Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

"I'm sick of this!" Even Andronicus sounded ready for a fight. I was against that happening. Rodan might be a failed gladiator, but he was still big enough to inflict damage; in pain, the archivist would probably turn vicious. Being selfish, I did not want to have to find a new porter, if Andronicus managed to hurt Rodan. He was cheap, too stupid to rob us, and had been known to the family for many years; who likes change?

Andronicus was still ranting. "First the woman is continually missing, then she thinks she can run rings around me-I'd like to kill that pestilential brat she had with her."

"Better not try it." That must have been the tone Rodan once used for putting frighteners on slow-paying tenants. With the grille safely between them, he was happy to play tough. It was a slow, easy offer to hook someone's organs out of them via an unusual orifice. Like an Egyptian embalmer-but with you still alive-at least you would be when Rodan started.

"I am not being made a fool of-somebody will pay for the inconvenience!"

"Send your bill!" jeered Rodan.

"You or her! It's all the same to me who suffers." Andronicus' Parthian shot was intended to chill. I could not help wondering if he guessed I might be listening.

When I was sure he had gone, I emerged from the shadows. In the entrance lobby, after I walked down, a couple of crude oil lamps at floor level shed a sickly glow in feeble patches. It was enough for me to make out Rodan as he stood, looking out through the grille, ox-like but flabby in his ragged one-armed tunic. He heard me and turned, showing no surprise.

We exchanged a long look.

"Thank you, Rodan. Do not let him in," I said quietly. "If ever he comes looking for me, say I am not here. Make any excuse."

Rodan said nothing; he just nodded.

I went back to my rooms. I made sure all the doors were barred. I was not frightened exactly, yet my heart was hammering.

It might be a difficult task to free myself from this situation safely. But I would have to do it.

Next morning I wanted to be out of the house, somewhere people could not find me.

I went to the baths, partly to do yet more thinking. That never works. Physically and mentally I was so drained by yesterday, my mind just drifted.

Out of it did come two benefits. One, I was clean. An informer should start a hard day feeling neat. Two, I revived enough to decide on action. I dispensed with the interminable circles of speculation about the killing of Ino, Venusia's position, the crazy connections to the aedile and his long-ago adultery. Instead, I would use the informing trick that rarely fails: go back and re-check every event where questions still remained.

I went first to see Cassiana Clara. She could clear up immediately Andronicus' claim that the aedile had tried to assault her. But Fate was against me. She was not at home. I learned she had gone out of Rome (another fugitive?). Clara had not taken refuge in a shrine, but was staying at an estate belonging to her future second husband, at the seaside, way south in Campania.

I could only wonder whether this was to allow her to get to know her fiance, or if it had some darker explanation. It was definitely too far for me to travel, and I felt the location could have been chosen for that reason. Nobody at the house would tell me more. I was refused admittance to ask questions of her parents. I could only curse the door porter, a bland functionary who hooked thumbs in his belt in a way that said he was used to being cursed and wouldn't give a fig for it, even if figs had been in season.

I had more success with my next attempt. I looped back over the Hill, using up more shoe leather as I made my way to the Fourth Cohort's station house; luckily I had made it a day for sensible shoes. I wanted to plead with the vigiles to let me interview Celendina's son, Kylo. That was assuming he had not been put before a magistrate and sent to an appalling death for matricide.

They still had him. In fact, it looked as if any case against him for killing his mother had been allowed to drop quietly. Hard men have to have a break from being bullies. Kylo was the latest fledgling sparrow who had tumbled into the exercise yard. He had been absorbed into the vigiles. They laughed at him, but they fed him, housed him, let him hang around on the fringes when groups were lolling in the yard. He even went out to bars with them.

If they could slim him down and make him mobile, he might even become a firefighter, though that was a long way off. Meanwhile, the men were using Kylo as a trusty, guarding the bare cells where they locked up temporary prisoners. The large young man looked more threatening than he probably was, and he devoted himself to the task solemnly. He was well able to subdue drunks and hush indignant arsonists. If the vigiles chose to foster him, it was his best chance. So long as no interfering official who needed something to do raised the issue, Kylo now had a job for life here. In a crude way, the vigiles were his replacement family.

They didn't care if I interviewed him. We sat on the ground together in the inner courtyard. One of the vigiles oversaw the interview, squatting on an upturned bucket, taking no notice, picking his nose. Morellus sauntered up, however; he propped himself against a pillar and pretended to be whittling a stick. Anything I learned, he was determined to know too.

Kylo's treatment here had transformed him from the terrified prisoner I saw first. The young man had settled and was more confident among people.

I spoke very gently. "Kylo, you do remember your mother, don't you?" He nodded. A slight frown of perturbation creased his forehead, nothing serious. "Do you think about her?" He dribbled a bit but wiped it on his arm. "She would like to think you do. You must miss her badly. I met her, you know. We had a lovely chat at somebody's funeral. I thought she was a wonderful lady."

Kylo was looking uncomfortable but, so far, he understood he ought to talk to me, and not scarper. I carried on, keeping my voice low.

"You know who I am, don't you? I am called Flavia Albia." He stared at the ground. "You saw me once before, Kylo; I came and talked to you. And your new friends here in the vigiles all know me and are friends with me too. But we had never met at the time your mother died, had we? So when something happened to her, I am wondering why you said my name to people?"

Kylo suddenly looked straight in my direction. "Do you live here?" It seemed he could talk, and perfectly well, when he wanted to. I had no difficulty understanding him.

"No, Kylo, I have my own place. Why?"

"I was supposed to fetch you."

"When your mother was poorly?"

"She lay down. She said, 'I'm feeling funny, Kylo. Kylo, fetch Flavia Albia'-but I didn't know where I had to go."

"Kylo, this is important. Did your mother say why she wanted me?" He looked confused. "Kylo, had she mentioned meeting me that afternoon?"

He pondered. I waited quietly. "She always told me about where she had been out. She told it like a story."

"So what was this story, Kylo? Can you remember?"

"Oh I like stories. I always remember them."

"I like stories too. Will you tell me this one?"

He seemed wary to begin with, but my smiling stillness reassured him. Kylo sat up and in a rather formal manner related what happened, as if he was a street-corner entertainer reciting folk tales for money in the hat. He made little gestures to indicate new speakers and even altered his voice accordingly. "She said, 'I met that investigator. Nice little thing. Better than I expected.'" On the sidelines, I heard Morellus snort at that. Kylo glared at him as if he was a naughty child disturbing the class. "I answered, 'Oh, that is interesting, Mother.' Then she told me, 'When I was leaving, some man was waiting on the road by the tombs. He asked me, "Did you see Flavia Albia at the Salvidia funeral?" but I didn't like him so I told him to get lost. He really put my back up, Kylo, I really told him!' That," said Kylo, "is the whole story my mother told me that day."