Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

I had been to this kind of festival. "Give a cult devotee a big flaming torch and she'll just adore pointing it at something in a ritual manner."

Andronicus did a hilarious mime for me. "Terrible posing and slow-motion solemnity. Really embarrassing dances by young people who had been made to dress up in fake Hellenic costumes. Horrible little playlets, with truly gruesome dialogue."

"Oh, you had a good time then!" I grinned and Andronicus snorted.

"Yes, I had a good time." He was obviously waiting for me to question the statement, but I teasingly refused.

We were silent for a moment. I was enjoying the bread that had been supplied with our refreshments. It was a good, fresh, crusty loaf torn up into its eight portions and served in a basket lined with a crisp white napkin. It came with a small silver platter of cheese which, unless I was mistaken, had been made by Metellus Nepos, Salvidia's stepson. I was sure I recognised the flavours, though sadly there was none of the smoked cheese; perhaps Tiberius had devoured it all. At least tragedy had brought Nepos custom.

The thought struck me that since this appeared to be the only enclosed garden in the house, it must be where Cassiana Clara had lingered that night she came here to dinner with Viator. I tried to imagine the place, lit by a few oil lamps flickering along the colonnades. There were festoons of jasmine where sparrows played, small statues of young dryads and a bubbling fountain that actually worked. It would make a pleasant place to hide away-though not if you then had some kind of unfortunate encounter. She had. I was certain now.

I noted that if Clara had cried out in distress, people in the dining room would easily have heard her and come running to assist. A few strides would have brought Viator, angry that in some way his young wife had been affronted. I visualised how he must have strode out here, slung that muscled arm around Clara and steered her back to a couch for the dessert course, the flautist and her polite conversation with Faustus about music…

"What really made Cassiana Clara so upset?" I asked. "From talking to her, she clearly was."

Andronicus looked startled. "Why do you ask?"

"Mild curiosity."

"She's a silly girl."

"All girls are silly. I was silly myself once. She comes from a sheltered environment, she's young, she is probably easily bored by long conversations about retail space and storage conditions."

"Personally," Andronicus joked, "I can never get enough of the iugerum-to-denarius ratio, and the free flow of air currents for optimal mould prevention."

I loved his sense of humour. "You're giving me a fine glimpse of the breakfast dialogue in this home."

"You're right. From early dawn, one is expected to enjoy a symposium on underfloor granary aeration, with the latest anxieties about mice and beetle damage. Tullius is a very successful warehouse owner, Albia."

"It's gained him a lovely house to hold beetle symposiums in… So," I persisted, "what did happen when Clara was bored with the space-to-hire-cost ratio?"

Andronicus shrugged. "As I said, I found her here and talked to her, aiming to cheer her up if I could. Hard work, I must say! When I could see it was making her uneasy to be on her own with someone, of course I quit the scene."

"Perfect manners," I murmured. I had not found Cassiana Clara hard to talk to, even now she was grieving, but I was a woman.

He pretended to preen. "I didn't go for her anyway."

"Would that have made a difference?"

"Why not?" he demanded lightly. I felt a lurch in the pit of my stomach, but reminded myself he was a man. Surely he had no idea this caused me a pang of jealousy? Or maybe he did know. What he said next came as a shock. "Faustus must have come along immediately afterwards, when she was still moping alone, and could not believe his luck."

"Faustus?"

"He lives here, you know!"

"But 'couldn't believe his luck,' Andronicus?"

"He grabbed. She screamed. Out rushes everybody, her maddened husband in the lead."

"Hey, steady on for a moment! …" I had to readjust. This was a possibility that had never occurred to me. Up until now I had not imagined the supposedly priggish aedile as a man who would set upon a young female visitor to his home, let alone when her husband was toying with the nuts and peaches dessert course only a few yards away.

"The girl was to blame," said Andronicus.

"Why? All Cassiana Clara did was put herself in the wrong place briefly, while she needed a breather from a stultifying dinner."

I could accept Clara was inexperienced enough to have secretly been excited by an older man mildly flirting (any aedile must be thirty-six by the rules, against her nineteen, a significant difference). But anything serious would have shocked and alarmed her, I was sure. She would not have known how to handle it. Anyway, she was devoted to Julius Viator-unless her devotion now was guilt after the event.

"She wound him up." I stiffened instinctively, at which Andronicus immediately dropped the hard attitude. "Oh, just testing! I realise you are bursting to accuse me of every kind of masculine hypocrisy, dear Albia. You are quite right. A woman should be able to sit by herself in the garden of a private house-"

"Or anywhere!" I snarled.

"Without every hot-blooded male who spots her taking it as an open signal to stick his prick in."

"You're saying Manlius Faustus is the same lousy type as his uncle?"

Andronicus just pulled a face and left me to think as I chose.

I put this in context with what Tiberius had told me about the aediles old affair. Imagine it: back then, Faustus, when left alone with his patron's trophy brooch-buster, assumed the beauty was there for the taking. "She offered. He took," Tiberius had said. But presumably that woman liked and wanted his attention.

For some reason, I suddenly felt I would like to ask Tiberius for his opinion about this story of Cassiana Clara's assault.

"You can imagine the furore when the silly thing started yelling. The girl was to blame," repeated Andronicus, matter-of-factly. Then he said, "So you know, Albia, there is a good reason to say it was Faustus who got his revenge by taking out Viator afterwards-revenge for spoiling his fun and showing him up."

"T ook out Viator?" I drew a sharp breath. "You are accusing Faustus of killing the fur magnate? Oh come on! Let me remind you, Andronicus, last time you had anything to say about this, you pointed to Tiberius."

"Yes, I do seem rather changeable." He smiled, unabashed. I had a weakness for his pretended amoral streak. A girl likes the unpredictable. Then he explained, "Fact is, Albia, something happened last night that made me see things differently."

"What? What happened? What did you find out?"

Andronicus leaned back, with his hands linked behind his ginger-brown head. I had never been in any doubt he enjoyed being the sole focus of my attention. I hoped it did not make him exaggerate for effect. "Something happened after the horse race."

I took myself in hand, playing calm. "Tell me."

"Come on. You are excited. Admit it."

"I am excited. Now show me whether you are a full player or your dice box is empty, you abominable tease."

Andronicus, who had as usual been picky about the food we were brought, now stopped to take a slice of cheese and savour it. What he was really revelling in was the suspense. I let him.

"My dice box is never empty." He had a way of speaking sometimes that could sound over-serious. But he gazed at me with his confiding expression. I grew up watching people who worked in a close, loving partnership, and his manner at that moment gave me a warm feeling of promise for our own relationship. People ought to work like this.