My father, whose lurid sense of humour was rapidly reasserting itself, dragged Rubinia to a statue of a particularly lewd satyr, and used his belt to tie her to its hairy hindquarters in a suggestive position.
'Ah Marcus, she's started crying!'
'She likes to make an effort. Take no notice. A girl who was prepared to kick me in the privates gets no sympathy from me.'
My father told her he was on her side-but she had to stay there. Rubinia demonstrated more of her vivid vocabulary. Next Geminus helped me wedge a large lump of stone against the coffin lid, so it was held fast, still half covering the opening, with Orontes peering out. I was leaning on a ladder that was tilted against a wall opposite, while Pa climbed up a large enthroned goddess and settled demurely in her lap.
I stared at Orontes, who had caused us so much trouble. He was, though I did not know it yet, to cause us rather more.
With his bald top and his great curly, bushy beard he had once been handsome and still had the dramatic authority of some old Greek philosopher. Wrap him in a blanket and sit him in a portico and folk might flock to hear him straining his brain. So far he had had nothing to say to us. I would have to cure that.
'Right!' I tried to sound menacing. 'I have had no dinner, I'm worried about my girlfriend, and even though your sultry model is a glad eyeful I'm in no mood to let this take all night.'
The sculptor finally found his voice. 'Go and jump in the Phlaegraean Marsh!' It was a deep, sombre voice, made raspy by drink and debauchery.
'Show some respect, cumin-breath!' Pa shouted down. I liked to proceed with dignity; he loved to lower the tone.
I carried on patiently. 'So you are Orontes Mediolanus-and you're a lying runt!'
'I'm not saying anything to you.' He braced himself against the inside of his stone prison, managed to shove one knee through the opening, and tried to grapple off the lid. Working with stone had given him muscle, but not enough.
I went over and kicked the sarcophagus unexpectedly. 'You'll just tire yourself out, Orontes. Now be reasonable. I can lock you in the dark in this rather heavy sarcophagus and come once a day to ask if you've changed your mind yet-or if I decide you're not worth my trouble, I can lock you in there and just not bother to come back.' He stopped struggling. 'We've not met,' I went on, politely resuming the introductions as if we were lying on marble slabs in some elegant bathhouse. 'My name is Didius Falco. This is my father, Marcus Didius Favonius, also known as Geminus. You must recognise him. Another relation of ours was called Didius Festus; you knew him too.'
Rubinia emitted a high-pitched noise. It could be terror or annoyance. 'What's that squeak for?' growled my father, gazing down at her with salty curiosity. 'Hey, Marcus, do you think I should take her out the back and ask her some questions privately?' The innuendo was obvious.
'Wait a bit,' I restrained him. I hoped he was bluffing, though I was not entirely certain. Ma had always called him a womaniser. He certainly seemed to throw himself into any available form of fun.
'Let her brew, you mean…' I saw Father grin evilly at Orontes. Maybe the sculptor remembered Festus; anyway, he did not look keen to see his glamorous accomplice leaving with yet another rampant Didius.
'Think on,' I murmured to him. 'Rubinia looks like a girl who may be easily swayed!'
'Leave me out of it!' she caterwauled.
I pushed myself off the ladder and ambled over to where Rubinia was tied up. Beautiful eyes, brimful of malice, sparkled at me. 'But you're in it, sweetheart! Tell me, were you swayed by Didius Festus the night I saw you at the Circus?' Whether she remembered the occasion, she coloured slightly at my brother's name and my heavy innuendo. If nothing else, I was storing up domestic strife between Rubinia and Orontes when they reminisced about our visit after we had left. I turned back to the sculptor. 'Festus was madly trying to find you. Your girlfriend here passed him on to your friends Manlius and Varga and they bamboozled him nicely… Did he ever find you that night?'
Inside the sarcophagus Orontes shook his head.
'Pity,' said Pa, in a clipped voice. 'Festus had his methods with traitors!'
Orontes proved as great a coward as his friends the two painters had been. All the fight was going out of him before our eyes. He groaned, 'In the name of the gods, why don't you all just leave me alone! I never asked to get into this, and what happened was not my fault!'
