Standing beside me, the procurator clearly shared my melancholy mood. Death and misty grey riverbanks produce the same effect. We were men of the world, yet our hearts ached.
Oppressed by our surroundings, I felt unready yet to address the Verovolcus death. 'You mended the bridge, I see.'
'Yes. Boudicca used it to get at the settlement on the south bank – then her troops made a good attempt to put it out of action.' Hilaris sounded dry. 'If this one seems rather strangely aligned, that's because it isn't permanent.' Clearly the bridge issue amused him. 'Falco, I remember the post-Invasion bridge, which was intended to be for purely military purposes. It was just decking on pontoons. Later the supports were made permanent – but it was still wood, and we pulled it down. It was decided a decent stone bridge would signify permanence in the province, so this one was built.'
I joined in the satire. 'You said this isn't permanent either?'
'No. The permanent bridge will come straight across to link up with the forum; people arriving will have a splendid view, directly across the river and up the hill.'
'So when is the permanent bridge planned for?' I asked, smiling.
'About ten years' time, I'd say,' he told me gloomily. 'Meanwhile we have this one, which you could call the permanent temporary bridge – or the temporary permanent bridge.'
'It's off-set so while you build the final version alongside, you can maintain a crossing point?'
'Correct! If you want to cross now, my advice is, use the ferry.'
I quirked up an eyebrow. 'Why?'
'The bridge is temporary; we don't maintain it.' I laughed.
Hilaris then fell into a reflective mood. He enjoyed giving history lessons. 'I remember when there was nothing here. Just a few round huts, most of them across the water. Orchards and coppices this side. By Jove it felt desolate! A civilian settlement struggled into existence after Rome invaded. But we were then away out at Camulodunum, the Britons' own chief centre. It was bloody inconvenient, I can tell you. Our presence caused bad feeling too; in the Rebellion that was the first place lost.'
'Londinium had enough by Nero's day to attract Boudicca's energy,' I reminisced bitterly. 'I saw it… Well, I saw what was left afterwards.'
Hilaris paused. He had forgotten that I was here in the Icenian Rebellion – a youngster, marked for life by that grim experience. Evidence of the firestorm remained to this day. Memories of corpses and severed heads churning in the local waterways would never die. The whole atmosphere of this place still upset me. I would be glad when I could leave.
Hilaris was in Britain then too. I was a ranker, and in a disgraced legion; he a junior official among the governor's elite staff. Our paths would not have crossed.
After a moment he went on, 'You're right; the bridge will change things. The river used to form a natural boundary. The Atrebates and Cantii roamed to the south, the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni to the north. The floodplain was no man's land.'
'We Romans were the first to deploy the corridor, making the river a highway?'
'Before we put in decent roads it was the best way to move around supplies, Marcus. The estuary is navigable way up to here – and in the early days ships were more secure than trundling goods across country. They can float up on one tide, then back on the next. After the Rebellion we made this the provincial capital and now it's a major import base.'
'New city, new formal administrative centre -'
'And new problems!' said Hilaris, with unexpected feeling.
What problems? Did he already know what we were dealing with? It seemed a cue to discuss the Briton's death.
'Verovolcus,' I admitted, 'might have been in that district close to the river because he was trying to arrange transport to Gaul.'
I made no overt link to the problems. Whatever that was about could wait.
Hilaris turned his neat head and considered me. 'You knew Verovolcus' movements? Why was he going to Gaul?'
'Exile. He was in disgrace.'
'Exile!' Some people would at once have asked me why. Ever the pedantic administrator, Hilaris demanded, 'Have you told the governor that?'
'Not yet.' I had no option now. 'Oh, I like Frontinus. I've worked with him before, Gaius, and on confidential matters too. But you're the old lag in this province. I was more likely to tell you.' I smiled, and the procurator acknowledged the compliment. 'It's a stupid story. Verovolcus killed an official. His motives were misguided, he expected royal protection – but he had misjudged Togidubnus.'
'You exposed him.' A statement, not a question. Hilaris knew how I worked. 'And you did tell the King!'
