Pa looked indignant. 'Why should he? Are you saying he was robbing temples or something?' I would not have put it past him. 'Greece is stuffed with desirable art,' Father demurred. 'There was no need to raid holy shrines. Anyway, it's no secret. Festus had acquired a mixed cargo of statues, giant urns and vases. He added some conventional goods from Syria and Judaea: linen, purple dye, cedar logs.'
'You sound annoyed.'
'I'm not a bloody merchant. I hate that sort of hardware. Festus fixed it up himself. Jupiter knows how he broke into the local cartels, but you know what he was like. The Tyrian Purple Guild has been officially closed to foreigners for a thousand years, but I expect they welcomed our boy like a long-lost Phoenician prince… He hired a ship called the Hypericon; it sank off Crete.'
'You weren't involved in it?'
'No. I told you. The Hypericon was his own venture. He laid it on while he was out in the East. That was why he was using his comrades to provide capital. He had heard about this load; it clearly included top-rate items and there was no time to contact me.' I knew that in their partnership it was my brother who provided the entrepreneurial spirit; Pa was the financier. Festus was a finder; Pa bought and sold. That worked when they could make arrangements in advance, but posed difficulties otherwise. Corresponding with Judaea could take anything from fifteen days, if the tides and winds were right, up to half a year. Or infinity, if your ship sank.
I thought it through, to familiarise myself with the wrinkles. 'If Festus had access to good pickings, he would not allow sheer distance to inconvenience the scheme. Or lack of funds. So he involved his mess-tent cronies and they lost their cash. That's a tragedy, but what's the peculiar angle? Why the big fuss now? What was odd about this load?'
'Nothing.' Geminus spoke quietly. 'As far as I know the batch was normal. What smelled was the backing money.'
'You know that?'
'I believe it.'
'So how come?'
'Work it out.'
I considered the problem. 'What are we talking about-a few old marble gods and a bunch of blackware alabastrons?'
'Not according to Censorinus. From what he said, Festus had laid hands on enough top-quality ceramics to stock a private museum. The statuary was supposed to be outstanding. That was why he needed more cash than usual; that's why he would not risk jeopardising the deal by taking time to contact me.'
'Did you and he not have banking arrangements overseas?'
'Up to a point.' For a moment I wondered whether Pa had had limited faith in big brother's probity. He smiled slightly, seeing my doubts. But he gave me the public explanation: 'I hate investing heavily in cargoes from abroad: one bent captain, one awkward customs officer, or one big storm and it's lost. Festus found that out the hard way when the Hypericon foundered.'
'He was a hothead. He had good taste, but airy ideas.'
'Selling bubbles,' agreed Geminus. There was a trace of admiration in his tone. His own character was cautious, almost cynical; I had inherited that. But perhaps we both yearned to be able to take wild risks with my brother's happy bravery.
'I still don't see why the Fifteenth Apollinaris have come on our tails over it now.'
'Desperation.' My father's tone grew flat. 'Apparently the best piece in this missing cargo had the legionaries' name on it. Where would a bunch of active-service centurions get the cash to purchase a Phidias?'
'A Phidias?' He had handed me two shocks at once. 'This is the first I've heard about Festus cornering the market in the Seven Wonders of the World.'
'So he thought big!' shrugged our pa. Not for the first time I felt second-best in the family scheme.
'When I joked about robbing temples, I didn't have the statue of Zeus from Olympia in mind!'
'He told me it was a Poseidon,' reported my father drily. 'He did say that it was fairly small.'
'That probably meant it was huge! You knew about this?' I demanded incredulously.
'Only when it was too late to be jealous. I heard the Hypericon had sunk. On that last leave Festus confessed he had suffered a major loss with her, and he told me about the Poseidon.' Festus must have been bursting with it, even after his plan disintegrated.
'Did you believe the story?'
'I found it hard to take seriously. Festus was drunk most of the time on that leave-though if he had lost a Phidias, it's understandable. I would have been drunk myself. In fact, after he told me I soon was.'