'What did happen?' both Pa and I demanded simultaneously. I glared at my father angrily. This would never occur with my old pal Petronius; we had a well-established routine for doing a dual interrogation. (By which I mean Petro knew when to let me take the lead.)
But as it turned out, shouting at Orontes from two directions worked the required effect. He whimpered pathetically, 'Let me out of here; I can't stand confined spaces…'
'Shut the lid a bit more, Marcus!' commanded Pa. I strode towards the stone coffin, looking determined.
The sculptor screamed. His girlfriend yelled at him: 'Oh tell the bastards what they want and let's get back to bed!'
'A woman with the right priorities!' I commented quietly, a foot from her entombed lover. 'Are you ready to talk then?'
He nodded miserably. I let him out. Immediately he made a dash for freedom. Expecting it, Father had slid gracelessly down the front of the vast matron who was forming his armchair. He landed in front of Orontes and punched up the sculptor's chin with a mighty blow that knocked him out.
I caught him under the hot hairy armpits. 'Oh brilliant, Pa. Now he's unconscious! This way he'll tell us a lot!'
'Well what else did you want? To see the bastard escape?'
We got him laid neatly on the floor, then threw a jug of cold water over him. He came to, to find the pair of us lolling against the statuary while I complained to my father. 'You do have to overdo everything! Settle down, will you? We want him alive at least until he's talked
'I should have hit the girl harder,' mumbled Pa, like some demented thug who liked torturing people.
'Oh she's all right-so far.'
Orontes stared around wildly, looking for Rubinia. There was no sign of her in the studio. 'What have you done with her?'
'Not too much-yet,' smiled Father.
'Missed his vocation!' I commented. 'Don't worry; she's just a bit frightened. I've managed to hold him back so far, but I can't go on doing it. Now talk, Orontes, or you get a chisel somewhere you may not expect and Jupiter only knows what this maniac will inflict upon your bit of decorative womanhood!'
'I want to see Rubinia!'
I shrugged. Ignoring his frantic gaze, I carefully examined the statue I had chosen to lean on. It had the body of a Greek athlete in tiptop condition, but the head of a Roman countryman aged about sixty, with a lined face and very big ears. 'Ovonius Pulcher', according to its plinth. There were half a score of these monstrosities scattered through the studio, all with identical bodies but different heads. They were the latest craze; everyone who was anyone in Campania must have ordered one.
'These are horrible!' I said frankly. 'Mass-produced muscle with entirely the wrong faces.'
'He does a good head,' Pa disagreed. 'And there are some nice reproductions around us here. He's a damn good copyist.'
'Where do the youthful torsos come from?'
'Greece,' croaked Orontes, trying to humour us. Pa and I turned to each other and exchanged a slow, significant glance.
'Greece! Really?'
'He goes to Greece,' my father informed me. 'Now I wonder if he used to go there and find things for our Festus to sell?'
I whistled through my teeth. 'Treasure-hunting! So this is the clod-brained agent Festus used to employ! The legendary man he met in Alexandria… Greece, eh? I bet he wishes he'd stayed there sunbathing on the Attic Plain!'
'I need a drink!' interrupted the sculptor desperately.
'Don't give him any,' snapped Pa. 'I know him of old. He's a drunken sot. He'll drain it and pass out on you.'
'Is that how you spent the bribe, Orontes?
'
'I never had a bribe!'
'Don't lie! Somebody doled out a lot of money for you to do them a favour. Now you're going to tell us who paid you the money-and you're going to tell us why!'
'Bloody Cassius Carus paid the money!' my father suddenly shouted out. I knew he was guessing. I also realised he was probably right.
'That true, Orontes?' Orontes groaned in feeble assent. We had found some wine while he was unconscious. Pa nodded to me, and I offered the sculptor the wineskin, pulling it back after Orontes had taken one thirsty swig. 'Now tell us the full story.'
'I can't!' he wailed.
'You can. It's easy.'
'Where's Rubinia?' he tried again. He didn't care much about the girl; he was playing for time.
'Where she can't help you.' Actually we had shut her up somewhere to keep her quiet.
