'If Diocles' landlady is his real aunt, I'm the back legs of a Syrian camel.' Helena and I were eating fresh bread and figs, sitting on a bale near a ferry that took workers to and fro between the main town and the new port. We had risen fairly early. We were entertained by a stream of loaders, negotiators, customs men, and sneak thieves going to the port for their morning's work. Eventually a host of newly landed merchants were ferried in, along with other foreigners in multicoloured hues, looking bemused. The merchants, fired with know how, raced straight for the hired mules. Once they realised all the transport had been taken, the general travellers milled around aimlessly; some asked us the way to Rome, which we pretended we had never heard of. If they were persistent we pointed out the road to take, and assured them they could easily walk it.
'You are being childish, Marcus.'
'I've been sent on fifteen-mile hikes by horrible locals in foreign parts.' I had been deliberately misdirected by roadsweepers in Rome too. 'You thought of it first.'
'Let's hope we never see them again.'
'Don't fret. I'll explain you are a senator's daughter, brought up in ignorance and luxury, and have no idea of distance, direction or time.'
'And I'll say you're a swine!'
'Oink.' Our room nearby came with neither a breakfast menu nor a slave to serve it up. The accommodation had a bucket for the well and a couple of empty lamps, but not so much as a foodbowl. One reason we were out and about was to buy basics for picnics before Albia and the children arrived. My little daughters might be fobbed off with 'Let's all go hungry for fun on this holiday!', but Albia was a ravenous teenage girl; she turned nasty unless fed every three hours.
At least we were in the commercial hub of the Empire. That helped with the shopping. Imported goods were piled in mounds everywhere and helpful negotiators were only too happy to drag items from the bales and sell them cheaply. Some actually had a connection with that cargo; one or two might even pass the price to the owner. I had already bought some winecups an hour ago, and thus considered my part done. There was no need to order up amphorae; provision had been put in hand by me. Helena pointed out that after a mere week on my own I had reverted to the classic informer. I now reckoned a room was fully furnished if it contained a bed and a drink, with a woman as an optional extra. Food was something to snatch at a street caupona while on watch.
So far I had nobody to watch. My case was going nowhere.
'You found out where Diocles was living, though?' Helena asked, after finishing a mouthful of fresh bread. I picked olives from a cone of old scroll papyrus.
'A hired room near the Marine Gate.'
'So stayingwith his 'aunt' was a fiction. He is not with his family?'
'No. Commercial landlady of the forbidding kind.'
'And how did you discover her?'
The scribes knew the street name. Then I knocked on doors. The landlady soon popped out of her hidey-hole, because Diocles had left owing rent and she wanted it. Her story matches what the scribes already told me, Diocles arrived here about two months ago, seemed set to stay for the summer season, but vanished without warning after about four weeks, abandoning all his stuff. It came to light because the Gazette had an arrangement to send a runner once a week to pick up copy. The runner couldn't find Diocles.'
Helena gurgled happily. 'A weekly runner? So is there plenty of scandal at Ostia?'
'I'd say Diocles just sits at the seaside and giggles as he makes it up. Half the people he libels are away themselves and never hear about it, luckily for him.'
Helena licked her fingers. 'You paid the rent he owed and obtained his baggage?'
'No chance! I'm not paying some truant's rent, especially for a room he hasn't occupied.'
The woman has not re-let the room?'
'Oh, she re-let all right. I refused to pay, and I've sent to the Gazette.'
'For the money? She shouldn't be paid twice.'
I explained to Helena that port landladies traditionally double-charge, under an edict that dates back to when Aeneas first landed and was put up at a ludicrous rate in a fisherman's spare room. Helena still looked disapproving, but now she disapproved of me. 'Be sensible. I am trying to take an interest in your work, Marcus.'
I gazed at her. I loved her very much. I pulled her closer, paused, carefully wiped olive oil from my lips, then kissed her tenderly. 'I have sent for a very stern docket which will say I am to be allowed to take away Diocles' property as it belongs to the state.'
