Hours after I had left the Transtiberina I turned up at Maia’s house. She took one look at me, then fed me, kept away the children, kept away Famia with his wine flask, and steered me to bed. I lay in the darkness, thinking again.
When I could bear no more, I let myself sleep.
Pertinax could be anywhere in Rome but the next day was Thursday, and Thursday marked his champion’s run in the Circus Maximus; I knew where to find him then - somewhere among the two hundred thousand spectators who would be cheering Ferox on: Easy!
Famia, who liked to enjoy an occasion by making himself sick with excitement from the crack of dawn, tried to drag me out early, but if I spent all morning in the full glare of the stadium, I would be useless for anything. Once you have seen one opening procession winding into the arena, you can miss a few. What’s another presiding magistrate with a smug expression leading the parade in his four-horse quadriga, when there are men to catch who murder priests, batter fathers of young families, and cut off the lives of unborn children before their parents have even had a chance to quarrel over what their names might be?
When I left my sister Maia’s house, I took a detour by way of Galla’s where luckily I found Larius.
‘Excuse me, young sir, I want a hack artist!’
‘Be quick then,’ he grinned. ‘We all have to go to the Circus to cheer a certain horse…’
‘Spare me the honour! Look, do me a thumbnail sketch-‘
‘You modelling for a grotesque medallion on a Celtic drinking pot?’
‘Not me.’ I told him who. Then I told him why. Larius drew the portrait without another word.
The loss of the unborn is a private grief: To lighten the atmosphere I begged him not to waste his money gambling on my horse. ‘Don’t worry,’ agreed Larius frankly. ‘We’ll cheer yours - but the cash is on Ferox today!’
I walked to the Capena Gate. No one in the Camillus family was receiving visitors. I sent in my respects, with the distinct feeling the door porter would not deliver them.
I noticed a flowershop, so purchased a huge bunch of roses at an equally imposing cost.
‘They came from Paestum!’ wheezed the florist, excusing it.
‘They would do!’ I cried.
I sent in the roses for Helena. I knew very well that she would rather have had a flower I grew on my balcony, since she was a sentimentalist, but her mother looked like a woman who would appreciate the cost of a grand bouquet.
Helena must have been awake now but I was still refused admission. I left, with nothing but the memory of her white face yesterday.
Since nobody loved me I went to the races.
I arrived at noon; the athletics were on. Filling the outer vaults was the usual scene of deplorable commerce, a strange contrast to the delicacy of the paintings and gilt decoration which adorned the stucco and the stonework under the arcades. In the cookshops and liquor stalls the hot pies were lukewarm and greasy, and the cool drinks came in very small containers at twice the price you would pay outside. The loose women were plying for hire noisily, vying with the bookies’ touts for spectators who were still trickling in.
Only I could attempt to snare a villain in the largest stadium in Rome. I entered by one of the gates on the Aventine side. I had the president’s box on my far left above the starting gates, the glittering imperial balcony immediately opposite me against Palatine Hill, then the apsidal end with the triumphal exit away to my right. The dazzle off the first two tiers of marble seats was sizzling hot by then, and even in the lull at lunchtime I was met by a wall of sound.
In the old days, when men and women sat higgledy-piggledy together and the Circus Maximus was the best place to find a new love affair, I would have stood no chance of finding anyone without his seat number. Even now that the Augustan regulation had segregated people respectably, the only rows I could eliminate for certain were those allocated to women, boys with their tutors, or the priestly colleges. It was a fair bet Pertinax would not risk taking his place on the lower podium, where fellow senators would recognize him. And knowing what a snob he was, he would avoid the top gallery, which was frequented by the lowest orders and slaves. Even so, the Circus filled the whole valley between the Cattle Market Forum and the old Capena Gate; it could seat a quarter of a million, not to mention the hordes of auxiliary workers busily toing and froing on legitimate tasks, the aediles looking for bad behaviour in the crowd, the pickpockets and pimps keeping an eye out for the aediles, the perfume-sellers and garland girls and wine toters and nut merchants.
