You pay me by the mile, said the carriage-hire man. I didn't believe it. That would mean at the end of our hiring period I just had to lie to him about how far I had driven. He was an ex-legionary. How could he be so innocent? "What's the catch?" I asked.
He grinned, appreciating that I had at least had the courtesy to query the system, instead of jumping in with intent to cheat. "No catch."
The hireman was a wide-shouldered former footslogger whose name was Stertius. I was unsure what to make of him; my mission was making me distrust everyone. This man owned a commercial transport business in the southern Baetican port of Malaca-mainly ox-wagons collecting amphorae of fish-pickle from all along the coast to bring them to port, but also gigs, carts and carriages for travelers. It would be an ideal cover if he engaged in espionage; he would see everyone who came and went. He had been in the Roman army; he could easily have been recruited by the legions to work for Anacrites; even Laeta could have coerced him somewhere along the line. Equally, local loyalty could put him firmly in league with the men I had come to investigate- or the dancing girl.
Helena sat down on our mound of baggage in the quiet, unobtrusive manner of a woman who was making a point. We had been sailing for a week, then landed in the wrong place so we now had a lengthy trip by road ahead of us. She was very tired. She was sitting in the hot sun. She did not need me dragging out what ought to have been a straightforward commercial transaction. She stroked Nux as if the dog were her only friend.
I still felt queasy from the ocean. It was possible to travel the entire way from Rome to Gades overland if you had the time to spare. Someone like Julius Caesar who wanted to show up well in his memoirs took pride in reaching Hispania without crossing water. Most people with interesting lives to lead preferred the quicker sea trip, and Helena and I were not in a good state for forced marches anyway. So I had agreed to take a boat. Getting this far was torture for anyone like me who could be seasick just looking at a sail. I had been groaning all the way, and my stomach was still not sure it had returned to land. "I'm dazed. Explain your system."
"You pay me what I freely admit is a hefty deposit." Stertius had the typical sardonic air of an old soldier. He had retired from the army after decades in North Africa, then crossed the Straits to Spain to start his business. Up to a point I trusted him commercially, though I was beginning to fear he was the type who enjoys himself inflicting arcane mysteries on helpless customers. "If you don't use up your allocation, I'll give you a rebate. If you overrun of course, I'll have to charge you more."
"I'm taking the equipage to Corduba."
"As you wish. I'll be giving you Marmarides as your driver-"
"Is that optional?" I was facing enough unknowns. The last thing I wanted was to be saddled with someone else's employee. "It's voluntary," grinned the hireman. "-In the legionary sense!" It was compulsory. "You'll get on with him fine. He's one of my freedmen. I've trained him well, he's a natural with horseflesh and he has a good temperament." In my experience that meant he would be a maniacal driver who let the mules get the staggers and tried to knife his customers. "Marmarides will bring the carriage home when you've finished. He'll tell you the mileage price at the end."
"He'll just tell us? Excuse me!" Baetican commercial practice seemed to have its extraordinary side. "I'm sure the amiable Marmarides has your absolute trust, but I like the right to query costs."
I was not the first suspicious Roman to land in Malaca. Stertius had a well-worked-out routine for technical quibbles: he crooked one finger knowingly, then led me to the rear of the sturdy two-wheeled, two-mule carriage which I was attempting to lease. Its iron-bound wheels would bounce painfully on the track to Corduba, but the passenger compartment had a leather cover which would protect Helena from rough weather, including hot sun. Nux would enjoy trying to bite the wheels.
Stertius bent over one axle hub. "I bet you've never seen one of these before," he claimed proudly. "Look, centurion: this commodious vehicle that I'm letting you have at negligible rates is fitted with an Archimedes hodometer!"
Dear gods, he was a mechanical enthusiast. A flywheel and twisted rope man. The kind of helpful character who asks for a drink of water then insists on mending your well-tackle that has been out of use for three generations. He was almost certainly building himself a complete siege warfare catapulta in the garden of his house.
The wheel hub over which we were crouched in the dust had been fitted with a single-tooth gear. Every rotation of the carriage wheel caused this gear to engage with a flat disc set vertically at right angles above it, which was cut into numerous triangular teeth. Each wheel rotation moved the disc on by a notch, eventually operating a second gear which in turn moved on a second
disc. That one, which was horizontal, had been drilled with small holes, upon each of which was balanced a smooth pebble. Every operation of the top disc moved up a new hole, allowing a pebble to drop through into a box below, which Stertius had secured with a fierce padlock.
"The top disc rotates one hole for every four hundred revolutions of the carriage wheel-which takes one Roman mile!"
"Amazing!" I managed to utter. "What beautiful workmanship! Did you construct this yourself?"
"I do a bit of metalwork," Stertius admitted shyly. "I can't think why these are not fitted as standard on all hired vehicles."
I could. "Wherever did you get the idea, Stertius?"
"Road-building with the Third Augusta in bloody Numidia and Mauretania. We used something like it for measuring accurate positions for the mileposts."
"Amazing!" I repeated feebly. "Helena Justina, come and look at this; it's an Archimedes hodometer!"
I wondered how many more colorful eccentrics I was doomed to meet in Baetica.
"There's just one thing that has to be understood," Stertius warned me as Helena dutifully dragged herself over to inspect his mileage measurer. "You'll find Marmarides can turn his hand to most things, but he won't deliver babies!"
"That's all right," Helena assured him, as if we were a couple who had plans for all contingencies. "Didius Falco is a Roman of the traditional, hardy type. He can plough his fields with his left hand, while his right delivers twins. At the same time he can spout a finely phrased republican oration to a group of senatorial delegates, and invent an ode in praise of the simple country life."
Stertius gave me an approving look. "Handy, eh?"
"Oh I do my best," I answered, with traditional Roman modesty.
It took nearly a week's driving to Corduba. Stertius had charged us a deposit based on a main journey of a hundred and twenty-five Roman miles. I reckon he was accurate. He must have checked it already with his miraculous hodometer. I guessed that crazy man had measured every road in Baetica, and he owned marked-up itineraries to prove it.
Nobody of status ever went the way we did. I had not planned it myself. Once we had chosen the sea trip there were further options available. One sailing route went north of Corsica then came south hugging the coast of Gaul and Tarraconensis; it was famous for shipwrecks. The alternative nipped between Corsica and Sardinia; provided we didn't run aground on either island and fall into bandits' eager hands it had appeared a better bet. It probably was for most people, though not those prone to emptying their stomach at the first ripple of a wave.
What most folk did then was to sail right past Malaca to Gades, and take a boat up the grand River Baetis. I had decided against that for excellent reasons: I wanted to disembark as soon as possible. I also planned to arrive in Corduba in an unexpected manner that would bamboozle my Baetican suspects. So I had pored over route-charts and picked out my landfall on the eastern coast at Carthago Nova, proposing then to drive along the Via Augusta, the main inland highway through southern Hispania. This formed the final link of the great Via Herculana; it was supposedly the immortal hero's route across Europe to the Gardens of the Hesperides, imbued with romantic associations as the pathway to the ends of the earth. Better than that, it would be a fast paved road with well-equipped mansios.
Another reason for my choice was Carthago Nova itself-the center of esparto grass production. My mother, to whom I owed a belated bribe for nursing Anacrites, had supplied me with a more than usually detailed list of presents to bring home, including baskets, mats and even sandals for her numerous grandchildren. A decent Roman lad respects his ma.
Mine would be unsurprised to discover that I had failed her. She would have to make do with a few jars of garum from Malaca, for the captain of our vessel had unexpectedly decided the winds were wrong for the landing he had previously promised.
"He's an idiot! I should have found out earlier-"
"How could you?" asked Helena. "He would never have admitted 'Yes, your honor; I'm an idiot.'"
By the time I realized, he had sailed right past Carthago Nova and was halfway to Gades. He seemed pretty pleased with himself. I forced him to put in at Malaca. From here a road to Corduba did exist, though not a good one. It would be shorter than coming all the way west from Carthago, but the grim quality of the road would probably use up the extra time. Time was just what I could not afford.
Once in the carriage we started well enough, but the level plain with a few dry, pointy little hills quickly gave way to barren gray slopes speckled with sparse vegetation and creased by dry watercourses. Soon we met a range of hills with almost vertical crags; although we traversed them without incident, I had some bad moments riding on top with Marmarides as we passed slowly through the landscape of deep ravines and precipitous rocks. Further inland, the unpopulated countryside changed again to gently rolling ground. We came to the first olive trees, their gnarled trunks rising from low sprigs of greenery, set out with good spaces between them in the stony soil. In the richer, redder ground that came later the olives were interspersed with blocks of fruit trees, grain, or vegetable fields.
Settlements, or even farms, were few. There were mansios, of a meager kind, where the innkeepers all looked astonished to have their bare little rooms inspected by a senator's daughter in an advanced state of pregnancy. Most expected Romans to be traveling with an entourage. Most Romans would indeed ensure they took a bustle of friends, freedmen and slaves. We found it easiest to pretend we had lost our escort temporarily.
There was no point trying to bluff Marmarides, of course. He knew we were without companions, and it afforded him much amusement. "You come to Baetica for a nice summer holiday, lord?"
"That's right. I'm hoping for a sun-drenched spell in an esparto rope hammock. As soon as I can, I'll be stretched out under an olive tree with the dog at my feet and a jug of wine."
Stertius must have picked him up in North Africa; he was as black as the Baetican olives. I tried to forget I was distrusting everyone I met and accept him as a welcome addition, though I wished he had been as broad as his master (Stertius was built like a bacon pig). Marmarides had a neat slim build, whereas I wanted a type who went into a fight smiling, and came out of it five minutes later having wrung the oppositions' necks.
Our driver's face creased into satirical wrinkles and he laughed at us breathily. "Stertius reckons you're a government agent, and your lady's been sent abroad to have her baby in disgrace!"
"I see you're frank talkers in Baetica."
"You want any help with your agenting?" he offered hopefully. "Forget it. I'm just a loafer on holiday."
Marmarides burst out laughing again. Well, I like a man who is happy in his work. That's more than I was.
Some of the mansio landlords seemed to believe we were carrying out a trick accommodation survey on behalf of the provincial quaestor. I let them think it, hoping to improve the quality of supper. Hoping in vain.
The landlords' fears derived from their resentment of bureaucracy. Maybe this meant they thought the quaestor made an efficient job of checking their returns. I could not tell whether it implied that Roman financial management worked well here generally, or whether it was a specific comment on Cornelius, the young friend of Aelianus who had just left his post. Presumably Quinctius Quadratus, the new boy, had yet to make his mark.
"Helena, tell me about your father's estate." I had seized the advantage of a smooth patch of road on one of the occasions when I was riding inside the carriage with her.
"It's quite small, just a farm he bought when he thought of sending Aelianus to Baetica." Camillus senior owned the statutory million's worth of land in Italy which was his qualification for the Senate, but with two sons to equip for the high life he was trying to create a bigger investment portfolio. Like most wealthy men he aimed to distribute his spare holdings among the provinces in order to avoid suffering too much in times of drought or tribal revolt.
"Aelianus lived on the estate?"
"Yes, though I expect he enjoyed the high life in Corduba whenever possible. There's a villa rustica where he was supposed to spend his spare time quietly-if you believe that." Helena had of course been brought up to respect her male relatives-a fine Roman tradition which all Roman women ignored. "Aelianus found a tenant who now occupies part of the house, but there will be room for us. The farm is a little way inland of the river, in olive-growing country, though I'm afraid it's typical of my dear papa, that he bought through an agent who palmed him off with very few olive trees."
"It's a dud?"
"Well there are almonds and grain." Nuts and feed were not going to turn the Camilli into tycoons.
I tried not to let any insult to her noble father's acumen show; Helena was deeply fond of him. "Well, Spanish grain is the best in the Empire apart from African or Italian. And what else is wrong with this agricultural gem your father acquired? He said you would tell me about some problems he wants me to look into."
"Papa was being cheated over the olive oil pressing. That was why Aelianus took on a tenant. Using an overseer of our own wasn't working. This way Papa receives a fixed rent, while the man with the lease is responsible for whether he makes a profit or not."
"I hope we're not having to share accommodation with one of your brother's friends!"
"No, no. The man had fallen on hard times somehow and needed a new farm. Aelianus decided he was honest. I don't suppose he knew him personally; can you imagine my brother sharing a drink with a farmer?"
"He may have had to lower his snooty standards in the provinces."
Helena looked skeptical about that. "Well what I do know is that this man-whose name is Marius Optatus-volunteered to point out that Papa was being cheated in some way. It sounds as if Aelianus brushed his advice aside-but then had the sense to check, and found it was right. Remember my father had entrusted him with seeing that the estate was running properly. It was the first time Aelianus had such a responsibility, and whatever you think of him he did want to do well."
"I'm still surprised he listened."
"Maybe he surprised himself."
An honest tenant sounded unlikely, but I wanted to believe it. If I could report back to Camillus Verus that his son had at least put in a good man to work the estate, that suited me. Whereas if the tenant proved a bad one, I had agreed to sort things out-one more claim on my hard-pressed time.
I'm no expert on big villa economy, though I had been partly brought up on a market garden so I should be able to spot gross bad practice. That was all Helena's father required. Absentee landlords don't expect to make vast profits from remote holdings. It is their estates on the Italian mainland, which they can tour in person every year, that keep the rich in luxury.
Something was on Helena's mind. "Marcus, do you trust what Aelianus told you?"
"About the farm?"
"No. About the letter he brought home."
"It looked as though he was coming clean. When I told him what had happened to the Chief Spy and his agent your brother seemed to realize he was in deep trouble." Back in Rome I had tried to find the letter, but Anacrites' papers were in too much disarray. Sight of it would have reassured me, and even if Aelianus had told me the truth I might have learned further details. Laeta had had his own staff search for it, without success. That could just mean Anacrites had devised a complicated filing system-though whenever I had visited his office his scheme seemed to consist of merely throwing scrolls all over the floor.
The road had become rough again. Helena said nothing while the carriage lurched over the uneven pavings. The northward crosscountry road to Corduba was not exactly a marvel of engineering, precision built by the legions in some mighty politician's name, and intended to last for millennia. The regional council must have charge of this one. Public slaves occasionally patched it up well enough to last through the current season. We seemed to be traveling when the work gang were overdue.
"Aelianus must also have realized," I added when the carriage stopped jolting, "the first thing I would do-whether I had to correspond from Rome or whether I came here myself-was to ask the proconsul's office for their side of the correspondence. In fact I'm hoping to discuss the whole business with the proconsul himself."
"I had a go at him," Helena said. She still meant Aelianus. I felt sorry for her brother. Helena Justina could have been a cracking investigator had it not been impossible for respectable women to converse freely with people outside their family, or to knock on strangers' doors with nosy requests. But I always felt a mild pang of resentment when she took the initiative. She knew that, of course. "Don't fret. I was careful. He's my brother; he wasn't surprised I cornered him."
If he had told her anything worthwhile I would have heard about it before now. So I just grinned at her; Helena grabbed at the carriage frame as we were flung forward by a violent bounce. I braced my arm across in front of her for protection.
Just because Aelianus was her brother did not mean I intended to trust him.
Helena squeezed my hand. "Justinus is going to keep prodding him."
That cheered me up. I had shared time abroad with her younger brother. Justinus looked immature, but when he stopped mooning after unsuitable women he was shrewd and tenacious. I had great faith in his judgment too (except of women). In fact there was only one problem: if Justinus discovered anything, sending correspondence to Spain was highly unreliable. Helena and I would probably be home again before any letter could arrive. I was out here on my own. Not even Laeta would be able to contact me.
Changing the subject Helena Justina joked, "I hope this won't be like our trip to the East. It's bad enough finding corpses face down in water cisterns; I don't care for the idea of plucking a preserved one from a vat of olive oil."
"Messy!" I grinned.
"And slippery too."
"Don't worry; it won't happen."
"You were always overconfident!"
"I know what I'm talking about. It's the wrong time of year. Harvest starts in September with the green olives, and is over in January with the black. In April and May the presses stand still and everyone is chipping away at weeds with hoes, spreading manure made from last year's squelched olive pulp, and pruning. All we'll see will be pretty trees with jolly spring flowers hiding tiny fruit buds."
"Oh you've been reading up!" Helena scoffed. Her teasing eyes were bright. "Trust us to come at the wrong time of year."
I laughed too-though it was exactly the right time for some things: in spring the labor-intensive work of tending the olive trees was at its least demanding. That could be when the olive-owners found the time to scheme and plot.
The closer we got to the great oil-producing estates south of the River Baetis, the more my unease grew.
There is a fine tradition that when landowners arrive unexpectedly on their lush estates they find the floors unswept for the past six months, the goats roaming free in the vineyard eating the new young fruits, and grooms asleep with unwashed women in the master's bed. Some senators stop in the next village for a week, sending messages of their imminent arrival so the cobwebs can be sponged down, the floozies persuaded to go home to their aunties, and the livestock rounded up. Others are less polite. On the premise that having their names on a five percent mortgage from the Syrian lender in the Forum gives them right of possession, they turn up at dinnertime expecting hot baths, a full banquet and clean apartments with the coverlets already folded down for their accompanying forty friends. They at least get to publish fine literary letters full of satirical complaints about country life.
We had no one to send ahead as a messenger and we were sick of inns, so we pressed on and turned up unannounced, quite late in the day. Our appearance caused no visible panic. The new tenant had passed the first test of his efficiency. Marius Optatus didn't exactly welcome us with fresh roses in blue glass bud vases, but he found us seats in the garden and summoned a passable julep jug, while he ordered curious servants to prepare our rooms. Nux scampered off after them to choose a good bed to sleep on.
"The name's Falco. You may have heard Aelianus railing about me.
"How do you do," he answered, omitting to confirm whether or not he had been told I was a reprobate.
I introduced Helena, then we all sat around being polite and trying not to show that we were people with nothing in common who had been thrown together unavoidably.
Helena's father had bought himself a traditionally built Baetican farmhouse almost alongside the nearest road. It had mud-brick foundations below wooden panels; the arrangement was one long corridor with reception rooms at the front and more private accommodation behind them. The tenant lived in rooms along one side of the corridor, with views over the estate. The other rooms, which flanked a private garden, were supposed to be set aside for the Camilli if ever any of them visited. This part had been left unused. Either the tenant was scrupulous-or he had been warned to expect visitors.
"You're being extremely gracious!" I was cheering up now I had been told that the amenities included a small but functioning bath suite, slightly separate from the house. "With young Aelianus barely off the premises you must have imagined you were safe from further inspection for at least twenty years."
Optatus smiled. For a Spaniard he was tall, very thin, rather pale, with a foxy face and bright eyes. Among the Balearic mix of curly Iberians and even more shaggy Celts, all of whom were stocky and short, he stood out like a thistle spike in a cornfield. He looked a few years older than me, mature enough to run a workforce yet young enough to have some hopes in life. A man of few words. Silent men can be simply bad news at a party-or dangerous characters. Before we even fetched the baggage in I felt there was something about him I needed to investigate.
Supper was a simple affair of salt tuna and vegetables, shared with the house slaves and our driver Marmarides, in the old family tradition. We all ate in a long, low kitchen at the back of the house. There was local wine, which seemed good enough if you were tired, and if you added enough water to make the old woman who prepared meals and the lamp boy (who were staring fixedly) think you vaguely respectable. But afterwards Helena suggested I invite Optatus to share a glass of a more refined Campanian I had brought with me. She declined the wine, but sat with us. Then while I, with my fine sense of masculine decorum, tried to keep the conversation neutral, Helena recovered from her weariness enough to start interviewing her father's tenant.
"My brother Aelianus says we had great good fortune in finding you to take on the estate." Marius Optatus gave us one of his reserved smiles. "He mentioned something about you having had some bad luck-I hope you don't mind me asking?" she added innocently.
Optatus had presumably met people of senatorial rank (not including Helena's brother, who was too juvenile to count), but he would rarely have dealt with the women. "I had been rather ill," he hedged reluctantly.
"Oh that I didn't know! I'm so sorry-was that why you had to find a new estate? You were farming hereabouts before, weren't you?"
"Don't be grilled if you don't want to be," I grinned, helping the man to a modest top-up of wine.
He saluted me with his cup and said nothing. I'm just making polite conversation, Marcus," Helena protested mildly. Optatus wouldn't know she had never been the kind of girl who bothered with idle chat. "I'm a long way from home, and in my condition I need to make friends as quickly as possible!"
Are you intending to have the baby here?" Optatus asked, rather warily. He was probably wondering whether we had been dispatched abroad to have it in secret and hide our disgrace.
"Certainly not," I retorted. "There is a battery of antique nursemaids at the Camillus house all anxiously awaiting our return to Rome-not to mention the crabby but very cheap old witch who once delivered me, the highly exclusive midwife Helena's mother places her faith in, my younger sister, Helena's second cousin the Vestal Virgin, and phalanxes of interfering neighbors on all sides. It will cause a social scandal if we fail to use the birthing chair which helped Helena's noble mama produce Helena and her brothers, and which has been purposely sent to Rome from the Camillus country estate-"
"But you'll gather most of Rome disapproves of us," Helena quietly inserted into my satire.
"How true," I said. "But then I find myself increasingly disapproving of most of Rome… Optatus, in case you're wondering, you should treat Helena Justina as the noble daughter of your illustrious landlord, though you may pray to the gods that I whisk her away before her lying-in. You can treat me how you like. I'm here on some urgent official business, and Helena was too spirited to be left behind."
"Official business!" Optatus had found a sense of humor. "You mean my new landlord Camillus Verus has not sent you out in a hurry to see whether his youthful son has unwisely signed a lease with me? I was intending to rush out at dawn to make sure the cabbage rows are straight."
"Aelianus was satisfied you know how to farm," said Helena.
I backed her up: "He said you had informed him his father was being cheated."
A shadow briefly crossed the tenant's face. "Camillus Verus was losing a lot of the profits from his olive trees."
"How was that?"
Optatus' face darkened even more. "Several ways. The muleteers who take the skins of oil to the Baetis were stealing from him outright; they needed to be supervised. The bargemen on the river were also somehow miscounting when they stowed his amphorae-though they try to do that to everyone. Worst was the lie he was being told about how much oil his trees were yielding."
"Who was lying?"
"The men who pressed his olives."
"How can you be sure?"
"I knew them. They are from my ex-landlord's personal estate. Camillus Verus does not own his own press here. Millstones are very expensive and the number of trees does not justify it. Better if a neighbor contracts to do the work. My ex-landlord's family used to do it, on an amicable basis-but when your father bought his estate the good relationship was abandoned."
I sucked my teeth. "And how would Camillus, thousands of miles away in Rome, ever have known he was being misled? Even when he sent Aelianus, the boy would have been too inexperienced to realize."
Optatus nodded. "But I found out. My father and I had always lent workers to help our landlord at harvest, then his workers used to come to help us in turn. So my own people were present when the Camillus fruit was crushed. They told me of the fraud."
"Does this have anything to do with why you lost your own farm?" Helena put in suddenly.
Marius Optatus placed his winecup on a stool, as if refusing to be lulled into any confidence by the drink-or by our offer of friendship either, if I was any judge. "There were two reasons why I was asked to leave. Firstly, I was a tenant, as my family had been there for many years."
"It was hard to lose?" Helena murmured. It was home." He was terse. "I lost my mother some years ago. Then my father died. That gave my landlord an excuse to alter our arrangement. He wanted the land back for himself. He declined to sign a new tenancy with me." He was only just managing to remain calm. "The second reason of course was my disloyalty."
"When you told Aelianus that my father was being cheated?" That would not have made him popular with anyone. Optatus had chosen the outsider, not the local community. Fatal, wherever you live.
"People had been hoping to make money from Camillus."
"Deceiving a foreigner is always a good game," I said. "And how did your ex-landlord maneuver you out?" Helena inquired.
"Unluckily that was when I fell ill. I had a fever on the brain. I should have died." There was deep unhappiness behind this story. I rather thought the worst of it would never be told. "There was a long period while I was too weak to do anything. Then I was ousted from my land on the pretext that it had been badly neglected; I was a bad tenant."
"Harsh!"
"I had certainly not expected it. I stand by what I did-and had I not been ill, I would have argued the issue. But it's too late now."
"Did nobody defend you?" Helena demanded indignantly.
"None of my neighbors wanted to become involved. In their eyes I had become a troublemaker."
Helena was furious. "Surely once you had recovered everyone could see you would run things properly again?"
"Everyone who wanted to know the truth," I said. "Not a landlord who was keen to end the tenancy. And besides, in that situation it's sometimes best to accept that goodwill has broken down." Optatus agreed with me; I could see he wanted to end the discussion.
Helena was still too angry. "No, it's monstrous! Even at this late stage you should take your landlord before the regional council and argue for reinstatement."
"My ex-landlord," Optatus replied slowly, "is an extremely powerful man."
"But disputes can be heard before the provincial governor." With her deep hatred of injustice, Helena refused to give in.
"Or the quaestor if he is sent to the regional court as the proconsul's deputy," Optatus added. His voice was tight. "In Corduba that usually happens. The quaestor spares his proconsul the business of hearing pleas."
Remembering that the new quaestor was to be Quinctius Quadratus, the son of the senator I had met and disliked in Rome, I was losing my confidence in the regional rule of law. "The quaestor may be young, but he is a senator-elect," I argued, nevertheless. Not that I had ever felt any awe for senators-elect. Still, I was a Roman abroad and I knew how to defend the system. "When he stands in for his governor he ought to do the job properly."
"Oh I'm sure he would!" Optatus scoffed. "Perhaps I should mention, however, that my previous landlord is called Quinctius Attractus. I should be making my petition to his son."
Now even Helena Justina had to see his point.
I wanted to know Optatus better before I discussed anything with political overtones, so I yawned heavily and we went to bed. He had described some lively local disputes and crookedness. Still, that happens everywhere. Big men stamp on little men. Honest brokers stir up their neighbors' antagonism. Incomers are resented and regarded as fair game. Urban life seems to be noisy and violent, but in the country it's worse. Poisonous feuds fester behind every bush.
Next day I persuaded Optatus to tour the estate with me. We set off to inspect the olive trees that all the fuss was about, while Nux gamboled wildly around us, convinced that our walk was for her sole benefit. She had only ever known the streets of Rome. She tore about with her eyes mere slits in the wind, barking at the clouds.
