A dying light in Corduba
( Marcus Didius Falco - 8 )
Lindsey Davis
Lindsey Davis
A dying light in Corduba
I
Nobody was poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica – though in retrospect, that was quite a surprise.
Had I realised Anacrites the Chief Spy would be present, I would myself have taken a small vial of toad's blood concealed in my napkin and ready for use. Of course he must have made so many enemies, he probably swallowed antidotes daily in case some poor soul he had tried to get killed found a chance to slip essence of aconite into his wine. Me first, if possible. Rome owed me that.
The wine may not have been as smoothly resonant as Falernian, but it was the Guild of Hispania Wine Importers' finest and was too good to defile with deadly drops unless you held a very serious grudge indeed. Plenty of people present seethed with murderous intentions, but I was the new boy so I had yet to identify them or discover their pet gripes. Maybe I should have been suspicious, though. Half the diners worked in government and the rest were in commerce. Unpleasant odours were everywhere.
I braced myself for the evening. The first shock, an entirely welcome one, was that the greeting-slave had handed me a cup of fine Barcino red. Tonight was for Baetica: the rich hot treasurehouse of southern Spain. I find its wines oddly disappointing: white and thin. But apparently the Baeticans were decent chaps; the minute they left home they drank Tarraconensian – the famous Laeitana from northwest of Barcino, up against the Pyrenees where long summers bake the vines but the winters bring a plentiful rainfall.
I had never been to Barcino. I had no idea what Barcino was storing up for me. Nor was I trying to find out. Who needs fortune-tellers' warnings? Life held enough worries.
I supped the mellow wine gratefully. I was here as the guest of a ministerial bureaucrat called Claudius Laeta. I had followed him in, and was lurking politely in his train while trying to decide what I thought of him. He could be any age between forty and sixty. He had all his hair (dry- looking brown stuff cut in a short, straight, unexciting style). His body was trim; his eyes were sharp; his manner was alert. He wore an ample tunic with narrow gold braid, beneath a plain white toga to meet Palace formality. On one hand he wore the wide gold ring of the middle class; it showed some emperor had thought well of him. Better than anyone yet had thought of me.
I had met him while I was involved in an official enquiry for Vespasian, our tough new Emperor. Laeta had struck me as the kind of ultra-smooth secretary who had mastered all the arts of looking good while letting handymen like me do his dirty work. Now he had taken me up – not due to any self-seeking of mine, though I did see him as a possible ally against others at the Palace who opposed promoting me. I wouldn't trust him to hold my horse while I leaned down to tie my boot thong, but that went for any clerk. He wanted something; I was waiting for him to tell me what.
Laeta was top of the heap: an imperial ex-slave, born and trained in the Palace of the Caesars amongst the cultivated, educated, unscrupulous orientals who had long administered Rome's Empire. Nowadays they formed a discreet cadre, well behind the scenes, but I did not suppose their methods had changed from when they were more visible. Laeta himself must have somehow survived Nero, keeping his head down far enough to avoid being seen as Nero's man after Vespasian assumed power. Now his title was Chief Secretary, but I could tell he was planning to be more than the fellow who handed the Emperor scrolls. He was ambitious, and looking for a sphere of influence where he could really enjoy himself. Whether he took backhanders in the grand manner I had yet to find out. He seemed a man who enjoyed his post, and its possibilities, too much to bother. An organiser. A long-term planner. The Empire lay bankrupt and in tatters, but under Vespasian there was a new mood of reconstruction. Palace servants were coming into their own.
I wished I could say the same for me.
'Tonight should be really useful for you, Falco,' Laeta urged me, as we entered a suite of antique rooms in the old Palace. My hosts had an odd choice of venue. Perhaps they obtained the cobwebbed imperial basement at cheap rates. The Emperor would appreciate hiring out his official quarters to make a bit on the side.