'I had to.' That had been far from easy. Verovolcus had been the King's close confidant. 'It was tense. The King is virtually independent, and we were in his tribal centre. Imposing a Roman solution was not easy. Fortunately Togi wants amicable relations, so in the end he agreed that his man had to disappear. Murder's a capital crime but that seemed the best I could ask for. From our angle, I felt I could sanction exile rather than a public trial and an execution. Sending Verovolcus to Gaul was my bargain for us all keeping the affair quiet.'
'Neat,' Hilaris agreed, ever pragmatic. Britain was a sensitive province since the Rebellion. Tribal feeling might not tolerate a respected king's henchman being punished for murdering a Roman official. Verovolcus did it (I was confident of that) but the governor would have hated having to dole out a death sentence to the King's right-hand man, and if Frontinus was publicly lenient he would look weak, both here and back in Rome.
'Verovolcus agreed on Gaul?'
'He wasn't keen.'
'Londinium was not allowed as an alternative?'
'Nowhere in Britain. I would have made Londinium formally off-limits if I had ever thought Verovolcus would turn up here.'
'And the King?'
'He knew Gaul was better than the standard desert island.'
'But with Verovolcus killed in a Londinium bar instead, the King may well turn rough,' Hilaris observed glumly.
'Bound to,' I said.
He cleared his throat, as if diffident. 'Will he suspect that you arranged this death?'
I shrugged.
No stranger to the ways of undercover agents, Flavius Hilaris turned to stare at me. He was blunt: 'Did you?'
'No.'
He did not ask whether I would have done so, if I had thought of it. I chewed a fingernail, wondering that myself.
'You said Verovolcus killed someone,' suggestedHilaris. 'Could his drowning be some form of retribution, Marcus?'
'Unlikely.' I was fairly sure. 'There is nobody with an interest. He killed the architect, the project manager for the King's new palace.'
'What? Pomponius?' As financial procurator, Hilaris ultimately signed off the bills for the King's palace. He would know who the architect was – and that he had died. He would also have seen my situation-review afterwards. But your report said -'
'All it had to.' I sensed a slight awkwardness, as if Hilaris and I answered to different masters over this. 'I was on site to clear up problems. I put down the architect's death as a "tragic accident". There was no need to start a scandal by saying Togi's man had killed him. The King will rein in his people and the crime won't recur. A substitute is running the site, and running it well.'
Hilaris had let me talk him through it, but he remained unhappy. The report we were discussing had been addressed to the governor, but I sent my own copy to Vespasian. I had always intended to give a more accurate statement to the Emperor later – if he wanted to know. Killing the story might help him preserve good relations with his friend the King. I did not care. I was paid on results.
The results Vespasian wanted were to stop a glut of wild expenditure on a very expensive building site. He had sent me, nominally a private informer, because I was a first rate auditor. I had discovered a feud between the King as client and his officially appointed architect. When it flared up, with fatal results, we found ourselves left with nobody in charge of a multimillion-seste
rces scheme – and chaos. Verovolcus, who had caused this mess, was not my favourite Briton. He was damned lucky that Gaul was the worst punishment I devised for him.
'Did Pomponius have relatives?' Hilaris was still fretting away at his retribution theory.
'In Italy. He had a boyfriend in Britain who was rather cut up, but he's working on the site. We beefed up his responsibilities; that should keep him quiet. I can check he has not left the area.'
'I'll send a messenger.' If Hilaris was overruling me it was tactful – so far. 'What is his name?'
'Plancus.'
'Did Verovolcus act alone?'
'No. He had a crony. A site supervisor. We arrested him.'
'Present location?'
'Thank the gods I had been conscientious about tying up ends: Noviomagus. The King's responsibility.'
'Punishment?'
'That I don't know -' Now I felt like a schoolboy who had neglected his homework. Flavius Hilaris might be my wife's uncle but if I had bungled, I would be slated. 'Mandumerus had had only a secondary role and he was a local, so I let Togidubnus deal with him.'
'Mandumerus, you say.' Hilaris picked me up at once. 'I'll find out.'
