Primed by her mother, Marcia set about charming me in her own style. ‘Uncle Marcus, just give us the money.’
What money?’
‘A big bag of cash to make us feel less sad that Grandpa died.’
‘How does that work?’
‘Mother is happy, so I’m happy - and you will be happy too. You don’t want us littering up your smart hall every morning.’
‘Is that going to happen?’
‘Yes, Marcus darling- -‘ Marcia did a priceless imitation of her effusive mama. ‘Until you give in, I shall be dumped here to work on you.’
I said I was packing for a business trip to Latium.
My niece turned withering great brown eyes on me. What she lacked in her mother’s extraordinary beauty - - and she was on course to inherit most of that - she made up in character. If the character was dubious, it only proved a Didius really had spawned her. A handful at three, at ten she was now ferociously bright and spirited.
Marcia suggested that, if I was busy, I should simply give her the password for my Forum bankbox, then she would withdraw a sum she thought suitable. Nothokleptes, my banker, would probably be so surprised he would hand over everything.
I said Marcia must be joking, then we both collapsed in giggles.
Two days later it was Marcia, a dedicated gossip-winkler, who told me that Petro’s brother was at Maia’s house.
‘Petronius must have sent for him. Auntie Maia is put out.’
‘Nobody knew Lucius even had a brother!’ Helena exclaimed. We were at lunch, tucking into our own goat’s cheese, olives and flatbread, plus more sardines; Marina’s scaffolder must be really keen on her, though he had a tedious diet.
‘Lucius has a brother.’ I wiped my oily chin on a napkin. ‘Rectus. He lives in the country; Petro despises that.’
‘His brother is always off-colour,’ Marcia informed us. Information stuck to her like mud on a wall. ‘He has marsh fever. First it nearly killed him, now it keeps coming back. But Lucius Petronius has turned down the official guide you were offered by the man at the Palace and asked his brother instead. He trusts him. Anyway, he’s brought Nero.’
‘Spot!’ Helena and I corrected her briskly. Nero was an ox, of dubiously rakish character. Petronius, his poorly brother and some hick cousins jointly owned him. Calling the beast by the name of an emperor who had been damned-to-the-memory could be defined as an offence. I was once arrested for it in Herculaneum - - though the real reason was that Spot tried to rape a donkey. A snooty Herculaneum citizen, its owner, failed to see the funny side.
‘If this is the same ox, he’s a sex maniac. I’m not driving him!’
‘Why do you need a guide?’ Helena interrupted, swift to pick up any detail I was trying to hide. She homed in on the fact that when I first discussed Laeta’s mission, I implied Petro and I were just retracing my journey to Antium. She fixed me with accusing eyes. I acted casual. It never works.
‘They need a guide,’ Marcia piped up before I could stop her, ‘to show them the way in the Pontine Marshes. That’s where they have to find the murderers, if those men go into hiding and think nobody will ever dare to go after them there since it is so horribly unhealthy.’
‘Thank you, Marcia,’ I replied coolly. She gave me her clever-little-girlie smile. I would have biffed her, but refused to be dragged down to her level.
Helena Justina, my companion in work and my soulmate in life, was now inspecting me as if I was one of the more repulsive insects from the fetid swamps under discussion. ‘O father of my children - -‘ She adjusted an earring, an expressive punctuation. ‘Would that be the Pontine Marshes which have such a reputation for disease and death?’
I wiped my chin again as if I had missed a smear the first time. I placed the napkin on the serving table, neatly alongside my foodbowl; I straightened my spoon, rearranged my chewed olive stones in a more aesthetic pattern, then could no longer stall. ‘We may not have to go there.’
‘But if you do, Falco?’ Helena generally called me ‘Falco’ when I had let her down unspeakably - and had been so careless that she found out.
I had done my research. I spent the past couple of days in libraries -not what people generally expect of informers, but unless there is a good reason to hang around barmaids and Forum lags, I like to use reputable sources. The scrolls depressed me. ‘The good thing,’ I chirruped, ‘is that we are going in summer, when much of lowlying, scenic Old Latium dries out.’