Optatus told me that along the Baetis, especially running west towards Hispalis, were holdings of all sizes-huge estates run by powerful and wealthy families, and also a variety of smaller farms which were either owned or leased. Some of the big holdings belonged to local tycoons, others to Roman investors. Camillus
Verus, who was perennially short of cash, had bought himself a pretty modest one.
Though small, the place had potential. The low hills south of the Baetis were as productive in agriculture as the mountains to the north of the river were rich in copper and silver. Camillus had managed to obtain a good position, and it was already clear his new tenant was putting the farm to rights.
Optatus first showed me the huge silo where grain was stored underground on straw in conditions that would keep it usable for fifty years. "The wheat is excellent, and the land will support other cereal crops." We walked past a bed of asparagus; I cut some spears with my knife. If my guide noticed that I knew how to select the best, how to burrow down into the dry earth before making my cut, and that I should leave a proportion for growing on, he made no comment. "There are a few vines, though they need attention. We have damsons and nuts-"
"Almonds?"
"Yes. Then we have the olive trees-suffering badly."
"What's wrong with them?" We stood under the close rows, running in an east-west direction to allow breezes to waft through. To me an olive grove was just an olive grove, unless it had a chorus of nymphs tripping about in windblown drapery.
"Too tall." Some were twice as high as me; some more. "In cultivation they will grow to forty feet, but who wants that? As a guide, they should be kept to the height of the tallest ox, to allow for picking the fruit."
"I thought olives were shaken down by banging the trees with sticks? Then caught in nets?"
"Not good." Optatus disagreed impatiently. "Sticks can damage the tender branches that bear the fruit. Falling can bruise the olives. Hand-picking is best. It means visiting every tree several times in each harvest, to catch all the fruit when it is exactly ripe."
'Green or black? Which do you favor for pressing?"
"Depends on the variety. Pausian gives the best oil, but only while the fruit is green. Regia gives best from the black."
He showed me where he was himself stripping back the soil to expose the roots, then removing young suckers. Meanwhile the upper branches were being severely pruned to reduce the trees to a manageable height.
"Will this harsh treatment set them back?"
"Olives are tough, Falco. An uprooted tree will sprout again if the smallest shred of root remains in contact with the soil."
"Is that how they can live so long?"
"Five hundred years, they say."
"It's a long-term business. Hard for a tenant to start afresh," I sympathized, watching him.
His manner did not alter-but it was pretty restrained to start with. "The new cuttings I have planted this month in the nursery will not bear fruit for five years; it will take at least twenty for them to reach their best. Yes; the olive business is long term."
I wanted to ask him about his old landlord Attractus, but I was not sure how to tackle it. Last night, with supper and wine inside him he had shown his feelings more freely, but this morning he had clammed up. I am the first to respect a man's privacy-except when I need to extract what he knows.
In fact he saved me the trouble of opening the discussion.
"You want me to tell you about the Quinctii!" he announced grimly.
"I'm not harassing you."
"Oh no!" He was working himself up well. "You want me to tell you how the father did me down, how I suffered, and how the son gloated!"
"Is that how it was?"
Optatus took a deep breath. My quiet attitude had relaxed him too. "Of course not."
"I didn't think so," I remarked. "If we had been talking about an obviously corrupt action you wouldn't have stood for it, and other people would have come out on your side. Whatever pressure the Quinctii applied to make you leave, you must have felt that technically at least, they had the law on their side."
"I'm not the man to judge what happened," Marius Optatus said. "I only know I was helpless. It was all achieved very subtly. I felt, and still feel, a deep sense of injustice-but I cannot prove any wrongdoing."
"The Quinctii had definitely decided that they wanted you out?"
"They wanted to expand their own estate. The easiest way, and the cheapest of course, was to kick me off the land that my family had been improving for several generations and take it over themselves. It saved them buying more ground. It saved them clearing and planting. I couldn't complain. I was a tenant; if I gave them cause, ending the contract was their right."
"But it was harsh, and it was done badly?"
"The father was in Rome. His son dealt with me. He doesn't know," Optatus shrugged, still almost with disbelief. "Young Quinctius Quadratus watched me leave with my bed, and my tools, and my saltbox-and he really did not understand what he had done to me.
"You call him young," I rasped. "He has been given charge of all the financial affairs of this province. He's not a child."
"He is twenty-five," Optatus said tersely.
"Oh yes! In his year." Quadratus had achieved the quaestorship at the earliest possible date. "We're in circles where golden youths don't expect to hang about. They want their honors now-so they can go on to grab more!"
"He's a shooting star, Falco!"
"Maybe somebody somewhere has a sharp arrow and a long enough reach to bring him down."
Optatus did not waste effort on such dreams. "My family were tenants," he repeated, "but that had been our choice. We were people of standing. I was not destitute when I left the farm. In fact," he added, becoming quite animated, "it could have been worse. My grandfather and father had always understood what the situation was, so every last wooden hayfork that belonged to us was inventoried on a list. Every yoke, millstone and plough. Every basket for straining cheese. That gave me some satisfaction.
"Did Quadratus try to haggle about what you could take with you?
"He wanted to. I wanted him to try it-"
"That would be theft. It would have destroyed his public face."
"Yes, Falco. He was too clever for that."
"He is intelligent?"
"Of course."
They always are, those golden boys who spend their lives destroying other people.
We strolled to the nursery where I inspected the tiny sprouts, each standing in a hollow to conserve moisture and with a windbreak made from an esparto sack for protection. Optatus was carrying out this task himself, though of course he had workers on the estate including slaves of his own. While we were there he puddled in his precious nurselings with water from a barrel, stroking their leaves and tutting over any that looked limp. Seeing him fuss, I gained some sense of his grief at losing the farm where he grew up. It did not improve my opinion of the Quinctius family.
I could tell he wanted to be rid of me. He had been polite, but I had had my ration. He walked me back to the house formally, as if ensuring I was off the scene.
We stopped on the way to look into some outbuildings, including one where olives that were stored for domestic consumption were kept in amphorae, packed in various preparations to preserve them through winter. While we were engrossed, disaster struck. We arrived at the small garden area in front of the main building, just as Helena was trying to catch Nux. The dog rushed towards us ecstatically, with what appeared to be a twig in her mouth.
Optatus and I both immediately knew what it really was. I cursed. Optatus let out a wild cry. He seized a broom and began trying to smash it down on the dog. Helena squealed and stepped back. Loosing off a smothered protest, I managed to grab the culprit, picking up Nux by the scruff of her neck. We jumped out of reach of Optatus. With a hard tap on the nose I prised the trophy from Nux, who compounded her crime by scrabbling free again and leaping about yapping and pleading with me to throw the thing for her. No chance!
Optatus was white. His thin frame went rigid. He could hardly speak for anger-but he forced the words out: "Falco! Your dog has torn up the cuttings in my nursery bed!"
Just my luck.
Helena captured Nux and carried her off to be scolded, well out of sight. I strode back to the churned-up plant nursery, with Optatus stalking at my heels. Nux had torn up only one tree, in fact, and knocked a few others over. "I'm sorry; the dog likes chasing things, big things mainly. At home she's been known to frighten vintners delivering wine amphorae. She has simply never been trained to be loose on a farm…"
Scuffing earth flat quickly with the side of my boot, I found the damage much less than it could have been. Nux had been digging, but most of the holes had missed the little trees. Without asking, I found where the rescued cutting belonged and replaced it myself. Optatus stood by in fury. Part of me expected him to snatch the twiglet from me; part knew he was shrinking from it as if the dog had contaminated his treasure.
I picked off the damaged leaves, checked the stem for bruising, redug the planting hole, found the support stake, and firmed in the little tree in the way my grandfather and great-uncle had taught me when I was a small boy. If Optatus was surprised that a street-pounding Roman knew how to do this, he showed nothing. His silence was as bleak as his expression. Still ignoring him, I walked quietly to the water barrel and fetched the jug I had seen him use earlier. Carefully I soaked the plant back into its old position.
"It's gone limp, but I think it's just sulking." I arranged its sackcloth windbreak then I stood up and looked straight at him. "I apologize for the accident. Let's look on the bright side. Last night we were strangers. Now everything's changed. You can think me an inconsiderate, wantonly destructive townee. I can call you an oversensitive, agitated foreigner who is, moreover, cruel to dogs." His chin came up, but I wasn't having it. "So now we can stop sidestepping: I'll tell you the unpleasant political nature of the work I'm really sent here to do. And you," I said clearly, "can give me a true assessment of what's wrong in the local commu-nity.
He started to tell me which plot in Hades I could go and sink my roots in. "Perhaps first of all," I continued pleasantly, "I should warn you that I came to Corduba to investigate two matters: one involves a scandal in the oil market-and the other is murder."
I had managed to strike Optatus dumb, which was no mean feat. When normally silent types do decide they are bursting with indignant exclamations, they tend to be unstoppable. But on a quiet sunlit slope among the timeless dignity of olive trees, murder sounds a powerful word.
"Falco, what are you talking about?"
"One man dead, possibly two of them, in Rome. And it looks as if somebody from Baetica arranged it." That night I had dinner at the Palace seemed a long way off, yet the thought of Anacrites lying pallid and still and almost a stranger to himself came clearly to mind. Even more vivid was Valentinus' corpse: that young man so like myself, lying in the dim light of the Second Cohort's engine house.
Marius Optatus looked disgusted. "I know nothing of this."
"No? Then do you know two big landowners called Licinius Rufius and Annaeus Maximus? When I was introduced to them they set themselves up as honest men of high renown-but they were in doubtful company that night, and after the attacks they behaved very oddly themselves. Then what about a scapharius called Cyzacus? Well, when was a bargee to be trusted? A navicularius called Norbanus? He's a Gaul, I believe, and a shipping negotiator into the bargain, so you don't have to pretend to like him. When I met them all these fellows were dining with someone you certainly do know-a certain Roman senator called Quinctius Attractus! In Rome he's regarded as a big bean in Baetica, though in Baetica you may prefer your legumes homegrown. He's regarded by me as a very suspicious character."
"Attractus has for some time been inviting groups of people to visit him in Rome," Optatus agreed, blinking with amazement at my angry speech.
"Do you think he's up to no good?"
"After my experience of him as a landlord, I'm bound to think that-but I'm prejudiced, Falco."
"I'll ask you something different then. You're a bachelor, I gather; I don't suppose you have any lithe girlfriends in Hispalis who might just have returned abruptly from a trip to Rome?"
Optatus looked po-faced. "I know nobody from Hispalis."
"You'd know this one again if you saw her; she's a dancer-just bursting with talent of one kind or another."
"There must be thousands of girls who dance, but most of them have gone to Rome-"
"With their fee paid by Attractus? And a habit of leaving their props behind at the scenes of bloody crimes?"
I had been going too fast for a countryman. "Who are you?" Optatus demanded in apparent bewilderment. "What are these people from Baetica to you? What harm are you bringing them?"
"The harm has been done," I retorted. "I saw the corpse, and the dying man too. Now I'm looking for the killers, at the request of Titus Caesar-so if you're honest, Marius Optatus, you will help me with my task."
The tall, pale figure beside me began to recover his equanimity. Crouching down on one knee he firmed in the disturbed cutting to his own satisfaction. There was nothing wrong with the way I had replanted it, but I stood unmoved while he left his own scent on the damned thing.
He stood up. He had become more serious than ever. Brushing soil from his long hands he stared at me. Enduring the fascinated gaze was routine work for an informer and I remained relaxed. I could stand hostile scrutiny. "So what do you see?"
"You know what you are, Falco."
"Do I?"
"You arrive like a naive tourist." Optatus had assumed a critical voice to which I was no stranger. He had stopped regarding me just as a rather raffish Roman in a patched tunic. He had realized he hated what I did. "You seem inoffensive, a mere joker, a lightweight. Then people notice that you are a watcher. You have a stillness which is dangerous. You carry a sharp knife, hidden in your boot; you cut asparagus like a man who has used that knife for many unpleasant tasks."
My knife had certainly hacked some bad meats, but he wouldn't want to know about that. "I'm just a joker."
"You tell jokes, while unknown to your listener you are measuring the quality of his conscience."
I smiled at him. "I am the Emperor's agent."
"I have no desire to know of this, Falco."
"Well that's not the first time a prude told me my presence tainted his air."
He stiffened, then accepted the rebuke: "You will say that your work is necessary, I realize that."
I clapped him gently on the shoulder, to reassure him if possible. He himself seemed like an innocent abroad. According to my famous worldly experience, that probably meant he was a devious swine, and setting me up.
We began walking towards the house again, along a dry track where even so early in the year the soil smelt hot and dusty. The red Baetican earth had already stained my boot-leather. It was pleasant weather. Just the kind of day when the men who were plotting the olive oil cartel were probably riding out on fine Spanish horses to each other's estates, refining their plans.
"Optatus, I mentioned some names. Tell me about them. I need to know how the men I saw in Rome relate to each other and to their fine friend Attractus."
I watched him struggle with fastidious dislike of the topic. Some people are eager to gossip, but a few unusual souls do find discussing their neighbors distasteful. These are the ones who are best value to an informer. They are offended by offers of payment, and better still they tell the truth.
"Come on, Marius! You must know the Corduban oil tycoons. The Annaei are one of the most prominent families in Corduba. Annaeus Maximus ought to carry top weight in Baetica. He's from the family of the Senecas; we're talking about extraordinary wealth."
"This is true, Falco."
"Since it's public knowledge, there is no need to be coy. So what about Licinius Rufius?"
"Not so grand a family."
"Any senators?"
"No, but their time must come. Licinius himself is elderly but he has worked to become important in Corduba and he intends to build a dynasty. He is extremely ambitious for his two grandchildren, whom he brought up when their parents died. The young man should do well-"
"Local priesthoods and magistracies?"
"Rufius Constans is bound for Rome, Falco: it is a distinct and separate career." I gathered Optatus slightly disapproved. "Doesn't the one lead to the other?"
"That is not how it works. In the provinces you have to make a choice. Think of the Annaei whom you mentioned: the elder Seneca was a leading citizen and famous author and bibliographer, yet he remained socially obscure. Of his three sons, the first went straight into a senatorial career in Rome and achieved prominence, the next became an equestrian first, also in Rome, and only entered the Senate when he showed the promise that was to make him a major figure. The youngest son remained all his life in Corduba."
"As the Annaei nowadays all choose to do?"
"There is no disgrace in provincial life, Falco."
"Rome has its moments too," I commented. "So going back to the other man's grandson, Rufius Constans-This young man, a jewel of Baetican high society, is in his early twenties and to promote him his grandfather took him off to Rome recently?"
"I heard so."
"He enjoys the theater, I'm told!"
"Is that significant?"
"I didn't think so when I heard it-but he went with your new provincial quaestor. If the younger generation are so friendly, their elders may be nuzzling up to each other too."
"People here tend to keep Roman landowners like Attractus at arm's length. He has hardly ever been here."
"But they go to Rome at his invitation? Maybe he helps them with the fare. Then they arrive, eager to see the Golden City, flattered by the attention of a man with influence. Clearly he does have influence-he's the type who can get the Senate to vote a particular provincial post to his son."
"You think his visitors become open to persuasion?"
"He may be offering just what they want: for instance patronage for the Rufius grandson-and did you say there's a girl in that family?"
"Claudia Rufina is expected to marry my ex-landlord's son." Optatus never mentioned his dispossessor by name if he could avoid it. Nor the quaestorly son. "I trust Licinius, Falco. For instance, I shall be sending the olives from this estate to his presses next autumn, so we don't get cheated elsewhere. Of the others you mentioned," he went on crisply, trying to blot out mention of his own troubles, "Norbanus is a shipping negotiator, as you said. He buys and sells space in the ocean-going craft that come upriver as far as Hispalis. I have met him, but I don't know him well. My family used someone else."
"Any reason for not using him?"
For once Optatus smiled. "Ours was a remote cousin."
"Ah!"
"Norbanus, however, is the most well known. He is chief of the guild of negotiators at Hispalis. He also has his own office at Ostia, in the port of Rome."
"He's well-to-do, then. And Cyzacus must be top man among the Baetis bargees?"
"You have heard of Cyzacus?"
"You mean, how do I know he's the tribal chief? I worked it out. Attractus appears to go for the most prominent men. So how do they all get on together? Norbanus and Cyzacus seemed to be deep in gossip. Are the two estate owners close drinking cronies too?"
"Shippers and landowners exist in mutual contempt, Falco. Cyzacus and Norbanus would have been lucky to get anybody else to speak to them. They and the producers spend most of their lives trying to mislead each other about prices or complaining about late deliveries, or how the oil has been handled… As for Annaeus and Licinius, they are in the same business as each other, so they are rivals in earnest." That was good news. Wedges might be inserted here. This is how conspiracies are toppled by agents who know how. We find a cozy clique, which has internal rivalries, and we nimbly cause dissent. "One difference is, the Annaeii came from Italian stock many years ago, the very first Roman settlers here. The Rufii are of pure Spanish origin and have ground to make up."
"I see you have plenty of local snobberies!"
"Yes, people who have vital interests in common do love to despise one another for grand reasons."
"Tell me what makes the two olive growers hate each other? Is it purely commercial jostling?"
"Oh I think so. There is no deadly quarrel," Optatus told me rather wryly, as if he assumed I thought provincial towns were hotbeds of family feuds and intriguing sexual jealousy. Well no doubt they had their fun, but making money took precedence. On the other hand, in my work when people denied the existence of strong emotions, it was usually a prelude to finding corpses with knives in their backs.
We had reached the villa rustica. I could hear Nux barking, probably in protest because Helena had locked her up. I made my retreat before Optatus could remember his heartache over the torn-up tree.
Corduba sits on the north bank of the River Baetis, overlooking a fertile agricultural plain. Marmarides drove Helena and me there the next day. Where the navigable water petered out into spongy pools and channels we crossed a bridge, made of stone, which everyone claimed replaced one that Julius Caesar had built. Even in April the river was virtually fordable at this point.
Corduba has an old local history, but had been founded as a Roman city by Marcellus, the first Roman governor of Spain. Then both Caesar and Augustus had made it a colony for veteran soldiers, so Latin was the language everyone now spoke, and from that staged beginning must have come some of the social snobberies Optatus had described for me. There were people with all sorts of pedigrees.
Even while it was being colonized the district had a turbulent history. The Iberian landmass had been invaded by Rome three hundred years ago-yet it had taken us two hundred and fifty to make it convincingly ours. The numerous conflicting tribes created trouble enough, but Spain had also been the entry route for the Carthaginians. Later it made a fine feuding ground for rivals every time prominent men in Rome plunged us into civil war. Corduba had repeatedly featured in sieges. Still, unlike most large provincial centers I had visited, mainly on the frontiers of the Empire, there was no permanent military fort.
Baetica, which possessed the most natural resources, had yearned for peace-and the chance to exploit its riches-long before the wild interior. At home in the Forum of the Romans was a golden statue of Augustus set up by wealthy Baeticans in gratitude for his bringing them a quiet life at last. How quiet it really was, I would have to test.
We passed a small guardhouse and crossed the bridge. Beyond lay stout town walls, a monumental gate and houses built in the distinctive local style of mud walls topped with wood; I discovered later the town had a prominent fire brigade to cope with the accidents that endanger timber buildings in close-packed urban centers where lamp oil is very cheap. They also boasted an amphitheater, doing well according to a rash of advertising placards; various bloodthirsty-sounding gladiators were popular. Aqueducts brought water from the hills to the north.
Corduba had a mixed, cosmopolitan population, though as we forced a passage through the twisting streets to the civic center we found the mixture was kept strictly separate-Roman and Hispanic areas were neatly divided by a wall running west to east. Notices carved on wall plaques emphasized the divide. I stood in the forum, labeled as Roman, and thought how odd this strict local schism would seem in Rome itself, where people of every class and background are thrust up against each other. The rich may try to keep apart in their mansions, but if they want to go anywhere-and to be anyone in Rome you must be a public man- they have to accept being buffeted by the garlic-eating hordes.
I had a good idea that in Corduba both the elegant Roman administrators and the aloof, inward-looking Baeticans would soon find themselves in a close pact on one subject: disapproval of me.
Like all decent tourists we had made our way first to the forum. It was in the northern sector. As soon as we inquired for directions I learned that the governor's palace was back down by the river; distracted by talking to Helena, I had let myself be driven past it. Helena and Marmarides, who were keen to see the sights, went off to explore. Helena had brought a town plan left behind by her brother. She would show me any decent landmarks later.
I was obliged to register my presence with the proconsul of Baetica. There were four judicial regions in this sun-drenched province-Corduba, Hispalis, Astigi and Gades. I knew therefore that there was only a one in four chance of finding the governor at home. Since the Fates regard showering me with disappointment as a good game of dice, I expected the worst. But when I presented myself at the proconsular palace, he was there. Things were looking up. That didn't mean I could get the mighty man to meet me.
I set myself a pleasant wager: seeing how soon I could wangle an official interview. I tried to make my approach subtle, since there was an obvious need for secrecy. A simple request fell flat. Producing a tablet with the dignified seal of Claudius Laeta, Chief of Correspondence to the Emperor, obtained mild interest among the flunkies, who must have written Laeta's name on a few thousand dreary communiques. One neatly cropped fellow said he would see what he could do then ducked out into a corridor to discuss his last night's wine consumption with a friend. I put on the bleak expression auditors wear when tasked to eliminate excessive staff numbers. Two other relaxed lads put their heads together and worked out their order for lunch.
There was only one thing for it. Dirty tactics.
I leaned against a side table and whittled my nails with my knife. "Don't hurry," I smiled. "It's not going to be easy informing the proconsul his great-grandfather has finally died. I wouldn't have minded the job, but I'm supposed to explain about the old blighter changing his will, and I just don't see how I can do that without mentioning a certain little Illyrian manicurist. If I'm not careful we'll be getting into the business of why his honor's wife didn't go to the country as instructed, and then the ding-dong with the charioteer will slip out. Jove knows they should have kept it quiet but of course her doctor talked, and who can blame him when you hear where the proconsul's spare epaulettes were sewn-" Both the flunky in the corridor and his friend stuck their heads slowly round the door to join the others staring at me goggle-eyed. I beamed at them. "Better not say any more, even though it is all over the Senate. But you heard it from me first! Remember that when the drinks are being got in…"
I was lying of course. I never socialize with clerks.
The first young person dashed off, zipped back rather breathless, then shunted me into the presence. The proconsul was looking surprised, but he didn't know he had become a celebrity. His loyal scroll-pushers would be clustered outside the door, applying winecups to the lacquered panels in the hope of overhearing more. Since the personage in charge sat on his dais under some purple curtains at the far end of a room which seemed the length of a running stadium, our mundane discussion of trade issues would be out of earshot of the gossips with their ears on fire. There were still a few scribes and cup-bearers attending the mighty man, though; I wondered how to get rid of them.
The proconsul of Baetica was a typical Vespasian appointee: he looked like a pig farmer. His tanned face and ugly legs would not have counted against him when he was chosen to sit here on an ivory seat between the dusty set of ceremonial rods and axes, below the rather tarnished and tired gold eagle. Instead Vespasian would have noted his illustrious career-bound to include commanding a legion and a stint in a consulship-and would also have marked the shrewdness behind the man's intent hooded eyes. Those eyes watched me approach down the lengthy audience chamber, while a brain as sharp as a Pict's hatchet was summing me up just as fast as I was evaluating him.
His was a post that needed a strong grip. It was only three years since two Hispanic provinces played their part in the legendary Year of the Four Emperors: Tarraconensis in backing Galba, then Lusitania in supporting Otto. Galba had actually stood for emperor while still a provincial governor, using the legions of his official command to uphold his claim. This caught on, as bad ideas do: Vespasian eventually used the same ploy from Judaea. Afterwards he had to take firm action in Hispania. He reduced the Spanish legions from four to one-a fresh one-and even before I met this man I was sure the proconsul had been chosen for his allegiance to Vespasian and all that the new Flavian emperors stood for. (Those of you in the provinces may have heard that your new Roman governors are selected by a lottery. Well, that just shows how magically lotteries work. They always seem to pick out the men the Emperor wants.)
Hispania had lost its chance of glory when Galba slipped off the throne after only seven months and Otto barely lasted three; they were past history in Rome. But the rich estate- and mine-owners of Corduba had been among Galba's allies. Here there could still be dangerous tingles of resentment. Needless to say, outside the massive walls of the administrative palace, the town had appeared to be going about its business on this bright southern morning, as if setting up emperors carried no more world importance than a small scandal to do with amphitheater ticket sales. Yet maybe among the olive groves ambitions still seethed.
"What's the news on the Palatine?" The proconsul was blunt. He had been working in informal dress-a bonus of life in the provinces-but seeing me in my toga he slid into his surreptitiously.
"I bring you cordial greetings from the Emperor, Titus Caesar, and the Chief of Correspondence." I handed over a scroll from Laeta, introducing me.
He didn't bother to unseal it. He was not a man for etiquette. "You work for Laeta?" He managed to restrain a humph. Secretariat employees would be rare visitors-and unwelcome ones.
"I was sent here by Laeta-well, he signed a docket for my fare. There's an interesting situation at home, sir. The Chief Spy has been nastily knocked on the head, and Laeta has assumed some of his responsibilities. I was chosen to come out because I have what we'll call diplomatic experience." Calling myself an informer tended to explode ex-generals and ex-consuls into unsavory bouts of flatulence.
The proconsul absorbed my story and sat up slightly. "Why send you?"
"Expediency."
"Good word, Falco. Covers a wealth of donkey dung." I started to like the man.
"More like pulped olive manure," I said. He got rid of his staff.
Achieving an interview was one thing. In the lustrous halls of power I often ended up dissatisfied. Like eating a meal in a bad mansio in Gaul.
We quickly established that I had an official mission, for which the proconsul did not wish to be responsible. He had an official mission too. Since he represented the Senate and I represented the Emperor, our interests did not necessarily collide. It was his province; his role took precedence. That was preserving good relations with the local community.
I described the attacks on Anacrites and Valentinus. The proconsul looked politely regretful about the Chief Spy and merely dismissive of the fate of an unknown underling. He denied knowing any dancers from Hispalis too, and looked annoyed that I had asked. However, he did suggest that the local aediles in her hometown might have the murderous Diana on their lists of licensed entertainers; to find out I would have to go to Hispalis.
He told me I could count on him for full support-although due to the Emperor's wish to reduce provincial expenditure, no resources could be allocated to assist me. That was not unexpected. Luckily I pay for my own boot-leather, and I could charge Laeta for necessary bribes.