'The landlady will already have searched it; she knows it is dirty undertunics,' Helena demurred. She was still clasped to my chest. Passing stevedores whistled.
'Then she will be impressed that the state is so interested in this man's underwear.'
'You think there may be something more useful in his luggage?'
'I was brought up rough,' I said, 'and I confess to some fetishes, but so far I have not sunk so low that I go sniffing at people's old tunic stains.'
'You want note-tablets.' Helena Justina snuggled against my shoulder and was silent for a while, watching the ferry. 'Pages of helpfully scribbled clues.' Eventually, because she knew I was waiting for it, she murmured with polite curiosity, 'My darling, what fetishes?'
VI
The arrival of our children occupied the rest of the morning. Aulus and I had a jocular chat about his planned trip to Athens while Helena and Albia talked gravely about why the dog seemed off colour. The girls toddled and crawled around on their own, looking for things to destroy in their new home. The dog, Nux, raced with them for a while then tired of the frenzy and hid under a bed. There was a lot to unpack. Everyone tried to avoid being the fool who ended up doing it. The person who sorts out the luggage on arrival always gets blamed for everything other people have left behind. Yes, of course it is unfair. Life is unfair. After ten years as an informer, that was the one philosophical certainty I still held. For Aulus, two hours in a hot cart with a cantankerous mule, supervising my retinue, had used up all his reserves. A fit and thickset young fellow who should have had endless energy, he soon put his feet up on a window ledge and fell asleep.
Before he dropped off, he handed me the docket from the scribes, which gave me authority to obtain Diocles' possessions. Aulus declined to take an interest in reclaiming the loot. I would have thought he was staying behind because he had taken a fancy to Albia, but she was far too young for him, and had a past too full of uncertainties for a conservative like Aulus. She came from Britain; she had been found in a gutter as a baby, during the Rebellion. She might be graced with Roman parentage, but equally might not. No one would ever know, so in society she was damned.
As for Aulus, he had lost an heiress when his one-time fiancee, Claudia Rufina, married his brother instead; he was now determined only to cast his big brown eyes on a gilt-edged virgin with a line of pickled ancestors and moneybags to match. Albia might have had a crush on him, had she not suffered serious abuse before we rescued her.
She avoided men now. Well, that was what I told myself, though, for all we knew when we took her in, her past might have made her promiscuous.
Helena had faith in the girl. That was good enough for me. Domestic anxieties would once not have troubled me. Once, I had no ties. My only worries were how to pay the rent and whether my mother had spotted my new girlfriend.
Becoming a husband and father had doomed me to respectability. Single informers are proud to have a racy reputation, but I was so domestic now that I could not leave two unmarried persons alone without soul-searching. Helena had no qualms. 'If they were going to sleep together, they would have managed it on the way here.'
'What a shocking thought.' I hid a grin.
'Marcus, you are just startled that I still remember what you and I would have done.'
I reminisced nostalgically. Then I consoled myself, 'Well, Albia hates men.'
'Albia thinks she hates men.' I could foresee trouble in that.
'He is too fat,' commented Albia herself, coming in unexpe
ctedly. How long had she been listening? She was a slender teenager with dark hair that could be Mediterranean and blue eyes that could be Celtic. Her Latin needed polish but Helena had that in hand. Soon Albia would pass for a freedwoman and the questions would stop. With any luck we could find her a husband with a good trade and she might even end up happy. Well, the husband might be happy. Albia had lost her childhood to isolation and neglect; that would always show.
'Who is?' asked Helena disingenuously.
'Your brother!' quipped Albia.
'My brother just has a heavy frame.'
'No.' Albia had reverted to her normal wounded seriousness 'And he is not serious about his life. He will come to a bad end.'
'Who will?' asked Aulus, appearing in the same doorway in turn.
'You will!' we all chorused. Aulus showed his teeth. He drank too much red wine and he tried to eliminate the stains by scraping his fangs with emery powder. The teeth would fall out, but he no doubt believed they would look very pretty in the dentist's discard dish. He had all the normal vanity of a lad about town, and enough cash to be a fool every time he went into an apothecary's shop. At the moment he reeked of cassia.
