Petronius spoke, dour as a bad-tempered oracle: 'There is nowhere beyond Britain. The only way is back!' He hated Britain.
So did I. I played it down while I was the procurator's guest. Hilaris had been in Britain so long he had lost his nostalgia for the real world. Tragic.
'If Verovolcus came to Londinium,' mused Aelia Camilla, 'would he have had to hide?'
'From me?' I laughed. So did rather too many of my friends and relatives.
'He thought he was a fugitive, though in fact,' Aelia Camilla said demurely, 'you had not told the governor!' I tried not to feel guilty. 'Verovolcus didn't know that. So he might have skulked in that bad district to lie low?'
'What's the bad locale, Falco?' asked Petronius. A professional question. At home, he was a member of the vigiles.
'A bar.'
'What bar?' At least he had revived and taken an interest. Petro was a big, active man, who seemed cramped in smart indoor locations. He could have relaxed on a padded couch with lion's head feet as I did, but he preferred to ignore what passed for comfort here, hugging his knees uncomfortably and scuffing the striped woollen rugs with his sturdy paramilitary boots.
I felt an odd reluctance to tell him about the crime scene. 'A black little hutment at the back of the wharves.'
'Whereabouts, Falco?' His brown eyes quizzed me. Petronius knew when I was stalling for some reason. 'How did you get there?'
'You don't mean you want to take a look?'
'Take the road down from the forum, bear left, and go into the worst alleys you see,' explained Hilaris. 'It was called the Shower of Gold – incongruously. There was a dim painting on the outside wall. Did you notice that, Falco?' I had not. The hovel had hardly been the kind of place where Jupiter would flash in through a window disguised as a shower of gold – or anything else – to reach the arms of a lady friend. The waitress we met would surely repel divinities. 'What's your interest, Lucius Petronius?' Hilaris then asked. He spoke politely, but I reckoned he regarded Petro as an unknown quantity who should be watched.
'Nothing at all.' Petro lost any interest he had had. Apparently.
'Out of your jurisdiction.' I said it sympathetically. Petro was missing Rome.
He gave me a bitter, rather ambiguous, smile. He even missed his work, it seemed. Maybe his conscience was pricking. I had still not extracted how he managed to bunk off on leave for a couple of months. I knew he was between postings, but his very request for a transfer off the Aventine would have used up any goodwill from his old vigiles tribune. The new one, presumably, just wanted Petro on the squadron-house bench as soon as possible.
'Any bar is a good haven for Lucius Petronius!' My rude sister was scathing. They had been bickering since Petro had reached us, bringing her children to rejoin her. He had done her a favour – not that Maia thought so.
'Good idea,' Petronius smacked back, jumping up and sauntering to the door. Once I would have headed after him, but I was a good husband and father these days. (Well, in public, I mostly managed to look like one.) Helena sucked her teeth anxiously. Maia shot Petro a superior look. By accident or on purpose, he slammed the door as he left.
The procurator and his wife tried to avoid showing how weary they were of their visitors' guests squabbling.
I closed my eyes and pretended to doze off. It fooled no one.
V
'I used to believe,' Helena complained to me privately later, 'Lucius Petronius and Maia were each trying to decide what they wanted. Sadly, I think they know now – and it's not each other.'
My sister and my friend both had tragic histories. Petro, once seemingly respectable, domesticated, and kind to tabby kittens, had plunged into a crass affair. He had strayed from home before, but this was with a gangster's wife, which was disastrous. Even his tribune became touchy about it, and his wife divorced him. Silvia took his daughters away to Ostia, where she now lived with a low-grade seasonal street-food seller; she had humiliated Petronius as much as possible.
Maia, equally settled apparently, had then been widowed. This situation is often to be welcomed, though even the deadbeats and wastrels my sisters married were rarely eaten by arena lions in Tripolitania after a trial for blasphemy. Few families on the Aventine could boast of so much excitement and we were trying to keep the dishonour quiet, for the sake of Maia's children. Lying about it no doubt added to her sense of isolation. She had made other mistakes too. Bad ones. She made a fool of herself with Anacrites the Chief Spy, for one thing. That was a situation we could not talk about at all.
