Shadows in Bronze

by Lindsey Davis

  ‘Generous and genuine!’ boasted a guardsman who had bet on him, but the Thracian had given all he had by the third lap.

  Seven circuits when your savings are in the balance seem a long time.

  By the time they lifted down the fourth of the wooden eggs that count off the laps, complete silence had fallen in the president’s box. It was starting to look like a two-horse race: Ferox and the Mauretanian. Ferox ran in an interested manner, cantering easily with his tail straight behind him. He had grace and he had elegance. He ran with his head up to give him a good view of any horses in front. He could run as fast as anything on the track, but quite early on I began to suspect that our beautiful mulberry stallion actually liked something to watch in front of him.

  ‘I think yours is pulling up,’ Titus suggested, hopefully trying to be polite. ‘Perhaps he’ll come from behind.’

  I answered gravely, ‘He’s left himself a lot of work to do!’

  Little Sweetheart was eighth instead of ninth - but only because a perky russet had made a mistake, had come down on his nose and been pulled out.

  I watched mine for a moment. He was terrible. Old mustard-face ran with the most ungainly action. Even to his owner, who was trying to be charitable, that horse looked as if he had made an appointment at the abattoir before he came out. His head stayed down as if his jockey was strangling him. As he travelled forward his back legs, which were slightly out of rhythm with the front, kicked up behind at every stride and seemed to hesitate. Thank the gods he was not a hurdler. My baby would have been the kind who looks six times at every jump as he makes his approach, then hangs in the air halfway over so your heart is in your mouth.

  At least his tail flew out at a jaunty angle that I rather liked. He was so bad I was starting to wish I had bet on him out of loser’s sympathy.

  By the sixth lap, Ferox was challenging strongly in second place. Still.

  Little Sweetheart had just realized the horse immediately in front of him now was the white sock who had jostled him at the start, so he redeemed himself by passing it; he got a bit close but fiddled through all right. This time Titus refrained from comment. Sixth place in a field of seven (following a collision, there was a loose horse, a daft ginger thing, now); nothing to raise a shout about. Especially with only a lap and a half to go.

  The roar of the crowd was increasing. I saw the Sweetheart twitch his ear. Out at the front things were starting to happen. A muddy grey in third place had been running on his own for so long he nearly went to sleep. A spotted nag no one had given a thought to made a temporary challenge, causing Ferox to increase his stride, though he kept his favourite position at the big Mauretanian’s shoulder. My palms were wet. Ferox was second: he would be second in every race he ever ran.

  Everything I ever did in life seemed to go wrong. Nothing I ever wanted seemed attainable. Who said that?… Helena. Helena, when she thought that I had left her, and knew that she was going to have MY child. I needed her so badly I almost spoke her name. (I might have done it, but Titus Caesar had always looked at Helena in a speculative way that worried me.)

  The field was well strung out now. There was a good twenty lengths between first and last as they went past the judges for the sixth time. The spectators were cheering Ferox, all certain he would sprint for it on the final lap. As the front runners rounded the posts I knew in my bones he never would.

  They were halfway down on the far side from the judges - little more than half a lap to go - when I and most of Rome discovered something new: my horse, Little Sweetheart, could run as if his mother had conceived him in a conjunction with the wind.

  They were running towards us. He was wide, so even with the rest of the field in front of him I saw his mustard nose lift. When he started his run, it was unbelievable. The jockey never used his whip; he just sat tight while that fool of a horse decided it was time to go - and went. The crowd opened their hearts to him, though most were losing money with every stride. He was the permanent tailender, the endless no-hoper - yet he streaked past the field as though he was just going for a rollick in the sun.

  Ferox came second. Little Sweetheart won. He was leading at the finish by three lengths.

  Titus Caesar clapped me on the shoulders. ‘Falco! What a wonderful race! You must be extremely proud!’

  I told him I was feeling extremely poor.

  It took me hours to get away.

  Titus rewarded my jockey with a heavy purse of gold. I had a present too, but mine was a fish: Titus promised me a turbot.