I let him run with the line. In the long term, I could bunk off to Rome. Rome might give me a grilling, but I was up to it. Hilaris would live with the legacy of this tavern slaughter as long as he stayed in Britain. The royal connection was awkward enough. In addition, one of the Hilaris family's private homes stood in Noviomagus, just a mile from the King. Poor Uncle Gaius had been handed a personal 'bad neighbour' quarrel, if nothing else. 'Marcus, you don't think Togidubnus himself has punished Verovolcus in this way?'
'What a terrible thought!' I grinned. I liked Hilaris, but the devious minds of bureaucrats never cease to amaze me. 'The King was annoyed at the man's hot-headed action – but more annoyed with me for finding out.'
'Well, we are a step ahead of him so far.'
'I hope you are not suggesting a cover-up!' I offered satirically.
At that, Flavius Hilaris looked genuinely shocked. 'Dear gods, no. But we do have some grace to find out what happened – before the King starts slamming us with ballista bolts.' The use of a trooper's term from this quiet, cultured man reminded me there was more to nice, stylus-pushing Uncle Gaius than most people noticed.
I foresaw what was coming. 'You mean, I have time to do it?'
'Of course.' He beamed at me.
I sighed. 'Well, thanks.'
'Didius Falco, we are exceptionally lucky to have you here!'
Oh yes. This was a very familiar situation, one that clients had exploited in the past: I was implicated. I had made the victim leave his home ground, and though I told myself it was not my fault he ended up dead in a strange bar, I felt guilty. So I was stuck.
IV
'Nix Juno thought we had left all that nonsense behind,' my sister Maia complained. All my sisters were renowned for despising my work. Maia might be a thousand miles from home, but she kept up Aventine traditions. 'Marcus! Britain may be a small province in the rump of the Empire, but does everything that happens here have to be related to everything else?'
'It is rather unusual to be drowned in a wine barrel,' said Aelia Camilla mildly.
'What barrel?' scoffed Maia. 'I thought the man was shoved down a well?'
'Same thing. Wine is a hugely popular import. From the River Rhenus area in Germany it often comes in enormous wooden casks which then make good well-linings at a small cost.'
Aelia Camilla, the procurator's wife, was a calm, intelligent woman, the unflappable mother to a bunch of fearsomely bright children. Like her husband, she was both more competent and much more approachable than she appeared. The self-sacrificing pair had been born to represent the Empire abroad. They were wise; they were fair. They embodied noble Roman qualities.
That did not make them popular with colleagues. It never does. They did not seem to notice, and never complained. Expertise in the British situation buoyed them up. Under a different emperor they might well have dwindled into oblivion. Under Vespasian they flourished surprisingly.
The slight friction between Aelia Camilla and my favourite sister Maia was a sadness to Helena and me. Being mothers several times over was not enough in common to create warmth. Maia – fashionable, pert, angry and outspoken – was a different type. In fact, Maia shone in a different sky from most people. That was her problem.
This scene was taking place after lunch. Everyone official lived at the procurator's residence since the governor's palace was not yet built. Life abroad is communal. Diplomats are used to that. Lunch occurred without the governor; Frontinus took a tray in his office. (Whereas he hosted dinner, which was always formal, and rather a trial.) So now the procurator and his wife were eating gritty bread and travel-weary olives with just the four adults of my party. The couple were hospitable. When they first insisted that I bring Helena Justina to visit, they knew we were with our two baby daughters – although not that I was also accompanied by my moody sister, her four lively children, two excitable pet dogs, and my grumpy friend Petronius. Luckily Helena's two squabbling brothers and a loud nephew of mine had stayed behind in the south to go hunting and drinking. They could turn up any minute, but I had not mentioned that.
Hilaris, to whom I had promised more details (while hoping to avoid it), lay on a reading couch apart, apparently absorbed in scrolls. I knew he was listening. His wife was speaking for him, just as Helena would often question my own visitors – whether I was present or not. The procurator and his lady shared their thoughts, as we did. He and I were parties to true Roman marriage: confiding to our serious, sensitive womenfolk things we never even told our masculine friends. It could have made the women domineering – but females in the Camillus family were strong-willed in any case. That was why I liked mine. Don't ask me about Hilaris and his.