We were deep under Palatine Hill, in dusty halls with murky histories where Tiberius and Caligula once tortured men who spoke out of turn, and held legendary orgies. I found myself wondering if secretive groups still relived such events. Then I started musing about my own hosts. There were no pornographic frescos in our suite, but the faded decor and cowed, ingratiating retainers who lurked in shadowed archways belonged to an older, darker social era. Anyone who believed it an honour to dine here must have a shabby view of public life.
All I cared about was whether coming tonight with Laeta would help me. I was about to become a father for the first time, and badly needed respectability. To play the citizen in appropriate style, I also required much more cash.
As the clerk drew me in I smiled and pretended to believe his promises. Privately I thought I had only a slim hope of winning advancement through contacts made here, but I felt obliged to go through with the farce. We lived in a city of patronage. As an informer and imperial agent I was more aware of it than most. Every morning the streets were packed with pathetic hopefuls in moth-eaten togas rushing about to pay attendance on supposedly great men. And according to Laeta, dining with the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers would allow me to mingle with the powerful imperial freedmen who really ran the government (or who thought they did).
Laeta had said I was a perfect addition to his team – doing what, remained unclear. He had somehow convinced me that the mighty lions of bureaucracy would look up from their feeding bowls and immediately recognise in me a loyal state servant who deserved a push upwards. I wanted to believe it. However, ringing in my ears were some derisive words from my girlfriend; Helena Justina reckoned my trust in Laeta would come unstuck. Luckily, serious eating in Rome is men's work so Helena had been left at home tonight with a cup of well-watered wine and a cheesy bread roll. I had to spot any frauds for myself.
One thing was completely genuine at the Baetican Society: adorning their borrowed Augustan serving platters and nestling amongst sumptuous garnishes in ex-Neronian gilt comports, the food was superb. Peppery cold collations were already smiling up at us from low tables; hot meats in double sauces were being kept warm on complex charcoal heaters. It was a large gathering. Groups of dining couches stood in several rooms, arranged around the low tables where this luxurious fare was to be served.
'Rather more than a classic set of nine dinner guests!' boasted Laeta proudly. This was clearly his pet club. 'Tell me about the Society.'
'Well, it was founded by one of the Pompeys -' He had bagged us two places where the selection of sliced Baetican ham looked particularly tempting. He nodded to the diners whose couches we had joined: other senior clerks. (They mass together like woodlice.) Like him they were impatiently signalling to the slaves to start serving, even though people had still to find places around other tables. Laeta introduced me. 'Marcus Didius Falco – an interesting young man. Falco has been to various trouble-spots abroad on behalf of our friends in intelligence.' I sensed an atmosphere – not hostile, but significant. Internal jealousy, without doubt. There was no love lost between the correspondence secretariat and the spies' network. I felt myself being scrutinised with interest – an uneasy sensation.
Laeta mentioned his friends' names, which I did not bother to memorise. These were just scroll-shufflers. I wanted to meet men with the kind of status owned by the great imperial ministers of olden days – Narcissus or Pallas: holding the kind of position Laeta obviously craved
himself.
Small talk resumed. Thanks to my ill-placed curiosity I had to endure a rambling discussion of whether the Society had been founded by Pompey the Great (whom the Senate had honoured with control of both Spanish provinces) or Pompey the riva! of Caesar (who had made Baetica his personal base).
'So who are your members?' I murmured, trying to rush this along. 'You can't be supporting the Pompeys now?' Not since the Pompeys fell from grace with a resounding thud. 'I gather then that we're here to promote trade with Spain?'
'Jove forbid!' shuddered one of the high-flown policy- formers. 'We're here to enjoy ourselves amongst friends!'
'Ah!' Sorry I blundered. (Well, not very sorry; I enjoy prodding sore spots.)
'Disregard the name of the Society,' smiled Laeta, at his most urbane. 'That's a historical accident. Old contacts do enable us to draw on the best resources of the province for our menu – but the original aim was simply to provide a legitimate meeting ground in Rome for like-minded men.'