I requested comments on the local personnel. The proconsul said I was the expert: he would leave judgments to me. I deduced that he was a frequent dinner guest in at least the more upper-class suspects' homes.
"Obviously the export of olive oil is a major trade which Rome intends to safeguard." And obviously it was the proconsul's place to sum up. I was only the expert; I bit my tongue. "If there were to be an attempt to influence prices unfavorably, Falco, we would have to stamp on it severely. The consequences for the home market, the army, and the provincial outlets would be appalling. However I don't want to upset sensitivities here. You must do what you have to, but any complaints and you'll be bumped out of my province faster than you can breathe."
"Thank you, sir."
"Is that all?"
"Just a minor point, sir." I usually manage to call them "sir" a few times. The shrewd ones are never fooled. "You had some correspondence with Anacrites recently, but it's lost in his coded filing library. I'd like permission to see the documents at your end."
"Financial subject. My quaestor was the official point of contact."
"That would be Cornelius? I gather it was time for him to move on-had he discussed the issue with you?"
"In general terms." I gained the subtle impression this was only one of a myriad of topics on meeting agendas, and that the proconsul could not bring to mind the salient facts. But then he seemed to change his mind. "Are you the agent Anacrites warned us he was sending?" That was a development I had not known about.
"No; Laeta took me on, after Anacrites was put out of action. Valentinus, the man who was killed in Rome, looks the likeliest person to have been sent by the Chief Spy. I assume no one else has turned up?"
"No one has made contact."
"Then we can assume I'm doing the job now."
The proconsul decided to be frank with me. "Well to clear your passage: Anacrites wrote to query whether the olive oil market was stable. I've been in the business long enough to assume that meant he suspected it was not; he would not have expressed an interest otherwise. I had Cornelius review the situation urgently."
"He could be trusted?"
"Cornelius was reliable." He seemed about to add something on that topic, but instead went on, "There did appear to be restiveness, the kind of mood in the business community that is hard to define and harder still to tackle. I was unhappy, certainly. We sent a report. The response was that an agent would be coming out at once." I wondered if the reason Anacrites had left the Palace after the dinner I attended was to meet Valentinus and order him to make a trip to Corduba.
"Thank you; that's clear, sir. From all I've heard, you'll be missing Cornelius. He sounds a useful deputy. And now you've had an unknown quantity wished on you, I hear-Will the new quaestor now be taking over the oil cartel issue, sir?"
I had kept my expression neutral, but I let the proconsul see me watching him. Since the new lad in charge of financial matters was the son of a man who appeared to be piping the tune for the oil producers, this could become delicate.
My new officer is unfamiliar with the subject," stated the proconsul. It sounded as if he was warning me not to alert young Quinctius. I felt reassured.
"I believe he's in Corduba already?"
He came in and had a look around the office." Something
sounded peculiar. The proconsul looked me straight in the eye. "He's not here at the moment. I gave him some hunting leave. Best to let them get it out of their system," he told me dryly, like a man who had had to train a long procession of administrative illiterates.
I thought his real meaning was different. The proconsul would have had little choice about his new officer. The appointment of Quinctius Quadratus would have been lobbied by his influential father and fixed up by the Senate. The Emperor had the right of veto but to use it would be a mark of disfavor, one which the Quinctius family had not openly deserved. "I met his father in Rome," I said.
"Then you will know Quinctius Quadratus comes to us with fine recommendations." There was not a flicker of irony. "Certainly his father carries weight, sir."
I was hardly expecting a proconsul to damn a fellow senator. It didn't happen either. "Tipped for a consulship," he commented gravely. "Would probably have got it by now if there hadn't been a long queue for rewards." After coming to power Vespasian had been obliged to offer honors to his own friends who had supported him; he had also two sons to be ritually made magistrates every few years. That meant men who had thought they were certainties for honors were now having to wait.
"If Attractus does get his consulship he'll be in line for a province afterwards," I grinned. "He could yet take over from you, sir!" The great man did not find it a joke. "Meanwhile the son is expected to go far?"
"At least as far as hunting leave," the proconsul agreed more jovially. I felt he quite enjoyed having kicked out the young Quinctius, even though it could only be temporary. "Luckily, the office runs itself."
I had seen offices that allegedly ran themselves. Usually that meant they were kept steady by one wizened Thracian slave who knew everything that had happened for the past fifty years. Fine-until the day he had his fatal heart attack.
Hunting leave is an ambiguous concept. Young officers in the provinces expect a certain amount of free time for slaying wild animals. This is normally granted as a reward for hard work. But it is also a well-known method for a pernickety governor to rid himself of a dud until such time as Rome sends out some other dewy-eyed hopeful-or until he himself is recalled.
"Where can we contact you?" asked the great man. He was already shedding his toga again.
"I'm staying on the Camillus Verus estate. I expect you remember his son Aelianus?" The proconsul signaled assent, while avoiding comment. "The senator's daughter is here at present too.
"With her husband?"
"Helena Justina is divorced-widowed too." I could see him noting that he would have to meet her socially, so to avoid the agony I added, "The noble Helena is expecting a child shortly."
He gave me a sharp look; I made no response. Sometimes I tell them the situation and stare them out. Sometimes I say nothing and let someone else gossip.
I knew, since I had picked it open and read it, that my letter of introduction from Laeta-as yet unopened on the proconsul's side table-gave a succinct description of our relationship. He described the senator's daughter as a quiet, unassuming girl (a lie which diplomatically acknowledged that her papa was a friend of the Emperor). I won't say what he called me, but had I not been an informer it would have been libelous.
The flock of scribes scattered like sparrows as I emerged. I winked. They blushed. I screwed out of them directions to the quaestor's office, noting that my request seemed to cause a slight atmosphere.
I was greeted by the inevitable ancient slave who organized documents in the quaestor's den. He was a black scribe from Hadrumetum. His will to subvert was as determined as that of the smoothest oriental secretary in Rome. He looked hostile when I asked to see the report Cornelius sent to Anacrites.
"You'll remember inscribing it." I made it clear I understood how delicate the subject matter had been. "There will have been a lot of fuss and redrafting; it was going to Rome, and also the material was sensitive locally."
The inscrutable look on the African's face faded slightly. "I can't release documents without asking the quaestor."
"Well, I know Cornelius was the authority on this. I expect the new fellow has had a handover, but the governor told me he hasn't been granted his full authority yet." The scribe said nothing.
"He came in to meet the proconsul, didn't he? How do you find him?" I risked. "Very pleasant."
"You're lucky then! A baby-faced brand-new senator, working abroad, and virtually unsupervised? You could easily get one who was arrogant and boorish-"
The slave still did not take the bait. "You must ask the quaestor."
"But he's not available, is he? The proconsul explained about your new policy in Baetica of screwing poll tax out of wild boars! His honor said if you had taken a copy of the letter you should show me that."
"Oh I took a copy! I always do."
Relieved of responsibility by the proconsul's authority (invented by me, as he may well have guessed), the quaestor's scribe at once started to hunt for the right scroll.
"Tell me, what's the word locally on why Anacrites first took an interest?" The scribe paused in his search. "He's the Chief Spy," I acknowledged frankly. "I work with him from time to time." I did not reveal that he was now lying insensible in the Praetorian Camp. Or already ashes in a cinerary urn.
My dour companion accepted that he was talking to a fellow professional. "Anacrites had had a tip from somebody in the province. He did not tell us who. It could have been malicious."
"It was anonymous?" He inclined his head slightly. "While you're finding the report Cornelius wrote I'd be grateful for sight of the original inquiry from Anacrites too."
"I was getting it. They should be linked together…" Now the scribe was sounding abstracted. He was already looking worried, and I felt apprehensive. I watched him once more search the round containers of scrolls. I believed he knew his way around the documents. And when he found that the correspondence was missing, his distress seemed genuine.
I was starting to worry. When documents go missing there can be three causes: simple inefficiency; security measures taken without a secretariat's knowledge; or theft. Inefficiency is rife, but rarer when the document is highly confidential. Security measures are never as good as anyone pretends; any secretary worth his position will tell you where the scroll is really stowed. Theft meant that somebody with access to officialdom knew that I was coming out here, knew why, and was removing evidence.
I could not believe it was the new quaestor. That seemed too obvious. "When Quinctius Quadratus was here, did you leave him alone in the office?"
"He just looked around from the doorway then rushed off to be introduced to the governor."
"Does anyone else have access?"
"There's a guard. When I go out I lock the door." A determined thief could find a way in. It might not even take a professional; palaces are always rife with people who look as if they have the right of entry, whether they do or not.
When I calmed the scribe down I said quietly, "The answers I want are known by your previous quaestor, Cornelius. Can I contact him? Has he left Baetica?"
"His term ended; he's going back to Rome-but first he's traveling. He's gone east on a tour. A benefactor offered him a chance to see the world before he settles down."
"That could take some time! Well if the junketer's unavailable, what can you remember from the scrolls that are lost?"
"The inquiry from Anacrites said hardly anything. The messenger who brought it probably talked to the proconsul and the quaestor." He was a scribe. He disapproved. He liked things safely written down.
"Tell me about Cornelius."
The scribe looked prim. "The proconsul had every confidence in him."
"Lots of hunting leave, eh?"
Now he looked puzzled. "He was a hardworking young man."
"Ah!"
"Cornelius was very worried," the scribe continued doggedly. "He discussed things with the proconsul, though not with me."
"Was that usual?"
"It was all so sensitive."
"He dictated the report to you though. What did it say?"
"Cornelius had concluded that people might want to inflate the price of olive oil."
"More than general overcharging?"
"Much more."
"Systematic fixing?"
"Yes."
"Did he name names?"
"No."
"Still, he thought that if action was taken quickly the cartel could be nipped in the bud?"
"Did he?" asked the scribe.
"It is a customary phrase. I was told that was his verdict."
"People are always repeating wrong statements that are supposed to be in reports," said the scribe, as if the very untidiness of the habit upset him. Something else was annoying me: Camillus Aelianus had apparently lied to me about this point.
"So Cornelius felt the situation was serious? Who was supposed to act on it?"
"Rome. Or Rome would order action by us-but they preferred to send their own investigator. Isn't what why you are here?"
I smiled-though the fact was, with Anacrites out of it and Laeta so untrustworthy, I had no idea.
There was no hope of further help: today was a public holiday. Informers work loose hours and try to ignore such things, but everyone else in the Empire realized that this was eleven days before the Kalends of May-the big spring festival. The governor's palace had been working for a couple of hours, following the fine tradition of pretending that state business is too important to stop. But now even the palace was closing down, and I had to leave.
After walking uphill again, I found Marmarides in a tavern; I left him there. Helena was moping in the basilica entrance in the forum, looking at plans for a spanking new Temple of the Imperial Cult; she was clearly bored and it was time to remove her before she tried chalking faces on the Corinthian columns in the elegant design elevations. Ceremonies were about to start in any case.
I slipped my hand around hers and we walked slowly down the flight of steps among increasing crowds, Helena being careful to keep her balance. Reaching street level we dodged acolytes with incense-sprinklers as they gathered for a sacrifice.
"That looked a zippy new hexastyle portico they're going to build for the Imperial Cult!"
"When you start spouting architecture, I know you're in trouble," she said.
"I'm not in trouble-but somebody soon will be."
She gave me a skeptical look, then made some dry comment about the crisp modeling of the proposed temple's capitals. I said I wondered who would pay for this fine community monument. The citizens of Rome, perhaps, through exorbitantly priced olive oil.
I told Helena today's events as we found a space in the piazza, to view whatever was about to happen. Corduba is set on rising ground, the older part with a maze of narrow streets which come up from the river, its houses close set to keep out the hot sun. These byways lead uphill to the public buildings where we now were. Helena must have surveyed the small forum pretty well while she was waiting for me, but the festival pageantry revived her. "So the proconsul has given you permission to operate in his territory. You're looking, without much hope, for a dancing girl who kills people-"
"Yes, but I imagine somebody hired her to do it."
"For which your group of suspects are the Baeticans you saw at the dinner: Annaeus, Licinius, Cyzacus and Norbanus. Optatus told us Quinctius Attractus has been making overtures to other people too-"
"He would have to. Price-rigging only works if all the producers band together."
"But the ones who were in Rome when Valentinus was killed have made themselves suspects you have to concentrate on."
"It could be just their hard luck that they got themselves tangled up in a killing. But yes; it's those I'm after."
Helena always considered every possibility: "I suppose you don't think the dancing girl and her accomplices could be ordi-
nary thieves whose method is to size up guests at parties then rob the rich ones as they stagger home drunk?"
"They didn't pick the rich ones, sweetheart; they jumped the Chief Spy and his agent."
"So you definitely think the attacks are linked to what's going on in Baetica?"
"Yes, and showing that the Baetican visitors were involved in the attacks will not only do right by Valentinus, but ought to discredit the whole conspiracy."
Helena grinned. "It's a pity you can't talk to the much-admired Cornelius. Who do you think has paid for his 'chance to see the world before he settles down?"
"A gold-laden grandpa I expect. Types in those posts always have them."
"The proconsul sounds very suspicious of the new incumbent. Surely that's unusual? The lad hasn't even started yet."
"It confirms that his father is regarded as a bad influence in Baetica."
"The proconsul would be too tactful to libel Attractus of course…"
"He was! I could tell he dislikes the man, though-or at least he dislikes the kind of pushiness Attractus represents."
"Marcus, since Attractus himself isn't here you may be forced to have a look at his son. Have you brought your hunting spears?"
"Jupiter, no!" I had brought a sword for protection, though. "Given the chance to pursue wolves around a wild peninsula with my old friend Petronius I'd jump-but the quaestor will have gone on a rich idiots' trip. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a week of camping in a forest with a group of braying bastards whose idea of fun is sticking javelins into beasts that thirty slaves and a pack of vicious hounds have conveniently driven into nets."
"And no women," Helena nodded, apparently sympathetically.
I ignored the jibe. "Too much drink; too much noise; half-cooked, half-warm greasy meat; and listening to boasts and filthy jokes."
"Oh dear! And you the refined, sensitive type who just wants to sit under a thorn bush all day in a clean tunic with a scroll of epic poetry!"
"That's me. An olive tree on your father's farm will do."
"Just Virgil and a sliver of goat's cheese?"
"Seeing we're here, I'd better say Lucan; he's a Corduban poet. Plus your sweet head upon my knee, of course."
Helena smiled. I was pleased to see it. She had been looking tense when I found her at the basilica but a mixture of banter and flattery had softened her.
We watched a pontifex or flamen, one of the priests of the imperial cult, make a sacrifice at an altar set up in the open forum. A middle-aged, portly Baetican with a jolly expression, he wore a purple robe and a pointed, conical hat. He was attended by assistants who were probably freed slaves, but he himself flashed the equestrian ring and was a citizen of social solidity. He had probably held a senior military post in the legions, and maybe a local magistracy, but he looked a decent jolly soul as he rapidly cut a few animals' throats, then led out a fitful procession to celebrate the Feast of the Parilia, the lustration of the flocks.
We stood respectfully in the colonnade while the troop of civic dignitaries squashed by, on their way to the theater where a day of fun would take place. The procession was accompanied by some worried sheep and a skipping calf who clearly had not been told he was to form the next sacrifice. Persons who were pretending to be shepherds came past with brooms, supposedly for sweeping out stables; they also carried implements to light fumigatory fires. A couple of public slaves, clearly fire watchers, followed them with a water bucket, looking hopeful. Since the Parilia is not just any old rustic festival but the birthday of Rome, I bit back a surge of patriotic emotion (that's my story). A personification of Roma armed with shield and spear and a crescent moon on her helmet, swayed dangerously on a litter midway down the line. Helena half turned and muttered sarcastically, "Roma Resurgans is rather perilous on her palanquin!"
"Show some respect, bright eyes."
An official statue of the Emperor teetered before us and nearly toppled over. This time Helena obediently said nothing, though she glanced at me with such a riotous expression that while the wobbly image of Vespasian was being steadied by its bearers I had to pretend a coughing fit. Helena Justina had never been a model for perfect sculptural beauty; but in a happy mood she had life in every flicker of her eyelashes (which were in my opinion as fine as any in the Empire). Her sense of humor was wicked. Seeing a noble matron mock the Establishment always had a bad effect on me. I mouthed a kiss, looking moody. Helena ignored me and found another tableau to giggle at.
Then, following her line of sight, I spotted a familiar face. One of the broad burghers of Corduba was sidestepping the shepherds as they wrestled with a willful sheep. I recognized him at once, but a quick check with someone in the crowd confirmed his name: Annaeus Maximus. One of the two major oil producers at the dinner on the Palatine.
"One of those puffed-up dignitaries is on my list. This seems a good opportunity to talk to a suspect…"
I tried to persuade Helena to wait for me at a streetside food-shop. She fell silent in a way that told me I had two choices: either to abandon her, and see her walk away from me forever (except perhaps for a brief return visit to dump the baby on me)-or else I had to take her along.
I attempted the old trick of holding her face between my hands, and gazing into her eyes with an adoring expression.
"You're wasting time," Helena told me quietly. The bluff had failed. I made one more attempt, squashing the tip of her nose
with the end of my finger while smiling at her beseechingly. Helena bit my playful digit.
"Ow!" I sighed. "What's wrong, my love?"
"I'm starting to feel too much alone." She knew this was not the moment for a domestic heart-to-heart. Still, it never is the right time. It was better for her to be abruptly honest, standing beside a flower stall in a narrow Corduban street, than to bottle up her feelings and end up badly quarreling later. Better-but extremely inconvenient while a man I wanted to interview was scuttling away amongst the ceremonial throng.
"I do understand." It sounded glib.
"Oh do you?" I noticed the same frowning and withdrawn expression Helena had been wearing when I found her outside the basilica.
"Why not? You're stuck with having the baby-and obviously I can never know what that's like. But maybe I have troubles too. Maybe I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of being the one who has to look after all of us-"
"Oh I expect you'll cope!" she complained, almost to herself. "And I'll be poked out of the way!" She was perfectly aware it was her own fault she was stuck on her feet in a hot noisy street in Baetica.
I managed a grin, then followed it with a compromise: "I need you! You've been summing up my job for me pretty accurately. How about being poked onto a seat at the theater next to me?" I gave her my hand again, and we hurried together the way the procession had gone. Fortunately I possessed skills which most urban informers lack. I am an expert tracker. Even in a completely strange city I know how to trace a Parilia procession by following the newly deposited animal dung.
My experiences in Baetica already warned me that when I caught up with the priest and magistrates I might detect an equally pungent smell.
I hate festivals. I hate the noise, and the wafts of lukewarm pies, and the queues at the public lavatories-if you can even find one open. Still, coming to Corduba on the Parilia could prove useful as a study of town life.
As we hurried through the streets, people went about their business in a pleasant mood. They were short and stocky, vivid evidence of why Spanish soldiers were the Empire's best. Their temperament seemed level too. Acquaintances greeted each other with a relaxed style. Women were not accosted. Men argued over curb-side space for tying up wagons in a lively, but nonviolent way. Waiters in wine bars were friendly. Dogs yapped, then soon lost interest. All this seemed everyday behavior, not some holiday truce.
When we reached the theater, we found events were unticketed because the religious stuff was public and the dramatic scenes had all been paid for by the decurions, members of the town council; they, the Hundred Men, had the best seats, of course. Among them we picked out Annaeus Maximus again, and from his position he was a duovir, one of the two chief magistrates. If Corduba was typical, the Hundred Men controlled the town-and the duovirs controlled the Hundred Men. For conspirators, that could be very convenient.
Annaeus was the younger of the two landowners I had met in Rome, a square-faced Spaniard with a wide girth, giving me maybe fifteen or twenty years. Coughing slightly in the wafts of incense as the pontifex prepared to slaughter the calf and a couple of lambs, Annaeus was the first to rush forward to greet the governor. The proconsul had arrived direct from his palace, escorted by lictors. He was wearing the toga I had seen him in, not a military breastplate and cloak; ruling the senatorial provinces was a purely civic office.
In fact his role, we soon saw, was as a figurehead on somebody else's ship. The cream of Corduba had welcomed him as an honorary member of their own tightly knit top-notch Baetican club.
He sat on his throne in the center of the front rows of seats around the orchestra, flanked by well-dressed families who gossiped and called out to each other-even shouting to the pontifex in mid-sacrifice-as if the entire festival was their own private picnic.
"It's sickening!" I muttered. "The Roman proconsul has been swallowed up by the ruling families, and he's become so much a part of the local clique it must be hard for him to remember that the Roman treasury pays his salary."
"You can see how it is," Helena agreed, only a little more mildly. "At every public occasion the same few men are in charge. The same faces cluster in the best positions. They're terribly rich. They're completely organized. Their families are linked intimately by marriage. Their ambitions may clash sometimes, but politically they are all one. Those people in the front-row seats run Corduba as their hereditary right."
"And in Gades, Astigi and Hispalis it's going to be the same- some of the faces will match too, because some of the men will be powerful in more than one place. Some must own land in several areas. Some will have taken rich wives from other towns."
We fell silent for the sacrifice. In acquiring foreign provinces, the plan was to assimilate local gods into the Roman pantheon, or simply add them to it if people liked to keep lots of options. So today at the Parilia ceremony two Celtic deities with unintelligible names received a lavish sacrifice, then Jupiter was allowed a slightly weedy lamb. But the Baeticans had been wearing Roman dress and speaking Latin for decades. They were as Romanized as provincials could be. And like the patricians of Rome, keeping a rigid grip on local politics through a small group of powerful families came as naturally as spitting.
"You can see it all," I muttered to Helena. "I bet the governor goes to all their private dinner parties, then when he holds a reception, this same crowd fills out the guest list. These folk will be at the Palace every week, munching dainties and sipping free wine. No one else gets a look in."
"If you live here, and belong to the charmed circle, you have to hobnob with the same suffocating group continually." That tedium was never going to afflict a dusty pleb like me-and Helena would have lost her own invitation the minute the proconsul read Laeta's letter about me.
"I'm just surprised the old man was as frank as he was!" I muttered.
Helena looked worried. "Do you regret making yourself known to him?"
"No; I represent Laeta; I had to report in. It's safe; the proconsul is one of Vespasian's men. But now I've seen what social obligations he has, I'll hold back from contact again."
The dramatic performances began. These consisted of brief scenes or tableaux which had been decreed suitable for public show on an occasion of organized celebration. There was little content, and less humor. I had seen more exciting theater; I had even written a better play myself. No one was going to wet themselves with outrage here.
We watched dutifully for some time. I had been in the army; I knew how to endure misery. Eventually Helena wilted and said she wanted to go home. "I can't see any point in waiting. Annaeus will never talk to you in the middle of all this."
"No; but since he's a duovir he has to keep a house within a mile of the town. He's bound to be there this evening. I could visit him then."
Helena looked depressed and I was not pleased at the thought of hanging around town all afternoon until my man made himself available. Still, I needed to tackle him about the cartel and see if I could establish a link between him and the dancing girl.
Helena and I left the theater, amazing the doorkeeper who thought we should have been engrossed in the drama. We rousted
out Marmarides, who still seemed fairly sober, and I told him to drive Helena home. I would find my own transport back tonight or tomorrow-another prospect that made me glum. Riding home on a hired mule after dark through unknown roads can be disastrous.
I went with them as far as the bridge over the Baetis. "I'll make a bargain," Helena declared. "If I go home quietly and let you stay on your own to investigate Annaeus, then I'm going to go over to the Licinius Rufius estate tomorrow and make friends with his granddaughter."
"Find out if she can dance!" I chortled, knowing that the wealthy family she came from would be scandalized if she did.
The bridge at Corduba is three hundred and sixty-five paces long, one for every day of the year. I know, because I counted as I marched miserably back.
To fill in time I went to investigate the shipping offices of the bargees, in the vague hope of interviewing my other suspect, Cyzacus. All the wharfside huts were locked. A bleary-eyed man fishing off a jetty said the offices were closed for the festival, and that they would be for the next three days.
Later that day, after a few inquiries, I left by the northwestern gate. Annaeus Maximus owned a lovely home outside the town walls, where he could plot the next elections with his cronies and his wife could run her salon for other elegant socially prominent women, while their children all went to the bad. Beyond the cemetery lining the route out of town lay a small group of large houses. An enclave of peace for the rich-disturbed only by the yapping of their hunting dogs, the snorting of their horses, the rioting of their children, the quarreling of their slaves and the carousing of their visitors. As town houses go, the Annaeus spread was more of a pavilion in a park. I found it easy to identify-lit throughout, including the long carriage drive and surrounding garden terraces. Fair enough. If a man happens to be an olive oil tycoon, he can afford a lot of lamps.
The clique we had seen at the theater were now assembling for a dinner party at this well-lit house with garlanded porticoes and smoking torches in every acanthus bed. Men on splendid horses were turning up every few minutes, alongside gilded carriages which contained their overindulged wives. I recognized many of
the faces from the front rows at the theater. Amidst the coming and going I also met the shepherds from the Parilia parade; they may indeed have been here for ritual purification rites in the stables, though I thought it more likely they were actors who had come to be paid for their day's work in town. There were a few shepherdesses among them, including one with hugely knowing dark brown eyes. Once I would have tried to put a light of my own into eyes like that. But I was a responsible father-to-be now. Besides, I could never take to women with straw in their hair.
I made myself known to an usher. Baetican hospitality is legendary. He asked me to wait while he informed his master I was here, and as the whole house was pervaded by delicious cooking smells I promised myself I might be offered a piquant dish or two. There was bound to be plenty. Excess breathed off the frescoed walls. However, I soon learned that the Cordubans were as sophisticated as Romans. They knew how to treat an informer- even when he described himself as a "state official and associate of your neighbor Camillus."
"Associates" received short commons in Corduba-not so much as a drink of water. What's more, I had to wait a damned long time before I got noticed at all.
It was evening. I had set out from town in the light, but the first stars were winking over the distant Mariana mountains when I was led outside to meet Annaeus Maximus. He had been mingling with his guests on one of the terraces, where they were soon to hold an outdoor feast, as is traditional at the Parilia. The supposed shepherds had really been setting fire to sulfur, rosemary, firwood and incense in at least one of the many stables so the smoke would purify the rafters. Now heaps of hay and straw were being burned on the well-scythed lawns, so that a few by now extremely tired sheep could be compelled to run through the fires. It's hard work being a ceremonial flock. The poor beasts had been on their trotters all day, and now they had to endure being ritually lustrated while humans stood around being sprinkled with scented water and sipping bowls of milk. Most of the men had one eye out for the wine amphorae, while the women kept flapping their hands about, in the vain hope of preventing their fabulous gowns being imbued with lustral smoke.
