I could only move ponderously in my curial best, so I was not quick getting to the gate. I expected Marcus to be irritated by the wait. However, though I could see him in the gig as I arrived, he was deep in conversation with a legionary from the fort, shaking his head and frowning in a way I recognized – Marcus at his most imposing magisterial best – but before I could approach the soldier gave a brisk salute and moved away.
My patron said nothing as I was helped up to my place, but when I was beside him on the narrow seat he turned to me. ‘That was from the camp commander, asking for advice. That relative of the Governor’s has stirred up quite a row. Asked for a girl last night, apparently, so the commander – being keen to please – provided one from the local lupinaria and paid the fee himself. But the girl has gone back in such a state she’ll be no use for weeks – if she recovers fully, which is currently in doubt – and her owner is threatening to sue the garrison.’
I looked at him. Was he seeking my opinion? It was possible. As duumvir, I often dealt with market law. I said, tactfully, ‘So what did you advise? That where there is no formal contract, stating otherwise – as I don’t suppose there was – the man who pays remains responsible, in law, for damage to the goods? In this case, the commandant, in fact?’
‘Exactly, though he may recover losses if he can prove the fault. Very awkward in these circumstances, as the commander says, so I advised him to offer the owner a few denarii as a gesture of goodwill. I don’t imagine the matter would really come to court – the brothel needs the goodwill of the garrison. And vice versa. Ah, but here’s my slave at last.’
The freckled pageboy who had walked me to the gate had been freeing the horses from the hitching post, but now he climbed aboard to crouch between our feet, squashed on the floor in what little space remained.
My patron gave the signal, the driver flicked the reins and a moment later we were on our way. Bone-juddering, of course, as such journeys always are, but infinitely faster than the litter would have been, even though – with fragile wheels – we had to take the longer, military route.
For the first half-mile or so we were slowed to walking pace, first through a crush of gigs and carriages – now empty apart from their bored driver-slaves – and beyond them a gaggle of brightly painted carts, presumably those that had brought in the palms and birthday souvenirs.
Once clear of this confusion, there was little on the road and we were soon moving at an alarming pace. I was expecting my patron to tell me what he had sought me for, but even he was forced to concentrate and we were already turning to the little unpaved lane that led to our respective houses and the scattered farms beyond, before he raised his voice above the wind.
‘That matter that I wanted to discuss with you …?’
The noise and rattle of our progress made conversation hard, and I was clutching the gig seat with both my hands as the lurching motion flung us all about. In the end, I was reduced to hollering, through teeth that chattered with every imperfection in the road. ‘You want to wait … until we are in private … Excellence, perhaps?’
I nodded towards the servant at our feet. Marcus often forgets that slaves have ears and eyes. As an ex-slave myself, I have often had occasion to warn him about this, especially now when times were perilous. But perhaps today there was not really any risk. The driver – whom I’d met before, and to whom I owe my freedom, and possibly my life – could hardly overhear, and the pageboy was in no condition to be listening at all. His eyes were shut and he was looking deathly pale. Obviously the motion, which was hard enough for me, was still more difficult for him. He had nothing to hold onto and was wholly occupied with trying not to fall – or disgrace himself by vomiting.
Marcus, alone, seemed untroubled by the jolts. I don’t know what training patricians must receive to enable them to keep their dignity while bouncing to and fro, but Marcus managed it, although his voice came out in little breathless bursts as mine had done. ‘Never mind the slave … This won’t be a secret in my household … very long. But it’s a puzzle … my old friend. I simply don’t … know what to make of it … or how I should respond. Druscilla Livia. Some widowed female … relative of Julia’s … throwing herself upon my potestas.’
There was no warning thunderclap or shower of falling frogs. Nothing to alert me to what might lie ahead. I merely looked at him in mild surprise. ‘But surely … she already has a legal guardian?’ That would be true of any female, however old she was.
Marcus nodded. ‘She does. Her younger brother … since her father is now dead … But he arranged … a wedding for her with a man she does not like.’
‘But doesn’t she … have the right … to turn him down?’
Marcus gave me a wry sideways look. ‘In principle at least … she’s entitled to refuse …’ Then, as the driver pulled over to one grassy verge to let a horseman past – a haughty-looking fellow in an expensive cloak and hood galloping madly in the direction of the town – my patron continued in his normal tone of voice, ‘If she can prove the groom-to-be is either far below her rank or a man of ill repute. Yet that can scarcely be said to be the case. The suitor’s old, apparently, but he’s not merely wealthy, he’s a senator.’
