The news that she was to be made an honest woman by a sly tyke with a seaweed moustache set Ollia off crying again, as well it might. Larius, from whom we had kept the sordid details in view of his artistic nature, was glowering at me frantically.
‘Ollia’s slipped up with her bit of whale blubber,’ I enlightened him. ‘She’s just realized why her mother always warned her: she’ll spend the next fifty years paying for this mistake. When he’s not out after the women he’ll be lying in bed all day, shouting for his dinner and calling her a dozy slut. Now you will appreciate why women who can afford it are prepared to risk abortionists’ drugs-‘
Larius got up without a word and went to help Petronius order the wine.
Helena Justina, who had been talking to the children while Silvia was calming Ollia, shot me the long, cool glance of a senator’s daughter who had glimpsed life on the seamy side and decided this too was something any woman who could afford it would spend serious money to avoid.
We managed to make a good night of it, in the desperate way people do when the choke is between dogged survival or sliding under the morass.
As soon as Petronius reappeared with trays of bread and wine flasks the strain began to evaporate. The affectionate touch of his great hands on frazzled heads soothed everyone as he got us organized. Finding myself near Silvia, who did have more troubles than usual that night, I jollied her along with a hand on her knee (the table was so narrow that people sitting opposite were practically on your lap). Silvia kicked Petro, thinking it was him, so without bothering to look up from his mullet he said, ‘Falco, keep your hands off my wife.’
‘Why do you behave so badly, Falco?’ Helena grumbled at me publicly. ‘Put your hands on the table and if you must be offensive, ogle at me.’
I wondered morosely whether Helena was so short with me because she was worried about Pertinax being on the run. I watched her, but she knew I was doing it; her pale face resolutely gave nothing away.
It was one of those nights when a troupe of country dancers came, which soon cheered us up with something to scoff at. Anywhere in the world you can see these tired performers; the girls with scarlet ribbons and tambourines who turned out on close inspection to be a mite older than they first appeared; the bright-eyed little card with a fiendish grin and savagely hooked nose who frenetically played the panpipes; the aloof, balding character tootling a solemn flute of a kind unknown to musicologists. Shepherds down from the hills, or the innkeeper’s relations, who knows? It was a summer job - a little money, a few drinks, some thin applause, whistles from the locals, and for us the educational extra of slipping out to the latrine and finding one of the dancers leaning on a wall eating a stick of salami - looking less colourful, less cheerful, and decidedly less clean.
These were as good, or as bad, as they ever are. They whirled and glided and kicked their booted heels with just a touch too much disinterest (considering they expected us to put money in the hat), though the girls did smile steadily as they touted round baskets of roses afterwards, cursing under their breath at the big, black-haired young man who was supposed to wring the cash from us. He showed a particular yen to sit down for a drink out of someone else’s flagon and take the weight off his quaint dancing pumps. While he was talking to Petronius, I put my arm round Helena and reminisced how in the old days it always turned out that my elder brother Festus knew the flute player, so the children in our party would be given a free instrument from the sad musician’s bundle of home-whittled sticks, instead of us having to pay for them…
Petro leaned over to Helena. ‘Once he sounds off about his brother, whip his wine cup away!’ She did. I let her, because while she was doing it she smiled at me so fondly I felt weak. Petronius chivalrously handed her a walnut. It was one of his accomplishments that he could crack a walnut shell so skillfully he brought out the kernel intact: both halves, still held together cunningly by their papery flange. After she ate it she let her head loll on my shoulder, and held my hand.
So we all sat under a vine trellis into the evening, with the glint of the dark sea beyond a stone abutment, while men in skimpy tunics thumped up the dust in a fine haze over the hibiscus leaves. Ollia had a stomach-ache and my poor Larius had heartache. I was thinking about my search for Atius Pertinax tomorrow. Helena was smiling dreamily. Petronius and Silvia decided that their holiday had done them as much good as it ever would, and it was time to go home.
None of the new flutes would play. (They never do, but Petro and I would never learn.)
