Nero had stopped to talk to the chickens while Larius gawked at the girl. She smiled at him as she approached.
‘Time we made a call,’ Larius decided, with a deadpan face. The lassie was too short, too young and too rosy for my taste, but a heart-stopper otherwise.
‘That’s your assessment is it, tribune?’
‘Absolutely, legate!’ Larius exclaimed. The girl passed us; she seemed used to being sized up admiringly by racketeers in carts.
‘If she goes in,’ I decided quietly. She went in.
Larius told me to amble on ahead; his intestines were suffering the twitchiness that makes being away from home such a joy. I set off to soften up his ladyfriend while he got himself fit. As I passed under the entrance arch the pallid sun ran behind another ominous cloud.
Something told me hobblehoys hawking clothes pegs probably gave this establishment a miss. It was a run-down, beaten-up tip, full of dirt and disease, seeming to consist of outbuildings that had been knocked together from broken doors and planks; as I strolled in among them I was met by a whiff of goats’ pee and cabbage-leaves. From all quarters came a drone of fat, warm flies. The hen coops looked dilapidated, and the byres a foot deep in mud. Three stove-in beehives leaned against a wattle screen; no neat, clean bee would zoom in here.
The girl had disappeared. Beyond the initial squalor some absentee landlord’s tumbledown farmhouse, which he probably bought as an investment and had never even seen, was gradually dying from lack of management.
I never made it to the house. Common sense overruled: there was a horrendous dog with a matted tail, who was chained to a rocky post and raising havoc. The studs on his collar were as big as Indian emeralds. The links of his twelve-foot-long chain must have weighed two pounds apiece, but Fido was tossing the metalwork around as lightly as a banquet wreath of rosebuds while he raced from side to side, evidently thinking his next banquet might be me. In response to the racket, round a corner loomed a black-chinned lout with a cudgel. He went straight towards the dog, who redoubled his efforts to tear at my throat.
Without waiting to be told that the mutt was only being friendly I turned round, plucked my boot out of a cowpat, and set off back to the road. The man left his dog, but thundered after me. He was gaining fast as I burst out through the arch, bawling for Larius, and saw he had already turned Nero round for a quick getaway. I fell aboard. Nero mooed anxiously and set off. Larius, who had stationed himself in the back of the cart, was swinging an off cut from a quinaria wildly from side to side. The farmer could easily have grabbed the lead pipe’s end and grounded Larius, but he soon gave up.
‘Bit of luck!’ I grinned, when my sister’s pride and joy climbed over to join me on the front.
‘It had struck me she might have a husband,’ Larius answered demurely, getting his breath.
‘No chance to ask… Sorry!’
‘That’s all right. I was thinking of you.’
‘Nice lad, my nephew!’ I commented to the countryside at large. (Though barley-fed pullets with red cheeks and straws in their hair had never been my type.) I lapsed into sadness, recalling women who were.
Larius sighed. ‘Uncle Marcus, the omens seem hostile; shall we give up for today?’
I considered this option, glancing round to get my bearings. ‘Damn Crispus! Let’s drive up the mountain, find a cheery Vesuvian vintner, and get ourselves roaring drunk!’
I turned Nero off the coast road and up towards the mountain above Pompeii. According to what Petronius had told us, unless we found a winery first we would be driving past the farmland owned by Caprenius Marcellus, that rich old consul who once made the mistake of adopting Atius Pertinax.
It was about midday, but I think I had already realized the Villa Marcella was not a place where Larius and I would be offered a free lunch.
XXX
A shrine to my old friend Mercury, patron of travellers, marked the entrance to the Caprenius Marcellus estate. The god’s statue surmounted a flat-sided pillar, carved from soft Pompeian lava-stone. This roadside herm wore a wreath of fresh wild flowers. Every morning a slave rode out on a donkey to renew the wreath; we were in rich man’s territory.
I consulted my nephew, who looked glad to avoid a hangover; in any case, Nero took the initiative and boldly entered the track. The ex-Consul Marcellus was fabulously wealthy; the approach to his Vesuvian villa gave visitors ample time to find an envious expression before they turned up offering their respects. Passers-by who were calling to beg for a drink of water would die of dehydration on the way up.
