He gave a rueful snort. “I am flattered. But even if it were true, cleverness and cunning don’t win wars, as Pollio reminded me. Power does. Still, I thank you, and I will try to justify your good opinion.” He had a bite of the roll.
“So!” she said, resting her elbows on her knees. “You have ideas?”
“I believe I have two options. The first is to go to Gaius Maecenas. He might be willing to buy the debt simply in order to spite Rufus, and he is probably still powerful enough to protect us. The risks of that course are, first, that I have no reason to trust him, nor he to trust me; second, that he is reportedly out of favor and may be unwilling to risk acting against Rufus; third—and this is the one that troubles me most—that Pollio will expect me to go to him. I hinted I might, and I could see that he hated the idea. Gaius Maecenas is precisely the sort of man Pollio would worry about most—a financial rival who has likewise fallen from the imperial favor, who could understand Pollio’s plots and might be interested in taking advantage of them. If I were Pollio I would take precautions against my obtaining any help from that quarter.”
“What sort of precautions?” Cantabra asked, frowning.
He shrugged. “The most basic one would be to have his house watched in case I try to go there. A more subtle one would be to send Maecenas a letter full of lies about me.”
Her frown deepened. “What, that you were an assassin?”
“That I was an assassin, that I was a spy, that my offer was a ruse to involve Maecenas in some kind of disgrace. I don’t know enough of court politics to guess or to guard myself. Pollio and Maecenas were members of the same circle and both in finance. I believe they did dislike one another, but there are probably people against whom they were allies, and Pollio could credibly represent himself as being willing to help Maecenas against one of them.” He finished his roll.
“Then you should not go to Maecenas,” said Cantabra. “What is the second option?”
“Someone called Titus.” He shrugged. “He is the man Pollio wants Rufus to kill, so one presumes he would be grateful to learn of the plot. He has the advantage over Maecenas in that I am fairly confident that neither Rufus nor Pollio know I heard his name, and won’t expect me to turn to him. Rufus mentioned the name in the bathhouse, but I don’t think he realized that I understood him—he was speaking Latin, and all our dealings had been in Greek—and I don’t think Pollio heard, because at that stage he was still in the changing room. He undoubtedly heard Rufus shouting, but bathhouses echo, and I doubt very much that he made out the words. The problem is that I don’t know who Titus is. Somebody who was on first-name terms with Rufus, somebody powerful whom Pollio couldn’t reach on his own, and somebody from whose death Pollio expects to benefit: that’s all I can say.”
“Statilius Taurus?” suggested Cantabra.
For a moment it was simply a name vaguely familiar from public affairs, impossible to place. Then he remembered: one of the emperor’s great marshals, the man who’d commanded the land forces at Actium, second only to Marcus Agrippa. There was more, though, more recently … he suddenly recalled the Rubrius brothers mentioning that name. Statilius Taurus, they’d complained, hadn’t given any games that summer, even though he liked games and was prefect of the city.
Prefect of the city. The man in charge of Rome in the absence of the emperor and his deputy; the man in command of all the troops stationed in the capital; the man responsible for the maintenance of order. Suppose the prefect of the city were assassinated, and rioting broke out; suppose that at that dangerous juncture Vedius Pollio stepped forward, and selflessly spent his wealth to quell the disturbances. Wouldn’t Pollio expect to be received back into the imperial favor as a reward?
It was possible—but there were too many suppositions in that piece of reasoning, and it seemed an unnecessarily tortuous plot. If Pollio wanted to quell a riot, he could presumably send out agents to start one, and then quell it at his leisure, without need of assassinations at all. Or did he have some reason to be certain that he needed to get rid of Statilius Taurus first?
“It might be,” he said cautiously. “Statilius Taurus is a Titus, is he?”
Cantabra nodded. “He is a cruel man,” she said in a low voice. “He loves blood and killing. But he is honest. He keeps his word and he honors courage.”
He remembered abruptly where else he had heard that name recently: the school of Taurus, where Cantabra had suffered as a gladiator. No wonder he was the first powerful Titus who had had occurred to her.
