Once and for all' is political jargon – which makes it absolutely meaningless. As I took myself off from the contractor's house, who should I meet coming in but Brunnus, the Sixth's detachment leader.
'What are you doing here, Brunnus?'
'Marcus Rubella has arrived in Ostia. We have a meeting arranged, Falco. Handover and joint strategy discussion.' Joint balls-up, more likely. After Rubella and Petronius had both expressed a wish to show up their colleagues in the Sixth, I could hardly believe this.
'Inter-cohort liaison? Whatever happened to rivalry?' Brunnus grinned happily.
'What rivalry, Falco?' He was an innocent. Rubella was probably picking his brains, prior to shafting him and his cohort. 'We have to interleave our efforts on some critical initiatives.'
'The kidnaps,' I stated. As far as he knew, I was chasing pirates over Diocles but had never heard of the kidnap racket. Fired up, Brunnus failed to notice.
'Be wonderful,' he gloated, 'if the vigiles can get ahead of Caninus and the navy!' No doubt Caninus had some other navy unit he was hoping to outwit. The Ravenna and Misenum Fleets were bound to be rivals.
So it would go on. each branch of the services locked into doing down the next. Never mind Posidonius losing his daughter. The important thing was to establish cohort supremacy. All any of them wanted was an honourable mention from the Emperor. Brunnus headed in to see the others, but I caught his arm.
'Word of advice,' I said, feeling tetchy and wanting to land someone in mule-shit. You need to jolly up that dozy group of bullies you keep farmed out in the west sector.'
'We don't have any farmed-out men, Falco. I don't believe in it. Leads to lack of discipline.'
'I saw them myself. Four great laggards. Streetside, sleeping on the job in an abandoned lot, chucking their weight about, just beyond the main Forum.'
'Not ours,' Brunnus assured me.
'Then get there and arrest them. You've got impostors, using a fake guardpost to defraud the public of bribes. Isn't impersonating the vigiles a crime?'
Taking a bribe was a crime too, though that was theoretical. The gang I met would never have succeeded in their ploy, had the real vigiles been lily white. They were behaving as the public expected. Brunnus could not be bothered.
'Frankly, we have more exciting things on. You must have been dreaming, Falco.' I pulled up and smacked myself around the ear.
'You're right. I must have seen some ghost troopers left behind decades ago by the Divine Emperor Claudius… Forget I mentioned it.'
Now Brunnus looked worried. But it would not affect him long. Brunnus had a thrilling afternoon ahead, plotting joint exercises with Marcus Rubella and Petronius Longus of the Fourth Cohort. Relegated to the role of an outsider, I found myself something else to do. If the men who had threatened me the other day were nothing to do with the vigiles, I was free to challenge them. The vigiles were accountable to the community; as a private informer, I was accountable to no one, but I had a social conscience. I could back it up with intellect, cunning, and if needs be fisticuffs.
I marched off to confront the bastards, all set to wreak havoc. No use. I walked along the Decumanus to where I had seen the fake patrol house. At the same time, I kept one eye out for the crass chariot Theopompus drove; it made me feel better to be looking for him, and Marcus Rubella could not stop me using my eyes.
The empty shop near the Temple of Hercules was now completely abandoned. The impostors were no longer to be seen. They had packed up and vanished. I was relieved Brunnus had not sent an enquiry team, or I would have looked stupid. But the old crusts still lay on the rubble-strewn floor; liquor fumes still hung in the air. So did the rank smell of deceit. The fraudsters had been here. Now they were hunkered down somewhere else, preying on new people in a new locality. I would find them eventually. And next time, I would put them out of business.
XXXII
Back at the Decumanus I crossed the junction to a run-down row of fishmongers. There was no chance of me and mine eating with Maia and Petronius this evening. Taking Rubella's part against me was utterly hypocritical. The vigiles may look down on private informers, but when it suited, we were good enough to help them out with their clear-up figures. Petronius Longus damn well knew that. Stuff him. I would take home something to cook up myself for a supper with my own brood.