Petronius Longus, my best friend, did not approve. Still, he was a misery these days. Having come out to Britain, either to see me or my sister, he had travelled to Londinium with us but apparently just wanted to go home. At present he was hunched on a stool looking bored. He was starting to embarrass me. He had never been anti-social or awkward in company before. Helena thought he was in love. Fat chance. At one point he had been after Maia, but they now rarely spoke.
'So, Marcus, Verovolcus was in trouble. Tell us about what happened to the architect,' Aelia Camilla prompted me. She behaved informally for a diplomat's wife, but she was personally shy and I had yet to deduce even which of her two names she preferred in private use.
'Confidential, I'm afraid.'
'Hushed up?' Helena's aunt leapt in again. Her great dark eyes were impossible to avoid. I had always found it difficult to play the hard man in her presence. While seeming gentle and bashful, she screwed all sorts of answers out of me. 'Well, we are all in government service, Marcus. We know how things work.'
'Oh – it was daft.' As I gave in, I sensed Helena smiling. She loved to see her aunt get the better of me. 'A clash of ideas. The King and his architect were daggers drawn and Verovolcus took it upon himself to defend his royal master's taste in an extreme way.'
'I met Pomponius,' Aelia Camilla said. 'A typical designer. He knew exactly what the client should want.'
'Quite. But King Togidubnus is now on his third major refit to the palace; he has strong opinions and is very knowledgeable about architecture.'
'Were his demands too expensive? Or did he keep making changes?' Aelia Camilla knew all the pitfalls of public works.
'No, he just refused to accept any design features he hated. Verovolcus bore the brunt; he was supposed to liaise between them, but Pomponius despised him. Verovolcus became just a cipher. He did away with Pomponius so a more amenable architect could take over. It sounds stupid, but I think it was the only way he could reassert his own control.'
'It casts interesting light on the British situation.' Helena was seated in a wicker chair, her favourite type. With her hands folded over her wo
ven belt and her feet on a small footstool, she could have been modelling memorials for submissive wives. I knew better. Tall, graceful and grave, Helena Justina read widely and kept up with world affairs. Born to bear and educate senatorial children, she was giving culture and good sense to mine. And she kept me in hand.
'Representing progress we had the Great King: an ideal provincial monarch – civilised, keen to be part of the Empire, utterly go-ahead. Then there was Verovolcus, his closest aide, still at heart a tribal warrior. Murdering the Roman project manager was repugnant to the King, but Verovolcus honoured darker gods.'
'I never dwelt on his motives,' I admitted. 'So was it really just an artistic feud that blew up out of proportion – or more political? Was Verovolcus expressing barbarian hatred for Rome?'
'How did he react when you confronted him with the crime?' asked Aelia Camilla.
'Spat fury. Denied it. Swore he'd get me.'
'Just like any cornered suspect,' Helena observed. Our eyes met. Communal discussions made me ill at ease I would much have preferred a private boudoir exchange.
'So, Marcus, let me understand you,' her aunt pressed on intensely. She moved against the embroidered cushion at her back, so her bangles shivered and gold flickers freckled the ornately coffered ceiling. 'You told Verovolcus he would not be tried for the murder, but must go into exile. The punishment for a Roman would be exclusion from the Empire.'
'But for him I suggested Gaul.'
We all smiled. Gaul had been part of the Empire for longer than Britain, but we were Romans and for us even Gaul was backwoods territory.
'He could have sailed straight to Gaul from Novio.' From his couch, Gaius' thoughtful voice proved me right: he had been listening in.
'True. I assumed he would.'
'Would riding off to Londinium seem less obvious to his friends? Less shameful, say?' Maia enjoyed a puzzle.
'Or was he heading somewhere else?' Helena tried. 'No, if you pick up transport in Londinium it always goes across to Gaul. He gained nothing by coming here.'
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