Deadly Election (6 page)

I ate at the Stargazer, my tiresome aunt’s terrible bar. Sometimes Manlius Faustus happened along and joined me in a bread roll, though not today. He would be busy with his friend. Until the election was over, we would have to shelve our habit of meeting ‘by chance’ as I took breakfast. Today I chatted with Apollonius while he served at the counter, but it wasn’t the same.

I told myself working with Faustus was fine, but I must not grow too used to it. Better the pleasure I used to take in waking up slowly over my dish of olives in my own quiet company.

Then I kicked the table leg and thought, dammit, I liked breakfasting with Faustus.

To work.

I wanted to size up the rival candidates. The best place to start would be in the Forum where I could take a look at them parading with their retinues. If they had read that tract by Quintus Cicero, they would appear good and early. None would have read it personally, but all their advisers would have pored over the thing. Like Faustus, the men behind the other candidates would be crazily searching for ways to success, looking for the magic charm. I remembered when my family was plotting to get my uncles, the Camillus brothers, into the Senate. They were hopeless. We had to do everything.

People with asthma should avoid men who are running for office. They are called candidates because on formal occasions they wear robes whitened with chalk. The Latin for ‘white’ is
candida.
I found this year’s contenders by following the clouds of white dust and bystanders coughing … I am not entirely joking. But the commotion made by the chalkies’ supporters, together with the hoary jeers they were throwing at each other, helped identify them.

What a glorious crop. (Now I
am
joking.)

Vibius Marinus had already set my teeth on edge, even though the respectable Manlius Faustus could be heard assuring onlookers that his friend was a man of grit, integrity and flawless ancestors, who would be a hard-working, honourable magistrate. Vibius smiled graciously. Any swine can do that.

Trebonius Fulvo and Arulenus Crescens were working a ticket in partnership, and doing so effortlessly. They looked a pair of bullies. Surrounded by bull-necked cronies, one had fistfuls of finger-rings and a lazy eye; the other carried three times his proper weight, rolling through the crowds with a side-to-side sway, like a sailor. I decided on sight that neither had an interest in public service for its own sake; both would use any office for their own advancement. They would pick on people for petty misdemeanours, then take handouts in return for not punishing them. But their campaigning style was so smooth it made me groan. They could talk like fishmongers pushing last Thursday’s rancid octopus. I quickly identified the slick duo as having the morals of the brothel and the habits of the gutter. The electorate love that. These two were the serious opposition for Vibius and Gratus.

Dillius Surus appeared to have only just crawled out of bed, so I made a note to look into the tousled layabout’s drinking habits. With luck, his late-night antics would involve flute-girls of the good-time kind. Well, any flute-girl would do. Even if she’s virginal, nobody believes it. Needless to say, the crowd were being kind to Dillius. They adore anyone debauched.

Ennius Verecundus smiled constantly and was supported by his mother. She wore one of those old-fashioned outer tunics with thin straps over the shoulder, and had her hair screwed back so hard it hurt to see. Traditional: she could have whopped the warlike Volscians single-handed. I would have voted for her. I would have been frightened not to.

And, finally, here came Lucius Salvius Gratus, significantly wealthy brother to Laia Gratiana. Neat and trim; well organised and bumptious. The type my father hates on sight, my mother, too. He had fair hair with pale skin and looked as if he were constantly blushing, though I guessed he was as shameless as the rest. His pale, thin, elegant sister stood loyally beside him, though was too snooty to shout his praise in public. She would work on people in private, not wanting to be mistaken for a loud-mouthed manicurist – as if anyone ever would. Manicurists are lovely girls.

Famous herself for show-off religious duties at the Temple of Ceres, Laia was expensively dressed, heavily jewelled and naturally blonde. These traits amount to star voter-appeal. If Faustus’s ex-wife helped get his best friend elected − which she would, if people were as daft as I thought − it was not for me to quibble.

I wanted Faustus to be happy. Which was exactly what Laia Gratiana had probably never cared about, and almost certainly the reason that, as her husband, he had been lured elsewhere.