It was a few days since we had enjoyed my mother's mullet. I decided I was ready for pan-fried sardines. They were a favourite of mine, and easy to prepare even in an apartment with limited facilities. Back in the old days at my dilapidated Fountain Court rental, I ate sardines all the time. The stall I chose had been here for a century. Surely soon some emperor who wanted to look good would provide new premises with smarter fish tanks and big marble slabs. In the meantime, they gutted fish on a wooden table which they scrubbed each night. The produce was fresh and the stallholder friendly. I asked if he had known the scribe's aunt.
'Oh, Vestina was a regular until she got too creaky. Then she used to send her maid – unless she had her visitor. He would help her along here herself.'
'Her nephew? Diocles?' A woman appeared from the cramped living quarters in the rear. Elderly and nosy, she was introduced to me as the stallholder's mother. It was no surprise. They shared similar squashed noses.
'That was a terrible night,' she said, clearly referring to the fire.
'Can you tell me about it? I heard there were problems getting help.'
'Of course there were. We all hate fires.'
'Vigiles too far away to fetch?'
'Oh much too far. People around here would never go to them,' said the son, betraying the Ostians' suspicion of the men from Rome.
'Who do you call on? The builders' guild?' He shook his head.
'Not unless we're desperate.' As I raised my eyebrows in query, the mother rushed to moan about the guild.
'Nasty lot. Looking after themselves, you know.'
'How's that?' The son gave the mother a warning look and she subsided. I stuck it out, now looking into the crayfish bucket as if I was considering a starter course tonight.
'I wouldn't want to say anything bad,' murmured the mother, helping me to flip good specimens into a piece of sacking. Then she went ahead.
'The firemen go into people's houses and come out with their knapsacks filled.'
'They help themselves to valuables?'
'Famous for it,' said the son, now willing to blacken them.
'And worse.'
'Worse?'
'Well, nothing can be proved, but some say when the builders' guild are putting a fire out, they don't try very hard.' I pretended to look blank, so he explained.
'If the property is completely destroyed, there will be a nice profit, putting up a new building. They would rather obtain a contract than save a house or business.'
'I noticed a lot of empty plots over the other side of the junction. Is that builders on a redevelopment plan?'
'Could be. No sign of much happening. I reckon it will be years before they start.'
'Any hint of foul play in all this? Do the builders ever deliberately help fires to start?' Both mother and son swore they had never heard it suggested. They had a less cynical attitude than me.
'So the night Vestina died, who did turn up to fight the flames?'
'Locals,' said the fishmonger. 'We had to get water from the baths, and they were closed so that took time.'
'Wasn't there a vigiles guardhouse hereabouts?'
'Oh them!'
'Would they not turn out?'
'No, Diocles asked them.' The son had been terse; the mother elaborated.
'They just laughed at him. He begged in vain.'
'First most of us knew, he was running about from place to place screaming for help.'
'Well, you know why he was so upset,' said his mother. I turned to her and she said flatly, 'It was all his fault. He was always feckless; some men are, you know. He caused the fire.'
'Accident?' I asked her, still thinking
that Petronius Longus would wonder if the scribe was an arsonist.
'Oh yes. He let a lamp fall off a shelf, he admitted it. The poor man was hysterical about that. His aunt had been such a nice woman… quite cultured, you know; she had worked for an empress when she was a young girl. I think Vestina and Diocles were the only family each other had, freed slaves but perfectly respectable, with royal connections. He was left all alone when he lost her. And such a terrible way for her to go…'
'Have you ever seen him back again? Has he been this year at all?'
'Oh no. I don't expect he'll ever come here again,' said the fishmonger's mother. 'He wouldn't want to remember what happened, would he?'
I sorted out more crayfish thoughtfully. Some were just large prawns but they would still be tasty. Now I had the full picture, my anxieties about Diocles were leaping up again. Whatever work motives had brought him here, he was asking for mental anguish. Or were his motives personal?
'I'm worried about him,' I told them. 'He stayed in lodgings by the Marine Gate this summer. Then he disappeared suddenly.'