I was kept well back in a colonnade, and it wasn't to protect me from the sparks. The invited guests began to seat themselves for the feast out amongst the regimented topiary, then Annaeus stomped up to deal with me. He looked annoyed. Somehow I have that effect.
"What's this about?"
"My name is Didius Falco. I have been sent from Rome."
"You say you're a relative of Camillus?"
"I have a connection-" Among snobs, and in a foreign country, I had no qualms about acquiring a respectable patina by shameless usage of my girlfriend's family. In Rome I would have been more circumspect.
"I don't know the man," Annaeus snapped. "He's never ventured out to Baetica. But we met the son, of course. Knew my three boys."
The reference to Aelianus sounded gruff, though that could be the man's normal manner. I said I hoped Helena's brother had not made himself a nuisance-though I wished he had, and that I was about to hear details I could use against him later. But Annaeus Maximus merely growled, "High spirits! There's a daughter who's got herself in trouble, I heard?" News flies round!
"The noble Helena Justina," I said calmly, "should be described as high-minded rather than high-spirited."
He stared at me closely. "Are you the man involved?"
I folded my arms. I was still wearing my toga, as I had been all day. Nobody else here was bothering with such formality; provincial life has some benefits. Instead of feeling civilized, being overdressed made me hot and slightly seedy. The fact that my toga had an indelible stain on its long edge and several moth-holes did not help.
Annaeus Maximus was viewing me like a tradesman who had called with a reckoning at an inconvenient time. "I have guests waiting. Tell me what you want."
"You and I have met, sir." I pretended to stare at the bats swooping into the torchlight above the laughing diners' heads. I was really watching him. Maybe he realized. He appeared to be intelligent. He ought to be. The Annaei were not country bumpkins.
"Yes?"
"In view of your reputation and your position I'll talk straight. I saw you recently in Rome, at the Palace of the Caesars, where you were a guest of a private club who call themselves the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. Most neither own olives nor produce oil. Few come from this province. However, it is believed that among your own group the oil industry in Hispania was the topic under discussion, and that the reason is an unhealthy one."
"That is an atrocious suggestion!"
"It's realistic. Every province has its own cartel. That doesn't mean rigging the price of olive oil is something Rome can tolerate. You know how it would affect the Empire's economy."
"Disastrous," he agreed. "It will not happen."
"You are a prominent man, Annaeus. Your family produced both Senecas and the poet Lucan. Then Nero left you with two enforced suicides because Seneca had been too outspoken and Lucan allegedly dabbled in plots-Tell me, sir, as a result of what happened to your relatives, do you hate Rome?"
"There is more to Rome than Nero," he said, not disputing my assessment of his family's reduced position.
"You could be in the Senate; your financial position entitles you.
"I prefer not to move to Rome."
"Some would say it was your civic duty."
"My family have never shirked our duty. Corduba is our home."
"But Rome's the place!"
"I prefer to live modestly in my own city, applying myself to business." If Seneca, Nero's tutor, was renowned for his dry Stoicism and wit, his descendant had failed to inherit this. Maximus became merely pompous: "The oil producers of Baetica have always done business fairly. Suggesting otherwise is scandalous."
I laughed quietly, unmoved by the feeble threat. "If there is a cartel, I'm here to expose the perpetrators. As a duovir-and a legitimate trader-I assume I can count on your support?"
"Obviously," stated the host of the feast, making it plain he was now returning to the singed meats at his open-air barbecue.
"One more thing-there was a dancer at that dinner; she came from this area. Do you know her?"
"I do not." He did look surprised at the question, though of course he would deny a connection if he knew what she had done.
"I'm glad to hear it," I said coldly. "She's wanted for murder now. And tell me, why did you leave Rome so abruptly?"
"Family troubles." He shrugged.
I gave up, without obvious results, but feeling I had been touching nerves. He had remained too calm. If he was innocent I had insulted him more than he had shown. If he was truly ignorant of any conspiracy, he ought to have been excited to discover that one existed. He ought to be shocked. He ought to be outraged that maybe some of the well-clad guests at his own table tonight had betrayed the high standards he had just proclaimed for Baetican commerce. He ought to be afraid that they had offended Rome.
Without doubt, he knew a cartel was being brokered. If Annaeus did not himself belong to it, then he knew who did.
As I was leaving I saw what his family troubles must be. While their elders were only just sitting down to their banquet, the younger generation were rushing off to places unknown and habits unseemly. If the three Annaeus sons had been friends of Aelianus, he must have enjoyed a jolly time in Baetica. They were various ages, but of a similar mentality: as they set off riding out from the stables when I began my own slow walk to the front of the house they galloped either side of me, coming closer than I found comfortable, while they whooped and whistled and chided each other loudly for not flattening me properly.
A young woman who might be their sister was also leaving the house as they raced off down the drive. She was a self-assured piece in her mid-twenties, wrapped in a furred stole. She was wearing more pearls and sapphires than I had ever seen layered on a single bosom-too many, in fact, to let you see what kind of bosom it was (though it looked promising). She was waiting to enter a carriage from which emerged the head of a man about the same age as her. He was indecently handsome. He was cheering a younger male, very drunk already, who had rushed out from the carriage to be violently ill on the mansios immaculate steps. Corduba at festival time was the place to be.
I might have asked for a lift in the carriage, but I did not fancy being thrown up on. To her credit, as I passed her the daughter did warn me to watch where I stepped.
Unfed, unwatered, and unlustrated, I turned away and set off wearily back towards Corduba. There was no chance of returning to the Camillus estate tonight. I needed to find myself a lodging where the owner was still sober and had a bed to offer despite the festival crowds. Before that I would have to flog through the dark countryside that lay beyond the Annaeus property, back to the even darker streets of the town, passing the cemetery on the way. I am not afraid of ghosts-but I don't care for the hideous real-life characters who lurk among the tombs of a necropolis at night.
I walked steadily. I folded my toga, as well as you can fold a cumbersome ellipse, then slung it over one shoulder. I had gone beyond the reach of the torches, though I had pulled one up and stolen it. I was finding my way along the track back to town, concentrating on my thoughts about the day. I did not hear anyone following, even though I stayed alert to the possibility. But I certainly felt the sharp stone that flew out of nowhere and smacked into the back of my neck.
Instinct wanted me to slap my hand on the pain, and to bow my head. Damn instinct. I wanted to stay alive.
I spun around. I drew my sword. In Rome carrying a weapon is illegal-but here that did not apply. All Romans know the provinces are hotbeds of banditry. All Romans on holiday or foreign service go armed.
Ironically my sword, an unofficial relic of my five years in the army, was a short stabbing blade made from the finest Spanish steel.
I listened. If there was more than one assailant out there I could be in deep trouble. Was this how Anacrites and Valentinus had felt when the arrows stopped them in their tracks?
Nobody rushed me. There was only silence, however hard I listened.
Had I imagined it? No; there was blood on my neck. At my feet lay the culprit stone, large and pointed like a flint. There was no mistake. I picked it up; it also had my blood on it. I tucked it into the pouch at my belt. Well, I was enjoying myself in a foreign province; I was bound to want a souvenir.
Sometimes in the country yokels let fly with missiles. Sometimes in the city idiots hurl tiles and bricks. It is a territorial gesture, an act of defiance when strangers pass. I did not believe that was what had just occurred.
I rammed my torch into soft ground at the edge of the track and moved away from it. Letting the toga slide down to my elbow, I wound the cloth around my forearm so it could act as a shield. With the torch alight I was still providing a target, but I preferred to risk that than to douse the flame and plunge myself into darkness in the middle of strange countryside. I strained my ears, shifting position continually.
Eventually, when nothing happened, I pulled up the torch again and searched around in circles. On either side of the track lay olive groves. In the dark they were full of hazards, though these were purely natural. Weeding hoes lay waiting to be stepped on, their handles all set to spring up and break my nose. Low branches were ready to crack my brow. For all I knew the groves contained courting couples who might turn nasty in a wild provincial manner if I interrupted them in mid-fumble. I was about to give up when I stumbled into a disoriented sheep.
The animal was very tired. It must belong to the lustral flock. Then I remembered the shepherdess with the interesting eyes. I had seen her before. She had looked very different in her sophisticated little gold costume as Diana, but even smothered in sheepskin I ought to have recognized the girl.
Keeping my sword out, I walked back grimly to the Annaeus house. Nobody attacked me again-which was odd. Why hadn't the dancer tried to kill me out there on the track?
Fired up by annoyance at myself as much as anything, I made a formal complaint. This time, with blood trickling down my neck, I was given a better welcome. I kept making a fuss until Annaeus Maximus reluctantly ordered a search for the girl. The chief shepherd, who was still there with most of his accomplices, was summoned to respond to my accusations.
Annaeus seemed taken aback by my story. According to him, most of the group were well known to everyone, actors from the local theater. They routinely earned extra money by providing assistance with civic rituals. This was better than allowing real shepherds to get big ideas, I could see that. Naturally the man then claimed this particular girl was a stranger to him.
The leader of the actors turned up, still dressed as the chief shepherd and emitting a belch after his supper. He confessed he had employed a few extras to pad out the parade today. This included the shepherdess with the big brown eyes (whom he rather clearly remembered). She had presented herself when he was auditioning; he had no idea where she came from, though her name was supposed to be Selia. He said she wasn't local, though by that he merely meant she did not come from the immediate confines of Corduba; Hispalis would still be a possibility. I had just let the killer of Valentinus slip right through my fingers. And needless to say, all the slaves Annaeus had sent out to look for her came back empty-handed.
"I'm sorry." The actor appeared pretty genuine. "Next time I'll ask for references."
"Why?" I scoffed bitterly. "Do you think she'd admit she was up to no good? Anyway-are you constantly being offered the services of undulating women?"
He looked shamefaced. "No," he mumbled. "Though that was the second one this week."
"And what was the first one like?"
"Older, though she could dance better."
"Why didn't she get the job instead of Selia, then?"
"She wasn't from around here." Trust a local to take precedence. He looked even more ashamed, then rallied with his big
excuse: "Well, Selia was thoroughly professional; she even brought her own sheep!"
"She's abandoned it now!" I retorted. She was a professional killer-and if she could claim a whole sheep, whoever was paying her expenses must be allowing her a substantial daily rate.
I spent the night at the Annaeus house. The notables let me feed at their table (well, their tenants' table). They loaned me an empty cell in their slaves' barracks. It was near the well, so I even managed to get something to wash my wounded neck-and there was all I could wish for to drink. What civilized people. Next morning their steward sent me away on a very slow horse which he said I could borrow indefinitely since its useful life had run out. I said I would report my gracious treatment by the Annaei to the Emperor. The steward smiled, openly showing his contempt.
The three sons had come home at dawn. I met them thundering in as I rode away. On principle they left me in a cloud of dust again, though the initiative had gone out of them to some extent and they were all looking faintly tired. As far as I knew the daughter was still out. Women have more stamina.
The Camillus estate lay bathed in sunlight when I finally rode back. As I expected, Helena had already followed up her promise to go over to the Licinius Rufius spread and pursue the next suspect for me. Marmarides, looking annoyed at having his nose put out of joint, told me Marius Optatus had driven her.
It gave me time to bathe and change my tunic, then to hang around the kitchen until the cook found me the kind of nourishing breakfast certain old women like to lay before an honest young man who is known to have fathered an almost-born baby and who clearly needs his strength built up. As I enjoyed the food, she cleaned my cut neck with a thyme wash and stuck on some sort of salve. Needless to say, its main ingredient was olive oil.
Helena returned to find me still being pampered. She grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and inspected the damage. "You'll live."
"Thanks for the loving concern."
"Who did it?" I winked; she took the point. We walked outside to the shady area of garden near the house, where a bench was placed under a fig tree on a wall. There, safe from being overheard, I told her about the shepherdess. Helena winced. "You think this pageant queen all bundled up in smelly wool is the 'dancer from Hispalis'?"
I did not want to say I had definitely recognized her, since that gave a false impression of me gawking too keenly at women. "Striking down men from behind certainly seems to be her trademark. But Anacrites and Valentinus were then rammed against walls. Apart from the fact that there were none available last night, if it was Selia, she made no attempt to follow up."
"Maybe she relies on her two musicians to do the dirty work, and didn't have them with her."
"Then what was the point of the stone? It seemed random- more like a warning than anything."
"Marcus, if the stone had hit you on the head, would you have been killed?" Sparing Helena's feelings, I said no. It certainly could have done more damage. But stone-throwing takes a good aim.
"Don't worry. What it's done is put me on my guard." Helena frowned. "I do worry."
So did I. I had been struck by a recollection of Anacrites mumbling "dangerous woman" when I said I was coming to Baetica. I now realized it was not Helena he had meant. He too must have been warning me-about his assailant.
To lighten the atmosphere I related my experience with Annaeus Maximus. "I gained some insight into his attitude. His family is in a political trough. He is socially crippled by what happened to Seneca. Undeserved or not, the taint has lingered. Wealth alone might recapture the family's old luster, but they've clearly lost heart too. Maximus certainly does not want a career in Rome, though he doesn't seem to mind being the big boy around here. Still, the Annaei are yesterday's heroes, and now it all depends whether running Corduba will be enough for them."
"Will it?"
"They are not stupid."
"What about the younger generation?" Helena asked.
"Running wild with great panache." I described what I had seen of the sons and the jewel-clad daughter.
Helena smiled. "I can tell you about the daughter-including where she stayed last night!"
I pricked up my ears. "Scandal?"
"Nothing like it. Her name is Aelia Annaea. She was at the Licinius Rufius house. Despite the alleged feud between their families Aelia Annaea and Claudia Rufina, the other fellow's granddaughter, are good friends."
"How sensible you women are! And so you met both of them today?"
Yes. Claudia Rufina is quite young. She seems genuinely good-natured. Aelia Annaea is more of a character; the bad girl enjoys knowing that her papa would hate her to accept hospitality from Licinius when the two men aren't speaking."
"What does Licinius feel about it?"
"I didn't meet him."
"Aelia sounds a bundle of trouble. And if Licinius encourages her to upset her father, he sounds a wicked old man."
"Don't be a prig. I liked Aelia."
"You always like rebels! What about her little friend?"
"Much more serious. Claudia Rufina yearns to endow public buildings and earn a statue in her honor."
"Let me guess: the Annaea babe is pretty-"
"Oh you thought so?" Helena asked quickly; she had not forgotten me saying that I had seen Aelia Annaea at her home last night.
"Well, she's rich enough to get herself admired for her necklaces, and she's polite," I corrected myself. "Honestly I hardly noticed the girl… Nice sapphires!"
"Not your type!" Helena sneered.
"I'll decide my type, thank you! Anyway, she was being picked up by someone last night; I bet she's betrothed to the handsome god I saw in the carriage when she went off. I suppose the Rufius poppet with the commendable social ambitions will be very plain-"
Helena's eyes were bright. "You're so predictable! How can you ever judge human nature when you're so bound up in prejudice?"
"I get by. Human nature makes people fall into distinct pigeonholes."
"Wrong!" Helena said crisply. "Claudia is just rather serious." I still reckoned Claudia Rufina would turn out to be plain. "The three of us had a civilized chat over a refreshing tisane. And you're wrong about Aelia Annaea too."
"How's that?"
"She was happy and lighthearted. Nobody has burdened her with a future husband of any kind, least of all a good-looking untrustworthy one." Helena Justina had never liked handsome men. So she claimed, anyway. There must have been some reason why she chose to fall for me. "She was overdressed in jewelry, but wore nothing like a betrothal ring. She is very direct. If the situation called for it, she would have asked for one."
"The arrangement may not be public knowledge yet."
"Trust me; she's not spoken for! Claudia Rufina, on the other hand, was sporting a heavy bracelet of garnets, which cannot be to her taste (she told me she collects ivory miniatures). The awful bracelet looked just the thing a man would grab at a goldsmith's for a girl he feels obliged to present with a formal gift. Expensive and horrible. If she does ever marry the man who gave it to her, she will be obliged to treasure it for a lifetime, poor soul."
I found myself smiling. Helena herself was dressed simply, in white, with hardly any extra decoration; while pregnant she found wearing jewelry uncomfortable. She unconsciously fingered a silver ring which I had given her. It was a plain design with its love message hidden inside. It represented the time I had suffered as a slave in a silver mine in Britain. I hoped any comparison she was making with Claudia Rufina's gift was favorable.
I cleared my throat. "Well, did you meet any male hangers-on today?"
"No, but there was talk of 'Tiberius,' who was thought to be at the gymnasium. He sounds like the man you saw. If he's good-looking enough to irritate you, he's also bound to be crazed on sports."
"Because he's handsome?" I chortled. In fact having seen him I agreed he must be a handball lout. The man I saw had a thick neck and probably a brain to match. When he chose a wife he would be looking at the size of her bust and wondering how readily she would let him run off to exercise or hunt.
The thought of hunting made me wonder if his formal name was Quinctius.
"The youth you saw being sick on the steps was probably Claudia's brother."
"The lad who was taken to Rome with the Baetican group?"
"He never appeared this morning. He was still in bed. I heard distant groans that were supposed to be him with a wine-headache."
"If the handsome dog is after Claudia I bet there's a scheme to marry her brother to her best friend Aelia." I was always a romantic.
Helena was scathing: "Aelia Annaea would eat a young lad for lunch!" She seemed well disposed towards both girls, but I could tell Aelia Annaea was the one who really appealed to her.
I scowled. "There's not much to gain from courting the young people. It's the old men who run Corduba. From what I saw last night that's wise; their heirs look thoroughly overindulged: bored girls and bad young men."
"Oh they're just rich and silly," Helena demurred.
Her trip to the Licinius house had cheered her up since yesterday. Her mother's highly expensive midwife had advised me to keep her mind occupied for these last few weeks-though the woman probably did not expect Helena to be gallivanting about Baetica.
"So what's your verdict, my darling? Have we decided these young creatures just have too much spending cash and too little parental supervision-or are the brats up to no good?"
"I don't know yet, Marcus. But I'll find out."
I stretched lazily. "You should enjoy yourself more. A good long bathe is what I recommend. If you whistle loudly while you're steaming, Optatus and I will keep out of the way."
Helena Justina patted her bulge and told the child-in-waiting that if she had as many baths as its father suggested the baby would be washed away. Sometimes I wondered if Helena saw through my schemes. It would be like her to have found out exactly what the midwife had told me-and to disobey deliberately.
"So I've seen the gem-encrusted Aelia. What's Claudia Rufina like?"
"Neat, smart, and rather shy," said Helena. "She has a rather big nose which she unfortunately accentuates by tilting back her head then looking at people over it. She needs a tall husband- which is interesting, Marcus, because from the way Marius Optatus insisted on driving me today instead of Marmarides, I'd say
he has a yen for Claudia! When we got there he vanished to discuss farming with the old man, but I swear he only wanted to go so he could offer greetings to the girl."
I raised my eyebrows. Naturally I disapproved of unions that broke barriers. "Unless I've misunderstood the rules of Baetican etiquette I reckon Optatus is risking it!"
"He's a free man," Helena reminded me snootily. "Anyway, when did the fact that a girl was unsuitable ever stop a man taking a chance?"
I grinned at her.
At that point we shelved the discussion because Optatus himself came out into the garden. He was splitting his sides over the decrepit horse I had brought home, and said he hoped I had not paid out money for it; I assured him it was a virtual gift from the gracious Annaei. Marius Optatus gravely replied that the Annaei had always been renowned for their generosity.
I noticed a whiff of smoke and burnt rosemary hanging around his work clothes. It would not surprise me if he was the serious sort who quietly cleansed his stables each Parilia with a private lustration made in genuine reverence. The sober tenant seemed like a dedicated farmer with no space in his life for frivolity. But once I had started to see him as a ladies' man, eyeing up the handsome dowry of a neighbor's rather big-nosed granddaughter, anything could be possible.
Helena had invited Claudia Rufina to return her call, but the social rules dictated there should be a short lapse of time first. Our young neighbor was probably dying to inspect Helena's paramour, but the poor thing would have to wait to see my friendly face. Meanwhile I decided to see her grandfather; now I had met Annaeus I needed to compare the rivals soon before I ended prejudiced either for or against the one just because I met him first. Since the Rufius family had had one visit from us today, Helena told me I should wait until tomorrow. It gave me an afternoon loafing about. That suited me.
"You'll like their house," Helena giggled, for reasons she refused to divulge.
I rode over the next morning on my borrowed horse. His name was allegedly Prancer. It must have been given to him a long time ago. I think he wanted to be a botanist. His notion of a canter was a decorous sidle, slow enough to inspect every dockleaf on the way.
The Licinius Rufius estate lay comparatively close, though (given my mount) not as near as I would have liked. This was mainly because of a large number of intervening olive groves which belonged to someone else. Marius Optatus had warned who it was: his ex-landlord, Quinctius Attractus. I surveyed the senator's holding with great interest. He was happily ostentatious. After the olive groves I had to pass his fields of flax, his market gardens, his vineyards, his pig farm and his wheat.
When I did reach the Rufius villa, I saw what Helena Justina had meant: the family had embarked on a truly brave improvement program. It was easy to see where the money for it came from: once I had entered a gateway with their name on a column I had ridden through at least a couple of miles of well-aged olive trees, grand monsters with several trunks growing from stocks with huge circumferences; these were clearly only a fraction of the whole estate. I had passed a working area where they had not one but two oil-presses. Even more significant was the fact that they actually owned their own kilns for making amphorae. This estate, which ran on until it bordered the river, was obviously near enough to water transport at Corduba not to need to use mules for carrying the oil down for shipment. (The estate roads were in fact immaculate.) The kilns were five in number; alongside them were rows of bricks drying in the sun awaiting their turn to be home-fired too.
In an area the builders were using as their yard, I spotted the youth I had last seen being ill at the Annaeus house. He must be the grandson, as we had guessed. He was wearing a brilliant tunic in broad stripes of red and murex purple, a garment that shouted loudly that his family could afford the best. He was helping a bailiff decide something with a carpenter who had a new window frame on a trestle. Young Rufius looked barely into his twenties, awake though perhaps not yet fully alert. Still, he was the one holding the building plan, his relations with the workmen sounded pleasant, and he did appear quite confident discussing the chart. I went past without making myself known and left Prancer under an oak tree; it did not seem worthwhile tethering him.
The house made me gulp.
It had once been a modest Baetican country villa, like the one on the Camillus estate-a short axial design based on a single corridor, with a very basic suite of reception rooms and small cubicles for private use on either side. But this was no longer enough for people who clearly thought themselves the rising stars in Corduba.
The whole building was scaffolded. The roof was off. A second story was being raised on top. Some of the walls were being torn down so their traditional construction could be replaced with Roman concrete faced with the type of bricks I had seen being made in the yard. A massive entrance portico had been stuck on the front, complete with marble steps and columns the full height of the new roof. The Corinthian order had arrived in Baetica in a big way. These capitals were fabulously carved riots of acanthus leaves-though one had unfortunately been dropped. It lay where it had fallen, split in two. Work on the entrance had come to a standstill, presumably while the masons went into a corner to think up a good story to explain the accident. Meanwhile the entire ground plan of the house was being expanded to twice or three times its original area. To my astonishment, the family were still living in the old core of the house while the work went on.
When I asked for Licinius Rufius, the first person who came to greet me was his wife. She found me in the new vestibule, gawking at some gigantic paintings of Alexander the Great's campaigns. I was wondering whether I dared explore the huge internal peristyle garden which had been expanded from an original courtyard into a wonder of imported marble colonnades and topiary lions, beyond which I could just see a monumental dining room still under construction.
An elderly, upright woman, Claudia Adorata's centrally parted gray hair was held in a low bun in the nape of her neck with a circle of crystal pins. She was swathed in saffron linen and wore a fine necklace of twisted gold wires, with agate, emerald and rock crystal stones in a complex setting that resembled a butterfly. "Excuse the mess!" she apologized, reminding me of Ma. Maids had decorously followed her into the echoing atrium, but when she saw I looked fairly tame she clapped her hands and sent them scurrying back to their looms. Their work must have been well impregnated with building dust.
"Madam, I salute your courage and initiative!" I grinned candidly.
It appeared the old lady had no notion of why I had come. We mentioned Helena, and the Camillus family, which seemed enough to gain me admittance. She said her husband was out on the estate but had been summoned to meet me. While we waited, she offered a tour of the renovations. Since I try to be polite to ancient dames, I said obligingly that I was always glad of a chance to pick up ideas. The crude apartment that Helena and I were renting in Rome would have been beyond this lady's comprehension. I was not even sure she realized that I was the father of the noble Helena's child.
By the time Licinius Rufius appeared his wife and I were sitting beside the new fishpond (the length of the house), exchanging gardening notes on the new Campanian roses and Bithynian snowflake bulbs, and taking warmed wine from bronze goblets like a pair of old friends. I had admired the five-room bathhouse with its complicated heating system, special dry heat box, and exercise area; praised the half-finished but pleasing black and white mosaics; envied the new kitchen suite; taken the name of the fresco painter who ornamented the summer and winter dining rooms; cooed over the space where the library was to be; and expressed suitable disappointment that I could not view the suite of upstairs bedrooms because the stairs had not been built.
Now we were seated on an expensive set of folding chairs, placing our drinks on a matching collapsible table, covered with a fine Spanish linen tablecloth. These had been set out for us on a small paved patio which had an astounding vista of a fashionable apsi-dal grotto at the end of the pool, where a twinkling glass mosaic of Neptune enthroned amidst a lot of writhing sea creatures was surrounded by a heavy border of seashells. No doubt the Baeti-can murex industry had helped provide the shells.
Delicate probing had ascertained that Claudia Adorata described her family's financial position as "comfortable."
There was a reason for the sudden renovation campaign. She and her husband were creating a glorious backdrop for the anticipated achievements of their much-loved grandchildren, the youth in particular. His handle was Gaius Licinius Claudius Rufius Constans, which would make a long and ornamental honorific inscription when his fabulous deeds came to be celebrated in his native town one day. Clearly the Senate in Rome must be keeping a chair warm for him, and it was hoped he would eventually rate a consulship. I tried to look impressed.
