The specialist dancer never progressed beyond a promise, but in other respects Gordianus threw himself into this enterprise with a flair which suggested he must have had unlikely adventures in his youth. It was a starlit night, but he laid on tremendous bonfires so that any gate-crashers could find him more easily. When the loud trierarchs of the Misenum fleet made land with their commander, the good Gordianus merely sighed like a man who preferred to avoid trouble, and let them find their own way to his casks.
There was just enough food to make people persuade themselves they could tolerate more drink than their real capacity. There were fine wines and heavy ones, new wines and vintages which Gordianus reckoned his brother had been maturing for as much as fifteen years. There appeared to be no organization; anyone could get at it… A host who was so careless, instead of trying to fend the happy trierarchs away from his liquor, caught them off guard: they gave themselves philosophical advice about how to avoid getting headaches – then for once even the navy drank itself insensible.
An hour before dawn I left the disgusting proceedings and climbed slowly up the path behind the house until the lights of the party had disappeared behind. Straining my eyes northwards and out across the ocean, I thought I could just make out huge ghostly shapes, like windmills walking on the water, tacking immeasurably slowly to and fro beyond Capreae. I knew they were there, and I hoped I really had seen them. Either way, I could relax: a good consignment of the fifteen billion bushels that were needed to feed Rome next year was safely going home.
I went back to Oplontis straightaway.
While the old man was still sleeping I searched the house and grounds. Pertinax was nowhere to be seen. I found Bryon, and told him I had thwarted the young master's plan.
When I had slept off part of my hangover, I prowled round to the stables again; they seemed even more deserted now. Missing Bryon, I stood still in puzzlement, then I risked letting slip a shout. Faint thuds started up in the livery stable block. I hared inside and soon found the trainer, fastened up in a tack room.
'Oh, gods, what happened to you?' Big as he was, Bryon had received a thorough pounding. He had a split mouth he could hardly croak through, and bruises it hurt to contemplate. The cruelty was familiar. ‘Don't tell me: Pertinax.' He enjoyed doing that…
I helped Bryon outside, wetted his neckerchief in a trough, and applied it where the damage looked worst.
'Caught him in the loft – told him what you had said about his plan-'
'And he turned on you? Bryon, count yourself lucky you escaped alive. Where is he now? In the house with the old man?
'He's gone, Falco.'
I doubted that; Pertinax was too desperate for cash. I dragged Bryon with me and hurried indoors. But the attendants assured me no one had visited Marcellus. I strode into the sickroom, making Bryon come too.
'Tell the Consul what happened to you, Bryon!'
For a moment this vigorous outdoor type hung back in the presence of an invalid; then he rallied. 'I came on the young master and warned him the Emperor's agent had scuppered whatever he had planned. I told him he should stop running and face the charges against him-'
'So he jumped you, battered you, and then locked you up? Did he ask about his father's health?'
'No. But I told him the Consul had had a bad attack, and I told him,' stated Bryon in the same level voice, ‘the Consul had been calling out for him.'
'You made sure he knew – but he left?'
'Oh yes,' said Bryon quietly, not looking at the Consul. 'He left. I've heard him clatter off in a fury on that roan of his often enough.'
I rounded on the bed where the Consul lay motionless, with his eyes closed. 'Better face facts, sir! Atius Pertinax has given up on you. Give up on him!'
Seeing him lying there, we lost all sense of his immense height. His commanding presence seemed to fade even as I watched. Even his huge nose shrank from its ludicrous domination of his old, lined, suffering face. He was one of the wealthiest men in Campania, but everything he valued had now gone. I signalled to Bryon, and we quietly left the room.
The ex-Consul would make no more attempts to redeem Pertinax. Illness and betrayal had succeeded where I had failed.
Pertinax was an excellent rider, and he knew this location. I took a horse out myself to warn the magistrate's searchers to watch closely for the roan, but he must have already slipped through. We had no idea when he might be heading – Tarentum possibly. We had lost him. I returned to the house.
When your nearest relations are spiking you so callously, the last thing you want and the first thing you get is inquisitive neighbours on a social call. Aemilius Rufus was now in with Marcellus, paying his respects. His sister, who had come with him, was walking on the terrace.
She was wearing black, with heavy veiling folded back while she patrolled the colonnade alone and gazed sadly out to sea.
'Aemilia Fausta! I'm sorry about Crispus. I would tell you it ought never to have happened, but that makes the tragedy worse. There was nothing I could do.'
I felt she had expended all her grief on her reluctant lover while he was alive; now he was dead she accepted my condolences decisively. I said in a low tone, 'In future, when you read some court poet's bucolic account of how the crowds at Misenum and Puteoli turn out every year to cheer the incoming grain ships, you can smile to remember what no one ever says: in the consulship of whichever two nobles are holding office this year, the transports' annual arrival went unmarked…'
'Is it all over?'
'Ships in the night! There may be stragglers still to come, but Vespasian can look after them once I've made my report.'
She turned to me, as she drew her black mantle into a closer frame for her fair-skinned face. 'Crispus was a man with special gifts, Falco. You will be proud to have known him.'