We trundled through vineyards for about a mile, occasionally noticing weathered memorials to family freedmen and slaves. The track broadened into a more imposing formal carriage-drive; Nero expressed approval by lifting his tail and squirting out explosions of liquid manure. We passed geese in a mature olive grove, then a gallery of cypress trees brought us alongside a riding range dappled with shade; two desolate mountain nymphs with rather worn stone drapery acted as major-domos to a row of topiary peacocks who were looking out longingly over landscaped garden terraces.
Here, on the lower slopes of the mountain where the climate was most pleasant, stood a farm complex which must have gone back twenty generations; attached to it was a grand, much more recent villa in the handsome Campanian style.
‘Quite nice!’ sniffed my nephew.
‘Yes, a tasteful plot! You stay here; I’ll poke about. Whistle if you spy anyone.’
We had arrived at the noontide siesta. I winked at Larius, glad of a chance to explore. I trod quietly; as a consul Caprenius Marcellus had once held the highest magistracy in Rome, and after the distress of his son’s political disgrace he was likely to be feeling sensitive.
I assumed the great house would be locked up, so I tackled this older villa rustics first. I strolled into the courtyard. The surrounding buildings were constructed of ancient rough-cut stone; white doves slept in the sunlight on red pantiled roofs which were holding up to the centuries well, yet sagged on their battens with comfortable ease. To the left were living quartess, lying quiet. Everything about the place looked well dipped and thriving, so there must be at least one bailiff who had read his Columella’s County Matters.
I entered the block directly opposite, through a handy open door. A short corridor contained various small rooms, once part of the old farmhouse but now given up to storage. I found an inner court containing olive-crushers and oil-presses; they looked scrupulously clean and had a faint, rich smell. Glancing over a half-door at the end of the passage, I saw a great barn with a threshing floor in front; a slim brindled cat was twining itself over a sack of grain. Somewhere a donkey brayed; I could vaguely hear a grindstone. I turned back.
The swimming scent as I passed the doorway had already told me that the unexplored rooms accommodated wine vats - in substantial quantities. Twenty transit amphorae lolled in the outside passage, partly blocking my path; the threshold was stained with a rich damson colouring. Within, the first compartment held presses, awaiting the new season’s crop; in a larger room beyond would be the vats. I heard movements, so as I broached the inner sanctum I knocked, in order to appear respectable.
It was the usual happy scene of kegs and alcoholic smells. There were no windows in the solid walls, so this darkened area kept itself at a cool, even temperature. A blackened candle-end burned in a red dish on a rough wooden table among pigskins and tasting tots. Equipment that looked as if it belonged in a military hospital hung round on wall hooks. A very tall elderly man was funnelling last season’s wine into a household flask.
‘One of life’s delights!’ I murmured. ‘A vintner racking off the home farm special reserve, and looking pleased with it!’ Without speaking, he let the slow trail from the demijohn run on. I leaned in the doorway peacefully, hoping for a taste.
The large flask suddenly gushed to the brim. He tapped his funnel, rocked back the demijohn and stuck a bung in it, then straightened up and smiled at me.
In his pr
ime he must have been one of Camparnia’s tallest men. Time had stooped him and left him desperately gaunt. His wrinkled skin had a floury, transparent look, and he wore a long-sleeved tunic as if he felt continually cold, though at present its sleeves were pushed back for his work. Whether his face was handsome could never have been an issue, for its features were completely dominated by a massively jutting nose. It was pitiful; he could have launched a pirate’s trireme down the slipway of his great snout.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ I apologized.
‘Who did you want?’ he enquired pleasantly. I stood back to let the nose go first, then we both started out to the yard. ‘That depends. Who’s here?’
His glance sharpened. ‘Farm business?’
‘Family.’ We had reached the yard and crossed most of it. ‘Is the Consul at Setia? Does he have an agent here?’
The man stopped dead as if some spasm of anguish had crippled him. ‘You want to see the Consul?’