Claudia told me she and her husband had brought up the two grandchildren since they were orphaned at an early age. Their mother had died a few weeks after producing the young male prodigy; their father, himself the only son and heir, had lasted another three years then caught a fever. The two tots had become their grandparents' consolation and hope for the future-as dangerous a situation as young people could ever find themselves in. At least they had money in indecent quantities to help them through it. On the other hand, having so much money so young could make their situation even more dangerous.
Licinius Rufius strode out through the fug of dust, washing his hands in a silver bowl held by a slave who had to scamper after him. He was wide-set but not overweight, with a heavy face and a shock of crinkled hair that shot off to one side. Of an older generation than Annaeus Maximus, he remained firm on his feet and dynamic. He greeted me with a knuckle-crushing handshake, then took one of the chairs, flattening its cushion and causing the delicate legs to bow. He helped himself to black olives from a fancies dish, but I noticed he did not take wine. Perhaps he felt more cautious than his wife about my motives. Claudia Adorata herself smiled, as if she felt reassured now he was in charge, then she slipped away.
I too picked up some of the olives. (They were superb quality, almost as lush as the finest from Greece.) Eating allowed us both a short pause to do some sizing up. Licinius would have been viewing a thoughtful character in a plain green tunic and a graded Roman haircut, clearly displaying the traditional virtues of honesty, uprightness, and personal modesty. I saw an elderly man with an inscrutable expression, whom I decided I would not trust one jot.
From the beginning I felt that, unlike his wife, Licinius Rufius knew exactly why I had come to Baetica. He let me pass some idle remarks about the mad scale of his home improvements, but soon conversation shifted to agricultural matters, which would lead to the real subject of my interview. We never mentioned the magic word "cartel," though it was always our point of reference. I began frankly: "I could say I'm checking over the family estate for Decimus Camillus-but actually my trip out here has an official purpose-"
"There was a rumor of an inspector from Rome," Rufius answered readily. Oh yes. Well, why pretend? News that Anacrites planned to send an agent, and that I for one was actually here, would have been leaked from the proconsul's office-and possibly confirmed to all his Baetican friends by the proconsul himself.
"I am hoping to talk to you about oil production, sir."
"Obviously Baetica is the place for that!" Licinius made it sound as though I was just on a mild fact-finding survey, instead of investigating a vicious conspiracy where agents had had their heads smashed in. I could feel the old man taking over. He was used to sounding off with his opinions. Thinking they know it all is a habit of rich men who build up large outfits of any kind.
"I've been discussing some figures with Marius Optatus at the Camillus estate," I interrupted as quickly as I could. "He reckons there may be as many as five million olive trees and a thousand oil presses in the River Baetis hinterland. An owner of standing like yourself could possess maybe three thousand acti quairati-say eight or ten centuries of land?"
He nodded but made no comment, which almost certainly meant he owned more. That was a massive area. There used to be an old system of measurement which we all learned at school, where two acti equaled a "yoke," and two yokes were a "hereditary area"-that's the amount of land that was supposed to suffice for one person in the frugal republican days. By that reckoning the average oil magnate in Baetica could support seven hundred and fifty people-except that the old method of measurement would have been when farming merely consisted of barley, beans and cabbages for domestic consumption, not a luxury export crop like olive oil.
"What's an average yield per century?"
Licinius Rufius was offhand. "Depending on the soil, and the weather that year, between five and six hundred amphorae." So the typical plot we had been talking about would produce between four and five thousand amphorae per year. That would buy a whole forest of Corinthian columns, plus a fine public forum for their owner to endow.
"And how is my young friend Optatus?" Rufius smoothly changed the subject.
"Bearing up. He told me a little about his misfortunes."
"I was delighted when he took his new tenancy," the old man said in a tone of voice I found irritating, as if Marius Optatus were his pet marmoset. From what I had seen of Optatus, he would not accept being patronized.
"The way he lost the old one sounds hard. Do you think he had bad luck, or was he sabotaged?"
"Oh it must have been an accident," Licinius Rufius exclaimed-as if he knew damn well it had not been. He was not going to support accusations against a fellow landowner. Quarreling with colleagues is a bad business move. Encouraging victims never brings in cash.
Licinius had sounded fairly sympathetic, but I remembered Optatus' bitterness when he told me the locals had refused to become involved in his quarrel with his ex-landlord. I took a chance. "I gather Quinctius Attractus conducts business in a pretty ruthless manner?"
"He likes to be firm. I cannot argue with that."
"It's a long way from the benevolent paternal style that we Romans like to consider traditional. What's your opinion of him personally, sir?"
"I hardly know the man."
"I don't expect you to criticize a fellow producer. But I would suppose someone as shrewd as you would have firmed up some conclusions after being the man's guest in Rome and staying at his house!" Licinius was still refusing to be drawn so I added coldly, "Do you mind if I ask who paid your fare?"
He pursed his lips. He was a tough old bastard. "Many people in Baetica have been invited to Rome by Attractus, Falco. It's a courtesy he extends regularly."
"And does he regularly invite his guests to help him corner the oil market and drive up prices?"
"That is a serious accusation."
Rufius was sounding as prim as Annaeus when I interviewed him. Unlike Annaeus he did not have the excuse of guests to drag him away so I was able to press him harder: "I make no accusations. I'm speculating-from my own, maybe rather cynical standpoint."
"Do you have no faith in human ethics, Didius Falco?" For once, the old man seemed genuinely interested in my reply. He was now staring at me so closely he might have been a sculptor trying to decide if my left ear was a fraction higher than my right.
"Oh all business has to be based on trust. All contracts depend on good faith."
"That is correct," he declared autocratically.
I grinned. "Licinius Rufius, I believe all men in business want to be richer than their colleagues. All would happily cheat a foreigner. All would like the running of their own sphere of commerce to be sewn up as tight as a handball, with no uncontrollable forces."
"There will always be risk!" he protested, perhaps rather dryly.
"The weather," I conceded. "The health of the businessman, the loyalty of his workers. War. Volcanoes. Litigation. And unforeseen policies imposed by the government."
"I was thinking more of the fickleness of consumers' taste," he smiled.
I shook my head, tutting gently. "I forgot that one! I don't know why you stay in the business."
"Community spirit," he laughed.
Talking to Licinius Rufius resembled the overblown jollity of a military dining club the night the pay-chest came-when everyone knew the sesterces were safely in camp, but the distribution would happen tomorrow so nobody was drunk yet. Maybe we two soon would be, for Rufius seemed to feel he had led me astray from my purpose so successfully he could now afford to clap his hands for a slave to pour him wine. I was offered more, but declined, making it plain I was only waiting for the nervous waiter to remove himself before I continued the interview. Rufius drank slowly, surveying me over the rim of his cup with a confidence that was meant to beat me down.
I dropped my voice abruptly. "So I met you in Rome, sir. We both dined on the Palatine. I then called on you at the Quinctius house, but you had gone. Tell me, why did you leave our splendid city so suddenly?"
"Family ties," he replied, without pausing.
"Indeed? I gather your colleague Annaeus Maximus suddenly developed pressing family ties too! And the bargeman, I suppose-and the negotiator from Hispalis! Forgive me, but for men of affairs you all seem to have made that long journey without enough forward planning."
I thought I saw him check, but the reaction was slight. "We had traveled to Rome together. We traveled home in one group too. Safety, you know." For the first time I detected a slight impatience with my questions. He was trying to make me feel like a lout who had abused his hospitality.
"I'm sorry, but your departure looks suspiciously hurried, sir."
"None of us ever intended a long stay in Rome. We all wanted to return home for the Parilia." Very rustic! And he had dodged a direct answer with the glibness of a politician.
"And of course this had nothing to do with Quinctius Attractus trying to promote a cartel?"
Licinius Rufius stopped answering me so smoothly.
We stared at each other for a few beats of time.
"There is no hoarding or price-fixing in Corduba!" His voice rasped so harshly it startled me. He sounded extremely angry. His protest could be genuine. He knew why I had come here though, so he had had time to prepare a convincing show of outrage. "There is no need for it. There is plenty for everyone. The olive oil trade is now flowering in Baetica as never before-"
"So once the trees are planted you can all just sit back and watch the fortunes flowing in! Tell me this then, sir: Why did that group of you really decide to visit Rome?"
I saw him regain control of himself. "It was a normal business voyage. We were renewing ties with our agents in Ostia and exchanging goodwill with our contacts in Rome. This happens all the time, Falco."
"Oh yes. Nothing unusual at all-except that the night your main contact entertained you all in the Palace of the Caesars, two men who had been in the same dining room were later brutally attacked!"
I could see he was forcing himself not to react. He chose to try and bluff it out: "Yes, we heard about that just before we left."
Twitching an eyebrow, I asked gently, "Oh? And who told you this, sir?"
Rufius belatedly realized he had walked into trouble. "Quinctius Attractus." A neat dodge, since Quinctius had enough importance in Rome to be well informed about everything.
"Really? Did he tell you who told him?"
"He heard it at the Senate."
"He could well have done," I smiled, "only the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica was held on the last night of March. The Senate goes into recess from the beginning of April to the middle of May!"
Licinius almost gave away the fact that he was struggling now: "Well, I cannot say where he heard it. He is, after all, a senator and hears all the important news before most of Rome-"
"It was never news," I corrected him. "An order had been given on the highest authority that the attacks should not be made public. You people left the very day afterwards. At that time only a handful of people on the Palatine-a very small group in the intelligence service and Titus Caesar himself-knew that killers had been at work."
"I think you underestimate the importance of Quinctius Attractus," answered Licinius.
There was another short silence. I sensed a worrying force behind his words. Ambitious men like Attractus always do carry more weight than they deserve.
Licinius felt a gloss was necessary: "The fact that we had dined with two men who died was, Falco, as you are suggesting, one of the other reasons my colleagues and I took our leave. The incident sounded a little too close for comfort. We decided Rome was a dangerous city, and I confess we fled."
He struck me as a man who would not normally run away from a spot of civic disorder.
Natural curiosity about the tragedy gripped him. He leaned forwards and murmured in a confidential tone, "Did you know these two men?"
"I know the one who is not dead."
I spoke it very gently, leaving Rufius to wonder which one had survived; how well I knew him; and what he had managed to say to me before I left Rome.
I might have taken things further, though I doubt I would have been any more successful. In any case, it was my turn to be called away unexpectedly. An uproar disturbed us, then almost immediately a slave came running to tell me I had better come quick because my borrowed horse Prancer had wandered through the new entrance portico, and into the gracious peristyle garden with the beautiful topiary. Prancer's yearning for foliage was insatiable, and he had lost all discretion. By the time he was spotted many of the clipped trees had ceased to look so elegant.
The Rufii coped with this accident in a terribly good-natured manner and assured me the lions would grow again. They just scoffed when I offered to pay for the damage. We all joked merrily that it was an act of revenge from their rivals the Annaei who had lent me the horse.
They could afford to replace the boxtrees and I couldn't, so I thanked them quietly for their generous attitude-then Prancer and I left, as fast as I could make him trot.
Helena Justina had very few clothes on. Any ideas this might have given me were soon banished by the fact that she smelled like a salad.
"I see you're marinading the child!"
Calmly she continued to massage neat olive oil into her stomach. "Apparently this will ease my stretched skin-and if there's any over I can pour it on our lunch."
"Wonderful stuff. Want any help rubbing it in?"
Helena waved a Baetican redware jug at me. "No."
"Well, it should do you good."
"I'm sure! Like using oil in dough; perhaps I'll be more flexible, and with a moist crust…" Helena loved to collect interesting lore, but often had a hard time taking it seriously.
I threw myself on a couch and settled down to watch. Stricken with an odd quirk of modesty, Helena turned her back. "Was there ever a more useful substance?" I mused. "Olive oil prevents burns from blistering and it's good for your liver, it stops rust in iron pots, and preserves food; the wood makes bowls and it flames well in a fire-"
"In this country the children are weaned on a porridge made from olive oil and wheat," Helena joined in, turning back to me. "I've been talking to the cook. Baetican midwives smother a new mother with oil to help slide the baby out."
I chortled. "And then they present the happy father with a little dressed onion to name!"
"I'm giving Nux a spoonful a day to try to improve her coat."
Hearing her name, Nux looked up from a rug where she had been sleeping and thumped her tail enthusiastically. She had fur like rough turf; around her unpleasant extremities it stuck together in impenetrable clumps. "Nothing will improve Nux's coat," I said regretfully. "She really needs a complete shave. It's time you broke the news to her that she'll never be a pampered lapdog. She's a smelly street scruff, and that's it."
"Give Marcus a nice lick for loving you so much!" Helena cooed at the dog, who immediately roused herself and jumped straight on the middle of my chest. If this was a clue to what kind of subversive mother Helena Justina intended to be, I was heading for more trouble than I'd thought. As I fended off a long, frenzied tongue, Helena disarmed me by suddenly saying, "I like it here. It's peaceful in the countryside and nobody harangues us about our situation. I like being on my own with you, Marcus."
"I like it here too," I grunted. It was true. Were it not for the baby and my fixed intention to return Helena to our mothers' care in time for them both to supervise the birth, I could have stayed here for months. "Maybe we should emigrate to some far province away from everyone."
"You belong in the city, Marcus."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps one day I'll set up home with you in some villa in a river valley-choose your spot."
"Britain!" she quipped wickedly. I returned to my original dream of a town house above the Tiber with a garden on a terrace with a view across to Rome.
Helena watched me as my thoughts idled romantically. She must know my situation was so disappointing all hope seemed pointless and all plans looked doomed. Her eyes sparkled in a way that made me push the dog aside. "Marcus, another thing the cook told me is that a diet rich in oil makes women passionate and men softer."
I held out my arms to her. "We can easily test that!"
Helena was asleep. Off guard and helpless, she looked more tired than when she knew I was checking up on her. I told myself some of her present exhaustion reflected my rampant skills as a lover, but her drawn face was starting to worry me.
I should never have let her travel so far. Bringing her to Baetica was stupid. I had no real hope of finishing my task before the baby arrived. The past two days had convinced me of what I should have known from the first: none of the suave local dignitaries was likely to admit what was going on. Exposing the conspiracy would take halfway to forever-and finding "Selia," the dancing girl who liked attacking agents, might be impossible.
I had to allot more time to Helena, though I had to balance this carefully with letting her help in my work; it tired her nowadays more than she wanted to admit. Another man with a different woman might have kept work and home separate. For us there was no choice. Helena became distant and unhappy if I left her out of a problem. If I encouraged her to help me, she tore in wholeheartedly-but was it wise? If not, how could I dissuade her? This was how we had first come to know one another and her interest was unlikely ever to diminish. Besides, now I was used to it I relied on her help.
As if she sensed my thoughts, she awoke. I watched the relaxed expression on her face alter to suspicion that I was up to no good.
"Don't squash the baby," she murmured, since I was lolling all over her.
I roused myself and prepared to get up. "I'm taking advantage while I still can. You know Roman children expect to start barging their parents aside from the moment they're born."
"Oh it will bully you all right," Helena laughed. "You'll spoil this baby so much it will know it can do as it likes with you…" Behind the banter she was looking concerned. I was probably frowning, thinking yet again that somehow we had to get it born first. Alive.
"Maybe we ought to investigate a midwife in Corduba, fruit. Just in case anything starts happening early-"
"If you will feel happier." For once she seemed prepared to accept advice. Maybe that was because it was me talking. I liked to think I could handle her-though from the first hour I met her I had realized that with Helena Justina there was no hope of issuing instructions. She was a true Roman matron. Her father had tried to create in her a meek, modest partner to some all-knowing male. But her mother's example of quiet contempt for the opposite species was just as traditional, so Helena had grown up forthright, and doing just as she liked. "How did you progress with Licinius Rufius?" she asked sweetly.
I started pulling on tunics. "We were gossiping like foster-brothers until Prancer took to munching his clipped trees."
"Any results?"
"Oh yes, he cut them down to size-" Helena threw a boot at me. "All right, seriously: Rufius takes the line that hoarding oil and fixing prices would be unnecessary. He says there is plenty for all. Like Annaeus he feigns shock at the suggestion that any upright Corduban businessman would be so greedy as to plot a cartel."
Helena slid onto the edge of the bed beside me so she too could dress. "Well you're used to being considered a crude slanderer of men with crystal consciences-and you're also used to proving them villains in the end."
"Whether these two have actually joined the conspiracy I wouldn't like to say-but someone has definitely asked them about it. I'm convinced the issue was discussed when they went to Rome?"
"Would Annaeus and Rufius be particularly important in setting up a price ring?" Helena wondered, slowly combing her hair.
While she was trying to wind up a chignon, I tickled her neck. Being a rascal always helped me to think. "I bet they would. Annaeus is a duovir, for one thing; he carries clout in Corduba. Consider him first: from a great Hispanic family with extraordinary wealth. He could perhaps feel he's above corrupt business ideas. He might even feel too much loyalty to Rome."
"Or too much to lose!" Helena commented.
"Exactly. But still he's tinged with disgrace that was not of his making; he now belongs to a family of enforced outsiders-and he has his sons to think about. He looks a disaffected rebel in the making- Add to that his huge influence on the local political scene, and if I was recruiting for a cartel, I'd certainly be after him."
"He may just prefer to opt out," Helena argued. "His family have seen what happens to schemers. He may want the quiet life." I conceded the point as she pouted thoughtfully. "What about Rufius?"
"Different: a new man. Driven by ambition for his grandchildren,' I said. "If he joins in, it will be because he wants a short route to power and popularity. If a price ring is set up, it would suit him to be known as the man who started it; other members would more readily support him in pushing his grandson. So I shall have to decide: Is he honest or crooked?"
"What do you think?"
"He looks honest." I grinned at her. "That probably means he's a complete crook!"
At last Helena managed to lean away from me long enough to skewer her hair with an ivory pin. She lurched upright and went to our bedroom door to let in Nux; I had shut out the dog earlier because she was jealous if we showed each other affection. Nux scampered in and shot under the bed defiantly. Helena and I smiled and sneaked out, leaving Nux behind.
"So what now, Marcus?"
"Lunch." An informer has to honor the priorities. "Then I'm going back to Corduba to see if I can roust out Cyzacus, the bargee. He's not a damned shepherd; he can't have a load of flocks to fumigate. I don't believe his office is really closed up for three days on account of the Parilia."
I rode in on the horse, slowly. So slowly I started dozing and nearly fell off.
The bargee's office was still closed. I failed to find anyone who knew where his private house was. Another afternoon of my precious time was wasted, and I could see there was little point returning here for at least another day.
While I was in Corduba, I seized advantage of Helena's agreement and sought out a midwife. For a stranger in town, this was fraught with difficulties. My sisters back in Rome, who were keen on sensational stories, had already scared me with wild tales of crazy practitioners who tried shaking out babies using physical force on the mother, or their hopeless assistants who tied the poor woman in labor to the top of the bed, then lifted the foot in the air and dropped it suddenly… My eldest sister had once had a dead baby dismembered in the womb; none of the rest of us had ever quite recovered from hearing the details over nuts and mulled wine at our Saturnalia gathering.
I walked to the forum and asked various respectable-looking types for advice, then I double-checked with a priestess at the temple who laughed dryly and told me to see somebody quite different. I suspect it was her mother; certainly the dame I eventually visited looked seventy-five. She lived down a lane so narrow a man with decent shoulders could hardly squeeze through it, but her house was tidy and quiet.
I sniffed at her to see if she had been drinking and I squinted at her fingernails to make sure she kept her hands clean. Without actually seeing her in action, that was all I could do; by the time I did test her methods, it would be too late.
She asked me a few questions about Helena, and told me dourly that as she sounded a bonny girl she would probably have a large baby, which of course might be difficult. I hate professionals who cover themselves so obviously. I asked to see the equipment she used, and was readily shown a birthstool, jars of oil and other unguents, and (very quickly) a bagful of instruments. I recognized traction hooks, which I supposed could be used gently to pull out living children; but then there was also a set of metal forceps with two hideous rows of jagged teeth along its jaws, which I guessed from my sister's old story must be for crushing skulls to remove them in pieces when all else had failed and a stillbirth became inevitable. The woman saw me looking sick.
"If a child dies, I save the mother if I can."
"Let's hope it won't come to that."
"No; why should it?" she replied calmly. There was a small sharp knife for cutting birth-cords, so maybe the old dame did manage to produce infants intact occasionally.
Somehow I escaped on terms which left us free to send for the midwife if we needed her, though I had omitted to tell the woman where we stayed. Helena could decide.
I was so disturbed I lost my way and left by the wrong city gate. White pigeons fluttered as I passed. Needing to think, I led Prancer along the track outside the town walls which would bring me to the river. The bright day mocked my gloomy mood. Poppies, borage and daisies raised their heads beside the way, while pink oleanders crowded against the ramparts and plunged down towards the river which I eventually reached. I was on the upstream, totally unnavigable side, where the low marshy ground looked as if it never flooded. Meandering streams dawdled among tracts of firmer land which supported wild tangles of undergrowth and even large trees where birds that looked like herons or cranes nested. Other significant winged creatures-maybe falcons, or hoopoes-occasionally swooped fast among the foliage, too far away to identify properly.
Nearer to me midges swarmed, and above them were swallows. Less idyllically, a dead rat lay in a cart rut, complete with its phalanx of flies. Further on I came to a group of public slaves; I won't call them workmen. One was dancing, two took their ease on stools, and four more leaned against the wall while they all waited for the stonecutter to carve the sign that said they had completed a repair today. Not long afterwards I came to the bridge.
The afternoon was a waste of time, and my visit to the midwife had failed to reassure me. Feeling more tense than ever, I rode back to the estate. Evening was falling on the distant Mariana mountains, and I wanted to be with my girl.
The next day turned out to be slightly more productive, though I began it gloomily.
Tormented by my thoughts about Helena and the baby, I tried clearing my mind by helping Marius Optatus on the estate. He was spreading manure that morning, which I found appropriate. I reckon he could see the mood I had worked myself into, but in his usual way he said nothing, just handed me a rake and let me work up a sweat among his slaves.
I could not ask his advice. In the first place he was a bachelor. Besides, if any of his slaves overheard us they were bound to join in the conversation with colorful country lore. The last thing an expectant Roman father needs is a bunch of rural types cackling at his anxieties and telling him to sacrifice expensive animals to invisible woodland deities at some Celtic shrine in a grove guarded by a stone lion.
I would have paid for a kid and for a priest of the Imperial Cult to deal with it too, if I had thought it would do Helena any good. But the only gods I ever had faith in are the faceless kind who come in dark hoods with sinister downturned torches, looking for new clients to introduce to the Underworld.
I was close to madness. I admit it. Anyone in my position who had paid attention to the high rate of mother and infant mortality would be just as bad.
About the time the slaves were starting to hint that Optatus should signal a break for a cup of posca and an apple-in fact while they were making loud jokes about what a dour-faced overseer he was-the boy from the house came out to inform him visitors had called. Optatus merely nodded to show he had received the information. I leaned on my rake and questioned the lamp-boy, who said we had been favored by Claudia Rufina and her friend Aelia Annaea.
Optatus still doggedly carried on working as long as he could. His attitude intrigued me. He would not stop work for women- even if Helena was right and he hankered after one of them. He was the first man I had ever met who appeared to have perfectly normal inclinations yet who would rather spread manure.
Eventually, when the slaves' mutters of rebellion did force a halt, he and I handed over to a foreman and walked back to the house. We then had to wash rather thoroughly, but the young women seemed determined to wait until we both appeared; they were still talking to Helena in the garden when we finally emerged.
As Optatus and I walked outside to the sun-drenched garden we heard giggling: the result of allowing three women to gossip together for an hour with a jug of what passed for herbal tea. All three would have described themselves as quiet creatures with serious outlooks. Optatus may have believed it. I knew better.
Claudia Rufina, the girl I hadn't seen before, must have been older than her brother. She looked just over twenty-easily marriageable, especially since she had a huge dowry and was part-
heiress to a man of some age. The girl should have been snapped up by now. Her head lifted, and she stared at me with solemn gray eyes over the big nose Helena had previously described. She was a sturdy young lady with a worried expression. Perhaps it was caused by constantly seeing the world at an angle.
Her friend had mastered the feminine trick of appearing serene. I recognized Aelia Annaea from seeing her at her father's house, though today she was not quite so plastered in gems. At close quarters she was a little older than I had first thought, and several years older than Claudia; she looked much more of a challenge too. She had a fine-featured, very delicate face with clear skin and hazel eyes which missed absolutely nothing that went on.
This trio looked like an exposition of the architectural orders. If Helena was Ionian with her smooth wings of hair pinned aloft with sidecombs, then Aelia Annaea inclined to the Doric severity of a neat pediment of brown hair fixed dead square upon her small head; young Claudia, in Corduban modernist fashion, had allowed a maid to inflict on her a Corinthian flourish of ringlets. Our two visitors were the kind of close friends who went out together in same-color dresses-blue, today; Claudia in light-hearted aquamarine and Aelia more subdued in a deep squid-ink shade. Helena wore white. All three women were enjoying themselves making constant small gestures: adjusting their stoles, preening their hair, and rattling their bracelets (of which there were enough to stock a market stall).
I sat down with Marius Optatus. Though we had washed, we retained a close memory of the smell of manure so we tried to keep still and limit how much we exuded. I picked up the jug, and found it empty. I was not surprised. I had already noticed a plate which must once have been piled high with sesame cakes; it too had been thoroughly cleaned up, except for a few seeds. When the talk is of fashion tips, the munching gets serious.
Optatus greeted everyone with a silent nod. Helena introduced me.
"Have you come to Baetica on business, Marcus Didius?" inquired Aelia Annaea disingenuously. I reckoned she had overheard enough from her grumbling relatives at home to know just what my position was. This was a young lady who picked up all the news.
"It's no secret," I answered. "I'm the hated agent who has been sent from Rome to poke his nose into the olive oil business."
"Oh what's the reason for this?" she responded lightly.
I just smiled, trying to look like a dumb cluck who would be satisfied with any tale her untrustworthy papa wished to hand me.
"We had heard there was somebody coming from Rome." Claudia was the serious one, utterly straightforward: the type who had never realized that when a delicate question had been posed it was perfectly permissible to keep quiet. Especially if your grandpapa might have something to hide. "My grandfather thought it was somebody else."
"Someone else in particular?" I asked, smiling again.
"Oh a strange old woman who had approached him asking questions when he was out in the fields one day. He actually wrote to your father about it, Aelia!"
"Did he?" Aelia Annaea was too clever to tell Claudia to shut up; it would only draw attention to her tactlessness.