'A bad end? I hope so,' he leered salaciously, 'with any luck in Greece!' When he bothered to smile, Aulus Camillus acquired sudden good looks. It could have worried me, in relation to Albia. But we left them together anyway. For Helena and me, having someone to look after the children while we went out in tandem was too good a chance to miss. It was a hot day and the walk to the Marine Gate took us plenty of time. We stayed in the shade, dodging off the Decumanus and down shady side streets wherever possible.
For a pre-republican town, Ostia possessed a good grid system and we found our way through its quiet alleys easily. It was afternoon, siesta time. A few lunchtime bars were still serving extended snacks to regulars, with furtive sparrows pecking at leftovers from previous clients. Thin dogs slept against doorsteps and tethered mules stood with their heads down at water troughs, tails flicking listlessly as they pretended their owners had left them abandoned.
The owners, like most people, were indoors. They were enjoying normal lunchtime life: a quick bread and sausage snack, or a fast hump with their best friend's wife; aimless conversation with a pal; a game of draughts; asking for more credit from a loan shark; or a daily visit to an elderly father.
Helena and I worked around the back of the Forum and its associated public buildings; we passed fullers and temples, markets and inns, as we headed for the cooler breezes and the sound of gulls.
I allowed Helena a rapid glance at the ocean vista, then dragged her to see the landlady.
We knew that the woman would be sleeping and bad-tempered if we disturbed her, but at least at this time of day no whey-faced slave would inform us that the mistress was off out shopping or being beautified, or that she had gone somewhere miles away to pick a fight with her mother-in-law.
A sleepy seaside after noon, when the noon sun has baked the morning's fish scales to papery transparency on the harbour wall and the cormorants are sunbathing, is the time to find people.
I watched Helena sum up the woman, who was broad-shouldered and florid and wore a plum-coloured gown that was a little too long around the sandals, and a not-quite matching stole. Her heavy gold ear-rings were in a hooped style and she had a snake bracelet with sinister glass eyes. Rouged cheeks and tinctured eyelids, with the colour settled crudely in the creases, were clearly routine ornament [for her, not the bracelet snake.] She was either a widow, or it suited her to appear so. She was certainly not the helpless kind of widow. I would have accepted her as a client, though the prospect would not have excited me.
I knew from my previous visit that her manner was one of pleasant efficiency but she was out to make money. Play her right, and pay her far too much, and she would be all sweetness. She wanted no trouble, so on production of my docket she scowled heavily but did lead us to Diocles' belongings. She was keeping them out in an old chicken shed. There were predictable results.
'I can see you are looking after everything.' No chickens now scratched around the tiny kitchen garden, but they had left mementoes of the usual kind. There are worse things than feathers and chicken shit, but it seemed a crude repository.
'I am not a luggage dump.'
'No, of course not,' Helena assured her, soothingly. The woman had noted Helena's clean vowels and consonants. Accustomed to sizing up would-be tenants, she was puzzled. I was an informer; my girlfriend should be a pert piece with a loud voice and a pushed-up bust. After six years together, Helena and I no longer explained.
'Diocles had mentioned that he was coming to see relatives,' Helena murmured. Do you know if he had any visitors, or contacted anyone in particular?'
'His room was in my building next door.' The landlady was proud that she owned a couple of houses, one where she lived herself and one variously let out to seasonal visitors. 'He was free to come and go.'
'So you saw no one with him?'
'Not often. The slave from Rome, who alerted me that the man was missing, seemed the only one.' That was the slave who came to pick up Gazette copy. 'So long as there is no trouble, I don't pry.'
'Ah you're as helpful as a goat with three livers to a novice augurytaker,' I commented. Helena caught the woman's eye. 'It has endless possibilities, but no obvious story to tell,' Helena explained, then both women sneered at my joke. I busied myself with the baggage. There were unwashed tunics, as Helena had prophesied. I have smelt worse; public scribes who work in government offices do know how to use the baths. Diocles' laundry had been sitting around for a month, then placed in a poultry hut. There was never a chance of sweet scents of balsam.