“It might be,” he said again. “I don’t know how to check it, though. I can’t go to him with an accusation against a man who is probably his friend unless I’m more confident than I am now—and I don’t even know how many other possibilities there are among the friends of the emperor. I cannot just go into a barbershop and ask ‘How many very important Romans are named Titus?’”
“Why not?” asked Cantabra. “Men talk about stupid things in barber shops.”
He snorted. “Admitted—but Rufus and Pollio will have men out looking for me. They’ll have people asking in barbershops about a Latin-speaking Greek with a bruised face, a cut on his cheek, and a bad ankle. At the moment I am fairly unmistakable, and that sort of question would be remembered. If Pollio learned that I was asking it, my last chance would be gone.” He fingered the stitches on his cheek, trying to think it through. “It would probably be better to go to Maecenas. Even if Pollio does write him a letter, he may not have written it yet.”
It would certainly have been safe to approach Maecenas first thing that morning. It would have taken Pollio a couple of hours to work out that Hermogenes was not at the house on the Via Tusculana. If he had not slept late, if he’d got up at dawn and gone directly to the house of Maecenas …
… He would almost certainly have been refused admittance. A very battered and bedraggled Greek, accompanied only by a barbarian female ex-gladiator, could not turn up on the doorstep of one of the wealthiest and most distinguished men in Rome without an appointment and expect to be received.
Besides, he admitted, if he had woken up earlier, he wouldn’t have gone to Maecenas; he would have gone to the bank. He needed coin, and he didn’t know how long it would be safe for him to get it. The number of banks in Rome which would accept a letter of credit from a bank in Egypt could be counted on the fingers of one hand—and all of them had connections with the East, which meant, with Pollio. If he didn’t hurry, going to one might shortly prove as dangerous as going to Maecenas. Only he couldn’t hurry, because he’d slept late, and now the banks were shut.
Cantabra was giving him a level blue look. “You should not go to Maecenas,” she said firmly.
He raised his eyebrows. “Which of us hired which?”
“You should not go!” she insisted. “If your opponent is stronger than you, you must not make the move he anticipates. I learned that in the arenas. You must do something he does not anticipate: that is the only way to get the better of him. Besides, if you go to Taurus, the worst that can happen is that he does not listen to you. You would still be able to try Maecenas. But if Pollio has written to Maecenas, and you go to him, you would not be able to get away again. Pollio will tell him something that would make Maecenas give you back to him, and Pollio would not let you escape again. No. We should first try to find out whether Titus is Statilius Taurus. You will think of a way to do that that does not need questions in barbershops.”
It sounded like an order, and he snorted in disgust. She said “Huh!” back at him, then got up, went into her own cubicle, then came back with a thick leather belt he did not remember her wearing. She sat down, laid the belt across her lap, and took her needle out of the breast of her tunic, where she’d set it for safekeeping. She arranged some coins against the inside of the belt and began stitching a leather lining across them.
“Keeping your money safe?” he asked curiously. “When did you buy that?”
“This morning,” she said, and continued sti
tching. “I can fit eighty coins in here. I will have to hide the rest. It is not good to leave money about in this insula. Gellia does not steal, but some of the others in this building are whores and thieves, and the doors do not lock.”
“There are such things as banks.”
She shook her head. “Too Greek.”
“What’s wrong with Greek?” he asked, smiling.
She looked up and smiled back. “Nothing. But I am Cantabrian, and not used to it.” She began sewing again.
He watched her bowed head, with the fiery hair sleek to the scalp and swinging in its long tail behind. Her strong scarred hands forced the needle firmly through the leather. “Do you think you could learn Greek?” he asked, after a silence.
She looked up again, surprised. “Why?”
He shrugged. “If I survive, I would like you to come back to Alexandria with me.”
The surprise darkened into suspicion. “Why?” she asked again.
He shrugged once more. “You have saved my life twice, if we count last night. I like you and trust you. I could give you a position where you were safe, comfortable, and respected, and it would benefit both of us if you took it. You’re a much better bodyguard than poor Phormion. You try to anticipate: he never did.”