"Well that was a surprise!" Catching my curious expression Claudia explained, "Everyone was amazed to find them corresponding. Grandpapa and Annaeus Maximus usually avoid each other if they can."
"An old feud?"
"Just professional rivalry."
"That's sad!" I grinned. "I was hoping for a hot tale of seething envy and passion. Was there no stolen land? No favorite slavegirls raped on riverbanks? No runaway young wives?"
"You read the wrong poetry," said Helena.
"No, love; I read the law reports!"
Marius Optatus said nothing, but chuckled to himself. He was not much help with repartee. I was perfectly prepared to handle three women at once, but an occasional respite would have been useful; in fact, this situation called for my rascally friend Petronius.
"What happened to the old biddy?" I inquired of Claudia. "She was shooed away."
Aelia Annaea had been watching me. She was thinking herself a match for any undercover agent-especially one investigating openly. I winked at her. She was no match for that.
Apropros of nothing Helena asked, "So were you both acquainted with my brother?"
Oh of course, squeaked both wenches, in enthusiastic tones. Past acquaintance with Aelianus would be their public reason for making much of Helena, a new face (with a Roman hairstyle, and perhaps bringing a scroll of Roman recipes). Apparently Aelianus had been a jewel of Corduban society (these were very polite young women). At least, he had been a close friend of Claudia's brother, Rufius Constans, and of Aelia's three brothers, who must all have owned impressive formal names in the Roman style, but whom she called Spunky, Dotty and Ferret.
What all the male juveniles had in common, it emerged, was that they were close cronies of Tiberius.
"Tiberius?" asked I, like a wide-eyed novice.
"Oh you must know Tiberius!"
"I'm afraid I don't have that honor. Tiberius who?"
"Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus," stated Marius Optatus suddenly. "In my house he has one or two less polite names."
"Your ex-landlord's son?"
"Our admired new quaestor, Falco."
His intervention had darkened the tone of the conversation. He looked as if he wanted to cause trouble. Aelia Annaea tried to soften the atmosphere: "Well, what can one say about Tiberius, except that he is charming?"
Helena said quietly, "Don't you just hate charming men? I always think charm is a certain clue to a man you shouldn't trust."
"This one is also extremely good-looking," I supplied. "If he's the hero I saw the other night collecting you from your father's house, Aelia Annaea?" She acknowledged it.
"Oh he has everything!" muttered Optatus jealously. "A distinguished father in a prominent position, a winning way, political promise, and the good opinion of everyone he comes into contact with." I saw young Claudia compress her lips slightly. She was embarrassed by his anger; her friend merely looked resigned.
I pretended to know nothing about him. "Is this paragon new to the area?"
"The family's Roman of course," Optatus answered bitterly. "But we know him well already. The Quinctii have large tracts of land. Quadratus has spent time in the district before, and we'll be seeing even more of him now he holds his official post."
I beamed at the two young ladies. "I take it he's related to Quinctius Attractus, the senator your father and grandfather stayed with in Rome just recently?" This time even Claudia had the sense merely to answer with a vague nod and smile. If they knew the visit to Rome was significant, somebody seemed to have told them not to discuss it with me. "I met Attractus myself. What a coincidence."
"You'll meet his son too," growled Optatus. "Don't worry about missing that treat, Marcus Didius. He's everywhere, is Tiberius." The two young ladies had fallen silent; fending off difficulties with Optatus had now gone beyond their control.
"I heard he was off hunting," I said.
"He's hanging around Corduba enjoying himself," replied Marius. "I heard the proconsul told him he wasn't to show his face in the office any more than strictly necessary."
He was wanting to argue with somebody, so I gave him his money's worth: "I reckon you're being hard on the new quaestor. From the glimpse I had, he seemed a gifted lad."
"Oh he's wonderful," breathed Claudia.
"Young lady, do I detect a blush?" I quipped. She obliged me, though it earned me a black look from Helena, who had already decided to support a romance for Optatus with Claudia. I refused to take the hint from my beloved, and carried on, "Claudia Rufina, your grandparents were telling me their plans for your brother's career-Rome, and so forth. They must have high hopes for you too. Does that include a handsome dowry to share with some promising star?"
This time Helena actually kicked me. Too late. While she squinted a reminder about Marius Optatus harboring a tenderness for Claudia, his expression remained decidedly neutral. But a sudden frosty tension told me three different women were cursing me and wondering how to be kind to him.
Claudia, the least adept, answered my question in her usual serious and strictly accurate way: "My grandfather has not discussed anything with me-" It sounded as though Licinius Rufius had actually told her it was too soon for public comment.
Helena Justina leaned forward and tapped my wrist with the herbal tea strainer. "Marriage isn't everything, Marcus!" She turned to Aelia Annaea. "I remember when my former husband first asked for me. I was young; I thought it was my duty to accept him. But I can recall feeling very angry that he had placed me in the position where I felt obliged to have him just because he was the one who had asked."
"I think I understand that," Aelia Annaea responded. Then, somewhat to the surprise of both Helena and me, she mentioned that she had been married herself, then after three years and no children she had been very recently widowed. Something in her tone implied she had no plans to repeat the experience.
"Was your marriage happy?" Helena asked in her forthright way.
"I had nothing to complain about."
"That sounds rather qualified."
"Well I could never in conscience have requested a divorce."
"And yet?" asked Helena, smiling.
"And yet, Helena!" Aelia Annaea had probably not talked like this before. We watched the young widow surprising herself: "To be honest, when my husband died I felt I had been given another chance in life." Her eyes sparkled wickedly. "I do enjoy myself now. A widow has a different status. For a year at least, I shall have a certain independence-" She stopped, as if we might disapprove of what she was saying.
"Why only a year?" Helena growled.
Aelia looked rueful. "That's about as long as a woman with a fortune can expect to hold out against the hordes of people who want to suggest ways she can invest it with them!"
Claudia Rufina certainly looked shocked now. Helena turned to her kindly: "Don't listen to us crabby things! You should just try to feel sure that you share common bonds with your husband."
"Love?" asked Claudia, rather defiantly.
Helena laughed. "Well, that might be stretching it."
"Love is a luxury!" I joined in the teasing. "But you don't need to demand anything excessive-a shared fondness for chariot races, or a keen interest in sheep-breeding can be a wonderful basis for at least four or five years together."
Torn between Helena's advice and my flippancy, Claudia looked puzzled. I noticed Marius Optatus had been listening to all this and apparently watching both girls with curious interest. Apart from his one brief outburst he had said hardly anything, yet seemed quite content to sit here as one of the party.
I said gently to our two visitors, "Your friend Tiberius sounds fascinating. I think I'd like to meet this young man!"
They agreed that I must do so, then with one accord they jumped up from their seats and decided that they really had to leave.
I stayed behind alone while they were being seen off. I wanted to think about the "strange incident" when an old biddy (or a young dancer, well disguised?) had tried to talk to Claudia's grandfather.
Optatus tried to vanish for the rest of the afternoon. I had obviously upset him somehow, but he was useless as a sulker: he had the kind of stubborn nature that refused to let him miss his meals. At dinner he was there again, a silent presence. Helena and I talked to Marmarides our driver about going into Corduba next day. We let Optatus work his way through half a loaf of farm-baked bread, a bowl of preserved olive salad and some smoked sausage from the hanging rack above the hearth. Then he drank a whole jug of water from the dolium, and sat and picked his teeth.
Helena moved away from the bench at the table, needing space for two. With a slight sigh she eased herself into a chair near the hot water cauldron on the cooking bench. I put one leg up on the bench, twisting to look at our friend. I was still eating; I had more
appetite than him.
"Something struck me today," Helena put in from her chair beside the cooking bench. "Those two young women called the Quinctius son charming. They were not just saying it because he had flirted with them prettily; they meant that everybody thinks he is wonderful."
"Everyone except you," I suggested to Marius Optatus. I would be the second exception, if I came up with my usual reaction to jumped-up lads in administrative posts.
"Don't answer if you don't want to, Marius," Helena said. "We are all living in the same house, and there are rules of good manners.
She had sensed what was the matter, and he finally broke his silence in reply. "What you do is horrible, Falco."
I pulled through my teeth a piece of sausage skin that was too tough to eat. "How have I offended you?"
"I think you must offend everyone."
"Close!" I took a spill from a vase that stood with the saltbox on the table. Everyone in Rome has been fed that myth about Hispanians cleaning their teeth with their own urine, so I was glad to find that in this villa rustica they had heard of using a sharp bit of stick. Never believe what you read. Half the time it has just been copied by a pig-ignorant hack from some previous author's bogus scroll.
Optatus pushed away his bowl and swung out from the table. In the measured pace of life in the country he took a small pottery lamp, carried it to to an amphora, filled a jug from the larger container, filled the lamp from the jug, brought it back to the hearth, lit his toothpick from the embers, lit the lamp wick, placed the light on the table and stood there thoughtfully. His actions alerted the lamp-boy to go about his task of lighting the rest of the house, and the cook to collect crockery to wash. Marmarides caught my eye, then went out to feed the carriage mules. People were now moving about freely in the kitchen, and our discussion took on a more informal tone.
"The Annaei and Licinii Rufii are my friends," he complained. "I grew up with them."
"Would that be with the boys-or the girls?" I asked pointedly. "Which am I not allowed to approach in my work, Marius?" He made no answer, so I added quietly, "Aelia Annaea certainly knew exactly what our conversation was about-and I really don't believe I took advantage of Claudia." Optatus resumed his place at the table at last, his tall shadow wavering on the kitchen wall as he sat down. "They both know my role; I told them quite freely. If those two young ladies have made a pet of Quinctius Quadratus, they are both mature enough to take the consequences."
"I don't see what this has to do-"
"His father is heavily implicated in a probable conspiracy. I think we can guess that deliberate influence was used to get the son his posting as quaestor. The Quinctii are building themselves a dangerous powerbase in Baetica. If I end up nailing Attractus, his son is almost certain to be disgraced at the same time. The son may be an innocent tool of a devious father, but that quaestorship makes him look a willing participant in the master plan. Even if he's as pure as snow, he's stuck with how it looks-though from what you told me about the way he kicked you out of your tenancy, 'pure' is not the word to use.
Optatus was brooding on his personal problems. "They will not succeed in their ambitions." At least he was talking again. "People here don't welcome their interference. People will resist them; I will do so myself. When I have money, I will buy land of my own. If I cannot achieve it myself, at least my descendants will be equal to the Quinctii."
"You've already been saving!" Helena guessed acutely. "You're mulling over a plan!"
"You could marry into an estate," I suggested. "That would help." He looked at me, affronted. "Marius Optatus, you are well respected in the local community. All sorts of people regard you kindly. Set your sights high."
"You are advising me from experience?" He sounded barbed.
I said, "A man should go for the girl he wants, my friend."
Helena was looking worried. "She might not always be available!"
"She might be," I retorted. I pretended to be unaware of any feelings Optatus had. "Take Claudia Rufina, for example-you could say the signs are all there that she's earmarked for the fabulous quaestor 'Tiberius.' But will it ever happen? I suggest it's unlikely. He comes from an old Italian family. The Quinctii are certain to look for a bride from the same patrician Roman background. Making money from the provinces is one thing. Making an alliance is another."
On reflection, Helena backed me up: "It's true. If you took a census of the men in the Senate, you'd find the Spaniards are married to Spanish women, the Gauls to Gauls-and the Romans to their own kind. So, Marcus, that's why nothing is being said openly about Claudia and the quaestor?"
"Nothing ever will be. The Quinctii aren't buying. Having met Claudia's grandfather, I'd call him shrewd enough to see it."
"The girl could be hurt by this," Helena frowned.
"Only if she's daft enough to fall in love with the charmer. I dare say she may be, but it need not be irretrievable. Well there you are!" I exclaimed to Optatus. "A nice rich girl who may soon have a heartache, and be going spare in the marriage market!"
He took it well. "Thanks, Falco!" He managed a grin and I knew we were friends again. "But maybe Claudia Rufina isn't nice enough or rich enough!"
Helena and I both beamed at him. We do like to manipulate a man who stands up for himself.
Optatus was still niggling about the way I had to work. "I was taking you to task, Falco."
"About what I do?"
For all I know, when we converse in this friendly fashion, you are laying traps even for me!"
I sighed. "Rest assured. If there is a conspiracy, by the time the Quinctii started trying to arrange their cartel, you were on very bad terms with them. Only men who look amenable are invited on their friendly trips to Rome. Let's be fair to the Quinctii though; they may be honest as daisies."
"So you like to be fair!" he observed dryly.
"I've been caught out too many times! But I don't believe you were ever invited to join any price-fixing; you disapprove too strongly of corrupt practices."
Maybe I was being stupid. Maybe Marius Optatus was so utterly disgruntled by what had happened to him, that he was the moving spirit behind the plot Anacrites had wanted to investigate. He had just told us he was saving hard and harboring ambition. Perhaps I had been underestimating his importance here.
"I'm flattered," said Optatus. "So you will concentrate your efforts on the young ladies' handsome friend, Falco?"
"The charming Tiberius does pose one fascinating puzzle. If the Quinctii are villains, they appear to have everything well sewn up. But even so, the proconsul has sent Quinctius Quadratus on hunting leave."
"So what, Falco? He is a sporting type. He loves hunting; in a young man of promise that goes down well."
I smiled wisely. "In a young man who has just started a major public role, this phrase has other connotations. He's not hunting at present, is he?"
"He's enjoying himself in every way."
"Quite. Flirting with Aelia Annaea and Claudia. What a bastard."
"And he is influencing their brothers," Optatus told me. "Particularly young Rufius Constans; Quadratus has made himself the boy's mentor."
"That sounds unfortunate! But listen: I was telling you about hunting leave; you have to be aware of the subtleties here. In the army it's called 'being sent up country.' In civic life it's a different term, but same result: your quaestor is not actually expected to hunt. He can loaf on his father's estate, attend the gymnasium, entertain women-whatever he likes, just so long as he doesn't show his face. The fact is, at least temporarily, the proconsul has shoved this twinkling star out of the way."
Optatus looked pleased. He immediately saw that for the Quinctii and their ambitious plans this could be a disaster. The Senate might have been bought and the Emperor bamboozled, but here the proconsul had a mind of his own. Against all the odds, not everything was going right for Quinctius Attractus and his son. Apparently there was a black mark on a list somewhere, against the name of Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus.
Maybe Laeta had sent me to Baetica to be the man who turned the mark into a line drawn right through the name.
"What happens now, Falco?"
"That's easy," chortled Helena sleepily from her place beside the fire. "Marcus has the kind of job he likes: he has to find a girl."
"In order to disgrace one or both of the Quinctii," I explained quietly, "I have to link them to Selia, the dancing girl from Hispalis I mentioned to you before. She helped get a man killed in Rome-and someone almost certainly hired her."
For once it was Optatus who laughed. "I told you before! You won't find many of those girls in Baetica; they all sail off to make their fortunes in Rome!"
Well that was good. It should be easier to identify the one who had sneaked back to Spain.
"Mind you…" mused Optatus, as if he had had a thought he rather liked, "I ought to be able to introduce you to someone else-Quinctius Quadratus." I raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. He smiled. "Falco, you need to meet people and sample some entertainment in Corduba. I know where to find it."
"One of the boys, eh?" I tried hard to believe it, though it was difficult to see him as a ringleader at a bachelors' night out. In there with the best of them," he claimed. So what disreputable scheme do you have in store for us?"
"I've heard that Annaeus Maximus is going to visit his Gades estate. The last time he left Corduba-when he went to Rome to see Quinctius Attractus-his sons held a party where so much damage was caused they were forbidden to invite their friends home again."
"I saw them in passing the other night. Nice lads!"
Optatus grinned. "I've also heard that the minute Maximus leaves for Gades, Spunky, Dotty and Ferret will be defying their parents and holding open house again!"
Every parent's nightmare. Once I would have been delighted. Now I found myself wondering whether poor Annaeus Maximus could somehow be warned to take his cellar keys to Gades. I knew why I felt so dispirited: one day there would be out-of-control young persons throwing up in my own Attic vase collection. One day it would be my polished sandalwood table that some little drunken idiot decided to dance upon while wearing her sharpest-heeled shoes.
Then as I glanced at Helena (who was regarding me rather quizzically) I felt able to view coming events at the Annaeus house with greater complacency: after all, my own children would be brought up well. With model parents, they would love us and be loyal. They would heed our prohibitions and follow our advice. My children would be different.
This job was taking longer than I wanted-like most of my work. At least it was civilized. I was more accustomed to being compelled to get drunk during long waits in seedy wine bars, and joining in the occasional fight with a bunch of roughs in the kind of location you don't let your mother know about.
Next day it was back to Corduba, determined this time to force a meeting with Cyzacus, the bargee I had seen being dined out by Quinctius Attractus back in Rome. Helena Justina came with me. She pretended my constant trips had made her suspect I was keeping a light woman somewhere, but it turned out that when we had driven in together on the Parilia Helena had discovered a manufacturer of purple dye, the expensive juice extracted from murex shells that is used for top-rank uniforms. While I had been chatting to the proconsul she had ordered a quantity of cloth. Now she said she wanted my company-though it was also a chance to pick up her bargain.
Sweetheart, I hate to be pedantic but nobody in either of our families is an army commander, let alone a candidate for emperor!" I wondered if she was making wild plans for our baby. Political ambition in Helena was a terrifying prospect. Helena Justina was the kind of girl whose wild plans came into effect.
"Bought here, the stuff is so reasonable, Marcus. And I know just who wants it!" I would never match her in deviousness: Helena intended to offer the purple material at cost to the Emperor's mistress when we went home. She reckoned that if all the stories of frugality (otherwise called meanness) in Vespasian's household were true, the lady Caenis would leap at this chance to kit out Vespasian, Titus Caesar, and the sprog Domitian in really cheap imperial uniforms. In return, there might be a chance that Vespasian's darling, strongly encouraged by my darling, would put in a good word for me to him. "It's more likely to work than smarming around your friend Laeta," Helena sneered.
She was probably right. The wheels of empire turn on barter. After all, that was why I was spending the end of April flogging around Corduba.
I had managed to persuade Helena to meet the midwife I had interviewed. She screwed out of me what had happened during my own introduction. "So that's what upset you!" she muttered darkly, grabbing my hand in a rather fierce manner. She must have noticed I came back from town yesterday in a bad mood. Her promise to have a look at the woman herself lacked conviction, I thought.
I was now very familiar with the sluggish River Baetis, its sudden petering out at the sixteen-arch bridge, and the lazy wheeling of marsh birds above the wooden wharf with its collection of rough and ready sheds. At last there were signs of activity, though the riverside was not exactly heaving with life.
Marmarides parked our carriage in a tree-shaded area where stakes had been set up for tethering wagons and mules. It was a beautiful morning. We all walked slowly to the water's edge. Nux trotted happily alongside, thinking she was in charge of the party. We passed a large character who was crouching down talking quietly to a clutch of choice African fowl as he put together a new henhouse. Far out, a man was crouched in a small raft with a fishing line, with the air of having found a good excuse to sleep in the sun.
A barge which had been motionless at the wharf for three days to my knowledge now had its covers off; looking down into it we could see rows of the distinctive globular amphorae in which oil was transported long distances. They were packed several deep, each balanced between the necks of the previous layer, with reeds stuffed among them to prevent movement. The weight must have been enormous, and the sturdy barge had sagged low in the water.
Cyzacus' office-a shed with a stool set outside it-was open today. Not much else had improved.
Presumably once harvest time started in September the action here would be hectic. In spring, nothing much happened for days on end, unless a convoy of copper, gold or silver happened to come down from the mines in the Mariana mountains. Left in charge during this dead period was a run-down, rasping runt with one leg shorter than the other and a wine jug clamped under his arm. Nux barked at him once loudly, then when he turned and stared at her she lost interest and confined herself to blinking at clouds of midges.
"Cyzacus here?" No chance, legate!"
"When's he due?"
"You tell me." Does he ever show his face?" Hardly ever."
"Who runs the business?"
"I reckon it runs itself."
He was well trained. Most useless lags who pretend to be watchmen feel compelled to tell you at length how pitiful the management is and how draconian are their own employment terms. Life was one long holiday for this reprobate, and he didn't intend to complain.
"When was the last time you saw Cyzacus down on the wharf?"
"Couldn't tell you, legate."
"So if I wanted to ask someone to arrange to ship a large load down to Hispalis, say, I wouldn't ask for him?"
"You could ask. It wouldn't do you any good."
I could tell Helena was losing her temper. Marmarides, who nursed the fond idea that what he called agenting was tough work with interesting highlights, was beginning to look openly bored. Being an informer is hard enough, without subordinates who expect thrills and quaking suspects.
"Who runs the business?" I repeated.
The lag sucked his teeth. "Well not Cyzacus. Cyzacus has pretty well retired nowadays. Cyzacus is more what you'd call a figurehead."
"Somebody must sign the invoices. Does Cyzacus have a son?" I demanded, thinking of all the other men involved in the conspiracy.
The man with the wine jug burst out laughing, then felt the need to take a hefty swig. He was already obstinate and awkward. Soon he would be obstinate, awkward, and drunk.
When he stopped chortling he told me the story: Cyzacus and his son had fallen out. I should have known, really. I fell out with my own father, after all. This son had run away from home-the only oddity was what he had run off to do: Spain produced the Empire's best gladiators. In most towns boys dream of upsetting their parents by fighting in the arena, but maybe in Spain that's the sensible career that they rebel against. At any rate, when Cyzacus junior had his blazing row with Papa and left home forever with just a clean tunic and his mother's hoarded housekeeping, he ran off to be a poet.
"Well, Hispania has produced a lot of poets," said Helena quietly.
"It's just a different way of messing me about," I snarled at the watchman. "Now look here, you great poppy: I don't want a tragic ode, I want the man in charge."
He knew the game was up. "Fair enough. No hard feelings-" My feelings should have been obvious. Then he told me that when Cyzacus senior was disappointed by his boy's flight to literature, he adopted someone more suitable: someone who had been a gladiator, so he had nothing to prove. "Now he has Gorax."
"Then I'll speak to Gorax."
"Ooh I don't advise it, legate!"
I asked what the problem was and he pointed towards the large man we had seen earlier engaged in building a henhouse: Gorax had no time for visitors because of his chickens.
Helena Justina gave up on my investigation and said she would go into town for her purple cloth. Marmarides escorted her back to the carriage, reluctantly because he knew the name Gorax: Gorax had once been famous even as far as Malaca, though now he was retired.
Never one to shrink from challenges, I said chickens or no chickens, he would have to speak to me.
I approached quietly, already having second thoughts. He was covered in scars. What he lacked in height he made up in width and bodyweight. His movements were gentle and he showed no wariness of strangers: if any stranger looked at him the wrong way Gorax could just wrap him around a tree. Gorax must have been a gladiator who had known what he was doing. That was why, after twenty bouts in the arena, he was still alive.
I could see the big fellow was really enjoying himself, building his chickens a house. I had been told by the watchman that Gorax had a girlfriend who lived downstream near Hispalis; she had given him the poultry, to provide a safe hobby while he was away from her. It seemed to have worked; he was clearly entranced by the birds. The great softhearted lunk looked completely absorbed by his pretty cockerel and three hens as they pecked up maize.
They were finer than common barnyard poultry, special guinea-fowl so delicate they begged to be fussily hand-reared. Neat, dark-feathered birds, with bare heads and bony helmet crests, all speckled like fritillaries.
As I tentatively approached him, he stood up to stare at me. He might have been willing to allow a polite interruption, especially if I admired his pets. But that was before he glanced around his little flock and noticed that only two of the precious hens were there. The third had wandered off along the wharf towards the tethered barge-where she was about to be spotted by Nux.
The dog let out quite a tentative yip when she first noticed the hen. For a single drumbeat, Nux pondered in an amiable fashion whether to make friends with the bird. Then the hen saw Nux and fluttered up onto a bollard with a frantic cluck. Delighted, Nux sprang into the chase.
As the dog began to rush towards the little hen, the huge gladiator dropped the hammer with which he had been nailing up a perch. He pounded off to save his pet, holding another bird under his arm. I sprinted after him. He naturally had the turn of speed a fighter needs to surprise an unwary opponent with a death-thrust. Oblivious, Nux sat down on her tail and had a meditative scratch.
Marmarides had been lurking by the carriage, unwilling to leave with Helena while I was talking to the famous Gorax. He saw the fun start. I glimpsed his slight figure running our way. Three of us were converging on the dog and the hen-though it was doubtful whether any of us would reach them in time.
Then the stunted watchman, still clutching his wine, began dancing about on the wharf. Nux thought it was a game; she re-
membered the hen and decided to fetch it for him. Marmarides whooped. I gulped. Gorax shrieked. The hen squawked hysterically. So did the other one, squashed against the mighty chest of Gorax. Nux barked again ecstatically and jumped at the hen on the bollard.
Flapping its wings (and losing feathers) the endangered fowl flew off the bollard, and scooted along the wharf just ahead of Nux's eager nose. Then the stupid thing took off and flapped down into the barge. Gorax rushed at Nux. She had been up on the edge of the planking having a bark at the hen but with a heavyweight bearing down on her, yelling obvious murder, the dog leapt straight after the hen. The hen tried to flutter up off the barge again but was terrified of the watchman peering down and calling obscene endearments. Nux floundered amongst the necks of the amphorae, paws flailing.
I jumped off the quayside onto the barge. It was basic-no features to grab. I had no time to judge my footing, so one end of the boat swung out suddenly into the stream as I landed. Gorax, who had been about to step aboard himself, slipped on the thwart as the tethered end bumped the quay unexpectedly; he crashed to the deck with one leg overboard. Landing on his chest, he crushed the hen he had been carrying. From his expression, he knew he had killed it. I teetered wildly, trying hard to keep my balance since I could not swim.
Marmarides skidded up the quay and chose a target. He gave the watchman a shove, so the befuddled fool tipped straight into the river. He started screaming, then gurgling. Marmarides had a change of heart and plunged in after him.
Gorax had let out a whine as he cradled the dead bird, but he dropped it as Nux scrabbled closer to the one that was still flapping. Gorax went for the dog, so I aimed at the fowl. We collided, lost our footing on the amphorae, and caused a nasty crack of pottery underfoot. The ex-gladiator had gone through one and was ankle-deep in broken pot. As he struggled to extricate his leg the container broke again, so he was up to his knee, with oil sloshing everywhere. To regain his balance he grabbed at me. "Ooh be gentle!"
