A Bitter Chill (44 page)

Authors: Jane Finnis

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Women Sleuths, #Historical, #FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General

BOOK: A Bitter Chill

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Candidus waited for us in his new house, which was bright with flowers and green spring leaves. He made a handsome bridegroom, and when he embraced Albia and then carried her over the threshold, the cheering made the whole street echo. I felt my eyes fill with tears.

There followed a wonderful party, with food prepared specially by Cook, who had forsaken his kitchen at the Oak Tree for the day to provide Albia’s wedding feast. He was ably assisted by Nasua, who under Candidus’ gentle care was blossoming into an excellent servant.

The celebration broke up towards evening, when it was time to leave the happy pair to themselves. Quintus and Lucius and I were to stay at Clarilla’s for the night, but none of us wanted to go there yet, so we wandered down to the river to watch the boats on the water. I was supremely content to be in the company of the two men I loved best in the world.

“I hope they’ll be happy,” Lucius said, as we paused to watch a duck leading her ducklings down to the water’s edge. “Albia deserves a good man. Candidus came out of the whole business better than I expected, in spite of all his weird philosophical ideas.”

“They’ll be happy.” I felt sure of it now. “Albia’s always wanted a home of her own and children, and she’ll never find a kinder man than Candidus to share her life. That’s enough for most women.”

“But not all?” Quintus smiled into my eyes. We’d had this conversation before.

“Some of us want more,” I answered.

“So if I were to ask you to marry me, what would you answer?”

“That it’s the wine talking. You’re not the marrying kind, any more than I am.”

“Gods,” Lucius laughed, “if the conversation’s going to take a romantic turn, I’ll be off. Three’s a crowd.”

“No, don’t go yet. I’ve something I’ve been meaning to ask you, brother. You’re back as one of the Governor’s bright boys again, aren’t you? Completely reinstated, all the rumours of treachery dead and buried?”

“Yes, I am. With a little help from you and Quintus.”

“I’m not fishing for compliments. When you came to see us in December, you said something about a spy being sent to the Oak Tree, to investigate us and try to catch us out. Did someone come? Was it one of Sempronia’s people? I assumed it was Diogenes, but I never knew for certain, and there were several others it might have been. Were any dire reports ever sent back to the Governor?”

The two men glanced at each other. “Didn’t you tell her?” Quintus asked.

“No, I thought you had.”

“You’d think she’d have worked it out for herself.” Quintus smiled at me. “After all, she claims to have some experience as an investigator.”

My brother nodded solemnly. “Yes, she should have done. Downright disappointing, I call it.”

“All right, boys, what’s going on? What am I supposed to have worked out?”

Lucius laughed. “Who the spy was, of course, and why you’ve no need to be worried about his report.”

“It wasn’t one of Sempronia’s people?”

But they just exchanged knowing smiles, and then Lucius slapped Quintus on the shoulder. “You’re too modest, that’s your trouble. You must learn to blow your own trumpet now and then.”

“Oh, Jupiter’s balls!” I suddenly saw where they were driving. “Quintus, the spy was
you?
”

“At your service.” He bowed.

“Well if that doesn’t beat everything! I don’t know whether to hug you or push you into the river.”

“Do both,” Lucius suggested.

“Maybe, but first I’d like to know how you fixed it, Quintus. You truly came up to investigate the Oak Tree?”

He nodded. “The Governor wanted someone to be in Brigantia in case this brother of yours needed help. So we arranged it that I’d escort Fabia Jucunda to the Oak Tree, and then stay in the area and at the same time cast an eye over your activities at the mansio.”

“But surely the Governor knew you and I were old friends, so you wouldn’t exactly be an impartial observer.”

“He’s a new Governor, remember, since all that business with the Shadow of Death. I told him we were former lovers who’d fallen out, and let him think I’d be delighted to catch you out, if there was anything to catch.”

“But there wasn’t?”

“Of course not. I gave you and the Oak Tree a glowing endorsement.” His blue-purple eyes were laughing.

I turned to my brother. “And you knew about this, Lucius?”

“Not at the time. He told me afterwards.”

“Well, it was a brilliant solution. But what about the Shadow of Death, stirring up trouble for us in Rome? Have you convinced the Governor he’s not to be taken seriously?”

“I think so,” Quintus said.

“You
think
so? You’re not certain?”

“Nobody has the luxury of certainty, with Domitian Caesar on the throne,” he answered gravely.

“That’s quite enough serious talk for now,” Lucius said. “This is a day for being happy.”

Quintus agreed. “I suggest we all go and drink a beaker or two to Albia and Candidus. Then I’ll think of something to amuse Aurelia for the evening.”

And he did.

A
BOUT THE
H
ISTORY

People who call history a dead subject couldn’t be more wrong. The past can’t change, but our knowledge of it alters all the time. For anyone writing historical fiction, this is fascinating and simultaneously frustrating. However hard you try to get the history right, you run the risk of being overtaken by new discoveries.

That’s especially so with Eburacum—modern York. At present we haven’t anything like a detailed map of the town in the 90s AD, though we know a fair bit about the fortress, which was its reason for existence. (Eburacum, by the way, is the correct spelling of its name in its early days; the more familiar Eboracum came later.) Historians and archaeologists are working hard to uncover more and more of its first-century life, but all we can say with certainty at present is that Aurelia would have found a rough-and-ready garrison town, not the prosperous provincial capital that developed later.

Then again, we don’t know for sure who was Governor of the province of Britannia in 95 AD. I find this surprising, as the bureaucracy that ran the Empire then was quite efficient, and loved paperwork as much as any modern civil servant. The best guess is Metilius Nepos. He may well have had an aunt or several, but Sempronia is fictitious.

Oak Bridges and the Oak Tree Mansio are fictitious, but I’ve placed the Oak Tree in a real location, alongside a Roman road which ran from the coast to York, and which is still a main highway two thousand years later. The other places mentioned in the book were and are real.

We know quite a lot about how Roman law dealt with family matters like marriages and wills, but then as now, people often did not stick to the exact letter of the legislation. The power of the
paterfamilias,
for instance, was awesome. In law he had tyrannical authority over his whole family, even his grown-up children with families of their own. His rights included the power of life and death. But by the end of the first century, heads of families very rarely executed their children, and a mother would expect to be involved in major family decisions along with her husband. The position of most women seems in real life to have been less restricted and oppressed than the laws decreed. As in all eras and cultures, an intelligent and strong-minded woman could wield considerable power, inside and outside her family.

Code enthusiasts will recognise the alphabet cipher used by Lucius. It was indeed favoured by Julius Caesar, according to Roman sources, but I’ve applied it to the modern English alphabet. I couldn’t find a simple way for Aurelia to explain that her alphabet had only 23 letters (no J, U or W). I mvst ivst hope that the Latin pvrists among vs vill forgive me.

Finally, for the people who want to follow reading Roman fiction by reading Roman fact, I’ve listed a few of the books that I’ve found useful. They form just the tip of a large iceberg, because for me, reading about Roman history is as much fun as writing about it.

Roman Authors