MYRRHA's SHIP WAS an extremely large, rather elderly transport that we learned had been used in the past for taking beasts to Rome. Like her brother, and sometimes in partnership with him, she engaged in the export of animals for the amphitheater-though according to her she herself was a shy provincial who never left Sabratha. Because of the language barrier, conversations with her were rare, but once when we happened to have the interpreter to hand I asked, “The arena's a family occupation? Does your nephew also help Hanno in the wild beast trade?”
Yes, came the reply. Iddibal was in his twenties, a great hunter, and he relished the family business.
“No plans to send him to be polished up in Rome then?”
No, lied Auntie Myrrha blithely; Iddibal was a homeboy. We all smiled and said how wonderful it was, in our restless age, when young men were satisfied with their heritage.
Everything was extremely friendly, though I feared that would not last. Once we reached Lepcis and Myrrha started talking to Hanno and Iddibal, she would find out that I was the Census examiner. They would all realize that I knew Iddibal had worked for Calliopus. The only possible explanation was that he had been infiltrated into the rival establishment incognito-and that he was there to cause trouble. Once they conferred, this powerful family would realize that I knew more about their secret commercial activities than they liked to have revealed. Myrrha would probably be furious. Hanno, I thought, could become very dangerous indeed.
I decided to relax while we were aboard the aunt's ship. Once we disembarked I would be my own man again. When we were leaving Sabratha I had made Famia promise that as soon as he was tired of horse buying he would come back to Lepcis and pick us up. Even if he failed to show, when I had sorted out the business Scilla wanted, Helena and I could pay for our own passage home.
Sorting out the business for Scilla had suddenly acquired a new dimension. Allowance was needed for Hanno's influence-especially since according to Calliopus Iddibal had been tied up with whatever happened to Leonidas. Still, I could handle that.
I assumed that Calliopus had never known that Iddibal was a rival's son. Iddibal would never have left the barracks alive otherwise. In retrospect, it looked to me as if the young man might have been sent to Rome by his family specifically to foment a war between Calliopus and Saturninus. Public strife between those two would make them look unsound; when tenders were invited for the new amphitheater, Hanno would be able to clean up. Even if Pomponius Urtica had lived and had been prepared to back Saturninus with special patronage, the dirty tricks war would have deterred him. Pomponius would not have wanted to stain his own reputation by any association with such goings-on.
Sending in his son to cause provocation would have been a good ploy on Hanno's part, though risky to Iddibal personally. Apart from having to take part in mock hunts in the venatio, discovery would have put him at Calliopus' mercy. And once he signed up, he was stuck. He was trapped for life unless somebody could rescue him. As soon as he had aroused sufficient jealousy between the other two men-by inciting incidents like the escaped leopard and the ostrich poisoning, if nothing worse-then his father must have wanted to extract him as quickly as possible. But in theory that was impossible.
Iddibal could simply have run away. With outside help, it could have been arranged. Anacrites and I had known that his aunt had had money with her in Rome, and at least one servant (her present interpreter, I reckoned), plus a very fast ship waiting on the coast. But since Iddibal had become a gladiator, he was also a slave. That was a legal condition into which he could volunteer to put himself-but from which he could not then choose to withdraw. Only Calliopus could free him. If he ran off, Iddibal would be an outlaw for life.
His aunt must have been a stranger to Calliopus (well, she had told me she was a home-bird), whereas Hanno would certainly have been well known to him. So Myrrha must have volunteered to go to Rome to help the youth. The question was, especially since she obviously had to pay through the nose for his unorthodox release, how much did his family think Iddibal had achieved by then?
I was in no doubt now that Hanno wanted the two other lanistae to tear each other apart, while he watched from the sidelines and took over their leavings. So against all the odds, my enforced trip to Sabratha had given me a lead. Whatever went on last winter back in Rome, I reckoned Hanno's stirring partially explained how it all blew up.
That made me determined to interview young Iddibal.