'Did you believe Diocles was in Ostia to work?' Helena had a quiet persistence which people never felt able to challenge. The landlady hated answering so many questions, yet she was drawn in.
'He said so.'
'Did he tell you his occupation?'
'Some sort of record-keeping, I think.'
'Seems right.' I confirmed the half-lie, having dug out a bundle of note-tablets. They looked almost empty. Just my luck. Diocles was a scribe who kept everything in his head. Witnesses can be so selfish. I did find one name. 'There is someone down here called Damagoras.' Looks like an appointment… Do you know this Damagoras?'
'Never heard of him,' said the landlady. At least she was consistent.
VII
Helena and I walked slowly back. This time we went straight up the Decumanus. I was carrying the scribe's laundry and other possessions, collected together in his cloak. Apart from the whiff, which was a strange mixture of male sweat and old mortar, being in possession of what was clearly a clothes bundle made us a muggers' target. Dresswear is the most popular item for thieves. Half the vigiles' case-work comprises reports of filched tunics from changing rooms at the baths. I bet you didn't know that.
Wrong! I bet you have been a victim at least once. There is no such thing as a bath house with good security. Look no further than the owners. Most proprietors are taking your ticket money with one hand while they feel the nap on your garments with the other, prior to a transfer of ownership. Many have a cousin who is a fuller. Your prized tawny tunic will be re-dyed bull's blood red, making it impossible to identify, while you are still strigilling off your chosen body oil and moaning that the water isn't hot enough. I take the dog to guard my togs.
Since Nux guards clothes by lying on them, the disadvantage is that I get clean only to end up smelling like my dog. Nux is never clean. However, unlike one unfortunate man we passed in Ostia, I have never had to scuttle home naked, covering my assets with a borrowed hot-room water scoop. The Decumanus was the short route back, but it was full of other people. The nervous nude had his own problems dodging jibes and guffaws. We were little better off.
All the porters with handcarts had bagged the shady pavement, the roadway was crammed with wagons and the hot side of the street was baked. Diocles' property was not heavy, but
it included a little folding stool, washing gear, a half-empty wine flagon and a stylus box; the knotted cloak was an awkward shape to manoeuvre in the confined spaces of a main road with its afternoon traffic jam. Helena was no help. She was carrying the tablets, and as an insatiable reader that meant she was already searching through them as she walked.
'His doodles are useless. He must just scribble a memory aid like. Tomorrow, without saying what for… This Damagoras you found is the only name.'
There were about five bound sets, each with four or six double-sided wooden tablets, so keeping her grip on all these writing-boards, while struggling to open them one at a time, kept Helena busy. She dropped a couple once, but that was because a water-carrier barged her. Helena stooped to retrieve the fallen tablets, thwarting any helpful passers-by who might have pretended to help pick them up for her while palming the odd one.
As she bent down, a lecherous snack-bar waiter clearly planned on goosing her, but Diocles' bundle made a good guard, under cover of which I kicked the waiter. He reeled back with his empty drinks tray. Oblivious, Helena carried on reading. '
Juno, this man was a bore… here he's added up a bar bill. In the last set he sketched what looks like a grid for solo draughts.' The bar bill came to so little it could only have been cold stew and a beaker for one. The scandal scribe dined out alone. At least that saved us feeling frustrated about untraceable meetings with anonymous contacts. The apparent board game could have been a map for a rendezvous, but if so, Diocles had missed out all the street names. That was no help.
'Maybe he was the kind of sad bastard who spent his leisure time drawing imaginary cities,' I speculated gloomily. Nothing I knew about him suggested he was King of Atlantis in his spare time, however.
'Marcus, from what I've been reading so far in the Daily Gazette, he had enough fun applying his creativity to: Flavia Conspicua seems to have grown bored with marriage very soon. Hardly has she been snatched from her mother's arms by the eligible Gaius Mundanus, than rumour has it Flavia [heiress to the Splendidus estates and an experienced amateur flute-player,] is already seeing her old love Gaudius again.' I invented that,' Helena assured me.
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