We all walked slowly back to the inn, and because it was Silvana’s birthday we made a ceremony of putting the children to bed. I did not know what I would have to go through before I saw Helena again, so I had drawn her to one side for a private farewell. Someone called upstairs that I had a visitor. Petronius winked at me and went down to deal with it.
One of the children, who had reached the state of being as naughty as they dared, scampered after him in her undershirt. Twenty seconds later, even over the hubbub upstairs, we heard her screams.
I was first down the corridor and first down the stairs. Petronilla stood rooted in the doorway, still screaming. I picked her up. There was nothing else to do.
Petronius Longus lay sprawled face down in the inn courtyard with both arms outstretched. A savage blow had felled him, struck at the most dangerous, tender area of his neck. The blood which oozed so slowly from the wound said everything.
For one long moment I held his child, and simply stood, unable to move. There was nothing I could do for him. I knew he was dead.
LXVIII
Among the pounding feet that followed me down, Silvia’s sandals whispered, then she shot past me like a breath and onto him before I could snatch her back. I thought she gasped, ‘Oh, y baby?’ but that must have been a mistake.
I pushed the child into someone’s arms then ran out and tried to persuade Silvia to leave him. Helena Justina squeezed in alongside me and knelt by his head so she could gently check for a breath or a pulse.
‘Marcus, come and help me - he’s alive!’
After that she and I worked as partners. Life held some hope again. There were things to do.
Larius tore off on a donkey in search of a doctor. Ollia, with surprising sense, extricated Silvia. I did not want to move Petro, but it was growing darker every minute and we could not leave him out there. Helena commandeered a room on the ground floor - paid for it, I think - then we carried him in on a hurdle.
He should have been dead. A smaller man would have been. I would be. Presumably some villain who specialized in pointless gestures now thought I was.
He was deeply unconscious, so deeply it was dangerous. Even if he ever woke, he might not be himself. But he was a big, fit man with the physical strength to match; there was stamina and determination in everything he did. Larius found a doctor who salved the wound, reassured us that Petronius had not lost much blood, and said all we could now do was keep him warm and wait.
Helena soothed the children. Helena made Silvia comfortable with blankets and cushions in Petro’s room. Helena saw to the doctor, shooed off the sightseers, and reassured Ollia and Larius. I even saw her with Ollia, feeding the children’s kittens. Then she sent a message to the villa that she was staying here.
I went round the inn, as Petronius used to every night.
I stood on the road outside, listening to the darkness, hating whoever had done this, plotting revenge. I knew who it must have been: Atius Pertinax.
I looked in on the stables and fed Nero hay by hand. Indoors again in the room where Petro had been taken, Silvia rocked gently, nursing Tadia in her arms. I smiled, but we did not speak because the children were asleep. I knew Silvia blamed me. For once we had nothing to quarrel about: I blamed myself.
I snuffed all the tapers except one, then sat with him. Tonight his features contained strange hollows. Under the bruises from his headlong fall his face seemed so lacking in colour and emotion it was like another man’s. I had know
n him for ten years; we had shared a barracks at the back of the world in Britain and a tent on forced marches during the Iceni troubles. Back in Rome afterwards, Petronius and I had split more wine jars than I cared to remember, scoffed at each other’s women, laughed at each other’s habits, exchanged favours and jokes, rarely squabbled except when his work clashed with mine. He was a brother to me, where my own had been almost too colourful to tolerate.
He never knew I was there. Eventually I left him, with his two elder daughters curled asleep against his side.
I walked upstairs, watchful and conserving my resources. I turned up the mattress on his bed and found, where I knew it would be, Petro’s sword. I stood it beside my own bed.
In our other room, Helena was talking to Ollia and Larius; I looked in to say goodnight, needing to count heads. I managed to croak at Helena pompously. ‘This is very inadequate, but thank you for staying. It would be chaos without you. I don’t mean to burden you with our troubles…’
‘Your troubles are my troubles,’ Helena replied steadily. I smiled, unable to cope with it, then jerked my head at Larius. ‘Time for bed.’