Titan’s turds, if I had seen him married to Laia, I would have lured him myself, as an act of religious duty.

Each candidate was called a
petitor
, because he was petitioning voters, so his opponents were his
com
petitors. Latin is a pleasingly constructed language. (I speak with British irony: imagine how it felt to come from stealing crusts on the unmade streets of Londinium to having the passive periphrastic, otherwise called the gerundive of obligation, explained to you, even by a patient woman. Helena was lucky I was bright.)

I
was lucky. I know the exact moment when a stolen crust becomes too mouldy to eat. If you are starving, that is much more useful than the four conjugations of verbs. Latin is the argot of despots, intended to confuse people
. Domitianus adoranda est.
The tyrant must be worshipped. Our master and god. Well, yours maybe. Some of us have taste.

I digress. Is this a tiresome Roman habit, or delightful British naïveté? Either way, I have it.

In the manner of my mother, I will now patiently explain elections, otherwise called an obligation of democracy. (Helena Justina explains things satirically.)

In Rome, when such things as elections were allowed, competitors paraded before their fellow-citizens for several weeks beforehand. Wearing their whitened togas, they were attended by tribes of supporters, whom they were not allowed to hire in. Back then, candidates had to persuade the entire public to vote for them, which included going to towns and villages outside Rome. Now candidates only had to make themselves look popular enough to impress senators.

Supporters would be of their own status, or higher if possible, although candidates were also followed around by poor citizens; this was supposedly because the poor had no other way to show their feelings. Those of the poor who bothered to turn up had two ways to make their support known: force of numbers and rioting. Everyone was having a rest from rioting today. It was too hot.

I was listening intently for any insults thrown by members of the crowd, hoping to discover usable sleaze. People were too exhausted for that too.

There would be scandals, and I would find them. I was a good informer. I stayed confident.

The candidates’ campaign process was called ‘going about’. They had to be continually on show, endlessly pleading for support. This was tiring for them and a bore for everybody else.

I watched the men taking their walks through the Forum. Each was accompanied by a helper, who told him the names of those they met. This was done openly, yet to be addressed familiarly was always taken as a compliment. The Roman public was pitifully easy to please. The candidate’s false intimacy was sealed with a handshake. I never managed to spot money being passed over. It was illegal. That never stopped it.

Of course money was paid for support. To keep it secret and avoid legal penalties, agents were employed. They made their bargains in street-corner bars, then stakeholders kept the money until payment fell due. Laws against bribery were numerous – a testament to how prevalent it was.

Candidates had to deposit a sum of money before they started, which they would forfeit if they were convicted of corruption. That was a joke, though even the mildest competitor would not shrink from taking his opponents to court. Sextus Vibius had been right to complain that some informers made an income from litigation. Going to court over something or other was a regular sideshow, almost a duty; Vibius would expect to prosecute rivals soon, if Faustus had proper control of their campaign. I might find evidence for them. It was usually a farce and came to nothing. All the judges had been candidates for office themselves, so tried not to let anyone be disgraced.

If a candidate used violence, he could be exiled. That never happened. Black eyes and split lips were everywhere this morning, but those could be merely the after-effects of banquets.

I did wonder whether the man found in the auction chest had been uncooperative over promising his support. Murdering him seemed extreme … Even so, feelings can run high. I wondered facetiously which candidate might stoop to murder.

Trebonius and Arulenus, the smooth-talking bruisers, looked the most likely. Dillius Surus, white-faced with his hangover, seemed too washed-out, though he might possess friends who were fixers. The mother’s boy, Ennius Verecundus, I dismissed. He had the mark of a man who would fail to get elected through simple worthiness – despite which, I thought he would make the best aedile. Throughout his year in office his mother would make it her business to patrol the streets, reporting problems to her son. If he didn’t know what to do about antisocial behaviour, she would soon tell him.

Salvius Gratus, Laia’s brother, seemed unlikely to load a man into someone else’s strongbox, or even to use an agent to do it by proxy. And Vibius Marinus had been turned out by Faustus looking utterly decent and trustworthy. Mind you, Vibius and Faustus had said they knew Callistus Primus, the owner of the chest … Still wondering how that was, and why they were reticent about it, I began the gentle process of making candidate-enquiries.

