His guests had been the commander from Misenum, plus a group of trireme captains. The navy was made of really stern stuff. During the recent civil wars we had had a bad outbreak of piracy in the Black Sea, but here on the west coast things had stayed peaceful since Pompey's day. The Misenum fleet had little to do but cope with the many claims on their social life. Round the Bay of Neapolis there were parties every night, so the navy spent most evenings infiltrating private functions in search of free drink. Their capacity was enormous and their expertise at steering a course home afterwards while singing jolly songs in fabulously obscene versions made sober men blench.
When they first emerged from the house, half a dozen trireme captains were pretending to be hunting dogs. They were nipping each other, yowling, yapping, begging with their front paws, panting with their tongues out, sniffing at the moon and at the insalubrious backside of whoever was in front. Their delight in their own silliness was a joy. Their fleet commander circled these splendid fellows on all fours, basing like a Lactarii sheep. They all milled around like Greek coinedians whose producer had failed to plot their moves on stage, then the situation somehow gelled of its own accord; they surged up a gangway with heavy arms on each other's shoulders, locked in a loving chain like blood brothers, lifting their knees as they danced. One nearly fell overboard, but at the summit of his arc over the water his comrades used centrifugal force to swing him back, chorusing a wildly soaring whoop. Trailing its gangplank, their transport disappeared.
The evening seemed more melancholy after they had gone. Petronius said his respect for the navy had trebled on the spot.
We were leaving when Helena Justina remembered her friend. I wanted to abandon Fausta, but was overruled. (One reason why an informer should work alone: to avoid being dragged into good deeds.)
The lady was lurking in the atrium, weeping copiously. She had been at the amphorae. This would only seem a good idea to a wine merchant with sinking profits (if such a man exists).
All around her the caterers were tidying up, ignoring the dishevelled spectre sobbing on her knees. I could see Helena stiffening. 'They despise her! She's a woman, behaving stupidly, but worst of all, she has no man to look after her-'
Silvia and Petro stepped back shyly, but Helena had already forced a slave to stop and explain. He said Fausta had made another indomitable foray into the villa, halfway through the meal. The banquet had been a racy one: all male, with all-female entertainment.
'And Aufidius Crispus,' cried Helena haughtily, 'was entwined with a Spanish dancing girl?'
‘No madam…' The slave looked sideways at Petro and me. We grinned. 'Two, actually!' He was happy to go into details but Helena hissed through her teeth.
Evidently Fausta had simply crumpled and withdrawn, in the kind of abject grief that was her well-known speciality; Crispus probably never even saw her. Now she was stuck out here in an unoccupied villa, while the caterers had pushed all the empty amphorae off a jetty into the sea and were about to leave.
Helena made a lively fuss until someone brought the lady's chair. Fausta's bearers tonight were an ill-matched set of Liburnian slaves, one with a limp and one with a set of venomous neck boils. 'Oh, we cannot leave these ninnies in charge of her!' Helena declared.
Without admitting liability, Larius and I managed to insert Fausta into her chair. The slaves lurched her as far as the inn at Oplontis, but while we were discussing what to do next she slipped off and scampered onto the beach proclaiming a curse on men, naming the parts which she wished to wither and drop off them in such detail that it made me queasy.
I had had enough of her whole family. But to please Helena, I agreed to waste more of what could otherwise have been a pleasant evening and somehow deal with her…
With luck, some bandit in need of a scullion to warm his broth would kidnap Fausta first.
I insisted on putting Helena in her own litter back on the road to the villa. This took quite a long time, for reasons that are nobody's business but mine.
By now most of the coast lay in darkness. When I returned to the inn Fausta had disappeared. Although it was so late, I found Larius talking poetry to the nursemaid Ollia on a bench in the inn courtyard; at least he had progressed from Catullus to Ovid, who has a better outlook on love and, more crucially, on sex.
I sat down with them. 'You been philandering, uncle?'
‘Don't be ridiculous. No senator's daughter would enjoy being bedded on the bare ground among a lot of curious spiders with a pine cone in her back!'
‘Really? asked Larius.