Unlikely! I had a swift glimpse of his gullet as he let out a wild cry. Even his tonsils were terrifying. I thought he was going to bite off my nose, but just then a refined voice cut through the racket saying, "Leave it out, Gorax! You're frightening the fish away!"
Gorax, all obedience, dragged his leg out of the smashed amphora, trailing blood and golden oil. Then he sat down on the edge of the barge and held the dead fowl on his massive knee, while tears streamed down his face.
"Thanks!" I said quietly to the newcomer. I grabbed Nux with one hand, and made my way carefully to the river side of the barge, where a thin man who was propelling a raft with a pole had stuck his head above the deckline to see what was going on. I crouched and offered a handshake. "The name's Falco."
"Cyzacus," he said.
I managed to keep my temper. "You're not the man I was introduced to by that name in Rome!"
"You must mean Father."
"Apollo! You're the poet?"
"I am!" he responded, rather tetchily. "Sorry; I thought you had left home."
"I did," said Cyzacus junior, punting his raft around to the wharfside with some competence.
"You wield a mean oar, for a man of literature." Clamping the dog under my arm, I had regained the wharf. After Cyzacus tied up his raft I reached down and helped him spring up onto the jetty.
He had a slight body and a few whiffs of hair, amongst which was actually a stylus shoved behind his ear. Maybe the fishing was a cover for writing a ten-volume magisterial epic to glorify Rome.
(Or maybe like my Uncle Fabius he was the crazy type who liked to note down descriptions of every fish he caught-date, weight, coloring, time of day, weather, and bait used on the hook…) He did look like a poet, saturnine and vague, probably with no sense about money and hopeless with women. He was about forty- probably the same as his adopted brother Gorax. There appeared to be no animosity between them, for Cyzacus went to console the big hulk, who eventually shrugged, tossed the dead hen into the river, and came back onto the wharf cooing over the live one fondly while it tried to fly away. He had simple emotions and a short attention span; perfect in the arena, and probably just as useful sorting out wholesalers who wanted to hire space on the barge.
"He organizes the loads," Cyzacus told me. "I keep the records."
"Of course, a poet can write!"
"There's no need for cheek."
"I'm just fascinated. You went to Rome?"
"And I came back," he said shortly. "I failed to find a patron. Nobody came to my public readings; my scrolls failed to sell." He spoke with much bitterness. It had never entered his head that wanting to be famous for writing was not enough. Maybe he was a bad poet.
I wasn't going to be the man who pointed this out, not with Gorax standing beside him looking immensely proud of his creative business partner. An ex-gladiator's brother is entitled to respect. The two were about the same height, though the big one filled about three times the space of the other. They looked totally different, but I already sensed there were closer bonds between them than between most real brothers who have grown up squabbling.
"Never mind," I said. "The world has far too many tragedies and almost enough satires. And at least while you're dreaming on a raft on the River Baetis you'll be spared too many crass interruptions to your thoughts." The failed poet suspected I was ragging him, so I went on quickly, "I was just explaining to Gorax when the fracas blew up, your father and I met at a very pleasant dinner in Rome."
"Father does the trips abroad," Cyzacus junior confirmed.
"What was it? Making contacts?"
Cyzacus and Gorax exchanged looks. One thought himself intellectual and one was a beaten-up punchbag-but neither was dumb.
"You're the man from Rome!" Cyzacus told me in a sour voice.
Gorax snarled. "We were expecting you."
"I should hope you were. I've been here three times!" I bluffed it out. "The office has been closed."
They exchanged looks again. Whatever they told me, I could see it would be a concocted story. Somebody had already primed them to be difficult.
"All right," I confided in a friendly fashion. "Corduba seems a town that has no secrets. I don't know how closely you work with your old man, but I need to ask him about the oil business."
"Father stays in Hispalis," the true son said. "That's where the guild of bargees have their headquarters. He's a big man in the guild." He looked pleased with himself for this unhelpfulness.
"I'd better go down to Hispalis, then," I retorted, undeterred. Once more I noticed the two brothers shifting nervously. "Is this load on the barge going downriver soon? Can I hitch a ride?"
They did tell me when the barge would be leaving; they were probably relieved to let their father deal with me. From what I remembered, he had looked a tougher proposition. Gorax even offered to let me go to Hispalis on the barge for free. This was one of the perks of informing. People I interviewed often seemed glad to pay my fare to send me on to the next person, especially if the next person lived a hundred miles away.
"It must be slightly inconvenient for the bargees," I suggested, "having so much trade from Corduba, when your guild is set up at Hispalis?"
The poet smiled. "It works. At Cyzacus et Filii we see ourselves as go-betweens in every sense."
I smiled back at the pair of them. "Many people have told me that Cyzacus et Filii are the most influential bargemen on the Baetis."
"That's right," said Gorax.
"So if the oil producers were banding together to further their trade, your firm would be in there too, representing the guild of bargees?"
The younger Cyzacus knew full well I was referring to the proposed cartel. "The bargees and the oil producers tend to stick firmly to their separate interests."
"Oh, I must have got it wrong then; I understood your father went to Rome to be part of some negotiations for a new system of price banding?"
"No, he went to Rome as part of a visit to the guild's offices at Ostia."
"I see! Tell me, does your father have any connections with dancing girls these days?"
They both laughed. It was perfectly genuine. They told me their parent had not looked at a girl for fifty years, and with the innocence of loyal sons they really believed it, I could tell.
Then we all had to stop sidestepping as our attention was claimed by a desperate cry. Still down in the river, my driver Mar-marides was floating on his back in an approved Roman legionary manner (which he must have learned in the service of his master Stertius) gripping the watchman under the chin to keep his head above water, while the watchman clutched his wine jug and they both waited patiently for somebody to throw them down a rope.
My social life was looking up. I was acquiring a full calendar, what with Optatus promising me japes among the bachelors of Corduba, and my free ticket down the Baetis.
Had the elder Cyzacus been the sole reason for visiting Hispalis I might have dropped him as a suspect to interview, but there was also the negotiator Norbanus, who arranged ocean-going shipping from the downstream port. I might even trace the elusive and murderous "Selia"-assuming that the fake shepherdess who chucked the stone at me had used her real name. Hispalis posed a problem, however. On my mapskin it looked a good ninety Roman miles away-as the raven flies. The River Baetis appeared to meander atrociously. That could mean anything from a week to a fortnight floating down to do interviews that might add absolutely nothing to my knowledge. I could not afford to waste so much time. Every day when I looked at Helena Justina I was struck by anxiety.
Cyzacus and Gorax had almost certainly wanted to make me waste time for no good reason. If those two managed to put a government agent out of action for a fortnight by trapping him on a very slow barge miles away from anywhere, they would feel proud of themselves. They were protecting their father, not realizing how urgently I wanted to trace the dancer and that if I did go to Hispalis she would be my main quarry. I felt sure their father must have reported full details of the dinner, though whether he had told them anything about the attacks afterwards would depend on how much he trusted them. Clearly the poet's time in Rome, while it failed to make him a famous man of letters, had taught him to be a thoroughgoing Celtiberian pain in the backside.
I had now interviewed two suspects, Annaeus Maximus and Licinius Rufius. There were two more in Hispalis, assuming I ever made it there. Yet another pair could well be implicated, even though they had ducked out of the dinner on the Palatine: young Rufius Constans and the Quinctius son. They had both been in Rome at the right time. Optatus reckoned Quinctius Quadratus exerted a bad influence on Constans-though until I met Quadratus and judged him for myself I had to allow for some prejudice in his ex-tenant. Yet the wary Greek secretary at the house of Quinctius Attractus who first told me that the two young men had bunked off to the theater had been very reluctant to give me details. Neither the youngsters themselves nor their whereabouts had seemed important to the inquiry then. Now I was not so sure.
This was one avenue I would be able to pursue immediately, for Optatus had established that the three Annaei were holding their party only a couple of evenings later. Through old channels of communication he had obtained a ready invitation for the pair of us. Young Rufius was trying not to offend his grandfather by openly fraternizing with rivals, so he was pretending to visit us that evening and we were taking him. Marmarides would drive us, and later bring home any who had managed to remain sober. Helena seemed to be remembering the last time I went off without her, when I could not even find the right way home afterwards. She saw us off with an intense sniff of disapproval. Apparently Claudia Rufina was taking the same attitude; she stayed at home with their grandparents, though she seemed very fond of her brother and had sportingly agreed not to give him away.
I myself took a conscious decision that evening not to wear anything that might show stains. Optatus had dressed up; he was in a suavely styled outfit that made excellent use of the famous Baetican cinnabar dye, a rich vermilion pigment, complemented by heavily formal black braid on the neck and shoulder seams. With this came an incongruous set of antique finger-rings and a faint waft of balsam around his carefully shaved jowls. It all gave him an air of being up to no good. Even so, he was outshone by the youth.
This was my first real encounter with Rufius Constans. We were all just in tunics-no ceremony in the provinces-and his was the finest quality. I was barely neat; Optatus had on his best. Rufius Constans could well look down on both of us. In his casually worn white linen, his gleaming niello belt, his shaped calfskin boots and even a torque (Jove!), he was far more comfortable in his clothes; he had coffers full at home. So here was a rich lad with high aspirations, setting off for a night among friends, beautifully turned out-yet he was jumpy as a flea.
Constans was pleasant-looking, nothing more. His nose, set in a young, unformed face, was a weak shadow of his sister's but there was something of her in the way he peered shyly at the world. At twenty or so, I felt he had not yet decided his ethical position. He seemed unfinished, and lacking the weight he would need for the elite public career his proud grandfather had charted for him. Maybe I was feeling old.
"I've been meaning to ask you," I tackled the young man casually, "how did you enjoy the theater?"
"What?" He had a light voice and restless eyes. It may be that any lad of twenty who finds himself knee to knee in a jolting carriage with an older man who has a lively reputation may automatically look shifty. Or perhaps he had something to hide.
"I nearly met you during your trip to Rome with your grandfather. But you and Quinctius Quadratus decided to go to the theater instead." Was it my imagination or did the playgoer look hunted? "See anything good?"
"Can't remember. A mime, I think. Tiberius took me drinking afterwards; it's all a blur."
It was too early in the night to turn nasty on him. I smiled and let the lie go past. I felt convinced it was a lie. "You want to be careful if you go out on the town in Rome. You could get mugged. People are getting beaten up on the streets all the time. You didn't see any of that, I suppose?"
"Oh no."
"That's good."
"I'm sorry I missed the chance of meeting you," Rufius added. He had been brought up to be polite.
"You missed some excitement too," I said.
I did not say what, and he displayed no curiosity. An exceptional young fellow, apparently.
I felt sour. I was still thinking about the dead Valentinus, and even about Anacrites, when the carriage pulled up at the smart out-of-town Annaeus residence.
Lucius Annaeus Maximus Primus, Lucius Annaeus Aelius Maximus, and Lucius Annaeus Maximus Novatus (to honor Spunky, Dotty and Ferret officially) knew how to throw a bash. Money was no object, and neither was taste. They had the household slaves scampering about with great vigor. It was all much more exciting than the stultified jollifications I had seen here at the Parilia festival. Released from parental authority, our hosts were being themselves, and a hilarious trio they were. I was glad they weren't my boys.
They had bought up every garland of flowers in Corduba. Their father's frescoed house smelt like all the gardens of ancient Tartessos, its air thick with pollen, a nightmare for sensitive noses.
To add to the lamp smoke, the floral scents and the all-pervading aromatic odors of young bodies given unaccustomed hours of grooming, the lads had devised an Egyptian theme for the evening. It involved a few homemade dog-headed gods, some wicker snakes, two ostrich-feather fans, and cones of scented wax which new arrivals were instructed to wear on their heads: as the heat of the party rose so the cones would melt, giving everyone a bitter aura of Pharaonic myrrh and impossibly matted hair. I made sure I lost mine.
Word had gone around all the baths and gymnasiums in town that the three great lads were holding a party. The news had spread like foot fungus. The seediest youths of the city had suddenly muttered to their parents that they were going over to a friend's house, being careful not to specify which friend. All over Corduba parents were now vaguely wondering where their pallid offspring had scuttled off to, and why there was such a reek of breath-freshening pastilles. Inadequate teenage owners of large personal allowances, mostly with skinny shoulders and pustular skin, had been waiting weeks for this night. They were hoping it would make men of them; the only certainty was that it would make them bilious.
Girls had come too. Some were nice, though their reputations might not last the evening. Some were slightly soiled to begin with and would be horrendous by the time they had swallowed several jugs of unwatered wine and had their frocks pulled off behind laurel bushes. Some were clearly professionals.
"It's worse than I expected, Falco," Optatus confessed.
"You're getting too old to take it?"
"I feel like a bad-tempered grandfather."
"You're not entering into the spirit."
"Are you?" he huffed defiantly.
"I'm here to work." That made me wonder: What was Marius Optatus here for? He had some ulterior motive, I was sure of it. Optatus and I were the eldest men there. At least ten years separated the Annaeus sons. Primus, the eldest, might be almost our age, but his youngest brother was not yet twenty, and Fortune had arranged it that he was the one with the most friends. This largest group coalesced first, though all they did was to mill around trying to find food, drink or sinful women; they were stuck with the stuff in cups and bowls because they did not know how to recognize the other. We worried them. (They worried me.) We belonged to a wholly different generation. They all slipped by us, avoiding contact, because they thought we were somebody's parental police.
A second party had developed in the cellar, to which friends of Dotty, the middle son, zoomed with a sense of purpose which would quickly leave them. They despised food, and had probably tried women, but were all betrothed to sweet, virginal girls (who were currently behind bushes with other young men). Suspicions that they were being deceived, and that life would only bring them more of the same, made the middle son's cronies a brooding, cynical group. Optatus and I exchanged a few witty thoughts with them, before we moved on.
Spunky, who would be known to posterity and the Censor as the honorable Lucius Annaeus Maximus Primus, was pretending to be grown up. He had retreated from the noise and debauchery to his father's elegant library. It was a quiet upper room with a splendid balcony which gave views across the ornate gardens, There he and a few jaded companions were pulling scrolls from their pigeonholes, examining them satirically, then tossing them into a heap on the floor. An amphora had made a vicious ring on a marble side table. Another had been knocked over after uncorking, so some spirited soul had pulled down a curtain to mop up the mess. How thoughtful. I was pleased to see they were not all bad.
Optatus told me this Annaeus, unlike his two younger brothers, was actually married, though to a girl so young she remained with her parents while he simply enjoyed the income from her dowry and pretended he was still safe from responsibility. He was a plump-faced, solidly built young Baetican, whose amiable nature made him instantly forgive me for being the man he and his brothers had shoved about (twice) the last time I visited their palatial home. He greeted Optatus like a lost lamb. Optatus seemed genuinely friendly towards him.
Rufius Constans, though rather young for this group, had already made his way here. I thought he colored up when I first walked through the door, and after I found myself a place to squat he seemed to edge away as far as possible. Wine was being splashed around at that point, so maybe he just wanted to avoid the spillage. Slaves were serving, but they looked extremely anxious. When the guests wanted more, they bawled for it loudly; if nobody came soon enough they grabbed the jugs for themselves, deliberately missing their cups when they poured.
I had been among this type before. It was a long time since I had found them amusing. I knew what to expect. They would sit around for hours, getting pointlessly drunk. Their conversation would consist of bloody-minded politics, coarse abuse of women, boasting about their chariots, then making exaggerated assessments of their wealth and the sizes of their pricks. Their brains were no bigger than chickpeas, that's for sure. I won't speculate on the rest.
Several scions from other families were among this group. They were introduced to me at the time, though I reckoned there was no real need to remember them. These would be the chubby heirs to all the fine folk Helena and I had seen at the Parilia, the tight little section of snobs who ran everything in Corduba. One day these would be the snobs themselves. There would come a time for most of them when a father would die, or they married, or a close friend was killed very young; then they would move silently from being crass young idiots to being the spit image of their staid fathers.
"Bollocks!" muttered a voice beside me in the chaos.
I had thought I was next to Optatus, but when I turned it was another who had joined us without introductions. I knew who he was. I had seen him here before, collecting Aelia Annaea, and since then I had learned that he was Quinctius Quadratus.
At close quarters familial resemblance to his father was clear. He had a thick thatch of black crinkled hair, muscular arms, and a lordly expression. He was tanned, hirsute and strong-featured. Sporting and popular. Possessed of ease and happy arrogance. He wore a white tunic with broad purple stripes and had even put on his scarlet boots, things I had rarely seen in Rome: he was a senator-elect, and new enough to want to be seen in every detail of the historic uniform. I was looking at the recently appointed financial controller of Baetica. Even though the proconsul was unhappy with his assignment here, Quadratus himself was flaunting it. So I already knew one thing: he had no official tact.
The cause of his exclamation was not a spot of mind-reading, but an uncouth response to a scroll which he had plucked from the library columbarium. I couldn't read the title. He sneered, rolled it up very tightly, then stuffed it into the neck of an empty wine vessel like a plug.
"Well, well," I said. "They told me you were charming and gifted, but not that your talents extended to instant crits of literature."
"I can read," he answered lazily. "I say, I don't believe we've met?"
I viewed him benignly. "The name's Falco. And of course I know who you are, quaestor."
"There's no need to be formal," he assured me in his charming way.
"Thanks," I said.
"Have you come out from Rome?"
"That's right," I replied for the second time that night. "We nearly bumped into each other there recently, but I hear you were
at the theater instead. The last dinner for the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers?"
"Oh them!" he replied offhandedly.
"What was the play? Any good?"
"A farce, I think." Rufius Constans had pretended it was a mime. "So-so." Or not. He paused. He knew what I was doing here. "Is this an interview?"
"Great gods no," I laughed, reaching for more wine. "I'm bloody well off duty tonight, if you don't mind!"
"That's good," smiled Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus, quaestor of Baetica. He was off duty too, of course. The proconsul had arranged that.
The room was squashed, and noisy with brash young idiots' chatter. What was more, they were about to amuse themselves playing the ancient Greek game of kottabos. Spunky, who would have made a good crony for the Athenian reprobate Alcibiades, had been given the apparatus for his birthday-an aptly chosen gift from his younger brothers. Clearly nobody had told him that kottabos explains why the Greeks no longer rule the world.
For refined readers of this memoir who will certainly never encounter it, kottabos was invented by a group of uproarious drunks. You have a tall stand, with a large bronze disc suspended horizontally halfway up. A small metal target is balanced on the top of the stand. The players drink their wine, then flick their cups to expel the dregs. They aim to make the flying lees hit the target so it falls off and hits the lower disc with a noise like a bell. All the wine they flick splatters the room and themselves.
That's it: A little gem from the wise, wonderful people who invented the classic proportions of sculpture and the tenets of moral philosophy.
By mutual consent Quadratus and I took wine and cups to drink it from, then we moved out smartly to the balcony. We were the mature ones here. We were men of the world. Well, he was a Roman official, and I was a man of the world. So we drew apart to give ourselves space to spread a bit. (It's hard to fulfill your potential as a man of the world when your knees are jammed under a reading couch and a murex-merchant's nephew has just belched in your ear.) Optatus, who was talking earnestly to young Constans, raised his winecup wryly as I stepped over him, following my smart new pal.
We were going to be pals, that was obvious. Quadratus was accustomed to being friendly with everyone, apparently. Or maybe his father had warned him I was dangerous and should be disarmed if possible.
The night air was cool and perfect, barely touched by the scent of the torches that flickered on the terraces below. Occasional shrieks reached us from crude horseplay among the adolescents. We sat on the marble balustrade, leaning against pillars, and drank Baetican white and the fresh air in equal measure.
"So, Falco-Baetica must be a change from Rome?"
"I wish I had more time to enjoy it." There is nothing like a fake polite chat to bring on my apoplectic tic. "My wife's expecting. I promised to take her home for the birth."
"Your wife? She's the sister of Camillus Aelianus, isn't she? I didn't know you were actually married."
"There's a theory that marriage consists of the decision by two people to live as man and wife."
"Oh is there?" His reaction was innocent. As I expected, he had been educated by the best tutors-and he knew nothing. He'd be a magistrate one day, laying down laws he had never heard of to people whose lives in the real world he would never understand. That's Rome. City of glorious tradition-including the one that if the landed elite can bugger up the little man, they will.
"Ask any barrister." I could be pleasant too. I grinned at him. "Helena and I are conducting an experiment to see how long it takes the rest of Rome to admit the fine theory holds good."
"You're very courageous! So will your child be illegitimate?" He wasn't carping, just curious.
"I had assumed so-until it struck me that if we regard ourselves as married, how can it be? I'm a free citizen and I'll register it proudly."
Quinctius Quadratus whistled quietly. After a while he said, "Aelianus is a good lad. One of our set. The best."
"Bit of a lively character?" Quadratus chuckled. "He lost his rag over you!"
"I know."
"He'll be all right when he finds his feet."
"Good to hear." Young men with weak spots are always keen to assess others. The quaestor's patronizing tone almost made me defend Aelianus. "Lad about town?" I suggested, hoping for dirt.
"Not as much as he liked to think."
"A bit immature?"
"Cock shy."
"That won't last!"
We poured more wine.
"The trouble with Aelianus," the quaestor confided dismis-sively, "is he can't judge his length. The family's poor as Hades. He's aiming for the Senate with absolutely no collateral. He needs to make a rich alliance. We tried to set him up with Claudia Rutna.
"No good?" I prompted neutrally.
"He wanted more. His idea was Aelia Annaea. I ask you!"
"Too old for him, presumably?"
"Too old, too sharp, too aware of what she's got."
"And what's that?"
"A quarter of her papa's estate when he passes on-plus the whole of her husband's property."
"I knew she was widowed."
"Better than that. She had the good taste to be widowed by a man with no close family. There were no children and no co-heirs. He left her everything."
"Wonderful! How much was 'everything'?"
"A whopping tract of land-and a small gold mine at Hispalis."
"She seems a nice girl!" I commented, and we laughed.
"The Annaeus lads look like a boisterous bunch."
"Just the job," cackled Quadratus. He libeled his friends without a second thought: "Thick as curd cheese, and just as rich!"
That seemed to sum up Spunky, Dotty and Ferret well enough for my purposes.
"What's your reaction to young Rufius?" I asked, hoping that his protege at least would attract some approval. "Oh Jupiter, what a waste!"
"How's that?"
"Haven't you noticed? All that energy being squandered on making him something, but he's just not up to it. There's some decent cash in the family, but Constans is never going to use it properly." He defined everything in monetary terms. It grew wearisome for a man like me, with virtually nothing in the bank.
"You don't think he will be the success his grandfather wants? Won't he make it to Rome?"
"Oh he can be bumped into the posts, of course. Licinius Rufius can afford to get him whatever he wants. But Constans will never enjoy it. He doesn't command much attention here, and the sharks in Rome will swallow him. He can't take Grandpa along to give him authority."
"He's young. He could grow into it."
"He's just a raw Spanish ham that's not been smoked enough.
I try," Quadratus declared. "I show him a thing or two when I can."
"I expect he looks up to you."
A sudden grin split the handsome face. I had disturbed the smooth, bland, utterly plausible exterior and the result was a shock. "Now you're pissing yourself laughing at me!" He said it without malice. His candor in discussing his friends had had a tone I didn't care for, but he knew how and when to turn the conversation. He seemed modest now. People were right to compliment his charm.
"Someone told me, Quadratus, you were about to exchange contracts with the Rufius girl yourself?"
He gave me a level stare. "I couldn't comment. My father will make any marriage announcement in due course."
"Not ready yet?"
"You have to get it right."
"Oh yes; it's an important decision for anyone."
"There are personal issues-and I must think of my career."
I had guessed correctly. He would never be paired off in Baetica.
"Tell me about yourself, Falco."
"Oh I'm nobody."
"Bull's testicles!" he said crudely. "That's not what I heard."
"Why, what have you heard?"
"You're a political drain-cleaner. You do missions for the Emperor. There's some rumor about you sorting a problem in the British silver mines." I said nothing. My work in Britain was known only to a very close circle. It was highly sensitive. Records of the mission had been burned, and however important the quaestor's father thought himself in Rome, Attractus ought not to have known about it. If he really did, that would alarm the Emperor.
My experience in the mines at Vebiodunum, disguised as a slave, was one I never talked about. Dirt, vermin, beatings, starvation, exhaustion, the filthy overseer whose kindest punishment was to strangle the culprit while his only notion of reward was an hour of enforced buggery… My face must have changed. Quadratus was unobservant, however.
My silence did not make him stop to think. It merely offered another opportunity to show off what somebody had told him. "Don't you specialize in mineral rights, Falco? I thought you looked keen when I mentioned Aelia Annaea's legacy. You're in the right province. There's iron, silver, copper and gold in huge quantities. A lot of it's at Corduba-I have to know all this stuff for my work," he explained.
"The aes Marianum" I answered steadily. "That's the famous copper mine at Corduba that produces the fine ore for all Roman bronze coins. Tiberius wanted to bring it under state control. He had the millionaire who owned it, Sextus Marius, thrown off the Tarpeian Rock on the Capitol."
"How come?"
"Accused of incest."
"That's disgusting."
"It was a trumped-up charge." I smiled. I nearly added that nothing changes-but the dumb optimist in me hoped with Vespasian's arrival it might have done.
"You amaze me, knowing all that, Falco!"
"I collect information."
"For professional reasons?"
"I'm an informer. Stories are the material of my trade."
"I'll have to be careful, then," Quadratus grinned. "My father's on the Senate committee that runs the mint mines."
That gave me an unpleasant feeling: Quinctius Attractus trying to dabble one more sticky finger in Baetica. Fortunately there was an imperial procurator actually in charge of the aes Marianum mine. He would be an equestrian, a career official whose only concern would be doing the job right for his own sake. The other side of government: and not even the Quinctii could interfere with that.
"The Senate committee, eh?" It fitted the pattern. Attractus wanted influence in every sphere of this province. Getting a place on the committee would have been easy, given his strong local interests. "I'm surprised your family aren't involved in mineral production."
"Oh we are," laughed young Quadratus. "There's a silver mine that's run by a society at Castulo. My father shares the franchise; he's a leading member of the Society. I'm standing in for him while I'm out here. We have our own copper mine too."
I should have known.
"I'm surprised you have the time for personal work," I cut in coolly. I had let him run until I felt I knew him, but his time was up. "A quaestorship is not an easy ride."
