Cholon, the name spat out in one unguarded moment by his master? Which direction did they take, after the slave took her home? When she returned to the villa, looking for clues, it was deserted and devoid of any evidence of their occupancy. Most of all Marcia ached to know where they had ridden to, immediately after the birth. Where did they go to expose the child, a journey that had kept them away until well after dawn broke the following day?
CHAPTER SEVEN
The house of Lucius Falerius Nerva was, once more, full of people. They stood, in groups, around the waterless fountain and burning braziers in the spacious atrium, their conversation setting up a steady buzz as they discussed the events of the previous two days; Tiberius Livonius cut down along with four companions garbed in his robes as a priest of the Cult of Lupercalia. This had led to serious rioting, as the people he represented, the poor and needy, poured out of their slums screaming for retribution, thus giving the patrician party an excuse to respond with their armed retainers, which in turn led to the massacre of Livonius’s adherents. Over three hundred had died as the patricians egged on their supporters to kill their political enemies.
Yet their deaths paled beside the effect of the initial assassination. The murder of a plebeian tribune, a hero to the dispossessed, whose person was held to be inviolate, was a heinous crime. All Rome was agog to know the names of the assailants, though few seemed to doubt that the author of the attack was the owner of this house. An angry crowd, defying the danger of another massacre, as well as the orders of the lictors to disperse, had gathered outside to yell obscenities. Those lictors, whose task it was to maintain civil order, were forced to mount guard at the gate. The noise swelled as the outer door swung open to admit another caller, and the room fell silent as Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus entered. A collective sigh rose from the throats of those with a slim chance of an interview with Lucius, for their prospects were so diminished as to have almost disappeared. Everyone else knew that the mere presence of this man would considerably extend the time they had to wait; Aulus would be admitted to the great man’s study just as soon as the host was appraised of his arrival.
Properly clad in his senatorial toga, with one fold acting as a cowl to cover his head, Aulus took up position on his own, at a point far away from the entrance to the study. Several men bowed in his direction, indicating that many a conversation was open to him. While courteously returning the bows, Aulus held himself aloof. Likewise those clients of Lucius, who would also wish to avail themselves of Aulus’s largesse, he being one of the richest men in Rome, were kept at bay by the look in his eye, which was not one to invite an approach. Lucius’s steward, ushering an elderly knight out of the study, failed to see Aulus and was just about to indicate that another man should proceed through the door when a hurried whisper made him spin round. It was like a scene from a comedy by Plautus. The steward’s hand shot to his mouth in a most unprofessional manner and he rushed into the study to tell his master. Seconds lengthened into a full minute before he returned, which had already heightened the tension, but when the fellow ignored Aulus, and indicated that the original supplicant should go through, the air became charged. For quite some time no one could speak; they just stared at Aulus to see what he would do.
The object of their curiosity did not even flick a black eyebrow; there was no reaction at all to this obvious slight, even though, inwardly, he was troubled. Aulus had come with three objects in mind; to celebrate a birth, to mourn a death and to expunge the dread that what the mob protested outside, that Lucius had been responsible for the assassination of Tiberius Livonius, was true. Ruminating in turn on all three, he stared back at his inquisitive audience as if daring one of them to mention what had just taken place; to state the level of the insult that had just been very publicly delivered. No one did and soon the conversation resumed, if anything louder than before, as the gathering tried to make sense of this unexpected shift in the political wind.
In the jumble of thoughts that coursed through Aulus’s mind the sight of the child he had exposed kept cropping up, unbidden, a bundle of white placed on the cold earth. He had avoided looking at it too closely, staying mounted on a horse suddenly skittish, not wishing to be haunted by the physical image, but all that meant was that he transposed, instead, the infant faces of his own two sons. Much as he tried to concentrate on the forthcoming meeting with Lucius, which was now bound to be difficult, he could not erase the memory of watching Cholon lay down the sleeping infant with a gentility that was at odds with what was intended. On a clear moonlit night the trees had sighed in the gentle wind, as if in sorrow. As he had gazed at the outline of the distant mountains, with the ghostly outline of an extinct volcano, Aulus had felt the chill in the air as the clear sky sucked what little heat the day had produced out of the earth, the chill that would ensure a slow but painless death.