‘Well, I’d like to-‘
‘Do you or don’t you?’ the tall man snapped.
O Jupiter; the Consul was in residence! (The last thing I expected, yet just my luck.)
My companion swayed slightly, gathering his resources with visible pain. ‘Give me your arm!’ he commanded imperiously. ‘Come with me!’
It was difficult to back out. I could see Larius waiting in the cart, but the vintner was clinging hard to my arm. I relieved him of the wine flask as he tottered along.
So much for sampling a tot of his fiery Vesuvian dollop while I discreetly picked his brains, then scarpering before anybody found out I had been here…
As we turned the corner to the front of the main building, I discovered it was a massive two-storey villa with a central belvedere. Certainly it was not locked up! Bed linen was airing out of upper windows in the fitful sun, whilst in the dark shade between the pillars stood square plant tubs, still dripping where they had been watered shortly before. There were two immensely long wings, extending either side of a theatrical entrance; beyond this grand piece of masonry smoke wreathed, from a bathhouse furnace probably. The nearer wing supported a roof garden; craning up I glimpsed fan-trained peach trees, and exotic flowers entwining the balustrade. Instead of the inward-looking design of a town house, here graceful porticos with the best view in Italy faced straight out over the Bay.
I heaved at a handlering in the bronze mouth of a whiskery lion’s head, so my companion could push ahead through the main door. He stood in the airy atrium regaining his strength. The hall had an open roof, above a rectangular pool with a marble rim and a dancing figurine. There was an air of high tradition. To the right was the strongbox. On the left stood a small shrine to the household gods; a posy of blue and white flowers sat in front of them.
‘Tell me your name!’
‘Didius Falco.’ Five or six slaves appeared, but hung back when they saw the two of us conversing. Suddenly certain, I smiled at the tall man. ‘And you must be Caprenius Marcellus, sir!’
He was just an old crosspatch in a natural wool tunic; I could have been wrong. Since he did not deny it, I was right.
The ex-Consul was scrutinizing me down that nasal promontory. I wondered if he had heard of me; there was no way I could tell from his austere face.
‘I am a private informer on an Imperial assignment-‘
‘That’s no recommendation!’ Now when he spoke I had no difficulty spotting the clean vowels and confident delivery of an educated man.
‘Forgive me for barging in like this. One or two matters I need to discuss.’ His resistance was growing. His slaves moved discreetly nearer, I was about to be thrown out. I waded on quickly, before Marcellus could signal them. ‘If it helps,’ I claimed on a lucky impulse, ‘your daughter-in-law was a client of mine quite recently-‘
I had heard that he was fond of Helena, but he surprised me with results: ‘In that case,’ the Consul answered, with a cool expression, taking back his wine flask from my hand, ‘be so good as to follow me…’
Walking with less difficulty now, he stomped off past the Lararium where his chipper household deities were pointing their bronze-booted toes at the bud-vase which some reverent member of the household had placed on the shrine. Two minutes later I guessed who might have done that. We entered a side room. It had doors which stood open onto a courtyard garden where a low table was arrayed with a country lunch. I could see at least ten waiting-slaves with napkins on their arms, standing about among the potted plants. I was not invited to the cold buffet, however. The ex-Consul had a guest that day, but someone much higher class than me.
At a grey marble pedestal a young woman with her back to us was adjusting a floral display with a swift, firm touch that said when she arranged a vase of flowers, they stayed arranged. My eyes half closed as I recognized the soft curve of her neck. She heard us. I had trained my face never to show surprise, but a smile that cracked the dry skin of my lips started even before the lady turned around.
It was Helena Justina.
She was the same height as me. I could look straight into those startled cantankerous eyes without stirring a muscle. Just as well; my legs had lost all their strength.
Since I last saw her, her own clear skin had deepened its colour in the country air, while her hair developed a redder richness in which nothing so natural as country air had played any part. Today she had her hair bound up with ribbon, in a sweet, simple style that must have taken two or three maids an hour and a half and several attempts to fix. She was wearing white. Her gown looked as fresh as a great candida lily that had opened in that morning’s sun, while the golden lady it was enhancing drew all my attention as the heavy lure of pollen draws a bee.
