Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

"Faustus had this visitor-people sometimes bother him on business after dinner."

"He is good about it? Doesn't mind being cornered at home, when he's relaxing?"

"I've never known him to relax! He takes a pious attitude to 'duty.' He loves to suffer. And I expect he was curious."

"Whereas you didn't care at all what Salvidia's nephew wanted?" I teased.

Andronicus raised his eyebrows so his forehead wrinkled, looking fake-innocent. "When Faustus gets up and abandons a nutmeg custard for a mystery caller, I do tend to follow and put my ear to the door."

"You need to know what he's up to?"

"I like to keep a kindly eye on him."

In some homes, freedmen take that much interest for dubious reasons, hopeful of causing friction between family members, planning blackmail even. Luckily the good-natured way Andronicus joked about it would have reassured even Faustus.

He suddenly became more serious. "I did have an interest, Albia. The fact is, I myself had had a grisly run-in with that awful woman. I can hardly bear to remember it. Salvidia came to see Faustus, but he was out of the office. I had to deal with her. She was furious about the wall poster, the one asking for witnesses to the child's death. She laid into me something terrible. Left me shaking."

"Oh poor you!"

"As if it was my fault!" Andronicus still seemed upset. Having met Salvidia, I could imagine why. "She was a pest. Her arrogance was simply unacceptable. I thought she was going to attack me physically."

"I expect she was afraid there would be consequences after the accident." Manlius Faustus could come down heavily on her building firm, to punish them for negligence. Overloading carts and having drunken drivers were areas of interest for aediles. "Had you told Faustus about how she confronted you? Was he sympathetic?"

"According to him, my job is always to be helpful to members of the public."

"He doesn't know much about the public."

"Albia, how true! When her nephew arrived to speak to him, Faustus ordered me to sit tight. I wasn't having that. He went to speak to the visitor; I sneakily followed him."

"You thought there was some trouble arising from your altercation? Why would a relative feel he ought to inform a magistrate Salvidia had died, Andronicus?"

"No idea." The archivist shrugged.

"Maybe," I suggested disingenuously, "he is prepared to pay the compensation that has been demanded for little Lucius Bassus. So he thinks the poster calling for witnesses should be taken down now? Hush things up? If he means to carry on the construction business, being named as an organisation that has killed a child besmirches its reputation. And if he wants to sell up, he has even more need to hide what happened so he can ask a good price for a going concern."

"I can think of another motive for him paying the compensation. He wants to prevent the company being fined for negligence," retorted Andronicus.

"That's possible." Since Nepos was my client, I felt obliged to keep my tone neutral.

"Oh you have such a trusting nature!" smiled my companion, unaware that I had simply preferred not to sound too clever. He composed compliments like many men: cliches I found embarrassing. "So where does that leave you regarding Salvidia? You can stop working on her case now?"

What a generous friend. He seemed so keen to spare me unnecessary labour. "If the compensation is paid, I am redundant. Unluckily for me, Salvidia had tied me to a no win, no fee contract."

Andronicus cocked his head on one side. "Upset?"

"No. A child was killed. I never liked the case."

The archivist rose to his feet, looking pleased with my answer. "So! Since that vile termagant is out of the way and your work is over," he offered, "maybe you might come out and have lunch with me?"

I had work. But I knew how to pace it. Suddenly I became the kind of woman who goes out to lunch with a man she only met yesterday.

I let him choose where. Juno be praised he did not go for my aunt's place, though we did walk past it.

He picked an eatery with an interior courtyard, secluded from street noise and well run, so it was pleasantly busy with a clientele of commercial customers. We had a light lunch, fried fish and salad, water with it. We talked and laughed. He made no moves. I valiantly refrained from making moves on him, though I was tempted. A woman has needs. Mine had not been met for a long time. Too long. I really liked him and was ready for adventure.

Afterwards he went back to the aediles' office. He had a nice line in looking regretful that he had to leave.

Left alone, I walked to an ancient piazza called the Armilustrium, where I sat for a long time, thinking about life.

The Armilustrium was the shared name of a festival and a sanctuary. The place was an old walled enclosure, sacred to Mars, the Roman god of war. From time immemorial, it had been where weapons were ritually purified in March and October, the start and end of the fighting season. After each ceremony there would be a big parade down to the Circus Maximus: all noise and triumpha-lism. Romans love to make a racket.

Since the enclosure served as a parade ground during the spring and autumn ceremonies, it was kept mainly bare, although there was a shrine at one end, a permanent stone altar in the centre and a couple of benches for the benefit of old ladies. In one corner was alleged to be the ancient tomb of Titus Tatius, a Sabine king who had ruled jointly with Romulus for a period, thousands of years ago. As a foreigner, he had been buried here on what was then the outsiders' hill; an oak tree shaded his resting place. It must have been renewed. Even oaks don't last that long.

In between festivals, the Armilustrium often lay deserted. I liked to come into the enclosure and sit out here. It was better than a public park where you were constantly irritated by lovers and rampaging schoolboys, beggars and mad people pretending to be lost as an excuse to engage strangers in conversation. There was hardly any litter here because the populace never wandered about with food in their hands, and nor was there that worrying smell of old dog dirt that tends to waft over even the most formal gardens if people are allowed to exercise their pets.

Don't misunderstand me. I like dogs. At one terrible time of my young life, I had lived on the streets of the town I was born in, scavenging with the feral dogs; they were kinder to me than most humans. I became as wild as they were. Maybe at heart I still was. If ever I paused quietly to consider my origins and character, the fear of having an unRoman nature unsettled me. It positively scared other people. Men, particularly. Not that I minded upsetting men.

The ideal Roman matron was supposed to be docile, but I had noticed how few of them were. It seemed to me, Roman men had devised their prescriptive regime for their women precisely because the women really held domestic power. We let them think they were in charge. But in many homes they were wrong.

I liked the Armilustrium because even without dog dirt it did harbour a smell, a musky odour near any undergrowth, a rank scent of wildlife that deterred many people: foxes frequented the area. When sitting still and silent I had often seen them. To me, since I had never kept ducks or chickens, foxes were a wilder, more intriguing kind of dog.

The Aventine foxes were currently causing me anxiety. It was April. In the middle of the month would come one of the numerous festivals that cluttered the Roman calendar, this one dedicated to Ceres, the Cerialia. Like the Armilustrium, it always had several days of public events down in the Circus, but with one extra feature that I found loathsome. On the first night, live foxes would be driven down the hill, with lit torches tied to their tails. Whooping celebrants would herd them into the Circus, where they died in agony.