I smiled too. I knew the scenario. He meant men with like-minded politics.
A frisson of danger attended this group. Dining in large numbers – or congregating in private for any purpose at all – was outlawed; Rome had always discouraged organised factions. Only guilds of particular merchants or craftsmen were permitted to escape their wives for regular feasting together. Even they had to make themselves sound serious by stressing that their main business was collecting contributions for their funeral club.
'So I need not really expect to meet any substantial exporters of Spanish olive oil?'
'Oh no!' Laeta pretended to look shocked. Someone muttered to him in an undertone; he winced, then said to me, 'Well, sometimes a determined group of Baeticans manages to squeeze in; we do have some here tonight.'
'So thoughtless!' another of the scroll-pushers sympathised drily. 'Somebody needs to explain to the social elite of Corduba and Gades that the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers can manage quite well without any members who actually hail from southern Spain!'
My query had been sheer wickedness. I knew that among the snobs of Rome – and freed slaves were of course the most snobbish people around – there was strong feeling about pushy provincials. In the Celtic faction, the Spanish had been at it far longer than the Gauls or British so they had honed their act. Since their first admission to Roman society sixty or seventy years ago, they had packed the Senate, plucked the plum salaried jobs in the equestrian ranks, conquered literary life with a galaxy of poets and rhetoricians, and now apparently their commercial tycoons were swarming everywhere too.
Bloody Quinctius parading his retinue of clients again!' muttered one of the scribes, and lips were pursed in unison sympathetically.
I'm a polite lad. To lighten the atmosphere I commented, 'Their oil does seem to be high quality.' I collected a smear on one finger to lick, taking it from the watercress salad. The taste was full of warmth and sunshine.
'Viscous gold!' Laeta spoke with greater respect than I anticipated from a freedman discussing commerce. Perhaps this was a pointer to the new realism under Vespasian. (The Emperor came from a middle-class family, and he at least knew exactly why commodities were important to Rome.)
'Very fine – both on the food and in the lamps.' Our evening was being lit with a wide variety of hanging and standard lights, all burning with steady clarity and, of course, no smell. 'Nice olives, too.' I took one from a garnish dish, then went back for more.
Didius Falco is famous for political analysis,' commented Laeta to the others. News to me. If I was famous for anything it was cornering confidence tricksters and kicking the feet from under criminals. That, and stealing a senator's daughter from her lovely home and her caring relatives: an act which some would say had made me a criminal myself.
Wondering if I had stumbled on something to do with Laeta's motive for inviting me, I carried on being reverent about the viscous gold: 'I do know your estimable society is not named after any old table condiment, but a staple of cultured life. Olive oil is any cook's master ingredient. It lights the best homes and public buildings. The military consume vast quantities. It's a base for perfumes and medicines. There's not a bath-house or athletic gymnasium that could exist without oily body preparations
'And it makes a failsafe contraceptive!' concluded one of the more jolly stylus-shovers.
I laughed and said I wished I had known that seven months ago.
Feeling thoughtful, I returned my attention to the food. Plainly this suited the others; they wanted outsiders to keep quiet while they showed off. The conversation became encoded with oblique references to their work.
The last speaker's remark had me grinning. I could not help thinking that if I passed on the stylus-shover's suggestion Helena would scoff that it sounded like making love to a well-marinaded radish. Still, olive oil would certainly be easier to obtain than the illegal alum ointment which we had intended to use to avoid starting a family. (Illegal because if you took a fancy to a young lady who was of the wrong status you were not supposed to speak to her, let alone bed her – while if your fancy was legal you had to marry and produce soldiers.) Olive oil was not cheap, though there was plenty available in Rome.