Unfortunately, Helena was well read too. ‘Marcus, the modern theory is that drying out the land seasonally has only provided better summer breeding-grounds for flies!’
‘Olympus, is that what they say?’ I was genuinely glum.
A row of silver bangles jingled together on Helena’s left arm. ‘The flies are hideous. Even in the forests, clouds of them rise up at every step. The Pontine Marshes are so dangerous nobody will live there. What’s that proverb - - You grow rich in a year, but you die in six months?’
Sometimes I liked having a partner who supplied me with background. At other moments I understood the men who married girls who had no time for arguments as they devoted themselves to athletes and actors. ‘I won’t be staying a year - not even six months.’
‘Six hours will be too long if the wrong fly bites you.’
‘Either we can pin the killings on our man, or we come straight home. In any case,’ I countered feebly, ‘as Marcia said, Petronius Longus is in charge of the logistics. He is bringing the best possible guardian - his own brother.’
My niece Marcia gave us a sniff that reminded me of my mother at her most disparaging. ‘Everyone thinks Petronius Rectus has gone off like a pint of bad prawns.’
Much later, that evening when the house was quiet, Helena Justina and I discussed my journey properly in my small private study. I sat in an old basket chair I kept there purposely, so she could lean her elbows on the arms while she told me what a swine I was. At other times, the dog jumped up on it. Tonight, Helena pinched my reading couch, so I was reduced to the chair and the dog jumped on my lap.
Helena had thrown off her shoes and her jewellery, pulled out the ornamental pins from her fine hair and was massaging her head with those long fingers as if the pull of a chignon had made her scalp hurt. But I was the real headache.
‘Listen, fruit. The old rules apply. If you ask me not to, I won’t go.’
Helena thought about that, for about two heartbeats, which was longer than usual in fact. ‘The rule is we travel together, Marcus.’
Now I was stuck, as she intended. If I said it would be irresponsible and unfair to our children for both parents to risk death in the marshes, it just emphasised how stupid it was even for one of us to go.
Helena did not wait for me to bluster. ‘I can’t come. Julia and Favonia need me here for reassurance.’ They had played up a lot after we lost the baby. They probably needed me here too. Typically, Helena did not waste breath pointing that out.
‘I am sorry a big case has come up so soon. Well, maybe I’m sorry it has come up at all.’
‘Marcus, I know you will always need to work.’
‘I could become a full-time antique dealer, a permanent auctioneer. Do you want me to do that?’
Helena made an impatient gesture, left-handed; lamplight hit silver in a ring I once gave her. We had not addressed the issue of my future, but now we dealt with it. ‘I think you will be good at it,’ Helena told me, ‘but you would hate to do it permanently. You enjoy being an informer - it was one of the first things that struck me about you. And you’re very good. So be honest. You and Lucius Petronius have been offered a mystery and as usual you can’t resist.’
‘My connection with Modestus caused it. Apparently a new career won’t save me from mysteries!’
‘So your argument is, you owe something to Modestus? Not profits. I know what the statues brought in.’
‘You checked!’
‘I check a lot of things,’ Helena said, to worry me. I gr
inned happily. I kept few secrets from her. She was too likely to expose me.
When the statues went forward to the amphitheatre project, their modest price was the best Geminus could negotiate. Vespasian never wasted cash. ‘Pa always decried sudden swish rewards,’ I said. ‘He reckoned it’s the regular accumulation of small sums that matters, not a hiccup that may thrill you for a moment yet never come again.’
Helena smiled. She had been oddly fond of my father, as he always was of her. ‘He was right - though I believe he had his thrills too. What pleased your father could be a beautiful artefact - -‘ Often in the form of a willing woman, though I refrained from interrupting with that comment. ‘But to him, any business finesse was delectable. You inherited it, Marcus. You get the same boost from your work. So you want the satisfaction of explaining what happened to this man and his wife, especially when nobody else can solve it. Then, since no one else will take them on, you and Lucius see these Claudii as your challenge.’
Helena understood - but explaining was not the point. ‘You don’t want me to go.’
‘That’s not it, Marcus. I want you to come back!’