'Really,' I lied. 'What coaxed Aemilia Fausta away from the sand happers?'
‘A kind-hearted, off-duty watch captain. He hates to see noblemen's sisters sitting drunk on beaches.'
I groaned. Petronius Longus was always a soft touch for a sobbing girl. ‘So he threw her over his shoulder, stuffed her into the chair while she declaimed what a nice man he was, then he marched of her pathetic entourage to Herculanem himself?'
Larius laughed. 'You know Petro!'
'He won't even bother to ask for a reward. What did Silvia say?'
‘Nothing – very pointedly!'
It was a beautiful night. I decided to hitch up Nero and meet Petro with transport home. Larius decided to keep me company; then, because they were young and illogical, Ollia came as company for him.
When we reached the magistrate's house the door porter told us Petronius had arrived with the lady but since she was none too stable in her party shoes, had helped her indoors. Rather than risk fending off suggestions for fun with Aemilius Rufus, we waited in the cart.
Petro, who was a long time coming out, seemed surprised to find us there. We were all napping, so he swung into the front seat and took up the reins. He was the best driver among us anyway.
‘Watch that magistrate!' I warbled. 'His Falernian is decent but I wouldn't want to meet him behind a bath house pillar in the dark… His sister give you much trouble?'
'Not if you ignore the usual "Men are disgusting; why ain't I got one?" stuff.' I said some hard words about Fausta, though Petronius maintained the poor little thing was rather sweet.
Larius was nodding off on Ollia's comfortable shoulder. I had a better woman to think about than some louse of a magistrate's fool of a sister so I huddled in a corner and went to sleep too, lulled by the cart's gently creaking motion through the warm Campanian night.
Ever good-natured, Petronius Longus hummed to himself quietly as he drove us all home.
LXVII
Two days later the magistrate tried to arrest Atius Pertinax. It was Petro's daughter's birthday so I had slipped down to Oplontis with a gift. After my spurning him, Rufus made no attempt to warn me. So I missed the action.
There was not much to miss. Rufus should have followed my advice: since the Villa Marcella was orientated seawards, the discreet approach was down the mountain from above. But when orders to apprehend Pertinax arrived from Vespasian, Aemilius Rufus grabbed a troop of soldiers and dashed up the main estate road, prominently visible to the house.
Marcellus gave him a frosty greeting and permission to search, then sat in the shade to wait for the idiot to discover the obvious: Pertinax had fled.
Once the furore had subsided, Helena Justina followed me to Oplontis with the tale.
'Gnaeus rushed off riding with Bryon. Bryon, in all innocence apparently, came back later with both horses, to say the young master had decided to go for a cruise-'
'He has a boat?'
'Bryon left him on Aufidius Crispus' yacht.'
'Does Crispus know there is an arrest warrant?'
'That's unclear.'
'Where was the yacht?
'Baiae. But Bryon saw her sail.'
'Brilliant! So the illustrious Aemilius Rufus has flushed Pertinax onto the fastest thing between Sardinia and Sicily…'
Rufus was useless. I would have to charter a ship and look for the Isis Africa myself. It was too late in the day now, so at least I could enjo
y one more evening with my lady first.
Silvana was the birthday girl (Petro's middle daughter; she was four), and tonight the children were joining our evening meal. We were delayed, however, because we had hit one of those joyful family crises without which no holiday is complete. Arria Silvia found the nursemaid Ollia in floods of tears.
Two brisk questions about Ollia's personal calendar revealed that my prophecy about the fisherboy must be correct. (He was still hanging around every day.) Ollia denied it, which clinched the verdict. Sylvia gave Ollia a slap round the head to relieve her own feelings, then instructed Petronius and me to sort out the inconvenient lobster catcher, now that it was too late.
We found the young gigolo preening his moustache by an old lead-stocked anchor, Petro got an arm up his back rather further than his arm was meant to go. Of course he claimed he never touched the girl; we expected that. We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ma's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him…
The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.
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 pan-pipes; the aloof, balding character tootling a solemn flute of a kind unknown to musicologists. Shepherds down from the hills, or the inn-keeper'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 known 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.
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