Back at the Capena Gate, the Justinus home was as well-lit as could be, given that its mistress was an oil heiress. Claudia Rufina budgeted well, sitting for hours with a small abacus while she listed expenditure, carefully balancing their outgoings against future requirements plus the need to maintain and invest in those olive orchards back in Baetica. But once she saw the results, she was not mean.
Rome sucked up the precious olive oil. The rich commodity was used for so many purposes, demand was never-ending—luckily. Whenever amphorae from her estate were transported from Spain and brought to the city for sale, Claudia received a consignment. Growing up among family olive groves, she expected to use copious quantities, never troubled by the cost. Here in Rome, there was no shortage in her kitchen, nor did she stint on pottery lamps once twilight fell. Their run-down porch became a beacon after dark, the only entrance in the street with lanterns hung on brackets, lit every twilight. It showed up that the wood needed a repaint, not that anybody ever got around to that.
The house was quiet now. With their father out for the evening, the children would normally play their mother up, thinking it safe to be naughty. Not tonight. They were subdued. They knew.
Hosidia Meline came in through the communicating door, in search of mutual support. Secretly, she found the Justinus children overwhelming, so she had waited until she could be fairly sure Claudia had sent her romping mob to bed. Nurses would watch over them. Claudia, a thoroughly good mother, would go up first to say goodnight. If any child was sickly, it would be her role to administer medicine and cuddles, but if not, she would soon return to her visitor. That was only polite.
On the surface, the two women shared little in common, apart from that they were both provincials and had, at different times and for different reasons, both experienced marital tension. Coming from outside Italy especially coloured their view of Rome. They were in a precarious position as overseas brides, having no family to fall back on. Marriage was supposed to make them Camilli too, but if Aulus or Quintus was difficult, Claudia or Meline were cut off from grandparents, parents and any siblings who might have argued for them. Claudia’s relatives had all died, in any case. So within the Camillus family they had bonded as outsiders. Their niece, Flavia Albia, came from Britain, though they tended not to include her. To them, Britain was beyond acceptable.
Now they lived with their slightly unreliable husbands in a city that was growing ever more dangerous because of its cruel ruler. Both could only nervously acknowledge that. If the Camilli were disgraced, they might find themselves wobbling on their perch in Rome. There were wide, dangerous seas between Italy and Spain or Greece.
In fact, neither fitted in completely, even though Rome was fairly welcoming to all nationalities. Both had the disadvantage that they were pointedly sober women. Each behaved with a gravity that could make them seem awkward. Italian women, as wives in Rome, might be reserved but would then be praised for modesty and quiet conversation. Foreigners were viewed differently, as wilfully standoffish. In a snobbish city with long traditions, foreigners were accepted if their rank gave them citizenship, yet they had to fight for equal treatment. Claudia and Meline coped, but they were grateful to live closely together.
Their mother-in-law had been a strong ally. Julia Justa was an intelligent woman with the rare quality of understanding why her sons, in their separate ways, might not be performing as perfect husbands. Before she died, her home had been an enclave of feminine control. Aulus and Quintus teased her, but they did as she said. Afterwards, when Julia and Decimus passed away within a week of one another, adjustments had been hard.
“I am glad their parents have not had to see the danger they are in tonight.” Claudia, who had known Julia and Decimus much longer, took the lead in speaking of them.
“Let’s not talk about it.” For a moment Meline regretted coming across from her own side of the house. But she knew she could not have borne to be alone, waiting for hours for news, uncertain whether Aulus would ever return.
So, deliberately not talking about the danger to their husbands, Claudia and Meline toyed with stuffed honeyed dates for an hour. Their refined tête-à-tête was then broken when they heard sudden loud banging at the front entrance.
The two women pretended to hide their first alarm. It was, said Claudia, who was always so sensible, far too early for people to be released from dinner at the palace or for news of trouble to arrive. They pretended to wait while the door porter answered—though by the time he roused himself and stumbled out of his cubicle, complaining under his breath at being disturbed, the women had been unable to stop themselves scuttling into the hallway and hopping about behind him as he peered through his grille.
They heard him grunt. It sounded an unremarkable response, as if a greengrocer had made a morning call offering a sack of curly kale, on special terms because he had somehow overbought.…
With infinite slowness, the retainer unbolted bolts. He behaved as if he were ninety, though in fact was in his thirties. Claudia would have pushed past him and unfastened the massive devices herself, but the last time she did so, she cut her finger on the metalwork. Meline was too good mannered; this was someone else’s house. She did, however, hiss quietly to herself in a way that was plainly a Greek curse. The look in her dark eyes spoke of damage to the porter’s anatomy. So strong was the vibe, he even turned around briefly to give her a reproachful look. Meline sucked in air sharply between her teeth. Greek might be a euphonic, elastic language of enormous antiquity, but when stressed, she did not bother with it.
As the double doors swung inwards, in poured all the attendants who had gone out that evening with Aulus and Quintus. Meline spotted they were without Toutou, from whom they admitted they had become separated. They swore that was not their fault.
From the ensuing babble of complaints and anxiety, the two wives extracted how palace officials had dismissed everyone, steering attendants from the audience room along with any means of transport that came with them. It had been done in such haste there was no time for explanations or the agreement of their masters to them leaving. The women soon gained a fearsome picture of curt chamberlains, backed by heavy-handed Praetorian Guards. Escorts had tumbled away down the Palatine, almost tripping over themselves in the cryptoporticus. Their masters still did not know what had happened.
“Nobody knew what was going on, or why they kicked us out like that. It was mayhem on the way down the hill. All the escorts were in total panic. What are the masters going to do without us?”
Claudia and Meline looked at one another. They saw at once how separating senators from their entourages was a sinister ploy. It was Domitian’s prelude to some nightmare. Meline covered her face with both hands, unable even to spit plosives.
“Dear gods, where are they? What has he done to them?” screamed Claudia, completely overcome.
“Nothing, tell yourself he has done nothing … but if he ever lets them go, how will they get home?”
“Go back out there!” Claudia commanded one of Quintus’s ex-legionary guards. “Run! Run at once to the Aventine; go round the far side of the Circus, not close to the Palatine. Go as fast as you can to Helena and Falco’s house. Tell them everything that has happened, then ask them what we ought to do!”