Helena took in a breath, not despair, more exasperation. It was no more than if I had gone out in my newest tunic when the streets were muddy. She would let me go to the marshes once I promised to take care. Promises were not worth making in this situation, though for her I stretched the point.
Next morning, Helena and Maia visited apothecaries. A large basket of herbal ointments to keep away flies would be going on the mission ‘with us. If we were sensible men we would use them.
If Petro and I were not sensible, our women would find out. So we thanked them politely for caring and agreed to take precautions against dying. ‘You are taking swords, aren’t you? What’s the difference?’
I loved Helena Justina. I wanted to survive with her for many years. But did she think Hercules slathered himself with brimstone and pennyroyal when he departed for his twelve labours? . Actually it was worse. Petronius and I had been supplied with bunches of nettles to hang all around the ox cart, then numerous soapstone boxes of a concoction in which not only pennyroyal but wormwood, rue, sage, tansy, myrtle and spearmint were mingled in an olive oil base. Some individual ingredients were attractively aromatic, but the combination smelt foul.
‘I’ll use this stuff, if you will,’ I told Petro.
He said, anything would be worth it to save us being bitten. For bites, he showed me, our determined women had sent another box. Their sandalwood and lavender bite-salve would scent us like a pair of Pamphyllian dancing masters. We were hard men, but that really terrified us.
XVI
We detoured to call on Sextus Silanus. We had to pass on the tragic news of his uncle’s death. Petronius would explain the circumstances. My role would be to watch this conversation unobserved, judging the nephew’s reaction. He had benefited financially from the death. Some investigators would pin the murder straight on him. When motive gives you a quick way to clear up a case, who needs facts?
Silanus came to the shop door, saw our cavalcade, recognised me, and expected the worst. Petronius Longus always looked as if he had a grim purpose. His bearing and sombre face gave away the reason for our visit. The numbers in our group also indicated that Modestus and his fate were at last of official concern.
We had the ox cart, containing some of us and our baggage. On dilapidated mules were a couple of Petro’s men, all he could safely scrounge from duty: Auctus looked too fragile to fight fires but he had been in the cohort for years and everyone accepted him; he was riding Basiliscus, a skeletal beast with a bent ear and bad breath. Ampliatus had an eye missing and rode a brindled, knock-kneed mule called Corex who kept running away. Although the vigiles are ex-slaves, most were not quite so off-putting; these were the only two men who would volunteer for our destination.
Petronius had left Fusculus behind in charge, though we wished we could have had that steady fellow with us. Somebody had to do Marcus Rubella’s vital job; at least, that would be Rubella’s view.
In charge of the cart, Petro’s brother had a similar relaxed driving style, holding the reins in one hand loosely and letting the ox make his own pace. Otherwise there was little resemblance between them. Maybe there had been a frisky lupin-seller in the neighbourhood just before Rectus was born, though I did not risk the joke. Rectus was older, shorter, of squashy shape and slumped posture, an unsociable fellow who seemed hard to like. They had had very little to do with one another for years. I was sure Petro once told me his brother was a bit of a fixer and mixer, though he gave no sign of it. Perhaps age or the marsh fever had slowed him down. When anyone asked Rectus about the fever (which we did frequently, because we were all petrified), he just grunted; if pushed further, he let out a sardonic laugh and turned away. I decided not to discuss him with Petronius. Let him volunteer a comment if he wanted to.
Completing our party was a brother of Helena’s, Justinus. I worked with him in Rome and had also taken him on missions in rough country. I knew he would be reliable. Helena had begged me not to expose him to danger, but he was no longer a lad; it was his choice. He was keen to escape the bad atmosphere at home, caused by his brother’s new wife and pushy father-in-law. On this trip Justinus had brought his barmy batman, Lentullus. The dopiest, clumsiest ex-legionary in the Empire, Lentullus was devoted to Quintus in a wide-eyed way. He limped badly on one leg and would probably try to tame the Pontine flies as pets.
I planned that if we ran into hostility from local dignitaries, resentful of imperial interference, then Camillus Justinus, as a senator’s son with the smart travel clothes and uppercrust accent, could be shoved forward to charm them.
