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Back Enemies at Home Save as PDF
Chapters (66)
  1. Also by Lindsey Davis
  2. ENEMIES AT HOME
  3. Lindsey Davis
  4. Copyright
  5. Map
  6. THE CAST
  7. ROME, the Esquiline Hill:June AD89
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Eventually Graecina stopped weeping, exhausted. Her considerate patroness released her, mopped her up, then invited us all to light refreshments back at the apartment.

40

The two chairs in the garden courtyard had been joined by more. I was starting to feel obsessed by whether anyone would ever put any of this seating away again. With Polycarpus gone, who was there to insist on it?

In a room off one of the porticos stood tables with a buffet. It was informal; if Graecina followed tradition (if she could afford to), there would be a proper feast on the ninth day. Tonight, people took up their own bowls then servers helped them to their choice from grand platters. Light, fragrant food was provided, substantial enough for anyone who was hungry after several hours at the cremation (me, for instance) but not too heavy for mourners who were suffering emotionally. When you grieve, it is so easy to get heartburn.

It was all organised by Sextus Simplicius’ steward, the competent Gratus. Nobody seemed to realise the irony that Polycarpus had been on the verge of losing his own position to the absent Onesimus, and of supplanting this same pleasant Gratus.

His presence as supervisor, bringing staff from the Simplicius home, made me ponder. When the mourners had been served and he could relax, I approached and asked quietly, ‘Gratus, tell me: was it your staff that Aviola and Mucia borrowed for their dinner on the night they died?’

He confirmed it – and he had been on the premises with them, just as he was here today. Even though Polycarpus was in overall charge, Gratus never let their slaves go out to another house without being in attendance too. ‘Just in case.’

I drew him aside, to another portico. No one could overhear. I had a bowl in one hand and kept nibbling, so it looked as if our conversation was casual. ‘I wish I had asked you before. Will you tell me anything you remember about that evening?’

Gratus kept an eye on his staff, but he was nevertheless accommodating to me. He was taller and more refined in looks than Polycarpus, with a tanned Italian face: deep cheek creases, eyebrows that crooked in an upturned ‘v’, and a small gap between his front teeth. The slaves were in the usual plain material and neutral colours, but he wore a finer white tunic, with narrow over-the-shoulder braid in red.

He told me it had been a normal early supper. His master Simplicius had attended, together with the other man Aviola had chosen as an executor.