'He'll be dead in a ditch,' said the fishmonger's mother. 'He couldn't take the nightmare any longer, if you ask me. He'll have done for himself. I can see him now, his torment was shocking. Tears streaming down his face, all blackened from the fire where he had tried to get back in the house. People had to drag him away. There was nothing he could do, the heat had got too intense. So he sat in the street then, whimpering to himself, over and over, 'the bastards, the bastards,' He meant the men who laughed at him, those ones in that guardhouse. He meant, they could have come to help when he begged them, but they just let Vestina die.'
XXXIII
Subdued, I bought my fish, then walked slowly home. The crowds jostling in the main street seemed garish and crass. All looked vibrant and thriving in this multi-cultured port, but corruption ate at the heart of the local fabric, stinking like rotting seaweed. Many towns have a stench in the back alleys. Here it was subtle, but universal. The bullies from the builders' guild preyed on their own people; the vigiles left them to their own devices. Interlopers from barren provinces homed in as parasites on other foreigners. A young girl had had her life ruined. She failed to see her loss, or how it would ruin her father. An elderly cripple had died because no one would help her. A scribe had vanished. All these busy people in the streets pushed and shoved, all these heavily laden vehicles rattled and bumped, along the sunny streets in the name of commerce, heedless of the polluting tide that sucked to and fro in the darkness under the warm wharves of Ostia and Portus.
I walked half the length of the Decumanus Maximus, one silent man amidst the bustle. I was thinking about someone else who had passed along this street in solitude. I wondered if bereavement was the only force working on Diocles' emotions, or if he too had burned with anger over this town. If he knew of the stench, I wondered what he did about it. I could not tell if I was any closer to finding him, but as I thought of Diocles that evening I knew that what had once seemed an easy, light-hearted task for me had assumed a blacker character. I hoped he was here. I hoped he was nearby. I wanted to find him, merely maudlin and drowning his sorrows at one of his solitary suppers in a bar. But increasingly I feared for him.
It was just as well I had lashed out on the extra seafood. We had a houseful of visitors. Having shed my mother, we had suddenly acquired Helena's mama, not to mention her father and her younger brother. They had all come to see off Aelianus, whose ship would leave for Greece the next day.
Fortunately, I was not expected to cram in extra people. Senatorial families always stay in some noble friend's villa when they travel around; they have the knack of finding one where the friend is not in residence to bother them. Unlike my own family, today's relatives were going on to a nearby estate for the traditional patrician customs. criticising their friend's bedlinen and his favourite slaves, before leaving a very short thank-you note and mounds of unwashed foodbowls. Slaves had gone ahead to ensure there were beds ready and hot water in the bath house. Tonight, the travellers were staying to supper with us. Decimus Camillus and Julia Justa wanted to see their granddaughters.
Cooking arrangements in the apartment were not up to this, so we built an open fire down in the courtyard, over which I cooked the fish in relays: they were succulent and scented with herbs. Man's work; I had to fight for my position against the senator and his sons. They had no idea how to keep a wood fire going, and I was sceptical of their skewering techniques. Never mind where our firewood came from, though I did hear the local baker had problems getting his oven fired up next day.
We took over the whole ground floor outdoor area; other tenants of the apartment block could only gape jealously and mutter about us blocking access to the well.
Helena and her mother went out for more provisions; there was a little market just inside the Gate of Fortune. Senators' wives never normally shop in person, but Julia Justa had a pretty good eye for a bunch of dill. They were extremely cheerful when they came back laden; it was probably the first time for years they had been on an expedition together. In fact there was so much giggling, I wondered whether the two of them had stepped into the Aquarius for a little spiced wine toddy. Far be it for me to sniff my mother-in-law's breath for cinnamon, or anything stronger. It is probably treason for an equestrian to suggest that a senator's wife has been drinking in a public place. I could certainly have got myself smacked, and I knew that women who have had a tipple lose all sense of how hard they are hitting.
