Steven Saylor - A murder on the Appian way

"Ah!" She nodded knowingly.

"So you can see why I would like to speak to your sister, if I could."

"Of course." She nodded sagely, then frowned. "But it's not possible."

"I realize her fragile condition — " "But it's not only that. She's not here." "No?"

"She's gone off with her son to stay with our aunt down in Rhegium. Everyone thought it would be best, for her to get as far from this place as possible for a while."

I nodded. One couldn't get much farther away than Rhegium, at the very tip of the Italian peninsula.

"Roasted rabbit and turnips and sauce! Roasted rabbit and turnips and sauce!"

The woman shrugged. "I really must see to the others now. But good luck! Anything that helps to bring Milo down a peg or two…" "Oh, but one more question — " "Roasted rabbit and turnips and sauce — " "Yes?"

"Marc Antony — does that name mean anything to you?" She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "Are you sure?"

"Never heard of him. He must not be from around here."

"Roasted rabbit and turnips and sauce — "

Our hostess groaned. "I'd better feed this lot quickly, before we have another riot in this place!" She rolled her eyes and cast a final grin at Davus, then hurried away.

"Where to now?" said Eco as we stepped out of the inn. "I could use a nap after that meal."

Davus yawned and stretched in agreement.

"Nonsense! The day is early and we have a lot more to do. Davus, fetch the horses."

We set out on the Appian Way and soon passed the stable and the outbuilding where the toilets had failed to meet with Fausta Cornelia's approval.

Eco laughed. "Do you think that Milo's wife can be half as disagreeable as our hostess seemed to think?"

"I've never had the pleasure of meeting the lady myself, but she's certainly been the subject of more than her share of gossip. Not that I ever seek out such tales; Bethesda tells them to Diana, you know, and I can hardly help overhearing."

"Of course, Papa, I understand. It's the same with Menenia, always subjecting me to distasteful gossip. But it would be rude to plug my ears, wouldn't it? So — tell me what you've heard, and I’ll tell you what I've heard!"

I laughed. Davus, immune to the irony, looked at us as if we were crazy. "Mostly to do with her sexual habits," I said. "When her previous husband, Gaius Memmius, was off governing some province, she chose to stay in Rome, and carried on so scandalously that when Memmius got home he divorced her. Then she married Milo."

"Children?"

"Not yet. They've been married only a couple of years. But from

what one hears, she's been too busy with her lovers to do much

procreating with her husband."

"Poor Milo!"

"Save your sympathy. I suspect it's as our hostess said — the two of them married each other for politics and profit. Whatever else she may be, Fausta is the dictator Sulla's daughter, and that means a great deal, especially to the so-called Best People with whom Milo has been trying to ingratiate himself most of his life."

"What could it have been like, to have been Sulla's child?"

"I doubt whether you or I can even begin to imagine, Eco. She and her twin brother Faustus were born late in the dictator's life, and he was apparently quite pleased with himself — imagine cursing a child with a name meaning Lucky Omen. If Fausta's a spoiled brat, blame her doting monster of a father."

"Marrying her was a step up for Milo, I can see that. But what was in the marriage for Fausta?"

"She may not have had many choices. Memmius had divorced her and left her with a tarnished reputation. Milo looked to be a rising star, didn't he? He'd just inherited a lot of money from his grandfather; never mind that he proceeded to squander it all on the old man's funeral games. Apparently she didn't marry Milo for his lovemaking, since she seems to look elsewhere for that."

Eco nodded. "I suppose you've heard the story about Milo catching the radical tribune Sallust in bed with her — the day after their wedding! He had his slaves beat Sallust black and blue and confiscated his moneybag for a fine."

"Yes. Which makes me wonder how much of Sallust's alliance with the Clodians these days is from political sincerity and how much is from a desire to get revenge on Milo. Then of course there's the tale of how Milo caught his old friend Sextus Villius in bed with Fausta. Milo flew into a rage and dragged Villius screaming from the room. But in feet Fausta had been entertaining two lovers, and the other one had managed to hide in a wardrobe. While Milo was thrashing Villius out in the hall, the second lover sneaked back into bed with Fausta and gave her the ride of her life!"

"The lady seems to have a penchant for getting caught," observed Eco.

"Or maybe she has a taste for cruelty and likes to see her lovers thrashed."

Davus looked at us and made a face. I suspect he had never heard two men speculate about other people's behaviour in such a prurient fashion.

Eco shook his head. "I'll say it again: poor Milo. He married Fausta for prestige, and all he's gotten is embarrassment. Even her twin brother makes jokes about her."

"Yes, I know the story. While her first husband was gone from Rome she was stringing along two lovers at once, one a fuller who owned a wool-washing operation, and the other a fellow called Macula, on account of a birthmark on his cheek that looked like a stain. So Faustus observed, 'I don't see why my sister doesn't get rid of that Stain — after all, she has the personal services of a fuller!' "

Even Davus laughed.

I pointed at a circle of oak trees a little off the road. "Your memory was perfect, Eco. There's the altar of Jupiter that you mentioned."

"Perhaps we should stop and do something pious, to make up for all this gossipmongering." Eco, the complete sceptic, likes to taunt me for what little religious sensibility I possess.

"It wouldn't hurt to leave a few coins and say a prayer, my son. We've had a safe journey and good fortune so far." As we dismounted under the shade of the oaks, a man in a scrappy white robe appeared from behind the stone altar. His jaw was covered with stubble and he smelled of wine. He introduced himself as Felix, and explained that he was the priest of the place and offered to recite an invocation to Jupiter on our behalf) for a small fee. Eco rolled his eyes, but I gestured for him to open his purse. The prayer was a simple formula, mumbled so quickly that I scarcely heard it. Instead I looked into the shadowy recesses of the trees around us and listened to the nearby babbling of the stream and the rustling of the branches. So close to the normally busy, altogether civilized expanse of the Appian Way, this ancient spot possessed a powerful sense of the ineffable and unseen. There is good reason why the altars and temples of the gods are erected in some places and not in others. The places chose the altars, so to speak, and not the other way around. This was such a place, and no matter what sort of priest maintained it, its specialness was as palpable yet elusive as the mist of a breath in cold air.

When the prayer was done we turned to leave, but the priest reached for my arm. "You're passing through?" Felix said. He had the narrow face of a ferret, and his teeth were yellow.

"On our way from here to there."

"You know what happened just up on the road, don't you?" "Quite a few things over the years, I should imagine."

"No, I mean the business with Milo and Clodius." "Oh, that. Are we close?"

"Close? Can't you hear the lemures of the dead, shaking the leaves around us? The battle ended just down the road, at the old inn."

"Yes, we just ate there. The proprietress told us something about it."

Felix looked disappointed, then brightened. "Ah, but she couldn't have shown you where the battle started." "No. Is it interesting to see?"