But Helena was persuading Ollia to confide in her and Larius seemed part of the seminar, so after I had left them the murmur of their voices continued for some time.
It was the third hour of darkness. I was lying on my back, with folded arms, studying the top of a window recess on the opposite wall as I waited for the day and my chance to extract my revenge. A board creaked; I expected Larius but it was Helena.
We knew each other so well we never spoke. I held out my hand to her, and made space on the awful bed. She blew out her lamp and I damped it to stop the wick smelling, then I thumbed mine too.
Now I was lying on my back with my arms folded, but this time they were folded tight round Helena. Her cold feet found a place to warm themselves under one of mine. I have a clear recollection of how we both sighed at that moment, though I cannot say which of us fell asleep first.
Nothing happened. There is more than one reason for sharing a bed. Helena wanted to be with me. And I needed her there.
LXIX
For the next three days I scoured the Bay in a hired vessel from Pompeii, a slow ship with a dull captain who could not, or would not, grasp my urgency. Once again I was searching for the Isis Africana and once again it seemed a waste of time. Every night I went back to the inn, exhausted and morose. Petronius started to regain consciousness late the first day, deeply quiet and puzzled at his own condition, yet essentially himself. Not even his gradual recovery comforted my bitter mood. As I expected, he could remember nothing about the attack.
On the third day I wrote to Rufus, offering to join forces. I told him what had happened, and named the new charge against Pertinax: attempted murder of a Roman watch captain, Lucius Petronius Longus. The boy who took my message returned, asking me to visit the Aemilius house. Larius drove me in Nero’s cart.
Rufus was out. It was his sister who wanted to see me.
I met Aemilia Fausta in a cold room where the heavy shadow of a walnut tree outside fell across the open shutter. She looked smaller and thinner than ever. Her pallor was increased by the unflattering tones of an insipid aquamarine gown.
I was annoyed. ‘I expected your brother. Did he get my letter?’ Anticipating my reaction, she nodded guiltily. ‘I see! But he’ll manage the hunt without me?’
‘My brother says informers have no part in civic life-‘
‘Your brother says too much!’ I let her see I was angry; I had wasted a journey, and lost a day of my search.
‘I am sorry,’ Aemilia Fausta interrupted carefully, ‘about your friend. Was he badly hurt, Falco?’
‘Whoever hit him wanted to crack someone’s skull apart.’
‘His?’
‘Mine.’
‘Will he recover?’
‘We hope so. I can’t say more.’
She was sitting bolt upright in a wicker chair, a long fringed scarf twisted across her lap. She had a numb expression and her voice sounded colourless.
‘Falco, is it certain the attacker was Pertinax Marcellus?’ ‘No one else has a motive. Plenty of people dislike me; but not enough to want me dead!’
‘My brother,’ she went on, ‘believes it is an advantage that Crispus and Pertinax are together now-‘
‘Your brother’s wrong. Pertinax has lost all sense of morality; these wild attacks - and there have been others - show the full extent of his breakdown. Crispus just needs his big ideas trimmed.’
‘Yes, Falco,’ Fausta agreed quietly.
Giving her a thoughtful scrutiny I said, ‘Vespasian disagrees with his politics, and you don’t like his private life - but that does not affect his potential for public service.’
‘No,’ she acknowledged, with a sad smile.
My scalp tingled expectantly. ‘Are you offering me some information, lady?’
‘Perhaps. My brother has arranged to meet Crispus with a view to arresting Pertinax. I am frightened what may happen. Sextus can be impetuous-‘
‘Sextus? Oh, your brother! I gather Pertinax is unaware they have arranged this friendly rendezvous?’ I wondered if Aufidius Crispus had now made his choice: to secure Vespasian’s favour by handing over the fugitive. (Or whether he was simply shedding himself of an embarrassment before he made his own bid for the throne.) Meanwhile, in some way he would probably bungle, Aemilius Rufus was attempting to snatch Pertinax so he could roll into Rome covered with glory… In this high-flown project I noticed nobody was planning any active role for me. ‘Aemilia Fausta, where is the meeting?’
