We waited four days. Then a discreet message from Bassus in Positanum informed me that enough corn transports had assembled to initiate the next stage of my plan.
I went down to Oplontis for a friendly chat with the driftwood-featured father of Ollia's fisherboy. That evening I watched the tuna boats sail out with their bobbing lanterns, in the knowledge that wherever they were casting their nets the word would spread: Aulus Curtius Gordianus, a distinguished priest (we all know priests!) who had inherited his brother's maritime villa on the cliffs near Surrentum, was celebrating his legacy with a private party for his masculine friends. It was supposed to be a closely guarded secret; there was talk of a specialist dancer with extraordinary proportions being brought specially from Valentia-and he was laying in huge quantities of wine.
The specialist dancer never progressed beyond a promise, but in other respects Gordianus threw himself into this enterprise with a flair which suggested he must have had unlikely adventures in his youth. It was a starlit night, but he laid on tremendous bonfires so that any gate-crashers could find him more easily. When the loud trierarchs of the Misenum fleet made land with their commander, the good Gordianus merely sighed like a man who preferred to avoid trouble, and let them find their own way to his casks.
There was just enough food to make people persuade themselves they could tolerate more drink than their real capacity. There were fine wines and heavy ones, new wines and vintages which Gordianus reckoned his brother had been maturing for as much as fifteen years. There appeared to be no organization; anyone could get at it… A host who was so careless, instead of trying to fend the happy trierarchs away from his liquor, caught them off guard: they gave themselves philosophical advice about how to avoid getting headaches-then for once even the navy drank itself insensible.
An hour before dawn I left the disgusting proceedings and climbed slowly up the path behind the house until the lights of the party had disappeared behind. Straining my eyes northwards and out across the ocean, I thought I could just make out huge ghostly shapes, like windmills walking on the water, tacking immeasurably slowly to and fro beyond Capreae. I knew they were there, and I hoped I really had seen them. Either way, I could relax: a good consignment of the fifteen billion bushels that were needed to feed Rome next year was safely going home.
I went back to Oplontis straightaway.
While the old man was still sleeping I searched the house and grounds. Pertinax was nowhere to be seen. I found Bryon, and told him I had thwarted the young master's plan.
When I had slept off part of my hangover, I prowled round to the stables again; they seemed even more deserted now. Missing Bryon, I stood still in puzzlement, then I risked letting rip a shout. Faint thuds started up in the livery stable block. I hared inside and soon found the trainer, fastened up in a tack room.
'Oh, gods, what happened to you?' Big as he was, Bryon had received a thorough pounding. He had a split mouth he could hardly croak through, and bruises it hurt to contemplate. The cruelty was familiar. 'Don't tell me: Pertinax! He enjoyed doing that…'
I helped Bryon outside, wetted his neckerchief in a trough, and applied it where the damage looked worst.
'Caught him in the loft-told him what you had said about his plan-'
'And he turned on you? Bryon, count yourself lucky you escaped alive. Where is he now? In the house with the old man?'
'He's gone, Falco.'
I doubted that; Pertinax was too desperate for cash. I dragged Bryon with me and hurried indoors. But the attendants assured me no one had visited Marcellus. I strode into the sickroom, making Bryon come too.
'Tell the Consul what happened to you, Bryon!'
For a moment this vigorous outdoor type hung back in the presence of an invalid; then he rallied. 'I came on the young master and warned him the Emperor's agent had scuppered whatever he had planned. I told him he should stop running and face the charges against him-'
'So he jumped you, battered you, and then locked you up? Did he ask about his father's health?'
'No. But I told him the Consul had had a bad attack, and I told him,' stated Bryon in the same level voice, 'the Consul had been calling out for him.'
'You made sure he knew-but he left?'
'Oh yes,' said Bryon quietly, not looking at the Consul. 'He left. I've heard him clatter off in a fury on that roan of his often enough.'
I rounded on the bed where the Consul lay motionless, with his eyes closed. 'Better face facts, sir! Atius Pertinax has given up on you. Give up on him!'
Seeing him lying there, we lost all sense of his immense height. His commanding presence seemed to fade even as I watched. Even his huge nose shrank from its ludicrous domination of his old, lined, suffering face. He was one of the wealthiest men in Campania, but everything he valued had now gone. I signalled to Bryon, and we quietly left the room.
The ex-Consul would make no more attempts to redeem Pertinax. Illness and betrayal had succeeded where I had failed.