  ‘I know you’re a trencherman -‘ He paused, with polite anxiety. ‘But will your cook know what to do with it?

  ‘Oh, the cook can visit his auntie!’ I assured him blithely. ‘I always attend to my turbots for myself… In Caraway Sauce.

  Two people made a killing. One was Titus Caesar, who could reliably expect that as the elder son of a great Emperor he would find himself a favourite with the gods. The other, for which I shall never forgive him, was my pernicious, devious, close-mouthed, horse-doctoring brother-in-law Famia.

  They had a big family party, the rest of them. I had to endure it, knowing this would be the one night of my life when other people would be glad to buy my wine for me, but I needed a dear head. All I can remember of the ghastly entertainment is Famia carousing, and my three-year-old niece playing with Tullia’s useless gift to me of the Pertinax betting tokens… Marcia, spreading the sad little bone disks all around her on the floor while people ineffectually told her to stop eating them.

  As soon as I could I went to see Gordianus. He had little to add to what I already knew about events on the Quirinal yesterday - but I had news for him.

  ‘Sir, a Transtiberina barmaid will be bringing you a document later this evening. It has to have an alteration made to it first.’

  ‘What is it?

  ‘A marriage contract. Coming to you from the bridegroom. He thinks his bride has asked to inspect it, prior to the formalities. Tomorrow you and I have an appointment with Atius Pertinax.’

  ‘How’s that, Falco?’

  ‘We are arranging his wedding,’ I said.

  LXXXVII

  The day we married Atius Pertinax was refreshingly dear, after rattling rainshowers in the night.

  My first task was to nip down to the Cattle Market Forum to buy a sheep. The cheapest I could get which would be acceptable to the five gods of matrimony was a little mottled fellow, who looked perfect enough for the purposes of religion, though a puny sort of lamb if we had wanted a pot roast in red wine sauce. However, we would not be needing the gods to remember our sacrifice gratefully for long.

  Next a rancid garlandseller at the Temple of Castor shucked off some tired wreaths onto me. My sister Maia loaned us her wedding veil. Maia had worked the looms at a cloakmaker’s before she married; the weaver had had a soft spot for our Maia so her saffron veil was a distinctly superior length of cloth. Maia lent it out to poor girls on the Aventine; it had done duty at many an unstable coupling before it adorned the Pertinax bash. My mother would have baked us a must cake, but I left my mother out of this.

  When I met up with Gordianus, leading my woolly contribution, he joked, ‘I hope you see today as a rehearsal for a wedding of your own!’

  The sheep, who was on my side, let out a sickly bleat.

  We met Tullia in the Forum of Julius, on the steps of the Temple of Venus Genetrix.

  ‘Will he come?’ demanded the priest excitably.

  ‘He was in the wineshop last night, looking for me. My mother gave him the message and collected the contract off him; she thought he believed her…’

  ‘If he fails to show,’ I said calmly, ‘we all go home.’

  ‘We could lose him,’ grumbled Gordianus, worrying as usual, ‘if he hears that his father has remarried anyway!’

  ‘Aemilia Fausta promised me her marriage would not be publicly announced,’ I reassured him. ‘Don’t worry until we have to. Let’s go!’

  Sunlight glanced on th
e golden roofs of the Capitol as we all left the Forum and turned north. It was a small bridal party, as we had promised Pertinax: the bride, the priest, the priest’s assistant with his box of secret implements, and a very large flautist tweedling a tiny flute. The priest’s assistant was in military boots, but was hardly the first callow youth who had followed his religious calling unsuitably shod.

  We left the flautist (Milo) on guard outside. Admitting our meagre procession, the door porter peered closely at the assistant priest (me - heavily veiled for ‘religious purposes’); I gave him the price of a good dinner and warned him to lose himself. As he left he announced that the bridegroom had already arrived. He could have been arrested at once but we still had to go through with the wedding; I had promised the bride.