Two more knights and one senator were admitted while Aulus stood waiting. All the while he kept trying to bring his thoughts back to matters at hand, or to the turmoil that had greeted him and his wife as they had entered the city he loved and had fought for; the sight of bodies in the streets; of armed bands passing him with swords already bloody, and a look in their eyes that promised more killing. The notion persisted that by being present he might have been able to prevent this, but the moonlit glade well away from the Via Appia kept intruding. The body would provide food for some predator, so that the little bones would be scattered. He wanted to shake his head, to destroy the image he had then — why was he so shaken by one death when he had participated in so many — but too many eyes were on him, too many people looking for some kind of reaction to what they had observed.
Finally, with his progress followed by the whole room, the steward made his way across the atrium towards the tall, imposing, but solitary figure. His whispered words brought a curt nod and Aulus, head high, looking neither left nor right, made his way towards the study, hearing the steward, behind him, announce that there would be no more business conducted that day. The study was much darker than the atrium, hardly surprising since what he had left was open to both daylight and the elements. Here the light came from a glowing brazier and oil lamps, with the bulk of their effect concentrated on the owner’s desk. It was only then that Aulus realised what was missing; Ragas, the warrior slave he had gifted to this house after his return from Macedonia, a fellow always with Lucius, who knew as well as anyone that, with the position he held, he could be the target of an assassination.
‘Greetings, Lucius Falerius,’ said Aulus.
He reached up to uncover his head as a mark of the genuine respect he felt for this man, but the hand froze in mid-air. Lucius Falerius did not even look up, but just kept on writing, his quill scratching across the rough papyrus and for one of the few times in his adult life, Aulus felt foolish, unsure of what he should do. To uncover his head while being blatantly ignored would be undignified.
‘It’s difficult to know what to do, is it not, Aulus, when you’re unsure who your friends are?’
Lucius still had not looked up, leaving Aulus trying to discern something from the voice; anger, guilt or was it just pique? He and Lucius had fallen out often enough — you could not be friends for thirty years with a man like him and not have the occasional spat, but they had been, in most cases, of short duration. Aulus was always willing to admit when he was at fault, while Lucius was gifted with the wit and words to eventually turn any dispute into an object of mirth. On the rare occasions when Aulus thought about their long attachment he would conclude that, though very different in many ways, they balanced each other, the uncomplicated warrior and the wily politician. This, Aulus knew, because of the way he had been left waiting in the atrium, was different.
Faced with such a welcome, kept waiting like some common supplicant, Aulus was forced to confront an unwelcome truth. It was no secret that Lucius had become more acid and less tolerant over the years as the burdens he undertook increased, just as it was known that he was inclined to outbursts which could only be ascribed to jealousy. Some of his comments on the marriage with Claudia, which had been repeated by gossipy tongues, had been far from amusing and Aulus had chided him, before departing for Spain, about the fact that he was prone to treat some of his friends with the same disdain he reserved for his enemies.
As he looked down at the thinning hair on the bowed head, it seemed such an attitude applied to him as well, and for the first time in his life and for all the years he had considered this man a companion, ally and confidant, he was unsure if the words he was about to use were wholly true. ‘I have never had cause to doubt that we were friends, Lucius.’
There was a trace of a growl in the Falerii voice as Lucius responded, which made Aulus really bridle for the first time since he had entered the house. ‘Then you are more fortunate than I!’
‘That is, until now,’ snapped Aulus, his black eyes blazing with anger. ‘No friend of mine has ever seen fit to humiliate me.’
The top of Lucius’s balding head shook slightly, the sheen of his pate catching the light from the nearby lanterns. ‘Again you are fortunate.’ The voice had softened now, to become almost silky, but still Lucius, as he continued, would not look at his guest. ‘A friend of mine did something very like that recently, someone bound to