‘Juno and Minerva!’ she raged at the Consul. ‘What’s this then; your local rat-catcher - or just a passing rat?’
All the colours in the room grew brighter as she spoke.
XXXI
I was really stuck now. When Helena’s feelings were getting the better of her she had more light and character in her face than many women with famous looks. My heart started running at a harder pace, and showed no sign of steadying.
‘This trespasser claims you will vouch for him,’ Marcellus suggested, sounding as if he doubted it.
‘Oh, she will, sir!’
Her dark brown eyes raked me with contempt. I grinned happily, ready to roll over at her feet like a ticklish dog pleading for more.
As a prize for a senator’s daughter I was not at my best. For selling the lead with Larius I wore a workman’s one-sleeved red tunic and around my waist a deeply creased dirty leather pouch where I kept Vespasian’s letter to Crispus plus my lunch; today Silvia had sent us out with apples, which at groin level produced an intriguing effect. Whenever I moved a folding metal rule and set square tied on my belt clanked together stupidly. My torso was displaying broad red tracts of recent sunburn, and I could not remember when I had last had a shave.
‘His name is Marcus Didius Falco.’ She pronounced it like a wronged widow denouncing a thief: a widow who was well able to stand up for herself. He’ll spin you more fables than the Sybil of Cumae; don’t employ him unless you have to, and don’t trust him if you do!’
No one I had ever known was so rude to me; I beamed at her helplessly, drinking it in. The Consul laughed indulgently.
Marcellus was attempting to reach a long chair, the sort used by invalids. Slaves had followed us in - ten or twelve flat-footed country cream dots, all looking so respectful it made me ill - and as he began struggling the circle tightened formation; but it was Helena who moved to him. She pulled the chair nearer, then held it firm, allowing him to sink onto it in his own time.
A man could look forward to growing old with Helena Justina in charge: plenty of scope to enjoy writing your memoirs while she made you eat sensibly and kept the household quiet for your afternoon nap… Refusing to look at me, she rescued the wine flask and carried it outside.
‘Wonderful creature!’ I croaked at
the old man. He smiled complacently. A cheeky half-naked artisan could only admire their strong-willed lady from afar; it was understood that her life and mine would never touch.
‘We think so.’ He seemed pleased to hear her praised. ‘I have known Helena Justina since she was a child. It was a famous day for this family when she married my son-‘
Since she had divorced Pertinax, who was dead now anyway, I found difficulty answering. Fortunately she returned (all dancing crimson ribbons, and the sweet sharp spice of some highly priced fragrance from the Malabar Coast…).
‘So the villain is called Falco!’ the Consul declared. ‘An informer - is he good at his job?’
‘Very,’ she said.
Then, for an instant, our eyes met.
I waited, trying to gauge the scene. I sensed a slight atmosphere; nothing to do with Malabar perfumery. Her ladyship took herself off to another chair some distance apart, extracting herself from our business affairs like a well-bred young woman. (This was nonsense; Helena Justina interfered in everything if she could.)
‘Matters to discuss?’ Marcellus prompted me. I apologized for not visiting him in formal dress and offered my condolence on the death of his adopted heir. He was up to it; his face showed no alteration that I could detect.
Next I stated in the same neutral voice how I had been appointed an imperial executor for the Pertinax estate. ‘Insult piled on injury, sir! First some negligent jailor finds your son strangled; then the five fellow senators who had pounded their intaglio rings on his will as witnesses are bumped aside by Vespasian’s agents taking over as executors - a fine waste of sealing wax and three-stranded legal thread!’
The Consul’s expression remained inscrutable. He made no attempt to disown Pertinax: ‘Did you know my son?’ Interesting question: could mean anything.
‘I had met him,’ I confirmed carefully. It seemed easiest not to mention that the testy young bastard once had me badly beaten up. ‘This is a courtesy visit, sir; a vessel called the Circe is being returned to you. She is docked on the Sarnus at Pompeii, ready to be claimed.’
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