I let that pass. After a moment I smiled, 'Strong colours suit you.'
'Yes!' she agreed, with her new capable laugh. 'Didius Falco, you were right. My brother offends me, I won't live with him now. Perhaps I shall marry a rich old man, and when he's gone enjoy myself as a widow, in strong, dark colours, being over-demanding and shouting at people – or playing the cithara very badly by myself '
I suppressed the thought that this honourable lady had been strolling here in the Consul's stately portico reckoning up the value of his fabulous estate.
'Aemilia Fausta,' I responded gallantly, 'on my word as a harp teacher, you play very well!'
'You always were a liar, Falco,' she said.
She married the ex-Consul; we arranged it the next day. Curtius Gordianus took the auguries and concocted the usual lies about 'good omens for a long contented partnership'. Grief and ill health made Caprenius Marcellus incoherent so it was me who interpreted his marriage vows. No one was so impolite as to ask what occurred on the wedding night; nothing, presumably. Naturally the bridegroom altered his will, leaving everything to his new young wife, and any children they might have. I helped him write his will too.
I never saw Aemilia Fausta again, though I heard of her from time to time. She lived a blameless, vigorously happy life as a widow, and died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Before then Fausta had nursed Marcellus devotedly. He managed to live long enough to know that his estates and the honour of his famous ancestors were both secure: nine months after they were married Aemilia Fausta gave birth to a boy.
I saw her son once, years later. He had survived the volcano and grown into a strapping youth. Someone pointed him out. He was in a chariot, leaning on the front rail with one elbow while he waited patiently for a hold-up in the road ahead to clear. For someone with more money than anyone deserves, he looked a decent lad. He had brown hair, a broad, calm brow and an untroubled expression which seemed vaguely familiar.
His mother had named him Lucius; after Crispus, I suppose.
There was one other event which I cannot omit. It was Bryon who broke the bad news to me. The day after the wedding, I was preparing to leave
when Bryon confessed. 'Falco, I know where Pertinax may be.'
'Where? Spit it out!'
'Rome. We had Ferox and the Sweetheart entered in their first race, at the Circus Maximus-'
'Rome!' Rome: where I had sent Helena Justina to be safe.
'I had a word with the new mistress,' Bryon went on. 'She seems to know her mind! Ferox is still to be sent for the race. She also told me, the Consul is making a special bequest to you; he likes you, apparently-'
'You amaze me. What's the gift?'
'Little Sweetheart.' I never have much luck in life, but that was ridiculous. 'Her ladyship says, will you please take him with you when you go?'
Every citizen has the right to decline inconvenient legacies. I nearly declined this.
Still, I could always sell the nag for sausage meat. For all his faults of character, he was well fed and free from visible disease; there were plenty of hot-piemen selling worse things from trays along the Via Triumphalis and in front of the Basilica.
So I kept him and saved my fare home, struggling all the way up the Via Appia on this cock-eyed, knock-kneed, self-willed, pernickety beastie who now was my own.
Part Six
THE HOUSE ON THE QUIRINAL
ROME
August
‘That men of a certain Dr should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise went to wish the fig-tree would not field its juice. In any case, remember that in a very little while, both you and he will be dead, and your very names will be quickly forgotten…'
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
LXXVI
Rome: the mere hum of the city convinced me Pertinax was here.
Even in August, with half its citizens absent and the air so hot that taking a breath braised your liver and lungs, my return to Rome brought the thump of real life to my veins after Campania's debilitating glare.
I soaked in its vivid atmosphere: the temples and fountains, the astonishing height of the gimcrack apartments, the arrogance of the sophisticated slaves who barged along the high-road, the drips on my head where my road dived under the gloom of an aqueduct – stale garments and fresh tempers, a sweet tang of myrrh among the sour reek of brothels, a fresh hint of oregano above the old and indelible reek of the fish market.
I throbbed with childish delight to be back in these streets I had known all my life; then I grew more subdued as I recognized the sneer of a city which had forgotten me. Rome had lived through a thousand rumours since I left, none of them concerning me. It greeted my reappearance with the indifference of a slighted dog.
My first problem was disposing of the horse.
My brother-in-law Famia was a horse doctor with the Greens. I won't call it lucky, because nothing that sodden sponge Famia ever did was good news. The last thing I wanted was being forced to beg a favour from one of my relations, but not even I could keep a racehorse in a sixth- floor apartment without arousing adverse comment from other people in the block. Famia was the least obnoxious of the husbands my five sisters had inflicted on our family, and he was married to Maia, who might have been my favourite if she had refrained from marrying him. Maia, who in other respects was as sharp as the copper nails priests bang into temple doors at the new year, never seemed to notice her own husband's disadvantages. Perhaps there were so many she lost count.
I found Famia at his faction's stables, which like all of them were in the Ninth district, the Circus Flaminius. He had high cheekbones with slits where his eyes should be, and was as broad as he was tall, as if he had been squashed from above by a bushel weight. He could tell I was after something when I let him rant for ten minutes about the poor performance of the Blues, whom he knew I supported.