'I thought they just needed time,' Helena sighed.
'Oh they may yet be prodded into close proximity – but you'll need to use a long stick.' Petronius Longus was a big lad, and my sister could be volatile.
'Better not to interfere, Marcus.'
'Right.'
If the bad thing about staying in an official residence was constant smalltalk, the good was that on the occasions Helena and I did sneak off alone, we were entirely alone. Nux, my dog, was scrabbling outside the door now, but we could pretend to ignore her. Our two little daughters, along with Maia's children, were safe in the custody of Aelia Camilla's nursery staff. Even our hopeless nursemaid had been absorbed and put to some use; I dreamed that she would stay there when we left.
'This is fine,' I said, stretching lazily. 'What we need is a house with so many rooms that nobody can find us, and cohorts of obedient staff, trained to walk about in silence, sponging away all trace of children's mashed-up food with tolerant smiles.'
'They have a Greek steward who can play the tibia.'
'The double flute! We could get one. We wouldn't need a new nursemaid if we had him to put the babies off to sleep with his tootling.'
'This one certainly soothed you into nodding off last night!' scoffed Helena.
'He's a rotten player. Anyway, I confess I had a drop too much to drink with Petro before dinner. I was trying to cheer him up.'
'You failed then, Marcus.'
'Lucius Petronius is not a happy boy.'
'Well he should be! He's going to the bad, isn't he? He chose to do it,' Helena said crisply. 'He damn well should enjoy it.'
'Going bad was good fun when I tried it. I don't know why he's so incompetent…
'Hasn't found the right rope-dancer yet.'
Helena was referring to an old girlfriend of mine. She had never even met the woman, but she never let me forget that she knew of my colourful past.
To retaliate, I closed my eyes with a smile of supposed blissful reminiscence. A mistake, of course. My thoughts really did stray in the wrong direction. Helena knew that. She whacked me with a cushion, right at the spot where my stomach was digesting its unsatisfactory British lunch.
Petronius had in fact now ceased to be a social embarrassment. He completely disappeared. He left me a rudely worded note to say he was going off alone. He did not say he was leaving the province, nor did he give me any clue where to contact him. I checked discreetly with the procurator's staff: Petro had been seen leaving the governor's residence, wearing what my prissy slave informant described as a very dirty tunic. (So at least he was not off screwing some carrot-haired woman he had left behind to marinade ten years ago.) I found all his usual clothes, still in his pack, under the bed in the guestroom he had occupied. When Petro went to the bad, he threw himself into it in sordid style.
I tried not to feel envious.
In Rome, I would have assumed he was on vigiles surveillance and thought nothing of it. Here, a continent away from his official patch, that explanation could not apply. For him simply to vanish without discussion troubled me; I wondered if he were even more unhappy than I had noticed.
Maia was less sympathetic. 'Now you know how Helena feels when you just stay out and don't tell her why,' she reproved me. 'Still, he's a man. He is thoughtless and selfish. That's all we can expect.' She had dumped him, so presumably she did not care, but her children had grown enormously fond of Petro on their long trip across Europe togethe
r; they were giving their mother a bad time, mithering over where he was. Maia had no answers – a situation that never suited her.
'Am I to set him a place tonight at dinner, I wonder?' asked Aelia Camilla, more anxious and puzzled than annoyed. She was a decent woman.
'No, don't. In fact,' scoffed Maia, 'don't set him a place even if he suddenly comes back!'
Petronius did not return.
VI
Abandoned by Petronius, that afternoon I settled down to work. Being asked to investigate the Verovolcus case would keep me trapped in Londinium even longer than I wanted, but I could not refuse the procurator and governor.
The governor, for one, thought it amusing to see me lumbered. Sextus Julius Frontinus was in his forties, a dedicated ex-consul whom I had met a couple of years before in Rome. We had worked together to solve a cruel series of female fatalities. Most consuls stink; he seemed different and I took to him. Frontinus had all the makings of an old-time Roman in power: soldierly, cultured, intrigued by administrative problems of all kinds, decent, absolutely straight. He had asked for me by name as his trouble-solver on the Togidubnus palace audit. My success there made me even more popular.
