Next morning, Helena kept the children quiet so I slept in long after everybody else had breakfasted. When she woke me, I was not pretty. A rough attempt last night to wash off the salt, blood, sweat and dirt had failed to produce much improvement. I was rested, but felt shaken and deeply depressed. Helena knew all that had happened. I had unburdened myself to her before I fell asleep. Now she fed me, then told me a messenger had called that morning. Damagoras, still imprisoned by Rubella, was asking to see me. Helena reckoned she knew what he wanted.
While you go out to play at dares with the boys, Marcus, I just sit alone at home, surrounded by old note-tablets. I had been thinking about the tablets, actually. I suspect Damagoras wants his ancient diaries back. Remember you told me that Cratidas and Lygon made some joke about discussing literature?" If she said so, she must be right. Too much had happened recently for me to remember. Maybe Damagoras had asked Cratidas and Lygon to retrieve his notes; when that dreadful slave, Titus, came here and saw Albia, he said that some body had been asking about the tablets."
Albia said Titus was frightened."
Yes, Marcus; he would be scared stiff, if he had been threatened by Cratidas or Lygon." It all seemed long ago. But I still wanted to find Diocles; in fact, with Mutatus" death so much on my mind, I wanted it more than ever. Mutatus had paid a terrible penalty for his lost colleague. I owed it to both not to give up now.
Go and see Damagoras."
I could take the shipping logs back to him."
No!" Helena instructed in her crisp way. You just find out if Damagoras is willing to exchange information for them." She looked at me, with her head on one side. You're very quiet. Don't give in to him."
No chance," I assured her gently. Believe me, fruit, anyone who gets in my way today will find me very tough." Helena produced clean clothes and my oil flask, accepting my filthy condition with no other comment. My daughters, playing down in the courtyard, were less diplomatic; they ran up to greet me, took in my disgusting state, then ran away squealing. Albia turned up her nose too. Nux came with me happily. Nux liked having a master who growled around the house and stank. I went out to the set of baths by the vigiles station house. That was deliberate. The baths were handsome and comfortable, built by the old Emperor Claudius when he first brought the vigiles to guard his new corn warehouses. After I cleaned up and slid into a new tunic, I left the dog sleeping blissfully on the filthy old one. She was loyal, but I saw no reason to subject her to the kind of scenes I knew I would find at the station house. While his men continued to search through Ostia and Portus for Caninus, Marcus Rubella would be interviewing prisoners. I knew his methods. Since he got results, nobody ever argued. But for him, interviews" were never an intellectual exercise. On leaving the baths, I crossed the street and entered the dark gatehouse. To me in my current dismal mood, these crumbling barracks reeked of misery. I could hear no Cilicians or Illyrians screaming, but the subdued manner of the vigiles in the exercise yard told its own story. Marcus Rubella was a master of pain management. the excruciating mixture of torture and delay. I met Fusculus. He told me the prisoners were still reluctant to speak, but Rubella was slowly putting together a case. The vigiles had tracked down Arion, the man who was wounded with the oar during the ferry heist; with my evidence that I saw Cotys take him aboard the liburnian, this was enough to tie Cotys and the Illyrians to stealing the ransom chest. Rhodope's testimony damned them for abducting her. Against Cratidas, Lygon and the Cilicians, evidence was more circumstantial.
Oh gods, Fusculus, don't say the Cilicians will get away with their part!"
No, Petronius is on that aspect. He's out trying to find that boy, Zeno." I pulled up. Last seen at the Temple of Attis. My uncle had some priest looking after him."
No sign of your uncle," said Fusculus, looking at me carefully.
I scowled. Uncle Fulvius is famous for one thing, running away."
Well, you know Brunnus came yesterday with information from the fleet headquarters. According to him, they don't want their agent exposed." I told Fusculus that in my experience Uncle Fulvius was a grumpy, unhelpful bastard anyway, then I went to see that other reprobate, the Cilician chief.
You are my only hope, Falco! That tribune says I have to give up all my little luxuries." I leaned on the doorframe at Damagoras" cell. So far he had managed to hang on to cushions, rugs, bronze side tables, a portable shrine, and a well padded mattress. There are worse jails, Damagoras. If you want to see a hell hole, try the underground tomb at the Mamertine in Rome." The old pirate shuddered. Nobody gets out of there." My voice was cold. I did!" He gazed at me. You're full of surprises, Falco."
Sometimes I surprise myself. At this moment, knowing that you run organised kidnap rackets, I am surprised to find myself talking to you… You had nothing to say when I approached you for aid before. Why do you want to see me, old man?" I noticed now that Damagoras was thinner and older-looking than when he dealt with me so arrogantly at his villa. Time was running out for him. This cell in the decrepit barracks was no place for his ancient bones, already aching after a long, active life at sea. You still want to find Diocles, Falco?" he asked.
In return, I am to offer you…?"
My old ship's logs. You have them, don't you?"