'Well the god's appropriate, Father. If Festus had the genuine article on board the Hypericon, it's now at the bottom of the sea.'
'And that's where his mates in the Fifteenth may wish they were,' Geminus growled, 'if my theory of why they are so agitated holds good.'
'So what is your theory?' My sense of foreboding grew steadily.
Geminus drained his cup with an angry gesture. 'That your brother's honourable comrades had bought themselves a Phidias by robbing their legion's savings bank.'
As soon as he said it, the ghastly tale made sense.
'Dear gods. If they get found out, that's a capital offence.'
'I think we can assume,' Pa told me, with the light, wry air that my brother had not inherited, 'Censorinus was hoping you and I would pay the money back in time to save their skins. The Jewish Revolt is well in hand, the Fifteenth Apollinaris have come to a pause in their glorious military task, normal military life resumes, and-'
'Don't say it. They are now expecting a visit from the Treasury auditors!'
XXV
Things were falling into place, but they made me no happier.
The room felt cold. My corner seat had become so uncomfortable I wanted to leap up and prowl about, but was held in my place by horror.
Ma had asked me to clear my brother's name. The deeper I went, the worse things appeared. If this were true, I could not believe Festus had been unaware of the source of his funding; in fact a fear was gnawing at me that big brother might well have suggested it.
Each army legion possesses a savings bank, stored in a holy of holies under the headquarters shrine. As well as the compulsory deductions from his pay that each soldier suffers for food and equipment, and the contribution to the burial club which will give him a reverent funeral, the administration ensures that if he reaches discharge after his twenty-five years of suffering, he will go into the world with some standing: half of every imperial donative is forcibly locked up for him. These are the lavish grants paid out by new emperors on their accession, or at other times of crisis, to ensure the legions' loyalty. In a full-term career every legionary must expect to have his loyalty ensured on several occasions-and it does not come cheap.
The money is sacrosanct. A batch of clerks take care of it, and of course it represents a scandal just waiting to happen, so much cash permanently sitting about in boxes, out on the wild frontiers of the Empire. But if there had ever been such a scandal, I had never heard of it. Trust my brother to involve himself in this fabulous first!
My mind raced. If the Fifteenth did now have a large hole in their coffer, there could be reasons why it had not yet been spotted. The savings banks had been frequently topped up during the Year of the Four Emperors: four new men on the throne, during a harsh civil war, had found that pleasing the armed forces became a high priority. One reason for Galba's downfall was his reluctance to pay the customary grateful donative to the army when he came into the purple; his three successors learned from his bloody corpse in the Forum, and contributed promptly. With all these extras pounding in, the centurions of the loyal Fifteenth could have put some large rocks at the bottom of the legion's coffer, and got away with the deception.
But those uncertain days were over. Now their famous general Vespasian had become Emperor and was settling his backside on the cushioned throne for a long reign: a tax-collector's son, much given to cash-counting. The return of normality gave clerks more time to put money into piles and tick off lists on their papyrus scrolls. The bankrupt Treasury meant that auditors were Rome's coming professio
n. Eager accountants were out and about everywhere, looking for missing cash. It could not be long before somebody spotted a hole the size of even a smallish Phidias in a prestigious legion's money chest.
'This is not good news for the family name,' I commented.
My father had the expression you would expect of a man who is about to see his son the national hero publicly exposed, especially when his other son is taking the initiative. 'Looks like a straight choice between losing the family name, or losing the family fortune protecting it.' His comment was essentially cynical.
'That's your fortune then. It's a choice I don't have!'
'Fancy!' commented Geminus, unenthusiastically.
'We need to be braced for trouble. I don't give two peas for my reputation, but I don't relish finding angry soldiers lurking at Mother's house wanting to crack my head. Is there anything else I should be aware of in this mess?'
'Not as far as I know.' The way he said it told me there was more to be found out.
I had struggled enough for one day. I let it go, and moved on to other aspects: 'One thing puzzles me.' That was an understatement, but I had to be practical. Counting all the unknowns in this story would leave me depressed. 'Festus served in Egypt and Judaea. The missing cargo came from Greece. Would it be too pedantic to ask how come?'