'If anyone can decipher what happened to the King's crony it's you, Falco.'
'Honeyed words!' I never treated men of rank with fake respect. If my manner seemed abrasive, that was tough. Frontinus knew I would do a good job; I had a fair idea what this crime was about, and I was blunt: 'My guess is, Verovolcus skulked up to Londinium hoping to escape notice. He wanted to stay in Britain. Then he cut across some locals at the bar. The hothead tried to lord it. They took exception. Someone tipped him arse-up in the cask-lined waterhole. While he was gurgling – or just before they plunged him in – they took the chance to pinch his torque. They scarpered. Any officer on your staff with local knowledge should track them down. Find the torque and it should convict them.'
'Nice theory,' retorted the governor, unmoved. 'I can accept that. Now prove it, Falco, before Togidubnus hears the tragic news and gallops here with sparks flying.'
He was very down to earth. He must have been chosen for Britain because the Emperor thought him both efficient and adaptable. I knew from talking to him already that he had a heavy programme ahead. In the three years he would administer Britain, Frontinus was planning to Romanise the province completely. He was about to embark on a major military expansion, with a big campaign against the untamed western tribes, then perhaps a further campaign in the north. In the stabilised interior, he wanted to establish ten or twelve new civic centres, self-governing coloniae, where the tribes would be semi-autonomous. Londinium, his winter headquarters, was to become a full municipality and a major works programme would aggrandise the place. If all this came off, as I thought it would, Britain would be transformed. Julius Frontinus would haul this marginal, barbarian province properly into the Empire.
Britain was a hard posting. It took its toll on every grade. Flavius Hilaris had taken over the financial role after his predecessor, the Gaul who restored order after Boudicca, died in harness. The governorship had a worse history. Suetonius Paullinus had been formally reported to Rome for incompetence. In the Year of the Four Emperors, Turpilianus was ousted by his military legates who then – unthinkably – ran Britain as a committee. Petilius Cerialis, the immediate past incumbent, had a history of ludicrous errors; he had acquired the job only because he was related to Vespasian.
Frontinus would do well. He was both active and conciliatory. But the last thing he needed while he found his feet was a tricky situation with a dead British notable. 'This has the potential to turn bad, Falco.'
'I know, sir.' I used my frank and trustworthy gaze. That was a look I had once kept for women, and still employed with creditors. Frontinus may well have noticed I was a devious double-dealing toad, but he tolerated that. My next question was a fair one: 'Flavius Hilaris mentioned some administrative problems. Any chance I can be told what's up?'
'Better ask him. He has it all at his fingertips.' The governor took the classic way out. It was impossible to tell whether he even knew about these problems.
I asked Hilaris. He now seemed unable to remember having mentioned them.
Right. Thanks, lads! You mighty legates of Augustus sit tight in your frescoed headquarters dealing with dispatches, while I barge off into the mire.
Why did I always opt for clients who tried to conceal dirty situations? I spent more time investigating the people who hired me, than dealing with whatever they had asked me to investigate.
As usual I refused to let my secretive employers have their way. If there was mud on the marble, I was perfectly able to step in it by myself. Then everyone would have to endure the mess.
VII
First I tried the centurion. I thought I would pick him up at the fort. Easier said than done. First I had to find it. I remembered a wood and turf enclosure, hurriedly thrown up after the Rebellion, just east of the forum. We had used it to protect survivors as much as anything. When I found the site, it had clearly been abandoned years before.
There had never been legions permanently stationed in the capital; they were always needed forward, to guard the frontiers. Thirty years after its conquest by Rome, Britain still kept four active legions – more than any other province. It was out of proportion and stupidly expensive. It showed Rome's fears, after our near-overthrow by Boudicca.