I moved around, standing quietly on the edges of crowds, listening at first. When I had the feel of things, I murmured questions to fellow bystanders.

‘That one sounds all right. Nice speaking voice. I’ll tell my husband to vote for him. Is he rich?’

‘Must be.’

‘Promising! I wonder who he banks with?’

Given how dearly people like to keep their business confidential, it was surprisingly easy to winkle out background. Helpful members of the public passed on dirty details. Soon I knew Trebonius Fulvo was involved in a lengthy wrangle about mortgages (a law case brought by his own elderly grandfather, who had a terminal disease, poor man, and feared he would not live to see justice), while his colleague Dillius Surus had been accused by a heartbroken mistress of fathering a daughter on the promise of marriage and (this was the real eye-waterer) stealing her jewellery, including a valuable necklace that another lover had given her … As I found out later, much of this was unreliable.

Rumours would do. When you blacken someone’s name in politics, hearsay can be freely deployed. Scandal needs to be colourful, not true. Vibius was never going to win if he had a conscience.

‘Surus looks like a lush to me,’ I suggested.

‘Oh, he’s a wonderful character. Laugh a minute, really enjoys life. We need a breath of fresh air in Rome.’

Nobody knew who financed the candidates but I think that detail is always telling. I had to find out for myself. I would ask a banker.

O
n the left side of the Forum, as you face away from the Capitol and just after the Curia, lies the two-storey Basilica Aemilia, adorned with a colonnade called the Porticus of Gaius and Lucius. This was the Emperor Augustus honouring his grandson heirs through fancy shops. Gaius and Lucius died, but their fine arcade was still here, still smart enough to be frequented by bankers pretending to be upmarket. Our family used Nothokleptes, which Father claimed means
thieving bastard
, a pseudonym bestowed by my uncle, Lucius Petronius. There were now two generations in the firm, and we used the son even though wicked Uncle Petro said that for him we should add
useless
.

Young Notho still kept chained deposit chests in the main aisle, on the lower level where desperate debtors could rush straight in from the Forum, into the arms of the kind-hearted financiers who were waiting to save them from creditors. For a huge fee.

The banking stations graced a lofty interior that had massive floor-slabs of marble in beautiful, expensive international varieties. There I found the folding bronze stool Nothokleptes used, standing empty beside a change table, guarded by an ugly Pisidian bouncer, under a frieze with scenes from Roman myth and an enormous statue of a barbarian. I assume this was commissioned in gratitude, for it symbolised the origins of Rome’s wealth: crushing peoples from provinces like mine.

I am generally Roman, but portrayals of sad, defeated nudes in torcs soon turn me back into a Briton.

I went straight upstairs, ignoring the Pisidian, apart from a mild jibe of ‘Who are you staring at, pig-face?’ (This was not prejudice, but factually accurate: his snout was squashed, he always stared and I always said it.) Nothokleptes Junior was at his barber’s in the upper colonnade. He was shady, even by the Egyptian standards from which he took both his monetary heritage and his crazy hairstyle. His rings were so chunky they kept his fingers splayed. Born and bred in Rome, he still managed to find tunics that were too long and too tight over his big belly, so he looked Oriental. Which in any lexicon is another word for dubious.

His father was sitting with him, now reduced by age to watery smiles and silence. Always a heavy man, Nothokleptes Senior had spread slowly into a vast blob of smooth flesh. They had pegged a barber’s napkin under his chin, even though he was not being shaved, in case he dribbled. He didn’t know the time of day, but if you put a bag of mixed coins in front of him, he would rapidly sort it into denominations while palming a percentage by some sleight you could never spot. Most of his brain was far away, but his essence persisted. He still loved the feel of copper and silver under his clever fingers.

His son was having his beard painfully scraped off with pumice, a daily routine that nevertheless left him permanently blue-jawed. ‘Nothokleptes! Yes, you, the useless one!’