We first tackled officialdom at Lanuvium. I was right; we were given the brush-off. If there’s one thing I hate about travel outside Rome it is small-town magistrates who think they count for something. The petty toffs who ran Lanuvium had so little sense of proportion they called their town council the Senate and their magistrate a Dictator. That was the title used in ancient times for a leader with unrestricted powers who was called upon to rescue the nation in an emergency. On mention of the Claudii, the Lanuvium Dictator rapidly assumed other emergency powers: declaring that this problem was outside his jurisdiction. He kindly suggested we try Antium instead.
He had cow dung on his boots and I wasn’t certain he could read -yet he managed to dismiss Laeta’s request for civic aid as briskly as if he was swatting wasps on a saucer of relish.
‘I’m getting a feel for this,’ Petronius remarked in annoyance as we left.
‘You mean,’ suggested Justinus, ‘it feels like stepping in a slurry pit?’
‘And helplessly falling over!’
We spent the next half-hour despondently embroidering this with such details as falling in the manure while wearing your best cloak and with a girl you fancied watching .
Our detour to Lanuvium was partly a waste of time, but we did see Silanus. Petronius had asked him a few questions that confirmed the body found in the tomb was his uncle: a man in his sixties, nearly bald, thin build; usually wearing a lapis signet ring, which had not been found. I saw Petro thinking that the killer might have kept it as a trophy and that if we ever caught up with him, the ring might be good evidence. Her nephew said Livia Primilla was about fifteen years younger; in good health, blue eyes, greying hair, kept herself nicely, wore good clothes and jewellery. Unfortunately, even though they dealt in statues and must know the artistic community, the couple had never commissioned portraits of themselves.
Silanus gave us directions to his uncle and aunt’s farm. It was near Satricum, adjacent to land farmed by the Claudius freedmen: ‘If you can call what the Claudii do farming.’
They did own cattle: Silanus said his uncle had a long history of bad relations with them but the most recent ugly incidents began when the Claudii let a rampaging bunch of young bullocks break down a fence. Modestus had an overseer who went to demand compensation for the d
amage, but was badly beaten up.
Silanus confirmed that Modestus had a hobby of writing angry letters. He had complained directly to the obnoxious Claudii. He also badgered the town council in Antium; those wits’-end worthies may have lost patience with his demands. After he and Primilla disappeared and Silanus appealed for help, the magistrate had to investigate, but his men may not have put much effort into it.
‘Some of the Claudii are just loafers; they go into town and act up -minor thefts from homes and businesses, insults, writing their names on walls, guzzling wine then causing a disturbance after dark … You know.’
‘Everyday life, where we come from,’ Petronius said, though he made it clear he was sympathetic.
We were indoors at the time; Silanus went to look outside to check what his children were doing. Lentullus, a big child himself, was talking to them; he had them feeding grass to the ox. ‘One or two Claudii have more violent reputations. People don’t like anything to do with them.’
‘Particular names?’ asked Petro.
Silanus shook his head. ‘When Modestus was railing, I had my own troubles. It always sounded like exaggeration. Anyway, there never seemed much I could do …’
‘A man called Nobilis has been mentioned.’
‘Means nothing to me.’ Silanus fell silent. Now he blamed himself for not taking more interest previously.
I said quietly, ‘You were right the other day. Why make yourself another victim? Your conscience is clear. Leave it to the professionals.’
I had watched Petronius silently weighing up the nephew as a harassed family man of basic honesty. Turning a piece of terracotta in his big hands, Petro asked, ‘A slave brought you the news of your aunt’s disappearance - can I speak to him?’
‘Syrus. I don’t have him,’ said Silanus. ‘There was a man I owed money to. I handed over the slave to pay off the debt.’
He had paid the butcher. That’s how it is. Syrus may have loyally carried out instructions from Primula that had brought him on a day’s journey, and the result of his information would make Silanus and his children financially secure. But unlucky Syrus was a slave. His reward for diligence was to be exchanged for half a year’s supply of skillet offal.
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