I did start to work along one block, scanning the crowds as I fought round the gangway which divided the first and second of the three tiers of seats. Staring up sideways soon made me dizzy, and the massed faces merged into one indistinguishable blur.
This was no way to find a bug in a sack of barley. I nipped down the next stairway back into the arcades, then passed among the booths and the knots of prostitutes, showing everyone the little plaque Larius had drawn for me. When I reached the business end of the stadium I found Famia, who introduced various other people to whom I also exhibited my sketch of Pertinax.
After that the only decent thing was to make a show of inspecting my brother-in-law’s efforts to turn out my racehorse handsomely.
With his tail tied high and his ragged mane plaited, Little Sweetheart looked as good as he ever would, though still a disaster. Famia had found him a saddlecloth, though he would have to manage without the gold fringes and pearl-encrusted breastbands his rivals were nicked out in. To Famia’s disgust, I insisted that even though he was bound to lose sensationally, if this was the only time in my life I could field my own racehorse, I would run the Sweetheart for the Blues; Famia made a stink, but I was adamant.
Ferox looked a million in his glossy mulberry coat; you could shave in his flanks. He was attracting plentiful attention as he and the Sweetheart waited side by side in the Cattle Market Forum; the buzz among the bookmakers was scintillating. Ferox would be running in the colours of the Marcellus-Pertinax faction, the Whites.
I acted up as an owner for a while, allowing the punters to jibe at me for the faith they assumed I placed in my gangling scruff, then Famia and I went off for lunch.
‘You betting, Falco?’
‘Just a flutter.’
Famia would think it bad form for an owner to back another horse, so I did not tell him Larius was putting fifty gold sesterces on Ferox for me: all my spare cash.
When we came back to the Circus they had started the hone races, though from our place on the card we had another hour to wait. I went to check that the Sweetheart was keeping Ferox calm, in order to safeguard my wager. While I was petting Ferox, I noticed a small, nervous, stuffed-vineleaf vendor hopping about: clearly a man with a gastric disturbance - or something significant to say. He said it to Faulk, though they were looking at me. Money changed hands. The vineleaf tray skedaddled, then Famia came across.
‘You owe me ten denarii.’
‘See me tomorrow when I call in my bet.’
‘Your man is in the second tier, on the Aventine side, near the judges’ box; he’s put himself level with the finishing line.
‘How can I get near him unobtrusively?’ Famia cackled that with my well-known ugly visage it would be impossible. But he was useful: five minutes later I had slipped through one of the dark stalls at the starting gate end, and squeezed myself through the double doors.
Noise, heat, smells and colour assaulted me. I was in the arena, right down on the track. I had a bucket and a shovel. I waited until the riders passed, then wandered out across the sand, making a desultory scoop at the ground as I crossed the diagonal starting line. I reached the central barrier, the spina, feeling that I stood out like a pimple on a barrister’s nose - but Famia was right: nobody ever notices the slaves who sweep up dung.
They were running one of those show pieces where bareback riders stand astride two horses at once - dramatic, though comparatively slow. The trick is to have the horses
well trained, and to keep a good rhythm; my brother could do it. (My brother was the flashy, athletic type with a streak of blatant stupidity; he tried anything that risked his neck.)
Standing up against the marble podium, the huge size of the Circus was breathtaking. The width across was half the length of a normal stadium, and from the white chalk of the starting line the far end seemed so distant I had to squint. Immediately above me as I ambled up the length of the spina, towered magnificent shrines and statues; Apollo, Cybele, Victory. For the first time I appreciated the workmanship on the great gilded bronze screen which stood between the senatorial seats and the arena itself. Beyond them yawned two tiers of marble terracing and a third tier of wood, then the closed-in upper gallery with standing room only. As I made a random pass with my bucket, I noticed how the sand had a glistening mica rim near the podium and the spina, when coloured chippings from past gaudy occasions had worked to the edges of the track. They never have awnings at the Circus; you could frizzle up an omelette on the sand. Everywhere had a constant odour of warm horseflesh above the lunchtime garlic and ladies’ cologne.