I remembered when Maia, as a young girl, used to come home hysterical from a screaming night of fun at the loom-workers funeral club. When I told this to Helena and Julia Justa, it caused so much merriment, I was quite sure about the hot toddy. It was a very warm evening.
Back in Rome, the Camilli might seem diffident, in comparison to their stately colleagues, but once they were let out of their town house on a spree, they knew how to throw themselves into a country feast. We could have been at an olive harvest. We were loud, we ate heartily, we laughed and talked until it grew so dark we had to light oil lamps and start batting at insects. The children scampered about. Nux sniffed and snuffled around people's legs. Nervous at first, but then happier than I had seen her, Albia allocated bowls and spoons. Aulus hauled water from the well; Quintus opened up the amphora that had somehow found itself strapped in the luggage box of the senator's carriage without Julia Justa knowing why there seemed so little room for her possessions. The senator sat in the middle of everything, looking as if he wished he could retire to a vineyard in the sun.
'Classic,' I said, handing him a dish of prawns to pick apart for Julia and Favonia. He was a devoted grandfather. Like many, he probably had more enjoyment from the younger generation than he had allowed himself with his own children.
'You are a traditional Roman, devoting yourself to city politics as a duty, while yearning for the simple life when our ancestors were robust farmers.'
'And if they had stayed farmers, Marcus, we would all be tenants under the thumb of some Sabine elite!'
'Working all hours to pay the rent to our heartless masters.'
'I thought you were a republican, lad.' I wondered who had told him that.
'It's easy to be a republican when you live in a thriving empire,' I admitted. 'I'm not sure that I really fancy the hard old days of ploughing and porridge.' Decimus posted a peeled prawn into little Favonia's mouth, while she sat on the stone bench beside him, looking up patiently for the next morsel.
'Gone soft!' he said, grinning. 'When I first knew you, you were as cynical as Diogenes, a moody loner with a black soul.'
'Now I'm staid? Your daughter's mellowing influence.' On the other side of the courtyard, Helena and her noble matron mother, who were unpacking vegetables, appeared to be tossing radishes at one another, in fits of laughter. The senator and I thought best to ignore it. Men dislike too much uncharacteristic behaviour. Women should stick to the rules we have learned.
'Now you are rathe
r sensible,' said Decimus. 'You still do good in the community, but you don't resent yourself for it. On a night like this, Marcus Didius, I think you manage to be happy with life.'
'True. As I said, thanks to Helena.' I always gave him credit for the way he had brought her up. He was a fair man, but secretly Helena was his favourite. He liked her willingness to rebel; he may have felt proud of it.'I wouldn't give Favonia any more shellfish, not until we've got some plain bread into her.'
Favonia saw the game was up. Without a backward glance of thanks to her grandpapa, she wriggled off the bench. She toddled straight over to Aulus, steadying herself against his knee with sticky fingers; she had spotted that he was peeling the really big crayfish. Favonia only liked the best. Aulus, always a stand-offish uncle in his own mind, would be entirely at the mercy of those big pleading eyes.
Nux saw the scrounging in progress, and squirmed in alongside Favonia, adding her own silent pressure. The senator gave another prawn to Julia, who snuggled up to him, pretending to be much better behaved than her little sister.
'I know you don't want to talk about work tonight, but make sure you speak to Quintus at some point. A man came to see him. Quintus will tell you.' It could wait. It would have to. There was a sudden flare-up of the bonfire. I had a crisis with my fish.
Later, when stars were lighting our goodbyes, I did snatch a moment with Justinus. The senator was supervising packing up with his carriage driver. Helena was soothing a sleepy, whining child. Aulus had to calm his mother who had definitely supped too much of the red wine, so she had become weepy about losing him tomorrow.
'Quintus! I hear you have things to tell me.' Camillus Justinus was leaner and cleaner-cut than his elder brother, a quiet and thoroughly stable young man on the surface, though I knew he had another side to him. He lived at home with his parents, his serious wife and his new son – but he had adventures abroad behind him. Too many, in my opinion. He leaned on my shoulder; to save carrying empties, he had helped ensure the amphora was empty.
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