Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

I smiled gently. "I always wait until I know exactly which colourful anecdote-or which fanciful lie-has been told about me." We tussled in silence for a while, with him resisting in order to tease me, then I added in a murmur: "And to whom the lie was told."

Andronicus projected his wide-eyed amazed look, eyebrows up and forehead wrinkled.

"Give!" I commanded more sternly. To help him out, I said, "I've learned that Metellus Nepos told Manlius Faustus that he was hiring an informer." I did not explore why Andronicus had not mentioned to me what Nepos said. Perhaps I should have, but I was more interested in knowing what had happened today. "Does that have something to do with this talk of my 'history'? "

Andronicus then confessed readily enough. "It was only a matter of time, Albia, before Faustus asked for the background on you."

"You were right before. He is an interfering bastard."

"Routine. All he did was to call up the vigiles register."

"And he found I wasn't there."

"Ah! Yes, he did."

The vigiles keep lists of characters the government chooses to monitor. That's people with low careers, or people who follow foreign religions that encourage lofty morals, certain types of which the authorities find highly dangerous. Among a ragbag of prostitutes and astrologers, these registers include informers.

"It must be difficult," Andronicus suggested. "Being on that kind of list?"

"But I'm not! I couldn't object; after all, it's perfectly true we informers follow curious rituals, speculate on ethical questions, and above all, sell ourselves. We try to solve puzzles, like mathematicians. We sit in bars, philosophising-though, thank the gods, it's not compulsory for informers to grow beards."

"Not even when you operate in disguise?" tried Andronicus wickedly. The way he said it verged on flirting. Very pleasant.

My father's name was on the vigiles' list. He thought that was hilarious. They never came to search our house these days, nor bothered to arrest him. His name probably had a "Do Not Disturb" mark alongside, to indicate that he was too pally with the old Emperor Vespasian.

My name had never been added. When I first became an informer, Uncle Lucius fixed that, claiming old-fashionedly that all I did was write love letters for the illiterate.

I did those sometimes. When the tear-jerkers were too banal, I passed them on to Father's Egyptian secretary. Clients liked it. His handwriting was beautiful.

"So I suppose," Andronicus pried gently, "you arranged to be erased from the registers with perhaps a hefty pay-off?"

"No, my uncle in the vigiles never listed me to begin with."

He whistled. "So you do have friends in all the right places!"

I asked Andronicus what the aedile did when he heard my name was missing. I should have guessed: he raised the level and sent for Cassius Scaurus. Although they worked in separate branches of law and order, Faustus would presume that as a magistrate he outranked a cohort commander. Scaurus wouldn't think so, but he would certainly not refuse the summons. Now I knew why that morning Morellus had told me I was in bother with his tribune.

One thing was certain. As soon as Scaurus returned to the station house after a stiff wigging from Manlius Faustus, he would have summoned his clerk. I had escaped for twelve years, but I was definitely on the damned list now.

"Actually," Andronicus assured me, "you emerged rather well from their discussion. Cassius Scaurus came to our headquarters, very nervous, expecting a stink. He wanted to make Faustus overlook their omission by providing as much detail as possible, so it would seem as if they did know all about you. After what he told my master, Faustus was well impressed."

"Educate me. What am I reckoned to have done?"

It was in the tribune's interest to paint me as virtuous, in order to explain why I had never been listed. Apparently I was a pleasant widow, determined and intelligent (and with the aforementioned excellent social connections), who had aided the vigiles with a tenaciously difficult medical fraud. The implication was that I had put myself in danger then, acting as a lure.

"In fact," I told Andronicus, "the one condition my parents laid on me when I started this work was that I must never, ever act as bait. It always goes wrong. Any woman who puts herself in jeopardy with a criminal is a fool."

"I am delighted you are so sensible, Albia."

"Of course I have done it. I just don't tell them in advance." That, needless to say, is the main reason this ridiculous ploy fails. Nobody knows where you are, so how can they provide backup, or come rushing to rescue you?

Andronicus leaned forwards across the table. He abandoned his food bowl. He was a fast eater, one who probably never consciously noticed the taste of his food; when he had had enough he stopped, not bothering to clean up the bowl. "Please be careful!" he pleaded, at his most earnest.

"I'm still here."

Just.

He had become too close to me; he cared too keenly about my welfare. I had no intention of scaring him by mentioning any narrow escapes I had had.

I made Andronicus tell me more of what had been said.

Cassius Scaurus had painted me to Faustus as an exotic specimen; he dwelt on the fact I had come to Rome from Britain, with all the usual nonsensical flourishes that holds. I groaned. "The remote and mysterious island, hidden in the mists, where red-haired, be-trousered inhabitants, every one wearing a huge gold tore, are permanently painted blue… Believe me, there is nothing romantic about mist if you live in it."

"Are they blue?"

"Of course not! Well, occasionally-but the great freckled lumps want to wear togas nowadays, and earn a fortune swindling all comers in some dodgy import-export business. If going to the baths means a life of ease and underfloor heating can be yours, the average go-getting British tribesman is up for it. Why live in a hut, when a subsidised forum has been provided at imperial expense? Why farm, when international trade is such a doddle? They rush from their fields, dying to sell Rutupiae oysters to Rome."

"While we eagerly buy them!" Andronicus grinned. Clearly he had heard that British delicacy outrivalled others.

"Allowing the Britons to drink themselves silly in Londinium bars."

"By the way-you, dear girl, may look like a neat little Roman matron who has a distaff in one hand and household accounts in the other, but you have a muddy provincial background and may be a druid."

My heart sank again. "I solve my cases by waving a mistletoe bough over the evidence? Ridiculous. I did let people spread that rumour years ago, though believe me I never started it. Actually, all druids are devious old men. Uncombed beards and mystic secrets. They never write anything down, because then people could check on what dirty cheats they are. Then it was explained to me by a sharp lawyer that in Rome dabbling in magic is a capital offence."

"Faustus was told that you do indeed know some sharp lawyers." Andronicus was watching me keenly, but there was enough fun in his gaze for me to enjoy it.

"More uncles. I consult them for free, every time we have a family party."

"So handy!.. The well-known Camilli, I believe?" Oh joy! Cassius Scaurus really had gone into detail. "Up-and-coming barristers- and both of them are in the Senate. That news was disconcerting to a plebeian aedile, I can tell you, Albia. He thinks himself so lofty- then he found out you were way above his level socially."

"You really do not like Faustus!"

I asked him straight: what had the aedile done to him? Since we were exchanging personal information so openly today, Andronicus told me.

Manlius Faustus was plebeian nobility, the kind that had a long history of confrontation with the Senate because their wealth made them so powerful they refused to be told what to do by the traditional aristocracy Princes in trade and commerce. As Rome became a great empire, they had seen and exploited the possibilities: Faustus' family commissioned, built and hired out warehouses. Through this, they had become extremely rich. Although they lived in modest style on the Aventine, it was thought they had chests of money, and they certainly owned a battalion of slaves, all high-priced ones, selected by the aedile's uncle because they were beautiful or talented. These were groomed and educated with the same attention to detail with which the Fausti looked after their warehouses. A clerical freedman with this background could consider himself a highly desirable commodity.