mood, we continued to walk down the long, far length of the Circus, up the hill on the crooked Vicus Publicius, then onwards to my building in Fountain Court. There, when I went up to my apartment, Tiberius followed. I let him come in with me. All the way home, I suppose I never looked at him. Indoors, he turned me so I was facing him. Hands on my shoulders he stared at me. He knew I was upset with him.

Tipping his head, he simply asked me, ‘What have I done?’

I
loved the man. I adored his straightforward openness with me.

‘You have not done it yet.’

‘There’s hope, then!’

I choked a little, throwing my arms round him, burying my face against his chest. When I let go, I told him in plain words how I had met his uncle and what Tullius had said.

His mouth dropped open slightly. I knew then: Tiberius had not been keeping this from me; he had not known himself. ‘It will never happen!’

I covered my face.

‘Albia!’ Tiberius was stricken. ‘What must you have been thinking? Oh, my Albia!’

There was no time to discuss it. He would have to take action immediately: the announcement was to be made that very evening. If a marriage was announced, and if Tiberius later refused to go through with it, he stood no chance of salvaging his relationship with Tullius, let alone calming the wrath of Laia and her brother. He cared about all that. He was a pragmatist.

For the Verecundus council he had worn his aedile’s white tunic, with its magisterial purple bands. While he buffed up to look like a man who could be admitted to a musical evening (a quick hair comb), I did question why his uncle was plunging him into this without prior discussion.

‘All my fault,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘The idea was run past me, I have to say. I never took it seriously. Uncle Tullius is so desperate, I suppose he took silence for agreement.’

‘For heaven’s sake! You need to learn to talk to people.’

‘I’m sure you will teach me! Look, I must go to this bloody lyre party. Do you want to come?’

I badly wanted to hear what he was going to say, but ending the proposal (which her friends probably knew about) would be a public slap in the face for Laia Gratiana; my presence could only inflame the situation more. ‘No. You have to go alone.’

On the threshold, he grasped both my hands. ‘Have faith.’

If I had known in advance how long he would be gone, having faith while I waited would have been much easier.

It grew dark. I gave up on him. I cursed him, I wept, I dried my eyes and ate something. I would have got drunk but had no wine at home. I decided to send Rodan to buy a huge cheap amphora with which I could end my sorrows while writing a suitably dreadful suicide note, but as I opened the apartment door, a kerfuffle met me.

Struggling upstairs with a handcart was the aedile’s slave, Dromo. It was laden with scrolls, some in scroll boxes, some bundled and tied together, more clasped awkwardly under the arm of the overheated, agitated boy. He was too tired even to complain.

‘Stop, Dromo. Where are you going and what are all those?’

‘Stuff!’ He clumped the wheels up to the next landing and came to a halt, his handcart dangerously teetering. ‘I’m always having to haul stuff about for him.’

‘Scrolls? Tell me, Dromo.’

‘Old scrolls he’s gone and got from that warehouse, that one right over the Caelian with the boozy clerk. We’ve been scratching around and loading things for hours. It’s all his uncle’s accounts and no one is to tell Tullius we’ve got them. I’m supposed to lug my cart all on my own right up to the sixth floor of this awful building where you live, and tonight I’ve got to sleep up there to protect the stuff.’

‘And where is your master now?’

‘Getting even more stuff from our house.’

‘Go on, then,’ I said heartlessly. ‘Only four more flights and you’ll come to my office.’ I softened. ‘There’s a good couch you can lie on, and you can sleep in as long as you like tomorrow morning.’

‘Oh, I see!’ Dromo gave me a disgusted look. He knew why I was saying that. ‘Are we coming to live here? It’s horrible. Oh, don’t do that to me!’

‘Ask him tomorrow.’

Tiberius arrived soon afterwards.
He
had a large bundle, which he dropped on the floor with a thud. In answer to my quizzical look, he listed, ‘Tunics, comb, strigil, spare belts, spare boots, knife and napkin, absolutely
lots
of writing tools for copying old documents.’

‘Isn’t thirty-six rather old to run away from home?’ I asked.

‘Thirty-seven. I believe in waiting until you are old enough to enjoy things.’ Suddenly, he became sweetly uncertain. ‘Should I have asked you?’

‘Not necessary. Tell me what happened with your uncle.’