The spina was ornamented with mosaics and gilt, against which I must have appeared a small, dark dot, like some tiresome, meandering bug. In the space of two races I shuffled up as far as the huge red granite Egyptian obelisk which Augustus had set in the very centre of the spina; then I edged on nearer to the finishing line and the judges’ box. This was where the seats were always most warmly packed. At first the mass of faces melded into one great fudge of humanity, but as my confidence grew I began to see details: women shuffling their footstools and hoisting their stoles over one shoulder, men red-faced and bilious in the sun after lunch, soldiers in uniform, children squirming restlessly or fighting in the aisles.
There was a break between races, filled with tumblers and acrobats. Spectators moved about. I squatted against the podium, dry-eyed in the dust, while I began a methodical survey of the second tier. It took me twenty minutes to find him. As I did I thought he spotted me too, though he looked away. Once I pinpointed him, it seemed impossible that I could have missed his bad-tempered physiognomy before.
I sat still and went on searching. Sure enough, two rows lower down and ten places along I found Anacrites himself. Some of the time he was watching Pertinax, but mostly he stared round at the other seats. I knew who he was looking for! At the far end of the row where Pertinax was sitting and again higher up were two spies I recognised who formed a triangle with Anacrites, penning in the man I wanted and keeping him safe from me. None of them looked at the arena while I was crouching there.
I stood up. So did Pertinax. I started to cross the track towards the gilded screen. He moved along the row of seats. He had seen me. I knew it, and so did Anacrites, though he could not work out where I was. Stumbling over other people’s feet, Pertinax reached a gangway. Even if I climbed over the screen, in among the indignant nobility on their marble thrones, he would be off down the stairs and out of the nearest vomitarium long before I got near. Meanwhile Anacrites suddenly shouted to one of the aediles’ heavy squad and gestured unmistakably at me. I was not only losing Pertinax, but about to be arrested myself.
Then another shout aroused me, amid pounding hooves. I looked up into the huge grinning teeth of a beribboned black stallion bearing straight down on me. Trick saddle-men: this time two men in barbarian trousers, linking arms as they stood upright on a single horse. With a fiendish cry and a wild flash of eyeball one leaned out sideways as the other balanced him. They scooped me up like a disreputable trophy. We shed the second rider then careered on, with me as terrified ballast waving my dung shovel and trying to look as if this mad ride was the best fun I had ever had.
The crowd loved us. Anacrites hated it. Not being a fool who fancied himself as a horseman, so did I.
We swept right round the three conical goal posts and the altar of Cosmos at the end of the spina, dewing at a nerve-racking angle as we turned. Then we sped back along the whole length of the stadium on the far side. In a screech of polished hooves I was dropped at the starting gates. Famia dragged me in.
‘Jupiter, Famia! Was that idiot a friend of yours?’
‘I told him to look out for you - we’re on soon!’
My brother-in-law seemed to be assuming I was interested in the progress of my own cockeyed horse.
We were next. There was a shift in the atmosphere; word had it this was a race to watch. Famia said big money was riding on Ferox. The champion did look special - that high-stepping gait, the powerful build, and the deep-purple sheen on his wonderful coat. He looked like a horse who knew this was his great day. As I watched Bryon mounting their jockey, he and I exchanged a good-mannered nod. It was then that I noticed someone, someone not studying Ferox but intently scanning the crowd which was inspecting him. Someone looking for Pertinax, without a doubt.
I muttered to Famia, ‘Just seen a girl I know-‘
Then I slipped through the crowd while my brother-in-law was still grumbling how he would have thought that on this one occasion I could leave the women be…
LXXXVI
‘Tullia!’
‘Falco.’
‘I was looking for you yesterday.’
‘I was looking for Barnabas.’
‘Will you see him again?’
‘Depends on his horse,’ the barmaid said dourly. ‘He thinks he has a winner-but he left his bets with me!’
I drew Tullia by the arm right across the Cattle Market Forum to the shade and quiet beside that little round temple with the Corinthian columns. I had never been in it or noticed who its divinity was, but its neat structure had always appealed to me. Unlike the more brash temples further from the river, this lacked the usual swarm of seedy trade and seemed an improper place to be propositioning a big-eyed young girl in her sparkly-hemmed holiday gown.
