The Ides of April (30 page)

Postumus said nothing during my interview; even Ferret stayed down inside his tunic and rarely poked his head out. My brother was never any trouble at work. He liked to watch whatever was going on and decide how much better he himself would have done it.

Venusia flapped around, trying to distract me by querying whether my dear little boy would like some fruit juice or a bowl of raisins. Postumus had never been a child who accepted juice from nagging ladies who treated him like a three-year-old. Even when he was actually three, he behaved like an old man, an old man who had several wives buried out under the woodhouse floor with hatchets in their heads. He gave Venusia his stare, the one that asked openly why did this stupid woman not know all he wanted was to be allowed to go into the sacred woods and find a hedgehog to dismember as bloodily as possible?

During their tussle over the juice, I had a chance to look at Venusia. I was shocked that she was no longer a girl. You tend to assume a lady’s maid is a young person, whose conversation will be more fun for the lady and who can be bossed about or even beaten; the plaque I had been shown of Marcia Balbilla’s had certainly portrayed
her
as youthful. Mind you, Marcia had freely admitted she had that depiction of Ino made more attractive for the salon wall than true-to-life.

Venusia was a woman of a certain age, that age being in my estimate forty-five. Not quite due for retirement (because maids have to flog away for years, patting the pimples of mistresses who are determined never to lose their assistants), but verging on loss of hope, I thought. Andronicus’ description of her as a gargoyle went too far, but that was a man’s dismissal of any older woman who was no flirty honeycake. She had an awkward body, a face spoiled by a prominent wart, and an uncompromising manner. From what I knew, Laia Gratiana was a match for her, but with other employers Venusia would have been a bully.

I explained I had come to ask about the incident with Ino. Venusia looked hostile. In the usual getting-to-know-you session, I slyly slipped in questions about when Laia and Faustus were married. ‘What did you think about that?’

‘She could have done a lot better.’

‘You were not keen?’

‘I never liked him.’

Now I had seen her, I wondered if this was because Faustus for his part had not cared for Venusia? Any young husband may resent a maid who is too close to his wife, exercising an influence on her that he may see as unhelpful to him, especially if he and the wife are none too compatible in the first place. Venusia would be older than Laia by around ten years, possibly first trained by Laia’s mother; she was a woman who had been placed in charge of a bride when the bride herself was still a girl. She might have deep-seated bonds to Laia’s family that overrode the new bonds she should have to the marriage. Personally, I would have got rid of her. I don’t only mean, if I had been Manlius Faustus. I would have done it if I had been Laia.

I decided immediately that there had been no relationship between Faustus and this woman. Even now, nearly a decade after the divorce, her dark eyes burned with contempt when she mentioned him. Just supposing at some early point she had thought him good-looking and nursed a passion for him, it must have been one-sided and had ended abortively. ‘I am told you have always been tremendously loyal to your mistress?’

Venusia sneered. ‘You mean, when he cheated, and I found out, I made sure she knew about it?’

‘Yes, I did mean that.
How
did you find out, incidentally?’

‘I noticed he was behaving as if he was up to something. I smelled the woman’s perfume on him. I marched along and talked to the slaves at the other house. They soon told me.’

‘So they were fully aware of the illicit goings-on?’

Venusia scoffed. ‘Of course! You don’t think it is ever hidden from the staff? People are fools to believe what they get up to on a couch never gets noticed.’

‘Oh, people are fools all right! . . . Did Faustus make eyes at anybody else?’

‘Not that I know.’

‘Never?’

‘Once was enough. Laia Gratiana was too good to be messed about that way.’

‘You didn’t regard him as a predator? He never made a move on you?’

‘You are joking!’

‘Believe me, it has been suggested.’

‘By idiots!’

‘Well, he does have supporters. His people make out his affair was a single, stupid mistake.’

‘Then he did it to the wrong person. She had me to look after her.’ Even now, Venusia was unforgiving. Laia too, presumably. I wondered how far, then and now, the maid’s insistence on punishing Faustus had leached into the wronged wife’s perception.

‘Venusia, do you think Manlius Faustus blames you for the loss of his marriage?’

‘We have nothing to do with him, so I wouldn’t care to say.’ She said it anyway. ‘But no, I reckon he blames himself. Which is right. It was his own fault.’