  Atius Pertinax, alias Barnabas, stood in the atrium. He had honoured the occasion by coming clean-shaven in a toga, but instead of a bridegroom’s air of worried ecstasy he had his normal surly face. He looked slightly ill when he saw Gordianus, but probably the fact of his talking to Helena outside the house that day confirmed the explanation Gordianus grimly gave: ‘I would prefer to have no part in your affairs, Pertinax - but I have known the lady many years and she begged me to officiate.’

  ‘We can omit the formalities!’ snarled Pertinax, tightlipped. I noticed a slight quiver beneath the refulgent saffron, though the bride maintained her modest silence. A tall, graceful girl, who moved well, glimmering in my sister’s magnificent veil; it was fine enough for her to see her way, though it completely hid her from view.

  ‘Very well. In marriage, as in death,’ pronounced Gordianus sombrely, ‘ceremonial can be optional. To satisfy the gods, the law and society, all you require is a sacrifice, a contract, and the bringing of the bride to her husband’s house. The bride is already conducted here - unusual, but not an impediment. In the absence of her relations the lady had elected to give herself-‘

  ‘Trust her!’ said Atius Pertinax. Those present who knew Helena Justina saw no reason to contradict. ‘Shall we get on?’

  Wreaths were handed round glumly. With impressive despatch, Curtius Gordianus covered his head and set up a portable altar in the empty atrium. The watchman had started the fountain before he slipped away - a single elegantly festive touch.

  After a perfunctory prayer, the priest called, his white-veiled assistant to lead forward the sheep. A second later poor lambkin was dead. Gordianus made a neat, untroubled job of it. His time at Cape Colonna had given him a good eye with the sacrificial knife.

  He studied the organs, which looked distinctly seedy, then turned to the bride and announced without the slightest shade of irony, ‘You will lead a long, happy and productive life!’

  Pertinax looked nervous now, not without reason. If marrying for the first time is a drastic gamble, doing it twice over must seem utterly ludicrous. The priest had brought his contracts; Pertinax was induced to sign first. The priest’s assistant carried the documents to the bride, who inscribed her name with maddening slowness while Gordianus engaged Pertinax in talk.

  Signing the contracts completed this basic ceremony. Curtis Gordianus let out a short, grim laugh.

  ‘Well! Time for the happy bridegroom to kiss his lucky bride…

  There were four yards between them when she lifted her veil and Pertinax braced himself for Helena’s usual cool, reasoning contempt. He met a younger, brasher prettiness: huge dark eyes and tiny white teeth, clear skin, tinsel earrings, and an air of perfect innocence that was flagrantly Falco.

  ‘Tullia!’

  ‘Oh dear!’ I exclaimed sympathetically. ‘We seem to have brought his honour the wrong bride!’

  As he started towards her, I threw off my white veil. ‘Falco!’

  ‘Always check a pre-written contract just before you sign it, sir. Some villain may have altered a critical element! Sorry; we lied about Helena Justina wanting to read through the documents, but then we had already lied about Helena agreeing to marry you-‘

  Tullia gathered up her skirts and scurried for the door. I whipped open the mysterious box which the priest’s assistant carries at any wedding. In our family the joke is that the youth keeps his lunch in it - but I had a sword.

  ‘Don’t move! Gnaeus Atius Pertinax, I arrest you in Vespasian’s name-,

  His lip curled, revealing a dog tooth unattractively. ‘Trust you!’ Then he turned his head and let out a screeching whistle. ‘Two can cheat, Falco-‘ There was rush of feet, and out from a corridor burst half a dozen tall, bristly-chinned warriors in scale-armour trousers and glistening bare chests. ‘Every bridegroom wants his own witnesses at his wedding!’ jeered Pertinax.

  His supporters were not rushing forwards with the aim of flinging nuts. Pertinax had obviously given them orders to kill me.

  LXXXVIII

  Luckily I had not expected the victim of a trick wedding to respond with graceful oratory. My first reaction was surprise. My next was to get my back to the wall, my blade up, and my eye on them.

  From a man of his type, something of this sort was inevitable. Heaven knows where he found them. They looked like German mercenaries, big, long-haired, flaxen braggarts, originally hired by the dead Emperor Vitellius - now stranded in Rome after the civil war, with their fare home drunk in the stews along the Tiber and a new, more fastidious Caesar who would not be employing foreign auxiliaries within Rome.