'He was using an agent. He met a man in Alexandria-'
'That sounds like the beginning of a very sticky story!'
'Well you know Festus; he always had a lupin round himself. He got around the backstreets and shady bars.' My father meant Festus was always involved in numerous little enterprises, doing deals and supplying services.
'True. If there was a man selling counterfeit amulets, Festus always knew him.'
'That doesn't mean he bought the produce with the fishy smell,' Geminus argued, defending his lamented boy.
'Oh no!' I carolled facetiously. 'But sometimes he was taken in.'
'Not in this.'
'Well, let's keep the possibility in mind! Alexandria is a city with a dubious reputation to start with. Wherever he went, Festus could always be relied on to fall in with the man other people avoid. Do we have a name for the agent he was using?'
'What do you think?'
'No name!'
'Call him Nemo, like Odysseus. Nemo moved in the art world; he told Festus he could get hold of some exquisite Greek artefacts. Presumably he did it. That's all I know.'
'Did Festus at any point actually inspect this cargo?'
'Of course. Your brother had his head on,' insisted Pa. 'Festus saw it in Greece.'
'He got around!'
'Yes. Festus was a boy.'
'I thought the Hypericon sailed from Caesarea?'
'Was that the story from Censorinus? Presumably she went there afterwards so Festus could add his cedar wood and the dye. Maybe that was where he paid the agent for the vases and the other stuff.'
'Did the agent sail on with the ship?'
Father gave me a long look. 'Unknown quantity.'
'When his ship sank, did that have any bearing on the wound that brought big brother home?'
'Sole purpose of allowing the wound to happen, I should think.'
Festus had got himself home to sort things out. That meant the answer to at least some part of the problem lay here in Rome. So I did have a slim chance of finding it.
My next question would have been whether the events I had witnessed that day at the auction were also relevant. I never asked it. Our conversation was interrupted by a very hot, very tired child.
He was about twelve. His name was Gaius. He was my sister Galla's second-eldest, and an urchin of some character. Most of him was small for his age. He had the gravity of a patriarch and the manners of a lout. Gaius would probably grow up to be a man of modesty and culture, but at the moment he preferred to be difficult. He liked to wear boots that were too big for him. He had tattooed his name on his arm in Greek lettering with something that passed for blue woad; some of the letters were festering. He never washed. Once a month, on Galla's insistence, I took him to the public baths at a quiet period and cleaned him up forcibly.
Bursting into the office, he threw himself on to an empty couch, expelled a huge lungful of air, wiped his nose on the cuff of a nasty-coloured tunic and gasped, 'Jupiter, chasing you takes spunk! Don't just sit there quaking, Uncle Marcus. Give me a drink!'
XXVI
Three generations of the Didius family eyed each other warily. I ignored the plea for liquor. When I sat tight Geminus fed the urchin a small one. 'Oh Grandpa, don't be stingy!' Gaius lifted the wine jug with a deft hand and sloshed out more for himself. I retrieved the jug, then served myself a refill while there was still a chance.
Our host recaptured his jug grumpily and drained out the last trickle. 'What do you want, nipper?'
'Message for Trouble there,' he said, glaring at me.
At home he was known as 'Where's Gaius?' because no one ever knew. He roamed the city on his own in a private world of schemes and dodges: a familiar trait. He was far worse even than Festus, a complete gangster.
Still, his father was a boatman so no one could blame him. The water-flea was a womanising dead loss; even my dim sister kicked him out of their home as often as possible. In those circumstances sophistication in the children had to be ruled out.
I gazed at him benignly. Gaius was unimpressed, but gruffness would have achieved no more. There is nothing you can do, faced with a knowing sprat in an oversized and dirty tunic who behaves like a man twice your age. I felt like a pimply ten-year-old who had just heard where babies come from-and did not believe a word of it. 'Speak up, Hermes! What's the message, Gaius?'