If there were five hundred soldiers in Londinium, that was pushing it, but they ought to be decent quality. The legions took turns to send men back to the capital on detached duty. In a frontier province even the walking wounded and duffers who had annoyed their legate should be capable of guarding the governor and his staff, impressing visitors, flashing swords in the forum, and patrolling the docks. They had to live somewhere. Information from a passer-by took me right the other side of the forum, across the stream that divided the town, and down the Decumanus, the main street. I ended up on some remote thoroughfare, way out by the amphitheatre, a tedious hike.
There I found a mess. The western hill had been taken over by whatever units were stationed here to guard the governor, and since the governor rarely stopped in the capital long, they lived in chaos. It was worse than a marching camp – no proper defences and individual groups of barrack blocks all over the show.
I found my man. He was annoyed at being rooted out but agreed to come and play. I took him for a drink. He could pretend to his mates that I needed specialist advice in private. And in private, I might seduce him into revealing more than he should.
He insisted on taking me to a bar the soldiers liked. By the time we arrived I knew his name was Silvanus. I offered wine, but he preferred beer. 'That Celtic muck is fermenting in your belly, Silvanus!' I joshed. Pretending to be friends with a man I despised was a strain. 'You'll end up like some fat pink Celt.'
'I can handle it.' They always say that. He would never look pink, in fact. My banqueting guest was a swan southerner; he had arms clothed in dark hairs like a goatskin rug and was so coarsely stubbled he could have removed paint from woodwork with his chin.
'I've drawn the short straw on that barrel killing,' I said gloomily. That made him laugh, the lazy bastard. It meant he would not have to bestir himself; he liked seeing me suffer too. The laugh was openly unpleasant. I was glad I did not have to work with him.
I kept the beer flowing his way. I stuck with wine, surreptitiously diluting it with extra water when Silvanus wasn't looking.
It took half a bucketful of beer to soften him up enough to start talking, then another half to slow him down on how he hated the climate, the remoteness, the women, the men, and the piss-poor gladiatorial games.
'So Londinium's acquired its own dinky amphitheatre? If I may say so, it's a bit cut off out here – and aren't arenas usually near the fort? Mind you, I wouldn't say you had anything that I would call a fort!'
'There's to be a new fort, to stop fraternising.'
'As if anyone would! So how do the lads
like the arena?'
'It's rubbish, Falco. We get puppy fights and pretty girls in armour.'
'Saucy stuff! Sex and swords… How lucky you are!' We drank. 'Tell me what the mood is around here nowadays.'
'What mood?'
'Well, I was last in Londinium when Boudicca had done her worst.'
'Fine old times!' Silvanus gloated. What a moron. He cannot have been here then. Even a man as dense as this would have had sorrow etched into his soul.
If he asked me what legion I served in, I would lie. I could not face it if this lightweight learned I had been in the Second Augusta. My tragic legion, led at the time by a criminal idiot, abandoned their colleagues to face the tribal onslaught. Best not to think what a currently serving centurion would make of that.
Nor was I intending to ask Silvanus which outfit he graced. The Twentieth or Ninth, perhaps; both did fight Boudicca and neither would be friends of mine. These days Britain also had one of the patched-together new Flavian units, the Second Adiutrix. I ruled it out. Silvanus did not strike me as a man from a new legion; he had old lag written all over him from his scuffed boots to his scabbard, which he had customised with tassels that looked like bits of dead rat. At least I knew he did not belong to the dire, gloating Fourteenth Gemina. They had been relocated to Germany to reform their habits, were that possible. I had met them there – still pushing people around and pointlessly bragging.
'This place should never have been rebuilt.' Silvanus wanted to carp about the town; it stopped me brooding about the army anyway.
'Disaster has that effect, man. Volcanoes, floods, avalanches – bloody massacres. They bury the dead, then rush to reconstruct in the danger area… Londinium never had any character.'
'Traders,' Silvanus grumbled. 'Wine, hides, grain, slaves. Bloody traders. Ruin a place.'
'Can't expect high art and culture.' I spoke slowly and slurred my words like him. It was coming quite easily. "This is just a road junction. A huddle of industries on the south bank, a couple of cranky ferries coming across. North side, a few low-rise stinking warehouses… everything about it tells you it's nothing.'
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