‘In the Senate? A patrician then?’
‘One, moreover, who was famously devoted to his wife. Mocked for it, in fact, till he became a widower!’ He spoke with feeling. Marcus was unfashionably uxorious, himself – most Romans thought of marriage as a business contract, in which emotion played little part at all. ‘Kept her beside him at all times,’ my patron went on. ‘Treated her family splendidly and showered her with jewels. Hardly grounds for anyone not accepting him.’
‘Does she fear, perhaps, that she could never … take the place of someone so beloved?’ I managed as we lurched away again. ‘Or is she still mourning her own loss too much? In the old days a “one-man-woman” was much admired.’
‘Hardly important, when her life may be at stake.’
I stared at him. ‘How so?’
‘Her former husband died an enemy of the Emperor – literally fighting for Pescennius Niger it appears – so a second marriage to someone who is loyal to the court might quite literally save her – and the brother, too. Quite a long life, in both cases, I believe. I understand she’s not too old to have a child – one of the reasons that the bridegroom wanted her.’ Marcus was sounding more coherent now. We had caught up with a farmer and his lumbering cart and – since the lane was narrow – we were forced to walking pace. ‘It’s more than ten months since her husband died.’
I knew what that meant. Ten months was sufficient for a bridegroom to be sure that any child the woman bore was rightfully his own!
‘I can understand her brother’s eagerness,’ I said. ‘But if she cannot be persuaded to the match, can he coerce her into it?’ I may be a civic magistrate, but I have never dealt with family law – I am better on sewage rights and water licences. ‘I thought a widow of independent means did have a legal option to refuse. A dowager is “under her own jurisdiction”, isn’t she?’
Marcus made a doubtful face. ‘Technically, I suppose that is the case. Hers was a “manus marriage” of the old-fashioned kind – to show both parties were from ancient patrician families – which meant that she passed to her husband’s potestas. But, according to her husband’s will, control was transferred back to her family when he died – along with a sum of money, to be hers if she produced a child. I presume that the husband was thinking of his own!’
‘I can see that might be difficult,’ I said. With the slower pace, I could collect my wits. ‘And the brother could argue, if it ever came to court, that he was acting within his rights as guardian.’
‘Exactly. But he is no blood relative of hers. He was adopted recently, it seems, shortly before the lady’s father died, because the old man had no male heirs of his own and wished the family vineyards to escape the auctioneers. So, when this selected suitor displeased Druscilla Livia so much, she attempted to repudiate her brother’s claims to make the choice. It’s created quite a fuss.’
‘Unusual enough to be the talk of Rome? I presume you heard this from your family there—?’ I broke off as we jolted through a rut.
‘Actually, it was Tertillius who told me most of it. He’d known Druscilla’s family when he was young in Rome. There was a huge public scandal when she ran away, of course, and an ancient kinswoman wrote to him with the details, then. It was he who told me what I’m telling you.’
And earned his reward by being favoured at the games, I thought. But all I said was, ‘He is an expert on the law, what does he think of this?’
‘That with a good advocate, Druscilla might have persuaded a judge to find for her. But he points out that it’s unlikely it would ever come to trial. Litigation isn’t easy when a woman is living in her guardian’s house and he has been left the management of her affairs. Especially when her suitor is a magistrate himself! Besides, the man is said to be both rich and generous. Her brother is clearly trying to do his best for her. And she’s under fifty and has never had a child, so there will be tax to pay on her estate if she does not remarry within a year or so. Another argument in favour of the match!’
I nodded. I knew about the tax, though – having found and married Gwellia again – I’d not attracted it myself. The Emperor Augustus had instituted it, when he discovered that the birth rate had dropped alarmingly, threatening Rome’s future legionary strength. All fit and able citizens of marriageable age were liable to a tax if they did not marry (or remarry) within a certain time, though a mother of three children was formally exempt. (There had been much resentment, then as now, but it had never been repealed – it made a useful source of income for the state.)
‘So, if this wedding is desirable, I presume you’ll send her back?’ I muttered, wondering why he’d bothered to consult me about this. ‘Or do you fear the lady Julia will be accused of lack of family feeling, if you do?’ Roman custom more or less required that a wealthy household should offer hospitality to any relative who asked for it.