'Petronius has offered half a denarius for the first person to find you.' I thought Petro had more sense. 'The others are all running round like bare-arsed gibbons.' Gaius prided himself on a charming vocabulary. 'Not a lead among them. I used my noddle, though!'
'How come?' twinkled Father. Gaius was acting up for him. To the grandchildren, Pa was a dangerous renegade with a deep hint of mystery. He lived amongst the glittering goldsmiths' halls of the Saepta, in a cavern full of entrancing junk; they all thought he was wonderful. The fact that my mother would go wild if she knew they came here to visit him only added to the intrigue.
'Obvious! Petro said this was one place he had covered; so I ran straight here!'
'Well done,' I observed, while my father scrutinised Galla's tricky offshoot as if he thought he might have identified a new business partner (given my own unsuitable attitude). 'You've found me. Here's a copper for bringing me the warning-now scram.'
Gaius inspected my coin in case it was counterfeit, sneered, then shoved it into a purse at his belt that looked heavier than my own. 'Don't you want the message?'
'I thought that was it?'
'There's more!' he assured me. It was meant to tantalise.
'Forget it.'
'Oh Uncle Marcus!' Robbed of his golden moment, Gaius was reduced to a child again. His thin wail filled the office as I stood up to assume my cloak. He rallied, however. 'It's about that fancy coronet you've persuaded to pay your bills for you!'
'Listen, smacker, that's the love of my life you're insulting. Don't speak of Helena Justina like a charitable foundation-and don't imply I'm hanging round the lady with a view to sequestering her cash!' I thought my father hid a grin. 'Helena Justina,' I declared, in a stately tone, 'is too shrewd to be bluffed by that sort of confidence trick.'
'She's after character!' Pa told the boy.
'So she's taken on a loser!' Gaius smirked back. 'What's the attraction, Grandpa? Is he good in bed or something?'
I pulled his ear, harder than I had meant. 'You're only jealous because Helena is fond of Larius.' Larius was his elder brother, the shy, artistic one. Gaius belched rudely at the comparison. 'Gaius, there's no need to give me the message. I'm well aware of it. Petronius wants to arrest me-and I don't want to know.'
'Wrong,' Gaius informed me, though at last h
e quailed somewhat. He must have known I was likely to thump him when I heard the news. His voice became much smaller as he announced rather nervously: 'Petronius Longus has arrested your Helena!'
XXVII
The judge lived in an impressive house of the type I could easily covet. Worse, his house might even convince me to aspire to his rank.
It was a detached town villa just off the Vicus Longus, not too large and not too small; it had some fine rooms for impressing public visitors, but was arranged for decent privacy. Marponius never went down to Petro's meagre guardhouse; he had felons brought here for interviews. He had a social conscience. He wanted lags like me to discover the urge to reform through seeing what could come from more legitimate types of crime. Compared to speculation and usury, mere theft and murder began to look unprofitable and quite hard work. Even being an informer seemed a dead-end job.
I presented my person at a ponderous marble portico. The elaborate studs and shiny bronze door furniture were overdone to my mind, but as an auctioneer's son I had seen that much of the world has unsubtle taste. Under the frippery, it was a solid hardwood door. The judge simply belonged to the group that likes to ruin good material.
Marponius and I would never agree on decor. I was a spare-time poet with a refined nature, whose occupation called for a sensitive, humane approach. He was a dull thug from the middle rank who had made himself rich, and therefore significant, by selling scientific encyclopaedias to New Men. By New Men I mean ex-slaves and foreign immigrants; people with overflowing coffers but no education who want to appear cultured. They could afford to buy literary works by weight-and more importantly, they could fit themselves up with ranks of literate slaves to read the works aloud. In the shifting social strata of Rome there was plenty of scope for applying gloss to upstarts. So if a treatise was Greek, incomprehensible and came in twenty scrolls, Marponius had his team of scribes copy it out. He used best-quality papyrus, black gall ink, and highly scented sandalwood for the end-pieces. Then he supplied the slaves with refined voices too. That was where the money lay. It was a neat trick. I wish I had thought of it.
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