Pa swung closer and grasped the wineskin. 'Maybe he's frightened of the girl. Maybe she'll give him an earful if she finds out he's talked.' He took several deep swigs, then offered me a turn. I shook my head with distaste. 'Wise boy! For the heart of a wine-producing area this is dreadful vinegar. Orontes never drank for the flavour, just the effect.'
Orontes looked at his wineskin yearningly, but Pa held on to the dreadful prize. 'Tell us about the Phidias,' I urged. 'Tell us now-or Pa and I are going to hurt you much more than anyone else who's threatened you before!'
I must have sounded convincing, because to my surprise Orontes then confessed.
'I go to Greece whenever I can, looking out for bargains-' We groaned and sneered at his hybrid statues again, to show what we thought of that. 'Festus had an arrangement with me. I had heard where there might be this Phidias. I thought we could get hold of it. Some run-down temple on an island wanted to have a clear-out; I don't think they really appreciated what they were turfing on to the market. Even so, it wasn't cheap. Festus and some other people managed to put the money together, and he also lined up Carus and Servia as eventual purchasers. When his legion left Alexandria to fight in the Jewish Rebellion, Festus wangled himself a journey to Greece as an escort for some despatches; that was how he came with me to view the Phidias. He liked what he saw and bought it, but there was no time to make other arrangements so it had to go on with him to Tyre. After that he was stuck in Judaea with the army, so I was supposed to supervise bringing it back to Italy.'
'You were to escort it in person?' Pa queried. I guessed that was the usual system he and Festus had imposed to protect an item of large value. Either one of them, or an agent they really trusted, would have stuck with it every mile of its journey.
'That was what I promised Festus. He was sending a whole load of other stuff-nice goods, but minor quality by comparison-in a ship called the Hypericon.'
I poked him with the toe of my boot. The sculptor closed his eyes. 'Since the Hypericon sank while carrying the Phidias, and you're lying here annoying us, the rest is obvious. You broke your promise to Festus, and bunked off elsewhere!'
'That's about right,' he confessed uncertainly.
'I don't believe I'm hearing this! You let a statue worth half a million travel alone?' Pa was incredulous.
'Not exactly-'
'So what exactly?' menaced Pa.
Lindsey Davis
Poseidon's Gold
Orontes groaned hopelessly and curled up, hugging his knees as if he was in some terrible pain. A bad conscience hurts some folk that way. 'The ship with the statue sank,' he whispered.
'We know that!' My father lost his temper. He hurled the wineskin at a Coy Nymph; it burst with a horrible squelching sound. Red wine trickled down her scanty drapes like blood. 'The Hypericon-'
'No, Geminus.' Orontes took a deep breath. Then he told us what we had come to find out: 'The Phidias that Festus bought was never on the Hypericon.'
LIII
I ran the fingers of both hands deep into my hair, massaging my scalp. Somehow this shock was not the surprise it ought to have been. Everyone had been telling us the Hypericon was carrying the statue; readjusting to another story took an effort. But some things which had made no sense before might now fall into place.
'Tell us what happened,' I commanded the sculptor wearily.
'There had been some mix-up. Festus and I took the Phidias to Tyre, but the rest of his stuff, things he had fixed up on his own account, had gone to Caesarea. Festus then told me he had to make himself look a bit official-'
'You don't say!' Pa was getting rattled. 'There was a war on in that region!'
'Well that's it!' Orontes exclaimed gratefully. He appeared to lack any grasp of world events. Perhaps this was understandable, when he saw my brother behaving as if the Jewish Rebellion had been arranged solely to further his own business commissions. 'Anyway, he went down to Caesarea to supervise his other stuff and to fix up a ship-what turned out to be the Hypericon.'
'So you were not using her before this?' I asked.
'Oh no. We were in military transports up to then.' Bloody Festus! 'I was left in charge of the statue. Festus told me before I brought it south to let one of the Aristedon brothers inspect it.' The name was familiar; I remembered Carus and Servia mentioning they used these people to ship goods for them. 'They were to verify it for the new owners, and until they did, Festus could not clear the banker's order.'
'So Festus was paid by Carus through a banker in Syria?'
'More convenient,' Pa muttered. 'He wouldn't have wanted to carry that kind of sum with him from Rome. And if his mates in Judaea had put up the stake money, he could pay them their profits straight away with less risk to the cash.'
