We were still locked together in this friendly fashion when we noticed an odd smell. I realized traces of smoke in the air had been bothering me for a few moments. We broke off, walked on quickly, and found there was some nightlife in Londinium after all: a bakery was on fire.
XI
In Rome, a crowd would have gathered. In Londinium, only a few curious shadows lurked on the dark fringes of the street. Occasional bursts of flame lit their faces briefly. One overhead window creaked open and a woman's voice laughed. "Someone's had an accident! The dough dump's copped it…"
I wondered what to do. There were no vigiles here, ready to whistle for colleagues to start a bucket line; no esparto mats; no siphon engine with a full water tank to dump on the blaze.
The building was well alight. You could see it was a bakery because the frontage doors were open; beyond the red-hot counter, two full-height ovens showed up inside, open-mouthed like ancient gargoyles. The flames were not coming from the ovens, however, but leaped all around the walls. Perhaps a spark in a fuel store had started this.
I grabbed at a spectator. "Is anyone inside?"
"No, it's empty," he answered, quite unconcerned. He turned on his heel and walked away, joining a companion ten strides from me. They glanced back at the bakery, then one slapped the other on the shoulders; they were both grinning as they walked off. I recognized them then: the two heavies who had angered the waiters at our second wine bar. It was not the moment to pursue them. But I would know them again.
As if they had waited for the pair to leave, people now began to rally and douse the fire. It took some doing. I helped sling a few buckets. Someone must be fetching them from a well-another reused wine barrel? As we worked, one of the folding doors came away from its moorings and crashed down in showers of sparks. That should not have happened; it must have been damaged. Deliberately? It landed right up close to a group of panicking dogs, who had all been lashed to a pillar on individual strings. They kicked up a racket, frantic to escape. The door continued burning so it was impossible to approach the dogs. I tried, but they were too scared and they snarled too viciously.
One plunging hound had his coat on fire now. That caused him to yank his head even more violently, trying to free himself. The others became more alarmed as he clambered on top of them.
"Marcus, do something!"
"Hades-what?"
Someone ran past me, jerking my dagger from its sheath at my waist. I yelled. The slight figure darted in among the dogs, heedless of their teeth, and slashed at some master cord tying them to the pillar. Instantly they were off. Their rescuer still clutched hold of a central knot and was towed nastily along the rough ground. The group of barking canines raced two ways around another pillar, tangled crazily, then were apprehended by a man I recognized as the dirty dogseller. He grabbed the ties and took over. I cannot say his presence soothed the animals, but he was strong enough to hold them as he bent to inspect them for damage. Their barks subsided into whines.
Helena had gone to the rescuer; it was another familiar face: the pathetic scavenger. The dogman showed her no gratitude. He kicked and beat his hounds into submission, looking as if he would as soon kick and beat the girl too. She had been badly grazed through her rags and was crying. Averse to publicity, he soon went off into the darkness, muttering, leaning back against the undertow, amid a swarm of struggling hounds.
I retrieved my dagger from where it had fallen to the ground in the chase, then turned back to help with the fire again. I found we had professional help: some soldiers had arrived.
"The bakery's beyond saving-just protect the premises each side!" They dealt with matters briskly, seeming unsurprised by the blaze. Well, fires are commonplace in towns and cities. I had already observed that oil was readily available. Lamps and stoves are always a danger.
"Lucky you turned up," I complimented the officer in charge.
"Yes, wasn't it?" he returned. Then I felt their arrival was no coincidence.
Silvanus was not leading this troop; he probably still nursed a sore head from our drinking bout, and anyway they were the night patrol. Regulars on this patch, who clearly expected trouble. Detachments had orders to check these streets at intervals. Businesses might be attacked at any time. Weighing in to help the public had become routine.
Was it routine to stand by and let a blazing building go up, while ostentatiously protecting nearby premises? Were the military tiptoeing around the racketeers? They would only do that if they were heavily bribed.
Of course nobody would acknowledge what was going on. "Rogue spark," decided the officer. "No one at home to notice."
Why was nobody at home at live-in business premises? I could work that out. Somewhere in this town lurked a baker who had rashly stood out for his independence and now knew his livelihood was doomed. He must have made some gesture of defiance-then he wisely ran.
Rackets usually operate in specific areas. Bars were one thing; if a bakery had been threatened, it was highly unusual. If all the shops, in all the streets, were being targeted, that was real bad news.
The soldiers were pretending to take names and addresses of witnesses. It would be for the secret service lists, of course. Anyone who cropped up on a military rota too often (twice, say) would go down as a disruptive element. Britons seemed to have learned about that; the sightseers melted from the streets. That left me and Helena. I had to tell the boys in red who we were. Ever so politely, we were offered a safe conduct straight back to the procurator's residence: we were being shifted out of there.
Once, I would have objected. Well, once I would have given a false name, kicked the officer in the private parts, and legged it. I might even have done it for practice tonight, had I not had Helena with me. She saw no reason to run for it. Senators' daughters are brought up to be trusting with soldiers; though rarely caught up in a street interrogation, when it happens they always say at once who their daddy is, then expect to be escorted to wherever they want to go. They will be. Especially the good-looking ones. A senator's daughter with a harelip and saggy bust may simply be told to move along, though even then they probably call her madam and don't risk pinching her bum.