Evidence." That was stretching it. Only Damagoras himself was implicated in those old sea fights, and only if he admitted that the logs were his. Reference to the Cilicians" violent past was mere colour. But the way Rubella worked, a sympathetic magistrate would be asked to review evidence like this, circumstantial but yet shocking, then his condemnation would send the kidnappers straight to crucifixion or to the arena beasts. Nobody would see a trial. The sailors were men of humble background, unlikely to possess proof of citizenship, and what's more, they were foreigners. Enough said. I came further into the cell. All right, what have you got for me?"
You'll give me the logs?" Damagoras demanded eagerly.
If I find the scribe, I will give you the logs." He was eighty-six. His own activities must be limited and any of his cronies who remained free after Rubella's purge would be kicked out of Italy, so he would lack subordinates. Things were different now, in any case. Damagoras was on a watch list. He leaned forwards from a battered chair. The scribe and I were closer than I may have said." I nodded. Diocles knew a lot about me."
He stayed at your house."
You knew? He was with me for a couple of weeks. When he disappeared, I had my boys find out what had happened."
He is dead, isn't he?"
I reckon so, Falco. That was why I stopped looking." I crouched down in front of Damagoras, elbows on my knees. So what did you find out?"
He really was going to write my memoirs, you know." Damagoras spoke now as if he was describing a good friendship. We went into everything in detail."
I know that. Diocles made copious notes."
You've got his notes?" demanded Damagoras. I gave him a tantalising smile. We got on well. I trusted him, Falco. I told him all about my past, and when he had had a drop to drink, he told me what was on his own mind. He had troubles."
His aunt had been killed. He blamed the fire-fighters, not the vigiles, the builders" guild."
You're right. He had come to Ostia to do something about it."
Is this how he came to grief?"
All I know," said Damagoras, is that he started working for one of the builders. He got himself a job as a carrier for a concrete maker, Lemnus."
Lemnus from Paphos!" I shouted, leaping up. Lemnus, the bow legged Cretan who attacked me at the Damson Flower, then scarpered .. Petronius had reckoned he had a conscience about something… Well, Petro could pull him in now, if he could still find him. Lemnus was freelance, though. Whose contract were they working on?"
I don't know, Falco." Lies. The old pirate was far too busy making sure he did not look too shifty.
Not good enough, Damagoras! Tell me the contractor."
You can't touch the man; he is too big in this town."
Nobody is too big for me." I grabbed Damagoras by the front of his white tunic and hauled him from his chair. He was taller than me, but he quailed. It was the man Diocles blamed for his aunt's death, wasn't it?" I shook him. Damagoras dropped his voice. Shh! He's always hanging around here, he wants the contract to rebuild this station house He drew a finger across the top of his head, to signify stranded hair. Privatus." I let the old man stagger back and find his seat. I believed the story. The scribe's working tunics had been covered with mortar splats. Privatus ran the guild. He made a lot of noise about that. If the builders" guild bootboys had been fatally incompetent, Privatus would seem responsible. Diocles may simply have wanted to expose the guild, but if he talked about his plans, word would have got back. If he complained to Lemnus, Lemnus may have snitched. For Privatus, Diocles spelled awkward trouble. In his personal anguish, Diocles may not have realised how much Privatus had to lose. Threatened with the loss of his social standing in Ostia, the builder might have reacted more viciously than some senator Diocles accused of sleeping around. The scribe had misjudged the danger. But Privatus had contracts all over the place, both at Ostia and Portus. Unless I could identify where Diocles had been employed when he disappeared, there was little hope of discovering his fate. I strode out into the yard. Members of the Fourth were making efforts to clear away abandoned equipment. I left a message for Petronius about Lemnus. Collecting Nux from her long snooze at the bath house, I went home. Life there was normal, the aftermath of tantrums. Little Julia was now sitting very quiet and sucking her thumb with a tear-stained face. Albia looked flushed. Helena looked harassed. As far as I knew, neither woman ever used the threat of waiting until Father came home to dole out punishment… Well, not yet. I asked what Julia had done. She had found the empty note-tablets left by Diocles, and covered the boards with wild scribbles. Because of the risk that they would ruin important case-notes, we had a family rule that the children should only play with writing equipment when they were supervised. There had been incidents with inkwells, for one thing. You could not expect a three-year-old to remember and obey a family rule. Mind you, I would probably be saying the same thing when Julia and Favonia were twenty-five and married. Helena had rescued the tablets. Julia had only defaced the empty ones; the ship's logs and the scribe's notes were safely put away in a chest with the scribe's sword. The only tablet where my daughter spoiled something significant was the one on which Diocles had sketched what we had thought was a board game.
Of course!" Suddenly, when I needed the answer, I saw it. The diagram was not solo chess. This was a map, a rough plan knocked out as a memo, with a couple of landmarks initialled. It was the kind of sketch a man would draw to remind him how to find a site where he must work tomorrow. I recognised the location now. Having come straight from the station house, I could see exactly where the sketch depicted. there was a V for the vigiles, a B for the Claudian baths in which I cleaned up this morning, a squiggle for the wine shop in the street, and an important C. That was circled. Petronius Longus had once told me that underneath the station house lay a mouldy old water cistern.