'I see. But before Carus would cough up so much money, he wanted an agent of his own to see the goods? So how did you lose our statue, Orontes?'
He was really squirming now. 'Oh gods… I thought it was for the best… Aristedon, their agent, turned up in Tyre and approved the statue. I was supposed to take it by road to Caesarea, but with soldiers barging about on all the highways, I was not looking forward to the trip. It seemed a godsend when the Aristedon brother suggested that his clients would prefer him to ship the Phidias in his own boat, the Pride of Perga.'
'Did you go along with that?' demanded Pa contemptuously.
'I assume Aristedon gave you some form of receipt?' I added dangerously.
'Oh yes…' Something was not right there. He had gone pale, and his eyes were wandering.
'So you let him take it?'
'Why not? It meant I could stop worrying about it. And I could forget about coming home on the Hypericon. I wanted to go back to Greece. That way I could spend my commission from Festus buying stuff for myself.'
I weighed in: 'So you handed over the Phidias, let the rest of my brother's cargo take its chance with the Hypericon, flitted off to Achaea, then wandered back to Italy in your own good time?'
'That's right, Falco. And since it meant I escaped drowning, I'm not going to apologise!' It seemed a reasonable attitude-unless this clown had lost your family a small fortune. 'After I got home I discovered the Hypericon had sunk and Festus had lost all his gear.'
'So where in Hades is the Phidias?' grated Pa.
'I was just congratulating myself on having saved it, when I heard that the Pride of Perga had miscarried too.'
'Oh come on!' roared my father. 'This is too much of a coincidence!'
'It was a bad time of year. Dreadful storms everywhere.'
'So then what happened?' I put in.
'I found myself in trouble. I was visited by Carus. He made me swear I would not tell Festus about the statue swap-'
'He paid you for this deception?'
'Well…' The sculptor looked more shifty than usual. 'He bought something I had.'
'It can't have been one of your pieces,' my father said pleasantly. 'Carus is a shit, but he is a connoisseur!'
Orontes spoke before he could help himself. 'He bought the receipt.'
Both Father and I had to try very hard to restrain ourselves.
'How much for?
' I asked, with feigned lightness of tone-my only way to avoid a burst blood vessel.
'Five thousand.' The admission was almost inaudible.
'Is that all? The bloody statue was worth half a million!'
'I was hard up… I took what I could get.'
'But whatever did you think you were doing to Festus?'
'It didn't seem so bad,' wailed Orontes. Clearly he belonged to the amoral class of artists. 'If I had not changed the arrangements, Festus would have lost the statue anyway, in the Hypericon. I don't see any difference!'
'All the difference!' my father raged. 'Half a million nice bright shiny ones that Carus now thinks he can force us to pay!'
'He was trying to squeeze Festus too,' Orontes conceded dismally. 'That was why I didn't want to meet him when he came back to Rome. I reckoned Festus knew what I had done, and was coming after me.'
Father and I looked at each other. We were both reminiscing about my brother, and we were both perturbed. Simple rage did not explain the agitation Festus had been showing on that last trip home. If he had known that this worm Orontes had cheated him, he would simply have enlisted help, either from me or from Father, to blast the fool. Instead, he had been running in circles trying to organise one of his secret plans. It could only mean he really believed that Cassius Carus had a grievance, and needed to be squared.
Orontes misinterpreted our silence. Giving his all, he went on in anguish, 'Carus must have been putting terrible pressure on Festus by then, and Carus is known as a dangerous character.'
'Too dangerous for a fool like you to meddle with!' my father told him brutally.
'Oh don't go on-' He had no grasp of priorities. 'I'm sorry about what happened, but there seemed no way for me to get out of it. The way Carus first put it, he made me feel I had done wrong to let the statue go. He said everybody would feel better if we pretended it had never happened.'
'I cannot believe this character!' Pa muttered to me in despair.
'Can we get the five thousand off him?'
'I've spent it,' Orontes whispered. By then I was prepared for that. Nothing useful or good would ever come out of this studio. 'I spent everything. I always do. Money seems to shrivel up the minute I appear…' I gave him a glare that should have shrivelled something else. 'Look, I know you have a lot to blame me for. I never thought it would end the way it did-'
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