‘I have something to suggest to you, Tullia.’
‘If it’s filthy, don’t bother!’ she whipped back warily.
‘Had enough of men? Then how would you like to make a great deal of money for yourself?’
Tullia assured me she would like that very muck ‘What money, Falco?’
If I said half a million she would not believe me. ‘A lot. It should go to Barnabas. But I reckon you deserve it more…’
So did Tullia. ‘How do I get it, Falco?’
I smiled quietly. Then I explained to the barmaid how she could help me corner Pertinax, and obtain for herself a fortune that was as pretty as her face.
‘Yes!’ she said. I love a girl who does not hesitate.
We walked back to the horses. Little Sweetheart was gazing about him as if all this was wonderful. What a comic. The first time Famia put up his jockey, my wonderful animal shrugged him straight off.
‘Which one’s that, Falco?’ Tullia enquired.
‘Little Sweetheart. He belongs to me.’
Tullia chuckled. ‘Good luck, then! Oh - give you these!’ She handed me a leather pouch. ‘His betting tokens. Why should Barnabas have the benefit? In any case,’ she told me, ‘he was afraid to use his own name in case it was recognized - so he used yours!’
If that was his sense of humour, I guessed that it must have been Pertinax himself who had named my horse. Since Ferox was carrying all my spare savings, I did want to see the race. So when Titus Caesar, whom I had met previously in the course of my work, sent me an invitation to join him in the president’s box, I shot up there in a trice.
It was the one place in the Circus where I knew there could be no chance of Anacrites interrupting me.
Titus Caesar was a younger, more easy-going version of his Imperial papa. He knew me well enough not to be surprised when I burst into his presence with a toga bundled under one arm instead of arrayed in the immaculate drapes most people adopted at public meetings with the Emperor’s son.
‘Sorry, Caesar! I was helping out with a dung shovel. They’re a bit short-staffed.’
‘Falco!’ Like Vespasian, Titus tended
to look as though he could not decide whether I was the most appalling subordinate ever to be wished on his retinue, or his best laugh today. ‘My father says you’re claiming Little Sweetheart is sausage meat - I reckon that makes him a certainty.’
I laughed, uneasily, as I hastily robed myself. ‘Caesar, the odds against my poor bag of bones are a hundred to one!’
‘Could be a killing here!’ Titus winked at me happily.
I told Titus I assumed he was old enough not to bet his purple livery on a shag-tailed besom like mine. He looked thoughtful. Then the curly-haired Caesar adjusted his wreath, stood up to give the crowd someone to roar at, and solemnly let fall the white kerchief to start our race.
It was a novice sprint for five-year-olds. There were ten declared, but one refused the starting box. Until Ferox put in his late appearance on the racecard, the favourite had been a big grey Mauretanian, although other people reckoned the clever money was on a compact little black chaser with Thracian blood. (It was well sweated up, and looked like a windblower to me.) Our Ferox was a Spaniard; there could be no doubt of it. Everything from the proud set of his head to the hungry gleam in his eye spoke quality.
When the slaves hauled the ropes and the starting gates swung out in unison, the Mauretanian was already stretching his neck as the horses crossed the starting line.
Ferox was close behind him. Little Sweetheart had been crowded out by a brown horse with a white sock and a spiteful squint, so he was last.
‘Ah’ murmured Titus, in the tone of a man who has pledged his last tunic to his bookmaker and is wondering if his brother will lend him one. (His brother was the mean-tempered Domitian, so probably not.) ‘A back marker, eh? Tactics, Falco?’ I glanced at him, then grinned and settled down to watch Ferox race.
Seven laps provide a lot of opportunity for casual conversation of a knowledgeable kind. We worked our way through the fact that it was a useful field and that the grey Mauretanian was in great heart but seemed in need of an outing so might not finish a principal. White socks was running wide round the goal posts, while the little black Thracian looked a lovely horse, an easy mover with a very consistent stride.
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