‘So would he be harbouring a grudge against you still?’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose he likes me!’ proclaimed Venusia proudly. ‘But I don’t expect he ever thinks about it.’

‘He would not be a man to brood over revenge for many years?’

‘Hardly!’ Again, the woman sneered. ‘Too much effort. He never had that much staying power.’

‘A friend of mine suggested Faustus may have intended to harm you, but made a mistake and attacked Ino.’

‘It’s rubbish. Who said that?’

‘Someone from the aedile’s office.’

‘Your fancy man!’

‘You know Andronicus?’ I was startled.

‘I do not! I’ve seen him. The office is right by the temple. We recognise men who work there. I know he goes around with you.’ The maid sounded scornful. ‘It’s the talk of the place.’

I hate being the subject of gossip, though I kept my temper. I felt a strong need to move on. ‘Well, we were discussing Faustus. Are you frightened of him?’

‘I certainly am not.’

‘So who are you frightened of, Venusia?’

‘I am not frightened of anybody.’

‘Then why,’ I asked, ‘are you stuck out here in these thickets, a day’s journey from Rome, in a run-down shrine with no passing trade? While your mistress is taking part in the year’s most sacred ceremonies and must have a need for you?’ There was not a flicker. ‘Tell me, Venusia, who are you hiding from?’

‘I
don’t understand your question!’ Venusia was bluffing brazenly. ‘It is a shrine to Ceres, our goddess. My mistress is a member of the cult of Ceres; she will be the chief priestess one day, mark my words.’

I retorted, ‘She will have to remarry first! . . . This is a distraction, Venusia. I repeat, why are you here?’

‘I was very upset over what happened to poor little Ino, so my mistress very kindly sent me here for a while to recuperate.’

‘Where nobody could get at you?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, that again! All right.’ I had no patience with her stubborn resistance. ‘Tell me facts instead. What happened exactly when Ino was attacked?’

Now the woman showed she felt pressurised; sweat gleamed as she began to mop her forehead. Even so, she coolly described the walk in the Vicus Altus, Ino being jostled hard, and then stumbling – all according to accounts I had heard already. When I checked, she confirmed that, for no particular reason, she had been walking behind Marcia Balbilla, with Ino behind Laia Gratiana.

‘Laia thought she glimpsed someone assaulting Ino.’

‘I don’t know about that. My mistress is not obliged to tell me everything.’ I thought privately,
but I bet you consider that she should!
The tussle for control in Laia’s house must be wearying. Only Laia’s own forceful personality can have kept her independent.

‘Did you see this man?’

‘No.’

‘Did you notice anybody melting back in slyly among the other passers-by?’

‘I told you, no.’

‘Did you recognise anybody in the street at the time?’

‘No.’

‘Did Ino say anything about him?’

‘No.’

‘How did she come to lose her stole?’

‘What?’

‘Her stole. She dropped it, Laia told me.’

‘I don’t know. It must have been slippery material. She was wearing it pulled over her head like a good girl.’ Automatically, Venusia mimed the way a respectable woman grips her stole with one graceful hand at the throat, to keep it anchored on her hair as she is walking. ‘She must have lost her hold when she fell over.’

‘How tall was she? About your height? Taller? Smaller?’

‘About my height.’

‘What kind of build?’

‘Similar to me.’

Venusia was, like many slaves, a couple of inches less than the Roman average, perhaps because her distant origins lay in a province where the norm was shorter. Though not skinny, she was slim-built, with thin arms and her clavicles showing bonily above her tunic neckline. The plebeian rich led healthy lives, though they treated their slaves frugally. Laia Gratiana carried even less weight, which I had always seen as representing her lack of enjoyment in life, because there were no dietary restrictions on the mistress of a household. She was taller than Venusia, as was her friend Marcia Balbilla. That was normal.

‘How old was Ino?’

‘She would have been thirty next year. I know because she was always fretting on about it. She wanted to buy her freedom then, and take up with her fellow.’

‘What fellow was that?’

‘One of the slaves in the house. Their house.’

‘Yes, I heard about him. Marcia Balbilla did not know, but it was a pretty open secret otherwise. Any other follower she was interested in? Someone from outside?’