"I say we've had enough excitement for one night. Helena Justina, these kind men are going to see us home."
The quicker the better: Helena wanted to nurture the bleeding, weeping scavenger. "She's hurt. We can't leave her."
The soldiers gathered and watched me react. They knew that the hunched, whimpering creature was a street vagrant. They knew that if Helena took her in, we would be infected with fleas and diseases, lied to, betrayed on every possible occasion, then robbed blind when the skinny scrap finally upped and fled. They knew I foresaw this. They refrained from grinning.
Helena was crouching on her knees beside the mite. She glanced up directly at the soldiers, then at me. "I know what I am doing!" she announced. "Don't look at me like that, Falco."
"Know the girl?" I murmured to the officer.
"Always around. Supposed to be a survivor of the Rebellion."
"She only looks like a teenager; she must have been a babe in arms."
"Ah well… So she's a walking tragedy." I knew what he was saying.
I tried not to seem frightening. The girl cringed anyway. Helena was talking to her in a low voice, but the girl just shuddered. Apparently she spoke no Latin. I had not heard her talk at any time, in any language. Maybe she was mute. Another problem.
The officer, who had followed me over, offered helpfully, "They call her Albia, I believe."
"Albia!" Helena tried firmly. The girl refused to recognize the name.
I groaned. "She has a Roman name. Neat trick. One of us- orphaned." She was little more than a skeleton, her features unformed. She had blue eyes. That could be British. But there were blue eyes all across the Empire. Nero, for instance. Even Cleopatra. Rome was damn well not responsible for her.
"This is a poor little Roman orphan," the officer sympathized, digging me in the r
ibs.
"She looks the right age." Flavius Hilaris and Aelia Camilla had a daughter who was born close to the Rebellion: Camilla Flavia, now radiantly fourteen, all giggles and curiosity. Every young tribune who came to this province probably fell for her, but she was modest and, I knew, very well supervised. This waif looked nothing like Flavia; her pitiful life must have been quite different.
"It really does not matter whether her parentage was Roman," Helena growled up at me through gritted teeth. "It does not even matter that she was left destitute by a disaster that would never have happened if Rome had not been here."
"No, sweetheart." My tone was even. "What matters is that you noticed her."
"Found as a crying newborn in the ashes after the massacre," suggested the officer. He was inventing it, the bastard. Helena stared up at us. She was smart and aware, but she had a huge fund of compassion. She had reached her decision.
"People always adopt babes who are plucked alive from disasters." Now it was me speaking. I too had a dry edge. Helena's scornful gaze made me feel dirty but I said it anyway. "The wailing newborn lifted from the rubble is assured of a home. It represents Hope. New life, untouched and innocent, a comfort to others who are suffering in a stricken landscape. Later, unfortunately, the child becomes just another hungry mouth, among people who can barely feed each other. You can understand what happens next. A cycle sets in: neglect leading to cruelty, then violence, and the most corrupt kinds of sexual abuse."
The girl had her head down on her filthy knees. Helena was very still. I leaned down and touched Helena's head with the back of my knuckles. "Bring her if you wish." She did not move. "Of course! Bring her, Helena."
The officer clucked quiet reproof at me. "Naughty!"
I smiled briefly. "She takes in strays. She has a heart as big as the world. I can't complain. She took me in once."
That had started in Britain too.
XII
It felt as if we had been out for hours. When Helena and I returned, the procurator's residence was aglow with lamps. The house had an after-banquet feel. Although Hilaris and his wife ran their home quietly, while the governor was living with them they readily joined in the grim business of overseas diplomacy. Tonight, for instance, they had been entertaining businessmen.
Helena went to see her new protegee lodged somewhere secure, with her wounds salved. I threw on a better class of tunic and searched for sustenance. Wanting to tackle Hilaris and Frontinus about the local situation, I braced myself and joined the after-dinner group. There were still platters of figs and other treats remaining from the dessert course that had concluded the meal we missed. I piled in. The figs must be locally grown; they were just about ripe, but had no taste. A passing slave promised to find me something more substantial, but he never got around to it.
My hard day in the watering holes of Londinium had left me jaded. I kept a low profile. I had been introduced as the procurator's relative, a detail that the other guests found pretty uninteresting. Neither the governor nor Hilaris gave away that I was an imperial agent, nor said I was charged to investigate the Verovolcus death. They would not mention the death at all, unless the subject came up, even though it must be the most exciting local news.
The diners were now sitting up on their cushioned couches, moving around to meet new people as the portable food tables were removed, and this gave us more space. When I arrived, they continued their conversations, expecting me to join in as and when I could or to sit tight meekly.
I can't say being a hanger-on appealed to me. I would never make a happy client to any patron. I wanted status of my own, even if it was a status people despised. As an informer I had been my own man; I had lived like that too long to change. Gratitude never came easy. I owed nobody anything, and I paid no tributes socially.