She gave him long blue stare. There was pleasure in it, he thought, but also suspicion, and perhaps apprehension. He thought she was about to speak, but there was a knock on the door.
Cantabra set down the belt at once, her eyes hardening. “Who is it?” she called.
“It’s me!” came a voice Hermogenes recognized from the previous night as Gellia’s. “I just want to check that everything’s all right.” The door opened before either of them could respond.
Gellia proved to be a thin, angular woman of about forty. She wore a Roman matron’s stole over a dirty gown; her black hair was held up by copper pins, and her cheeks were rouged. Her bright black eyes at once fixed on Hermogenes with avid curiosity.
“Oh, Juno!” she exclaimed. “You poor man! Cantabra did say you’d been attacked by robbers. Terrible, what the streets are like these days! Are the rooms good enough for you, Herapilus?”
Hermogenes smiled brightly. “It is good of you to come and ask. I hope you will be able to do something about the fleas.”
The curiosity froze into misgiving. “Fleas?”
“This couch is infested. Also, whose responsibility is the upkeep of these rooms? They are filthy.”
“The tenants are supposed to look after their own rooms,” Gellia told him nervously.
“And there are no arrangements to clean them between tenants?”
Clearly, there were: she was supposed to have done them. Gellia now looked as though she regretted visiting. “But you don’t want them done now, while you’re in them!” she protested.
“I plan to go out shortly to a bathhouse. You could do them then.”
She grimaced. “You did arrive unexpectedly.”
“I admit it!” he said, waving a concessionary hand. “I know there was no time to prepare the rooms last night. But I would be grateful if you would clean them today. Also, the couch should be beaten thoroughly before the floor is swept and washed. Also, there is no sheet. Also, would it be possible to borrow or rent a table and a lamp?”
“The sort of people who normally stay here don’t want tables and lamps,” Gellia told him resentfully.
He spread his hands. “I am sure that I am an unusual tenant for you. As my bodyguard probably informed you, I have had a quarrel with a Roman business partner, and the result is as you see. I had not included funds for an inn in my budget, let alone for being robbed. So I am grateful for this place, but I hope you will understand it if I seem to you demanding. Perhaps you could consider this as experience in catering for a better class of tenant, and in future rent out some of your rooms at a higher cost?”
The landlady clicked her tongue. “What is your business, sir?”
“I am a shipping agent,” he said, without hesitation. “With the corporation of Myrtilos and Firmus. You have heard of them?”
“No,” she said, becoming interested again. “What do they ship?”
“Grain.” This was evidently disappointing, but he went on, “Egyptian grain. The emperor, of course, has been supplying this great city increasingly from Egypt, but, to tell the truth, getting the shipments here is a labor for Herakles. That harbor at Ostia is a joke. It won’t take a ship larger than about thirty tons.”
“Isn’t that big?”
“Tiny!” he said with contempt. “Oh, it would do for luxury goods, but for grain? It’s not economic to ship grain in lots that small—and when the ships arrive at the port, there isn’t even a good-sized crane to unload them. It has to be done by porters, which puts the cost up again.” He had begun speaking simply to lull into boredom any suspicion she might have conceived, but he was beginning to get an idea. “Our corporation and a couple of like-minded ones have been petitioning the emperor to improve the harbor at Ostia. It needs dredging and a breakwater as well as cranes, and that means important public works. We collected some money to pay one of the emperor’s friends to put the matter to him, and we found a Roman go-between who said he would find the right man to give it to, but I suspect that this Roman, the business partner I mentioned, has kept all the money himself. That is what we quarreled about.”
“No!” exclaimed Gellia, with delight. “And when you confronted him, he turned you out of the house in the middle of the night?”
“I walked out after a loud quarrel,” Hermogenes informed her ruefully. “Ai, Zeus, we both lost our tempers. But it occurs to me now that perhaps you could help me.”
“Me?” asked the landlady in surprise.