"I'm not really worked in yet."
"So I gather."
His face did not alter. He had no idea what those in the know would think of him being given hunting leave before he had even started. How could he? He was a raw egg in bureaucracy. He probably thought the proconsul had done him some kind of favor. Favors are what people like him expect. Duties don't come into it.
"Of course there's a lot of responsibility," he declared. I put on my sympathetic face and let him talk. "I reckon I can handle it."
"The Senate and the Emperor must believe you can, quaestor."
"Of course there are well-established routines."
"And permanent employees who are used to doing the work."
"There will still be some tricky decisions to take. They'll need me for those."
The po-faced scribe from Hadrumetum whom I had met at the
proconsular palace would be able to cope with any decisions the quaestor was supposed to put his name to.
I served Quadratus more wine. My own cup still sat brimful on the balustrade. "What's in your remit?" He shrugged vaguely. These lads are never sent to their provinces with a proper brief; I summarized the quaestor's role for him: "Apart from deputizing for the proconsul in the law courts, there's collection of property taxes, provincial poll tax, port taxes, inheritance tax, and the state percentage on manumission of slaves. Hispania's huge. Baetica may not be the biggest province, but it's the richest and most populous. The sums you oversee must be significant."
"It's not real money, though."
I disagreed. "It's real enough to the merchants and heads of household who have to cough up!"
"Oh it all comes out of their budget… From my point of view it's just figures. I'm not obliged to get my hands dirty counting coins."
I refrained from saying I was surprised he could even count. "You may never touch the dosh, but you've been entrusted with a full range of headaches: the collecting disbursing safeguarding, managing and controlling of public funds.'"
Quadratus was taking the flippant line. "I suppose the records will come to me and I'll approve them-or I'll alter them if they don't fit," he giggled. He showed no sense of responsibility. I was struck by the horrific possibilities for embezzlement. "Let's face it, Falco-I have a title and a seal, but in reality I'm impotent. I can't alter the way things are run. Rome is fully aware of that."
"You mean because your stint in the post is only a year?"
He looked surprised. "No, because that's just how things are."
This was the rotten side of government. Enormous power was placed at the disposal of an untried, overconfident young man. His only superior here was the hard-pressed governor who had a full complement of legislative and diplomatic work himself. If the salaried officials who really ran the provinces were corrupt, or if they simply lost heart, here was an outpost of the Empire which could fall apart. With a brash and completely unprepared master placed over them, who could blame them if they did lose heart?
Something like that had happened in Britain over a decade earlier. I was there. I knew. The Icenian Revolt was brought about by a combination of indifferent politicians, overbearing armed forces and ill-judged financial control. This had alienated the local populace, with results that were sheer murder. Ironically, a major catalyst for trouble had been the sudden withdrawal of loans by Seneca-the big name from Corduba.
"I see what they mean about you," Quadratus said suddenly. I wondered who "they" were, who had been briefing him about me. He wanted to know how good I really was at my job-and how dangerous.
I quirked up an eyebrow, enjoying his unease as he went on, "You sit drinking your wine just as pleasantly as anyone. But somehow I don't reckon you're thinking 'This is a palatable vintage, if a little sweet.' You're in another world, Falco."
"The wine has its moments. Baetica suffers from too much wind from the south; it troubles the grapes."
"Jove, you know everything! I do admire that. I really do-" He really did. "You're a complete professional. That's something I'd like to emulate." He might-but not if it meant he had to work on my pay, eating gritty bread and paying too much rent for a hovel in a lousy tenement.
"You just have to be thorough." I couldn't be bothered with his sham flattery, or his ignorance of conditions in the real world.
"So what's on your mind, Falco?"
"Nothing changes," I said. "Lessons are constantly put before us-and are never learned."
Quadratus was still game, though his speech was becoming slow. I had drunk much less. I had no taste for it. I had lost my taste for philosophy too.
Below in the garden dim figures rushed about, engaged in some dubious form of hide-and-seek. It required neither skill in the chase nor subtlety in claiming the prize. I watched for a moment, feeling my age, then turned back to the quaestor. "So what, Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus, are you intending to do as quaestor to prevent the formation of an oil cartel in Baetica?"
"Is there one?" he asked me, suddenly as wide-eyed as the second-rate virgins who were squealing among the clipped myrtles on the terraces below.
I stood up to leave. I clapped his shoulder, and handed him the jug of wine. "Enjoy your evening."
"What cartel?" he slurred, much too solemnly.
"The one that can't possibly exist in this respectable province where the businessmen are so ethical and the officials perform their duties to the highest standards of probity!"
I stepped back into the heated room indoors. There was wine everywhere. The illustrious Spunky and his cronies were roaring with laughter, looking shiny and much redder in the face. They had reached the happy stage of dying with mirth at their own silliness. Marius Optatus had disappeared somewhere. I didn't blame him, though since we were sharing a carriage it was somewhat inconvenient. He had probably found a bailiff and was discussing the fine details of making chestnut withy baskets. His interests were so practical.
"Grand party!" I applauded my host. He looked pleased. "Is your sister here?"
"Locked in her bedroom pretending not to know it's going on!
Maybe Aelia Annaea would welcome some refined masculine company. It had to be worth a try.
When I clambered over the revelers and out into the corridor, I left behind whoops of determined foolishness. I had noticed one poor soul already lying prone beside a cabinet of curios with his eyes tightly closed in misery. His capacity must be no bigger than a gnat's. By my reckoning they were all less than an hour from being sick over the balcony. There would be one or two who could not crawl that far. It boded ill for my host's father's porphyry vases and his silk-covered ivory-ended reading couch. His collected works of Greek men of letters had already been well trampled by flailing boots and his Egyptian carpet was being rolled up to make a swat in a game of "Human Fly."
Sticking my thumbs in my belt I moved carefully through the groups of rich children dangerously rollicking. This was not an occasion to reassure a father whose first offspring was only weeks from birth. Annaeus Maximus could have picked a better month to visit his Gades farms.
As I rather expected I learned nothing else that helped my mission, only that the town house of the Annaei covered two floors, was exquisite though slightly old-fashioned in decor, and possessed every amenity. I found a large number of beautifully appointed bedrooms, some occupied, though not by people who wanted my staid company. Becoming morose, I wandered down a staircase, stepping over various young ladies without partners who were sitting on the marble treads getting piles while they bemoaned the stupidity of Corduban boys. I concurred with their view, though perhaps not for the same reasons; what's more I had my doubts about some of the girls.
The ground floor comprised the normal public rooms and peristyles of a large, showy home. The rude huts of their forefathers had been transformed by the modern Annaei into high temples where they could act as patrons to the less well-off. It was meant to impress; I allowed it a few astonished gasps.
There was a full bathhouse suite, where some luckier young ladies were being repeatedly thrown by young men into the heated swimming pool; they squealed a lot then struggled out and ran back to be thrown in again. No one had drowned yet. In the attached ball-park a lively group thought it good fun to dress up a nannygoat in a garland of flowers and the robes which the important householder wore when he officiated as a priest. I greeted them serenely, then passed on into the covered arcade which led to the garden area.
This was more peaceful, apart from occasional troops of youths who galloped through it in a jiggling human daisy chain. Turning away from the main terrace, where the merrymaking among the topiary looked more lewd than I could contemplate, I was heading for an ivy-covered gazebo, lit by torches. There were two figures conversing; they looked rather like Optatus and the gracious Aelia, sister of our three jolly hosts. Before I could reach them I was stopped by a pair who were stock-still on the gravel path, locked in a desperate, motionless embrace. They were about sixteen; she thought she might be losing him, whereas he held her with the calm reassuring air of a faithless swain who knew it had already happened.
Touched, I started doubling back to avoid disturbing their poignant and ultimately pointless idyll. Then I bumped into Marmarides. He was coming to find me to ask permission to borrow the carriage; he had become embroiled with a group of young creatures who were fascinated by his African appearance. Just by asking him the question, I had embroiled myself too: "I suppose they want to know about your Aethiopian potency!" He looked embarrassed but did not deny that his female admirers had the usual curiosity about his personal equipment. "Does this happen to you often?"
"Oh all the time, Falco! My master Stertius lives in terror he'll be called to account when some citizen complains that I'm responsible for his lady having a dark child. The only reason I was allowed to come with you is that he reckoned yours was long past the dangerous stage!"
"Oh thanks! I wish I was back home with her now."
"I can take you, easy."
"We'd better deal with your supporters' club first. At least we may save a couple of young women from debauchery tonight!"
That was debatable, but I wanted an excuse to escape. Marmarides could have just dumped his admirers-but decent men don't, do we? He had promised to drive two of them home to Corduba before they got into trouble with their parents (or some such tale). I said I would leave at the same time. There would be no room for Optatus or Constans, but I could protect Marmarides from assault on the journey into Corduba, we could ditch the dames safely, then he could leave me in a tavern where I could have a quiet bite to eat while he went back to collect our comrades. Providing food lacked glamour for our hosts; they had omitted it.
We shoved a couple of the shrieking women inside the carriage; they were probably demure little things when sober, though drink had robbed them of all taste. I climbed up on top with Marmarides and we set off fast before our passengers could thrill themselves by swarming out to join us. When our mules reached the gate at the end of the long entry drive, we had to swerve madly; we passed a much larger piece of coachwork, drawn by two fiery horses and driven by a set-faced groom in livery. As we went out it was coming in.
"Keep going!" I grinned. "Marmarides, I rather think that Annaeus Maximus has remembered what happened the last time he left his boys at home unsupervised."
We found where the girls lived and persuaded them to go in quietly; we used the shameless trick of mentioning the return of Annaeus Maximus and warning them that that angry father would soon be talking to their own parents.
"Spunky, Dotty and Ferret are in big trouble! Best to nip indoors looking innocent and pretend you never went anywhere." I could just hear some pert little minx in the distant future trying this one out on me. I could just see me too, willing myself to believe the lie…
My plan to have supper alone seemed churlish now; we went back together to try to extricate Optatus and young Constans, if possible before they were publicly linked with the row. Approaching the town house we met a string of chastened youngsters being marched home in the custody of Annaeus' slaves. These were the walking wounded. Up at the house others who could not stagger had been collected up and laid out neatly in a colonnade. We gathered that parents had been sent for. We also sensed that it had not been done out of malice-but as a sensible precaution in case any of these stupid children had actually poisoned themselves with too much wine.
Of Spunky, Dotty and Ferret I saw no sign. Nor were their father and mother visible, though the slaves mopping up the battlefield were doing it very quickly and efficiently, with downcast eyes. The master's physician, overseeing the row of unconscious young bodies, was fiercely purse-lipped. There was no longer an amphora in sight.
We could find neither Optatus nor Constans. In the end we went home, before the oil in the carriage lamp ran out.
Helena Justina was still up, quietly writing letters to Rome. I sat on the floor at her feet and hugged her. "Dear gods, I'm sick of other men's sons! I hope mine's a daughter!"
As if to confirm it, the baby kicked me soundly in the face. "She's got huge hooves!" Helena muttered, after crying ouch herself.
"She'll be a darling… Listen, I'm establishing the rules now-boy or girl, it doesn't go out to visit friends without permission, without an escort of extremely prissy slaves, and without me personally going to fetch it home not more than an hour after it departs our house."
"Very wise, Marcus. I'm sure this will work wonderfully."
Helena laid down her pen on a side table and closed the inkwell gently. She ran her fingers through my curls. I pretended not to notice, while I let myself relax. Too large now to be flexible, instead of bending down to me as she once would have done, she kissed the tip of her finger and touched my brow consolingly. "What's the matter, you poor tired, miserable soul? Didn't you enjoy the party, then? What went wrong with your boys' night out?"
"They were too rough for me. I had a depressing experience talking to the fabled quaestor, who is the last word in moral toughness-if you think fluff is tough. Then the hosts' parents came home unexpectedly-a scheme I shall follow myself when our limb gets old enough. I scarpered. I couldn't find the other two-"
"Constans came back," she told me.
"The night is full of surprises. How did he find his way?"
"The quaestor brought him."
"That's commendable!"
"Charming," she agreed. "You don't like him?"
"I deeply distrust charm. Even so, I let him share the guest room where he had deposited the snoring Constans."
"So Quadratus is not beyond redemption?"
"He seemed appalling. He apologized in a well-spoken voice. He introduced himself politely, then praised my brother Aelianus. I loathed him instinctively. But it was very late."
"Are they in the same bed?" I asked, wondering.
"No."
"It's not like that then!"
"He seems to treat young Constans as an immature lad who needs an older friend." "Really charming!"
"So we are supposed to believe," said Helena.
It was then that Marius Optatus reappeared. He had walked much of the way, apparently. "I was looking for you, Falco!" he stormed tetchily.
"I looked for you too-honestly! I'd seen you hobnobbing with Aelia Annaea so I thought that since she owns her own gold mine you were in there doing yourself some good!"
"Was Claudia Rufina at the party, Marius?" asked Helena sympathetically.
"No," he said. Presumably that was one reason for his short temper.
"He was too wrapped up with Aelia," I teased. "The man has no loyalty."
"Probably talking about Claudia," retorted Helena.
Optatus had no sense of humor this evening. He was white with tiredness, and irritation too. "I did my best for you, Falco, and in return you stole the transport and stranded me!"
"Why, what did you do?"
"I found out that Dotty and his merry selection of friends were-"
"In the cellar?"
"Yes."
"Soaking up all Papa's choice imported Falernian?"
"Yes."
"Putting the world to rights like depressed witches when half the coven's failed to show-yes?"
"-And watching a dancing girl," said Marius.
Helena Justina gripped me by the shoulders and removed me from my cozy position. I sat up with my arms around my knees. Helena demanded, "Marius Optatus, would this be a dancing girl Marcus has seen before?"
"How should I know?" He was still angry, though being polite to Helena. "I could not find Falco to compare points of similarity! I had decided to accost the girl myself, but then Attractus Maximus came home and the row started. In the chaos the dancer slipped away somewhere; that was understandable. Clearly you had done the same," he sneered at me. "I wanted to leave myself, but I thought I should try and find out about the girl for you-"
"You've taken to undercover work! What was she like?" I inserted quickly. "Loose-limbed, gorgeous and with luxurious black hair?"
She was nothing of a looker-but she could certainly dance." That was a surprise. I must have been even more drunk than I remembered at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. I had thought Diana was fairly personable but her repertoire lacked skill. Aelianus had also said she had her limita-
tions. Maybe we were right; maybe Optatus took the uncritical view. For some men, if a woman has very few clothes on and is signaling that the rest might come off with modest encouragement, that's enough. "Marius, Baetica is full of women wielding tambourines to make a quick denarius. Why did you decide this one was significant?"
"Dotty told me she had been asking curious questions. She wanted to know where his father was. He reckoned she was making sure there was no chance of parental displeasure-wrong, as it turned out."
"She's a decent dancer, yet she was tantalizing teenagers?"
"Most dancers are short of money," he corrected me frostily. "Was she dancing in a costume?"
"She was dancing in an immodest shift, Falco. That is what young men expect." The stern Marius had reached the sarcastic stage.
"I wonder how they found her? Is some sort of directory of dubious entertainers kept at the Temple of the Capitoline Triad, perhaps? I don't suppose the young Annaei were able to consult the aedile's list; the aedile would have gone straight to their papa."
"Please don't be facetious, Falco. Dotty was taking the credit for hiring her."
"My good Marius, you've been working hard."
"Don't bother to thank me! Dotty said that she had heard about the party and presented herself, offering to perform. He did not know where she came from." She must be hanging around Corduba-and she must have her ear to the ground.
"Rich young men have all the luck."
"I expect she charged a gigantic fee," chided Helena.
"Rich young men don't feel the pain."
"Anyway-" Optatus deflated and confessed with a sigh, "I know this is not the girl you want, Falco. Dotty was perfectly frank. He knew of Selia-she is familiar to all those young men, apparently. They don't care that she is not the most perfect dancer-she
has other attractions that compensate. Dotty hadn't been able to hire her this evening because she is supposed to have returned to Hispalis. He did say the older one, the one they did have there, had been trying to find out what other dancers he knew."
"Did he own up to her that he had wanted Selia instead?"
"He's an oil producer's son, Falco! He's much too cute to do that."
While I was wondering whether the appearance of a second dancer was just coincidence, Helena decided to confess about the two young disasters who were asleep in a guest bedroom. Optatus was furious.
However, he calmed down next day, thanks to a jape we two devised. The quaestor and Constans had arrived at our house the night before riding together on a highly bred horse which they had stolen from the Annaeus stable. We solemnly promised to return it for them before there was a hue and cry. Then I sent them off back to their own homes on a special horse of my own.
"His name's Prancer. You have to check him or he dashes away. Hold on tight in case he bolts."
"Thanks, Falco." Quadratus had already realized he was the butt of a joke. "But this leaves you without a mount-"
"I will find Marcus Didius a horse," grinned Optatus pleasantly. "You keep that one-with our compliments!"
Where next?
I was glad Optatus had offered me a decent mount. I had run out of options in Corduba, and badly needed to visit Hispalis. According to the youngest Annaeus, that was where Selia would be found. She had always been my prime target.
Had events been different, Helena and I would have enjoyed a slow boat ride together as offered by Cyzacus and Gorax. We had first come to know one another well on a trip across Europe which had included journeys by river. Ever since those long weeks falling in love we had adored water transport; we were nostalgic types. This time though, time was against us.
There was a good road all along the Baetis-the Via Augusta which traveled to Gades. If dispatch-riders of the imperial post with urgent missives could gallop fifty miles a day, I could certainly try to match them. I would use the horse our friend produced for me and ride into Corduba, then I would call at the governor's palace and demand that he give me authority to use the stables and lodges of the cursus publicus. Two days there; two days
back; plus however long it took me to interview Cyzacus senior and Norbanus, then to search for the dancing girl.
While I executed this fantastic feat of logistics, Helena could wait on the estate, sleeping mostly. That was what she needed now.
Helena Justina pointed out quietly that I hate horses. I said I was a professional. I thought she hid a smile.
I had been up at dawn so I was at the Palace waiting when the clerks first strolled into their offices discussing last night's drinking bout. They had barely got on to how many stairs they had fallen down when they found me, looking brisk. My previous visit had left me a hero. There was no need to see the proconsul; these lads were mine to command. My scandalous stories about their master, invented or not, had worked: clerks are always longing for somebody to brighten up their lives.
Permits to use the cursus publicus are not readily available. They have to bear the Emperor's personal signature; that's their validation. Governors of provinces are supplied with a finite number, which they are supposed to use only in the proper circumstances. Prissy ones actually write home to check whether they are following the rules. But the clerks of the proconsul of Baetica decided that their man would approve one for me, without being put to the trouble of knowing he had done it. Nice lads.
I usually go on foreign missions already equipped with my own pass. I had not thought about it this time-and neither had Laeta-assuming he possessed the authority to give me one. I had been trying not to think about Laeta. But when I did, I asked the clerks whether he had become the official point of contact for intelligence issues.
"No, it's still supposed to be Anacrites, Falco."
"Isn't that typical! I left Anacrites on his deathbed. He must have been formally replaced by now."
"Well nobody tells us-unless Rome's decided to leave a corpse in charge!"
"Believe me, lads, you won't notice any difference if they replace the Chief Spy with a stiff"
"Suits us!" they giggled. "We hate getting letters from him. The old man always goes on the rampage because he can't understand what Anacrites is on about. Then if we send for clarification we get the same message back, only not just in cypher; all the references are changed to code names as well."
"How about Laeta? Have you noticed an increase in the volume of messages from him? More urgent signals, perhaps?"
"No more than usual. He can't use signals."
"Why? No entitlement?"
"He writes too much. The beacon flares can only send one letter at a time; it's too slow for long documents." Too inaccurate as well; you need nighttime, with exactly the right visibility, and even then every time a message is transmitted between watchtowers there is a risk that the signalers may misread the lights and pass along gobbledegook. "Laeta sends scrolls, always via the dispatch-riders."
"No sign of him having new responsibilities, then?"
"No."
"I don't suppose he's bothering to inquire after me?"
"No, Falco."
There was something I wanted to check up on. I gazed at them in a frank and friendly manner. "I'm asking because if Anacrites is laid up or dead, there may be changes on the Palatine… Listen, you know how I came out to Baetica with a letter for the proconsul saying I was a man on a secret mission?" They were bound to know; there was no harm in sharing the confidence. "The old man told me you had already been asked to note the presence of another person nobody talks about?" They glanced at each other. "I'm getting worried," I told them, lying well. "I think an agent might have gone missing. With Anacrites lying prone we can't find out who he had in the field."
More obvious looks were now being exchanged. I waited. "Letters of introduction from the Chief Spy's office carry the top security mark, Falco."
"I know. I use it myself."
"We are not allowed to read them."
"But I bet you do!"
Like lambkins they agreed: "Just before you came Anacrites sent one of his coded notes. It was his normal nutter's charter: the agent would not be making contact officially-yet we were to afford full facilities."
"I bet you thought that was about me."
"Oh no."
"Why not?"
"The agent was a woman, Falco."
"Well you'll enjoy facilitating her!" I had grinned, but I was groaning inside.
Anacrites ought to have been planning to send out Valentinus. He was definitely working on the case and Momus, my crony at the Palace, had told me Valentinus had been the best agent Anacrites used. Why send a female? Well Valentinus was a freelance, his own master. Perhaps he had refused to work abroad. That surprised me though. All I knew of him-not much, admittedly-had suggested he was a calm, efficient type who would not balk at anything. Most people welcome the offer of a free long-distance trip.
Surely even Anacrites hadn't fallen for the old belief that respectable businessmen like the oil producers of Baetica were likely to be seduceable? The ones I had met might possibly be so-but they were too long in the tooth to be blackmailed about it afterwards.
Maybe I had been living with Helena Justina for too long. I had grown soft. My natural cynicism had been squeezed out. I
had forgotten that there will always be men who can be lured into pillow confessions by a determined dancing girl.
Just as I left I asked another question: "What do you think about the new quaestor? What are your views on Quadratus?"
"A bastard," my allies assured me.
"Oh go on. A quaestor is always a bastard; that's how they're defined. Surely he's no worse than the rest of them? He's young and jumped-up-but you've seen it all before. A few months with you showing him how the world works and he'll be all right, surely?"
"A double bastard," the lads reiterated solemnly.
One thing I always reckon in the marbled halls of bureaucracy is that the best assessments of personalities come from the clerks they kick.
I went back and sat down. I laced my fingers and leaned my chin on them. First the proconsul had taken the initiative to show he entertained doubts about Quadratus, and now these characters openly despised him without giving him a trial. "Tell me!" I said. So being obliging friends of mine, they did.
Quinctius Quadratus was not entirely clean. His personal record had preceded him to Baetica, and although it was confidential (because it was), it had been pored over by the secretariat: there was a bad story, one that Quadratus would find hard to shake off in his future career. On his route to the Senate in his late teens he had served as a military tribune. Posted to Dalmatia he had been involved in a messy incident where some soldiers attempting to reinstate a bridge on a flood-swollen river had lost their lives. They could have waited until the torrent abated, but Quadratus ordered them to tackle the job despite the obvious risk. An official inquiry had deemed the affair a tragic accident- but it was the kind of accident whose details his old commanding officer had bothered to pass on personally to the proconsul who was just inheriting Quadratus in a new civil post.
So there really was a black mark against his name.
Shortly afterwards, I had finally reached the corridor when I noticed some early arrivals queuing for an interview with the proconsul. A scribe who must be senior to the other men-because he had sauntered in even later and with an even worse air of being weighed down by a wine headache-had been waylaid by two figures I recognized. One was the elderly oil magnate, Licinius Rufius, the other his grandson Rufius Constans. The youth was looking sullen; when he spotted me he seemed almost afraid.
I overheard the senior clerk say the proconsul would not be available that day. He gave them some good reason; it was not just a brush-off. The old man looked irritated, but was accepting it reluctantly.
I nodded a courteous greeting to Licinius, but with a long hard ride ahead of me I had no time to stop. I took the road to Hispalis with problems cluttering my mind.
Most puzzling was the female agent Anacrites had intended to send to Baetica. Was she the "dangerous woman" he had been muttering about? Then where was she? Had he ever actually given her orders? When Anacrites was attacked, had she stayed in Rome without further instructions? Or was she here? Here perhaps even on her own initiative? (Impossible; Anacrites had never employed anyone with that much gumption.)
The female agent had to be identified. Otherwise she might be the dancer I was pursuing. I might have drawn all the wrong conclusions about Selia. She could have been at the dinner as backup for Anacrites and Valentinus; she could be innocent of the attacks; she could have dropped her arrow in the street during a meeting with them; the wounds on the two men could have had some other cause. If so, what was she up to now in Corduba? Had she been dressed as a shepherdess at the Parilia parade in order to follow up the cartel? Had she then disguised herself as an old woman to try and interview Licinius Rufius? Were she and I all along working for the same ends?-Well then, who was the real attacker of Valentinus and Anacrites?
The other possibility was that Selia was as dangerous as I had always thought-and that some other woman was in Baetica on the Chief Spy's behalf. One I had not encountered yet. Very likely the dancer Dotty had hired for the party. Some lousy fleabag Anacrites used, who was dogging my steps and liable to get in my way. That was the most likely. And it made me livid. Because maybe somebody at the Palace knew we were both out here-in which case why in Hades was it necessary? Why, when Helena Justina needed me, was I wasting my own time and duplicating effort?
I dismissed the idea. The Palace might well be capable of keeping agents in the dark, but under Vespasian double payment was never sanctioned where a single fee would do. So that meant there were two different offices actively involved. Laeta had sent me out, unaware that Anacrites had someone else in the field. Our objectives might be similar- or absolutely different. As I homed in on Selia, somebody else with conflicting orders could be doing the same. And in the long run, as I had suspected right from the night of the dinner on the Palatine, I myself would probably end up suffering: the hapless victim of a palace feud.
There was nothing I could do. Communications with Rome took too long to query this. I had to set off for Hispalis and do my best. But all the time I had to watch my back. I risked finding out that another agent had got there first and all my efforts were redundant. Somebody else might take the credit. Somebody else might earn the reward.
I could find no answers. Even when I had puzzled over the questions until I was sick of them there was still one more which might or might not be related, a new question that I had just left behind in Corduba. Why had Licinius Rufius wanted an interview with the proconsul? What had brought an elderly gentleman into the city so early in the morning, with his grandson morosely in tow?