‘I don’t reckon so. She would not have met anyone.’

‘It would be difficult,’ I suggested, ‘for anyone with mistresses like yours and Ino’s, to take up with a man who was not in your own household?’

‘Oh, impossible.’ That was nonsense. Plenty of slaves and freedwomen make outside connections. Some come and go every few minutes like bees from a hive. Venusia looked me straight in the eye, and made it almost pitying. Her own eyes were so dark brown they were almost black; they were fathomless, reminding me of gutter-water outside an industrial
workshop. ‘Anyway, we are not all free-living creatures like prostitutes. Some of us behave morally.’

She was aiming this at me. It was a cheap, nasty dig.

I felt my jaw set. ‘There’s nothing wrong in seeking congenial company. And do you have a lover, Venusia?’ She just shook her head disgustedly. ‘Have you ever had one?’

‘I have not,’ she said in a bald tone, as if I had asked her if she ever dabbled in sorcery.

That was a crucial moment. Looking back, I could so easily have got this wrong. I might have assumed the brusque way she spoke meant Venusia shunned men because she was inexperienced and no men ever looked at her. Yet a sudden instinct told me it sounded more like the over-emphasis of someone blotting out a bad experience.

I cannot explain where that kind of impression comes from for an informer. Somehow a niggle starts. It is easy to overlook. Often it turns out to be right.

‘Would you have liked to buy your freedom and set up independently?’

‘No money.’

‘You must have had rewards. Don’t you believe in savings?’

‘Why bother? You only get swindled out of it.’

‘Who swindled you?’

‘Nobody. I am not that stupid.’

Why mention it then? I wondered.

I gave up shortly afterwards, exhausted by my long journey that day and the impossibility of breaking through the maid’s stonewall resistance. You wouldn’t think I was trying to identify a man who might be a threat to her. On principle, she had a dry-mouthed, derisive manner, like one who was deliberately being awkward and privately enjoying it. She despised me. It was not the first time I had been regarded as lightweight by a witness; still, it left me feeling unsatisfactory, my purpose unfulfilled.

I led Postumus away, via the deserted shrine. There we stood gazing up for a moment at the statue of Ceres, seated and representing the Loving Mother. This was not an untrustworthy figure who might abandon a baby girl in a rebellion or exploit a reluctant young boy as a high-wire acrobat. The Ceres of Aricia had the upward and outward gaze of a woman contented with her position and her busy role, nurturing her children whilst attending to many other tasks in the world. Her abundant hair was loosely swept back, caught at the neck in ringlets, tendrilled, fastened down with her light crown of wheat stems. She was handsome, wide-eyed, adorned with a twisted necklet and rosetted earrings. She smiled, she was calm and capable. She reminded my brother and me of the woman who had adopted us, our own Loving Mother. That made us smile. Yes, even Postumus.

It was too late to return to Rome that night. We had to stay at the inn. As the boy and I walked back there, I muttered wearily, ‘Well, that was a long way to come to hear nothing useful!’

Postumus turned and looked up at me. He assessed my statement. He might be eleven, but he was creepily observant. ‘She was telling you lies.’

Well, I knew that. I just had to decide what the lies were about.

I
t took us all day to make it back to Rome. This was partly due to traffic tangles, but we had our own delays. By the time we reached and climbed the Aventine, and the cart rolled up outside the old laundry, the three chickens were down to two. Two very scared ones.

Felix, the driver, was in a filthy mood over that. He had been attached to all the chooks. He dropped off Postumus with me, pretending he had to take the cart off in the wrong direction for carrying my brother home. Postumus climbed out resignedly, with Ferret hanging around his neck. Ferret had stopped going crazy. Tragically for Diddle, Ferret had achieved his aim.

I felt worn out. I was ready to collapse at home, but now had to walk my brother to my parents’ house. And my brain had been in turmoil, in between me being obliged to sort out crises with men and pets. I had travelled frequently with my parents so was well used to quarrels among my companions, though had never before had to catch hysterical poultry. Still, things always quieten down once everyone is exhausted. You just need to know when to fetch out the picnic hamper. Then the one grace of a long journey with an unfriendly driver and a boy who lives in his own world is that you have a chance to arrange your thoughts.