There was a suitably Hispanic theme throughout the meal. This made for a tasty selection, yet all with a similar presentation: cold artichokes smothered in fish-pickle sauce from the Baetican coast; hot eggs in fish-pickle sauce with capers; fowl forcemeats cooked with fish-pickle and rosemary. The endives came naked but for a chopped onion garnish – though there was a silver relish dish of youguessed-it placed handily alongside. I made the mistake of commenting that my pregnant girlfriend had a craving for this all-pervasive garum; the gracious bureaucrats immediately ordered some slaves to present me with an unopened amphora. Those who keep frugal kitchens may not have noticed that fish-pickle is imported in huge pear-shaped vessels – one of which became my personal luggage for the rest of the night. Luckily my extravagant hosts lent me two slaves to carry the dead weight.
As well as the deliciously cured hams for which Baetica is famous, the main dishes tended to be seafood: few of the sardines we all joke about, but oysters and huge mussels, and all the fish harvested from the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts – dory, mackerel, tuna, conger eel, and sturgeon. If there was room to throw a handful of prawus into the cooking pot as well, the chef did so. There was meat, which I suspected might be dashing Spanish horse, and a wide range of vegetables. I soon felt crammed and exhausted – though I had not so far advanced my career an inch.
As it was a dub, people were moving from table to table informally between courses. I waited until Laeta had turned away, then I too slipped off (ordering the slaves to bring my pickle jar), as if I wanted to circulate independently. Laeta glanced over with approval; he thought I was off to – infiltrate some policy-moulders' network.
I was really intending to sneak for an exit and go home. Then, when I dodged through a doorway ahead of my bearers and the garum, I crashed into someone coming in. The new arrival was female: the only one in sight. Naturally I stopped in my tracks, told the slaves to put down my pickle jar on its elongated point, then I straightened my festive garland and smiled at her.
PART ONE: ROME
AD73: beginning the night of 31 March
Cordobans of any status surely sought to be as Roman as the Romans themselves, or more so. There is no evidence of a 'national consciousness' in the likes of the elder Seneca, although there was presumably a certain sympathy among native sons who found themselves in Rome together…
Robert C. Knapp, Roman Cordoba
II
She had been swathed in a full-length cloak. I like a woman well wrapped up. It's good to ponder what she's hiding and why she wants to keep the goodies to herself.
This one lost her mystery when she bumped into me. Her long cloak slithered floorwards, to reveal that she was dressed as Diana the Huntress. As definitions go, 'dressed' was only just applicable. She wore an off-one-
shoulder little gold pleated costume; one hand carried a large bag from which emerged a chink of tambourine clackers while under her spare armpit were a quiver and a silly toy hunting bow.
'A virgin huntress!' I greeted her happily. 'You must be the entertainment.'
'And you're just a big joke!' she sneered. I bent and retrieved her cloak for her, which allowed me to peruse a shapely pair of legs. 'You're in the right place to get kicked somewhere painful!' she added pointedly; I straightened up fast.
There was still plenty to look at. She would have come up to my shoulder but was wearing cork heels on her natty hide hunting boots. Even her toenails were polished like alabaster. Her smooth, extremely dark skin was a marvel of depilatory care; she must have been plucked and pumiced all over – just thinking about it made me wince. Equal attention had been lavished on her paintwork: cheeks heightened with the purple bloom of powdered wine lees; eyebrows given superdefinition as perfect semicircles half a digit thick; lids glowing with saffron; lashes smothered in lampblack. She wore an ivory bangle on one forearm and a silver snake on the other. The effect was purely professional. She was nobody's expensive mistress (no gemstones or filigree) and since women were not invited tonight, she was nobody's guest.
She had to be a dancer. Her physique looked well fleshed but muscular. A shining swatch of hair, so black it had a deep blue sheen, was being held back from her brow in a simple twist which could be rapidly loosened for dramatic effect. She had both hands posed with a delicacy that spoke of practice with castanets.
'My mistake,' I pretended to apologise. 'I had been promised a Spanish dancer. I was hoping you were a bad girl from Gades.'
'Well, I'm a good girl from Hispalis,' she countered, trying to sweep past me. Her accent was crisp and her Latin abrasive. But for the Baetican theme of the evening it might have been hard to place her origins.
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