‘At sea. My brother left before lunch for Misenum.’
I frowned. ‘He would be wise not to trust the fleet. Crispus has close associates among the trierarchs-‘
‘So,’ confided Aemilia Fausta, more drily, ‘has my brother!’
‘Ah!’ I said.
Darting off at a tangent, the lady abruptly enquired, ‘Is there anything I can send to help your friend and his family?’
‘Nothing special. Thanks for the thought…’
As in most things, Fausta seemed to expect rebuff. ‘You think it’s none of my business.’
‘Correct,’ I said. A thought crossed my mind which I dismissed as disloyal to Petronius.
I could see that Aemilia Fausta would be just the type to jump straight from her passionate infatuation with Crispus to a single-minded crush on anyone so foolish as to listen to her troubles. This scenario was no new one. Being a big, tolerant type (who loved something dainty to cuddle on his knee), my tentmate Petronius had left in his wake many fervent little ladies who regarded him as their saviour for reasons I was too embarrassed to enquire about. He usually stayed friends with them. So he would not want me to quarrel with Fausta on his behalf.
I suggested, ‘There is something you can do, in fact. Petronius could survive a journey now; I need to get him home. Could you lend the family a couple of decent litters to travel comfortably? Even better, persuade your brother to supply an armed guard? He’ll see the point. Then I can send Helena Justina back to the city in safety too…’ Fausta nodded gratefully. ‘Now, I need to move swiftly. At sea” you say. Can you be more specific about this rendezvous?’
‘Will you promise me Aufidius Crispus will be safe?’
‘I never give promises that are outside my control. But my commission was to save him for Rome… So, where is the meeting?’
‘At Capreae,’ she said. ‘This afternoon. Below the Imperial Villa of Jove.’
LXX
I needed a ship, fast.
I raced from the house. Outside, Nero, who had no shame, was making friends with a couple of lacklustre cheapskate mules who had been parked against a portico in a haze of flies. I knew the mules. Larius was leaning on a wall in the shade, chatting to their riders: a sinister hulk who was not safe on the streets and a whiskery midget with a furtive face. They both wore white tunics with green bindings; the livery was all too famil
iar: the Gordianus steward and his shrimpy sidekick.
‘Larius, don’t associate with strange men!’
‘This is Milo-‘
‘Milo’s bad news. Come on; we need to move. Gallop Nero to the seafront so I can commandeer a boat-‘
‘Oh, Milo’s got a boat on the seafront-‘
‘That so?’ I forced myself to sound polite.
Milo smirked at me. He gave me a pain in the head; the only consolation was that it could not be half as bad as the headache I had once given him with a certain piece of porphyry. ‘Find out!’ he threatened with a leer: Croton etiquette again.
‘Let me ask politely: show me your ship and I promise not to tell Gordianus you declined to cooperate! Let’s go - the magistrate’s sister has come up with a lead on Pertinax-‘
At the south end of town sea walls pierced with sturdy arches provided a vantage point where the citizens of Herculaneum on their way to the Suburban Baths could stroll above any shipping which braved their fierce waterfront regulations to tie up picturesquely on the wharf. The harbour facilities were not exactly throbbing with cranes and unloading pulleys, but provided a berth for the occasional tentative craft. Milo’s shrimp took charge of Nero and the mules. ‘He’s good with animals-‘
‘That must be why he tags along with you!’
The ship Milo indicated was a chunky piece of timberwork called the Sea Scorpios. The crew were on watch for trouble and had seen us approaching; a sailor was ready to pull in the gangway as soon as Larius, Milo and I tumbled aboard.
The familiar unkempt, heavy shape of the Chief Priest Gordianus was waiting on deck, snuggling his huge webby ears in a long cloak as if since his brother’s death he felt unable to get warm. He still looked unhealthily grey, though his bald skin had acquired patches of rose-coloured sunburn.
We shook hands like army commanders in the middle of a war: the same sense of a great deal having happened since we last met, and the same faint tinge of jealousy.
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