He nodded. “You see, my Roman partner says he gave the money to a friend of the emperor, but I do not know the name of that friend, except that my partner referred to him as Titus—to impress me, I suppose, that he was on such good terms with a great man. Now that I have quarreled with my partner, I want to see if this Titus knows anything about our petition or the money he is supposed to have received. I am not a Roman, though, and I don’t know who among the emperor’s friends might bear that name. You seem to be a knowledgeable woman of the city, and I am sure that if you do not know yourself, you know someone who would. I would give a denarius for a list of names.”
Gellia smiled widely, showing a blackened tooth. “And what then? You’ll go around them all asking whether they’ve received any money from you?”
“No, no, no!” he told her, smiling. “Probably there are not too many of them, and I will be able to rule most of them out at once. Fortunately Titus is not so common a name as, say, Gaius. When I have narrowed it down to two or three, I can make very careful inquiries among their associates or their slaves before I contact them. Then, if my partner has cheated us, I can report it to Myrtilos and Firmus.”
“You’re right about the name not being too common,” the woman said thoughtfully. “The only important Titus I can think of at the moment is General Statilius Taurus. Could it be him?”
“It might be,” Hermogenes replied without blinking. “He is prefect of the city, so he would have an interest in the grain supply. But I would like to be certain that there are no other possibilities before I start asking questions. I would not want to do anything that might offend such an important man.”
“I see your point. Well. Well, you want to give me that denarius? I know one or two old men who know the names of everybody who’s been anybody since Julius Caesar became a god, but they’ll only talk if I give them wine.” Her eyes sparkled eagerly, and he was sure that she wanted the wine for herself.
Cantabra silently picked up one of the coins she’d been stitching into her belt and handed it to the landlady. Gellia took it with pleasure and slid it swiftly into her purse.
“If you could ask them quietly…” Hermogenes said apologetically. “I don’t want my partner to find out what I’m doing.”
“O
h, he won’t!” Gellia told him happily. “Leave it with me.” She bustled out eagerly.
Hermogenes watched her go, then sighed. “I do not think my room will be cleaned this afternoon.”
“No,” agreed Cantabra. She was grinning. “She will take that money, buy a large amphora of cheap wine, and invite her friends round. By this evening she will be very drunk. But that was clever. She and her friends will know about every Titus who holds office. I knew you would think of something.”
He stretched. “I owe you seven denarii.”
“Thirteen,” she corrected him. “The seven I have given Gellia, plus three days’ wages.”
“Lend me some change to pay for a bath and a barber, and I will call it twenty.”
She frowned at him. “You should not go to a barber. You’ve said they will be asking about you in such places. Probably you should not go out at all.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I want a bath and a shave. I didn’t have a shave yesterday, and I am covered in fleabites. Even if they do ask in barbershops, and even if they ask at the right barbershop within the next day or so, they still will learn nothing more than that I was there. Please. Lend me the money, or I’ll have to pawn the pin off my tunic.”
She scowled ferociously, but went off, fetched her pen case, and tipped out some coppers. “I have never understood it,” she muttered, handing them to him. “All this washing! Every day, baths, baths, baths! And what is wrong with a beard?”
She made him wait while she finished sewing her belt, then accompanied him on the expedition, carrying his letters of credit and her pen case full of the rest of her coin rolled up in his good cloak, so as not to leave them unattended in the lodging house. The nearest bathhouse was only a couple of blocks away in the Campus Martius, new and very grand. It did not admit women in the afternoons—they were supposed to come in the mornings—so Cantabra sat down in the portico outside it, the rolled-up cloak on her lap. He worried that the men coming out would think her a prostitute waiting for custom, but when he suggested that she wait at the nearest public fountain instead, she simply scowled at him. The thought of her waiting made him take his bath in a hurry—that thought, and the fact that he had to leave his clothes unguarded in the changing room. He tried to remember when he had last gone to a bathhouse without at least one slave in attendance, and decided that it might have happened a few times when he was at school, but certainly hadn’t happened since. It felt very odd. It felt, in fact, like being a truant schoolboy again.
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