‘Family feeling?’ Marcus gave a short impatient grunt. ‘I’ve never heard this woman mentioned in my life before – I had to ask around when the messenger arrived, to see if one of the other councillors could tell me anything. Fortunately old Tertillius was able to assist – although I didn’t mention why I asked, of course. Let him think I’d simply heard the gossip, too.’
‘And you’ve had no chance to speak about it to your wife. She might know more about Druscilla, possibly …?’
‘I frankly doubt my wife has ever heard of her. Certainly, she never mentioned her to me!’
‘But …’
But Marcus was no longer listening to me. He was suddenly rapping his scroll on the shoulder of the little crouching slave. ‘The lane gets wider here. Wake up and run ahead. Tell that farmer to pull onto the verge and let his betters past.’ Then, as the pageboy looked up ashen-faced, he added graciously, ‘And if you wish, you can run on home from here, provided you are at the door to help us down.’
We were crawling now and the worst of the violent juddering had ceased, so the boy was more than willing to obey. We saw him stumbling up towards the cart ahead, and saw the driver turn his head to look at us, then – audibly grumbling – start to move his wagon to one side.
‘I’ve a mind to have that farmer flogged for insolence!’ My patron was incensed. ‘Not even a citizen, and he dares protest.’
I was about to say, ‘But he might be a lowly one?’ when I realized he could not. Any citizen would be in Glevum at the rites. Clearly the farmer had assumed the same. I saw the look of panic cross his face when he saw two togas pass, and he quickly bowed his head and raised a gnarled hand in salute.
Marcus was mollified by this show of deference. ‘Now about this woman,’ he resumed, as we picked up speed again. ‘She’s not just looking for hospitality. She wants to transfer into my potestas. She’s claiming sanctuary.’
‘Sanctuary? As a slave might do? Does she have the right?’
‘She may do, if there’s actual danger to her life.’
‘But surely there is not?’ We were approaching the crossroads now, where my roundhouse lies. I was shocked by what my patron had just said, and I was anxious to end the conversation and get back to Gwellia. But the carriage did not slow. We jolted straight on past my gate. I could see I’d have to walk back from the villa, by and by.
Marcus was entirely concerned with finishing his tale. ‘She seems to think there is. Suggests that he ill-treated his first wife – or even caused her death – but that does not seem to be the general view. Tertillius says she was a gentle soul, who died quite unexpectedly – lost an early baby, his informant seems to think – and left her husband heartbroken. Whereas Druscilla was spoiled and troublesome, even as a child. Not the sort of woman one wishes to adopt.’ He paused as the gig drew up outside his villa gate.
‘Then where is the problem? Can’t you just decline?’
The gates were opened from within and Marcus tapped the driver on the shoulder with his scroll as a signal to drive in. ‘That is where I want your judgement, my old friend,’ he said, as we swept on towards the villa door. ‘The wretched woman also writes that on her mother’s side, she is related to the Emperor’s wife. That makes her potentially dangerous to offend.’
I gulped. This gave the matter quite a different slant. The present Empress was becoming known as a very powerful personage indeed. ‘But what does Julia Domna think of this escape? Isn’t it likely that she strongly disapproves?’ The gig had rumbled to a halt and I was able to relax my cramped fingers from the seat.
‘That is exactly what I do not know, my friend.’ My patron was smoothing down his toga-folds, and rescuing his crumpled wreath from underneath his seat. ‘She is from Syria, of course, from a priestly family, and therefore has enemies on the Senate, it is said. It is possible that this would-be groom is one of them. Or he may be a supporter. I simply do not know. Though Severus has argued, in a recent speech, that a guardian should not have the right to force his ward towed – and it’s thought that Julia Domna was behind the sentiment.’
‘But also suggests that it is not written into law?’
‘Not yet, at any rate.’ He raised his brows at me. ‘Hence my dilemma. Here, let us go inside and you can read the note yourself.’ He stood up in the carriage as he spoke, just in time for the freckled pageboy to come panting up, red-faced, to take the wreath and scroll from him and help him to the ground.
I slid down in my turn, cursing the heavy garment which impeded me, and we all three went together to the house, where the door was already opening at our approach.