The guests were a type I don't care for: merchants looking to expand their markets. They were newcomers, or relative newcomers to Britain. Calling on the governor was meant to smooth their path. Of course, encouraging trade was part of the job for Frontinus. But tonight he kept talking about his plans to go west with the army: he was pleasant, but his heart lay in engineering and military strategy. He made it plain that he had spent part of his year establishing a big new base on the far side of the Sabrina Estuary and that he was preoccupied with going back to oversee a push against the unconquered tribes; so we were all lucky to have caught him on a brief return to the capital. Normally, he would only be here in winter.
I wondered if the governor's frequent absences on campaign contributed to lawlessness.
When I had gone to extract Silvanus from his barracks, I had gained the impression there was a standard vexillation stationed there-part of a particular cohort or possibly small detachments from each of the legions. Officially they were the governor's bodyguard, his equivalent of the Praetorian Guard nannying the Emperor. This was not because madman were likely to make assassination attempts. Attendant soldiery was part of the panoply of government. Whenever Julius Frontinus rode off to the scene of the action, most of those troops must go with him. Only a remnant of his guard would stay behind to do routine policing work.
I would put this problem to Frontinus. He was no fool, and far from vainglorious. He did not require every available legionary to be glued to him to promote his standing. Nor was the army his sole interest. He would deal with civil projects evenhandedly so Londinium's security would be attended to. If we needed extra manpower here, I could probably persuade him to supply it.
He had four legions in Britain; there was some slack to play with. The south and east had been consolidated and part-Romanized years ago. Pinning down the west was the subject of current attention. Unfortunately the north too had become a problem. Once the Brigantes, a major Rome-friendly tribe, had formed a large buffer zone, but under Frontinus' predecessor that famously changed. It was a story of scandal, sex, and jealousy: Queen Cartimandua, formidable and middle-aged, fell heavily for her husband's much younger spear-carrier. The lovers tried to take over. The outraged husband took against that. Torn loyalties plunged the once-stable Brigantes into civil war. Celebrity folly is fun, but not when the resulting strife loses Rome a good ally.
Cartimandua had been apprehended, no doubt amid many raucous jokes from the legionaries, but our alliance with the Brigantes crumbled. Frontinus or whoever succeeded to his post would have to square up to this: more military commitment, new forts, new roads, and perhaps a full-scale campaign to bring the wild northern hills under Roman control. Maybe not this year or next year, but soon.
Despite that, prudence dictated a reassessment of how the settled regions, including Londinium, were run. The troops ought to provide law-and-order cover; some of the lads would have to be withdrawn from biffing barbarians' heads. There was no point in the army pushing out in all directions if chaos raged behind them. That was damned dangerous. Boudicca had shown all too clearly the risks of disaffection in the rear.
"You're quiet, Falco!"
Frontinus called me over. He was talking to two of the most interesting guests, a glassmaker from the Syrian coast and a general trader, another easterner, a Palmyrene.
"Jove, you're both adventurous-you couldn't have traveled much farther across the Empire!" I knew how to be gracious when I bothered.
Frontinus slipped away and left me to it. He must have heard their stories already. The glassmaker had found the competition in famous Syrian workshops too much for him; he intended to set up in Londinium, train a few staff to blow down tubes and snap off multicolored rods, and get up a British production line. Since glass is so delicate, this seemed a better prospect than importing over long distances. Some fine-quality goods would undoubtedly continue to be brought from Tyre, but this man did seem to have chosen a province that could accommodate a new trade.
The general import man just liked travel, he told me. A few hints led me to think he might have left quarrels behind him. Or perhaps some personal tragedy made him want a new start; he was old enough to have
lost a treasured wife, say. He found Britain exotic and untried and was willing to negotiate any commodities that were in demand. He had even found a girl, a Briton; they were planning to settle… So if my theory was right, he was a second-time romantic, choosing new happiness in a changed environment.
In another situation I would have been fascinated with these far-flung travelers-especially the fellow from Palmyra, where it so happened I had been. But neither appeared to be "preying" on this province in the way Silvanus had complained about. They had found avenues to explore, but that was to their credit. They posed no threat. They would be earning a living, providing sought-after goods, and offering the local people welcome opportunities.
The fact was, my questions would not have been answered here. These were the wrong kind of men-far too legitimate. As usual, it was not my task to delve among the dirtier layers of humanity. I would not find my culprits cozying up to the governor. Racketeers never register their presence openly.
I could be wasting my time anyway. However bad the scene shaping up behind the Londinium waterfront, it might be irrelevant to the Verovolcus killing. I did not even know that Verovolcus had run up against any extortionists. It was just a hunch.
Aelia Camilla was leaving the party To her husband, she merely signaled her intention to withdraw. She and Gaius were traditionalists; they shared a bedroom, without doubt. Later, they would exchange opinions of tonight's party, discussing their guests. They would probably note my late arrival and speculate where I had been all day.
On me, now a nephew by marriage, Aelia Camilla bestowed a few words and a goodnight kiss on the cheek. I told her briefly about Helena's scavenger (it seemed wise; by tomorrow the girl might have laid waste to the household).
Aelia Camilla pulled a face. But she made no complaint; she was loyal to Helena. "I am sure we can cope."
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