  They were heavy in the belly from too much beer and black pudding but they could fight, especially with the odds in their favour at an easy six to one. Some grim auxiliary captain on the Rhine frontier had put these hulks through several years of legionary drill. Their weapons were the huge, flat-bladed Celtic type which they swung over their heads and at waist height while I, with my short Roman stabbing sword, was hard-pushed to duck in underneath. Beneath my priestly costume I had a leather jerkin and arm guards - not enough against six skirling maniacs who were enjoying themselves with the threat of slicing off my salted crackling like a Black Forest pig.

  Pertinax laughed.

  ‘Keep smiling,’ I seethed, watching the Germans. ‘I’ll deal with your guttural lap dogs, and then I’ll come for you!’

  He shook his head, making for the exit. But Tullia was there first. Her terror of him, now he knew she had deceived him, made her foot fleet and her hand sure. She darted down the porter’s corridor, past the two empty cubicles, and dragged open the huge, metal-plated door. Out rushed Tullia - and in thundered Milo instead.

  At the sight of our humourless monster Pertinax skidded to a halt and turned about. I saw him run lightly to the staircase. I was trapped, hard-pressed by half a dozen heavy blades whose force when they touched down wrenched the power from my wrist as I desperately parried them. It was Curtius Gordianus who took off after Pertinax - an ungainly, sack-like figure fired with the long-nurtured hope of vengeance, who blundered upstairs at an alarming pace. He was wielding the small, sharp knife he had used in the ceremony, still wet from the throat of our sacrificial sheep.

  Milo was considering what he should do, all bovine stupidity: my favourite thug.

  Do me a favour, drop your flute and grab a sword. Milo acquired a sword by the simple method of seizing the nearest mercenary, lifting the wild man off his feet, and crushing him until his eyes bulged and he limply dropped the blade.

  ‘Cuddle a few more!’ I gasped, managing to disarm the next while my boot made an imprint on his ragged chain-mesh truss which if he was one for the women he would bitterly regret.

  Now Milo and I could set ourselves back to back and work away from the wall. The opposition circled more widely, but we had more time to watch for them. When two charged from different directions we ducked by common agreement and let them impale themselves with an ugly crunch.

  The crude fencing practice lasted less time than I thought. The last two who could run dragged off the wounded. To disguise their connection with the Pertinax house, Milo and I threw the dead outside in the street gutter opposite, like the dirty dregs of some drunken br
awl the previous night.

  ‘You caught it, Falco?

  Nothing hurt yet, but I was dripping badly: a long cut, down my left side. After five years as an informer I no longer felt the need to faint at the sight of my own blood but this was the last thing I wanted today. Milo was urging me to seek medical attention but I shook my head.

  We hurried back, to look for Gordianus. No one answered when we called. I locked the street door and took the key. I found the spigot and turned off the fountain; as the water hung and then dropped, a nerve-racking silence fell throughout the empty house.

  We stalked upstairs, constantly listening. One by one we flung open doors. Empty salons and deserted bedrooms. Dust undisturbed on pediments. Woozy flies flinging themselves against closed windows in warm solitude.

  Gordianus was in the last room of the first corridor we explored. He had slumped against the marble dado and we thought he must be dead. Not so; only despairing.

  ‘I had him - I got my knife in him - but he attacked me and I bungled it.

  Checking him over for physical damage, I muttered sympathetically. ‘There’s a world of difference between dispatching something woolly at the altar, and taking human life -‘ Pertinax had belted the Chief Priest viciously against a wall. Not much surface bruising, but at his age shock and exertion were taking their toll. He was having such difficulty breathing I worried for his heart.

  I joined Milo in carrying the priest downstairs, and hurriedly let them out together. ‘Milo, you look after him.’

  ‘I’ll come back-‘

  ‘No. What’s here is mine.’

  He helped make a pressure pad and bind up my side with the white veil I had worn at the ceremony. Then I watched him and Gordianus leave.

  This was how I wanted it: Pertinax and me.