‘I tried not to quarrel, but the conversation was painful and at the moment he wants no more to do with me. He will not make life easy, though he may come round one day … As a courtesy I spoke to Laia and her brother, gaining more enemies for life. Afterwards, I went to the old grain warehouse and extracted all my uncle’s records, as your father suggested. Now I have to say something.’

I went up to him. ‘Tell me tomorrow.’

‘No. This is it. I wake every morning with my heart lightening because I may see you. I want to wake to find you there in my arms. I have to be with you.’

‘You are,’ I said, winding myself round him experimentally.

He glanced at the couch, but I said if he was staying for good, we should migrate to the bed. I led him there, meeting little resistance, though he did try muttering self-consciously, ‘I may not be up to much. I went all the way to Fidenae and back on horseback yesterday …’

Kind-hearted, I gave him some help with undressing. ‘You’ll manage. You had a good long sleep this afternoon.’

He began to assist me in taking off my own clothes, acquiring a new interest in exploring what was under them. ‘A good sleep! That was cunning, Flavia Albia. Were you, in a previous life, a strategist for Hannibal?’

‘Don’t talk.’ He smiled. He knew what came next even before he let me kiss him. Now it was my turn. Flavia Albia was making her move.

F
or us, this was our beginning. For others involved, it ought to have been the end of their unhappiness, though for some that was never to be.

Tiberius and I became absorbed in our own lives, yet we had news occasionally. The Verecundus family council’s decisions were all put in hand. The Callisti accepted their settlement. As far as we ever knew, the two families then managed to exist on friendly terms.

The results of the political campaign were as Tiberius had predicted to Dromo and Rodan, except that Ennius Verecundus formally withdrew. He would stand again, once time had passed. In January, the candidates went to the Senate and made formal speeches recommending themselves, supported by friends who backed them. First Trebonius, then Arulenus were easily elected, comfortably trailed by Dillius. That left one more place, for which Vibius and Gratus gained equal votes. My uncle, Camillus Aelianus, stood up and suggested his colleagues give precedence to Vibius on the grounds that he had been married and was father to two children. The motion was passed: Vibius would be the fourth aedile designate.

I say ‘had been married’ for a reason. By the time of the vote, his status had altered. For him, there had been a tragic coda.

One day at mid-morning, Julia Optata was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs at home, dead. We were not called to the scene, never saw the evidence. Next thing, her body had been gathered up and we were attending her funeral.

Friends were invited to the house afterwards, so we had a chance to look discreetly at where she was found. I remembered taking that staircase, which led up from the ground floor to the apartment Sextus and Julia shared. I had thought it unusually safe.
The treads were clean natural stone, spaced evenly and well designed. Small windows lit them. A handrail, so rare in Rome’s ramshackle tenements, made the climb easier …

After the other mourners had left, Sextus told us two that he wanted to explain. His mother, tight-lipped, went away to another room, leading his father. Sextus sat on a couch with one arm round each of his small children. He said he intended them to know about their mother, to love her, but to know her life had been difficult.

‘I killed her. That is, I was responsible. But of course it was an accident.’

If anyone asked, he said he would be open in public. There had been too much secrecy. Sextus did not want his children or himself to be the subject of any more unfortunate rumours. All the best politicians take that line, I thought.

He confessed that throughout their marriage Julia had attacked him. On the day she died, they had been fighting again. She was furious that Sextus had announced in public that she was with a pregnant sister, revealing to Aspicius where his frightened wife might be. Her angry tirade worsened until, as so often before, Julia started shouting and beating Sextus. He tried to escape by leaving the apartment, intending to go down to his parents. Julia rushed after him and they struggled together on the stairs. She lost her balance and fell. It was a terrible accident. Sextus said he had loved her and was heartbroken.

We had to accept what he told us.

In private afterwards, at home, Tiberius and I thought his story was all too convenient. While he had spoken to us so earnestly, his eyes flickered like those of a guilty man lying. Most of his story might have been true, but we were afraid he had taken his chance and deliberately pushed her.

If Sextus had killed Julia, he would get away with it. Even if questions were asked, he was a plausible man. If necessary, depositions would be made by family and friends that, sad as it was, Julia had regularly attacked him. The tragic results were not his fault; it had been self-defence.

Sextus carried it off beautifully, ironically as trained by us. He told Tiberius that even if cruel people had suspicions, he would be able to rehabilitate himself. Once in office, when he started repaying favours, the public would soon forget. His reputation remained pure – or at least as pure as any other politician’s.