After Famia had enjoyed himself slandering my favourites, I explained my little problem and he inspected my horse.
'He a Spaniard?'
I laughed. 'Famia, even I know Spaniards are the best! He's as Spanish as my left boot.'
Famia brought out an apple which Little Sweetheart guzzled eagerly. 'How does he ride?'
'Terrible. All the way from Campania he's been chaffing and chomping, even though I tried to give him a gentle time. I hate this horse, Famia; and the more I hate him, the more affectionate the clod-hoofed fool pretends to be-'
While my horse was eating his apple and belching after it, I took a good look at him. He was a dark-brownish beast, with a black mane, ears and tail. Across his nose, which was always poking in where it wasn't wanted, ran a distinctive mustard band. Some horses have their ears up spry and straight; mine constantly flickered his lugs back and forth. A kind man might have said he looked intelligent; I had more sense.
'You rode him from Campania?' Famia asked. 'That should harden his shins.'
'For what?'
'Running, for instance. Why-what will you do with him?'
'Sell him when I can. But not before Thursday. These is a beauty called Ferox running – worth a flutter, if you ask me- my fool was his stablemate. I've promised their trainer mine can go to the racecourse; they reckon he calms Ferox down.'
'Oh! that old story!' Famia responded in his dour way. ‘So yours has been declared too?'
'What a joke! I suppose he'll soothe Ferox as far as the starting gates, then be pulled out.'
‘Give him an outing,' Famia encouraged. 'What can you lose?'
I decided to do it. There was a good chance Atius Pertinax would turn up to see Ferox perform. Attending the Circus as an owner myself was one way to ensure I could gain access wherever I needed it behind the scenes.
I shouldered my luggage and set off for home. I hauled my stuff round the back of the Capitol, mentally saluting the Temple of Juno Moneta, patron of my much-needed cash. This brought me into the Aventine at the starting-gate end of the Circus Maximus; I paused, thinking briefly of my pathetic nag, and more seriously of Pertinax. By then my bags were dragging on my neck, so I stopped at my sister Galla's house for a rest and a word with Larius.
I had forgotten Galla would be furious about my nephew's future plans.
‘You promised to look after him,' she greeted me ferociously. Fending off her younger children, four dedicated scavengers who could instantly spot an uncle who might have presents in his backpack, I kissed Galla. 'What's that for?' she growled at me. ‘If you're looking for dinner there's only tripe!'
'Oh thanks! I love tripe!' Untrue, as all my family knew, but I was ravenous. Tripe was all there ever was at Galla's house. Her street possessed a tripe-and-trotter stall, and she was a lazy cook. 'What's the problem with Larius? I sent him home fit, sane and happy, in possession of a fat little girlfriend who knows what she wants from him – plus a famous reputation for saving drowning men.'
'A fresco painter!' Galla jibed in disgust.
'Why not? He's good at it, it fetches in the money, and he'll always be in work.'
'I might have known if there was a chance of him being pushed into something stupid, I could rely on you! His father,' complained my sister pointedly, 'is extremely upset!'
I gave my sister my opinion of the father of her children, and she mentioned that if I felt like that I was not obliged to loaf on her sun terrace eating her food.
Home again! Nothing like it. Spooning in the unctuous oral, I smiled quietly to myself.
Larius turned up, not before I was ready for him, and helped me with my luggage the rest of the way: a chance to talk. 'How was the journey, Larius?'
'We managed.'
'Petronius find it hard going? Is he all right?'
'You know him; he never makes a fuss.'
My nephew seemed rather tight-lipped. 'What about you?' I persisted.
'Nothing worries me either. Are you going to ask about your lady-love?'
'As soon as I have a rest and a trip to the bathhouse I intend to see my lady-love for myself. Why? If there is something I should know first, come out with it!'
Larius shrugged.
We had reached the Ostia Road. I was nearly back on my own midden. I halted in th
e loggia of a cold- meat shop; it was closed but the smell of smoked hams and preservative herbs lingered tauntingly. I screwed the neckbraid of my nephew's tunic angrily round one hand. 'The word is, Pertinax may have come to Rome. Is it something about him that you don't want to say to me?'
'Uncle Marcus, nothing happened.' He shook me off. 'Helena Justina was unwell some of the time, but Silvia looked after her. Anyone can be a poor traveller-'
I had once journeyed fourteen hundred miles in Helena's calm, uncomplaining company; I knew exactly how good a traveller she was. I felt my mouth twist. I wondered what I had come home to. Then, before I let myself start guessing, I swung up my baggage and started down the narrow alley that led to the old familiar odours of Fountain Court.
After Larius left me, I stood out on my balcony. Our tenement stood half-way up the Aventine Hill, and its one great advantage was a fabulous view. Even when I closed my dry, tired eyes there was plenty to absorb: creaking carts and barking watchdogs; distant cries from river boatmen; leery wineshop choruses and wavering temple flutes; screams from young girls, from either terror or hysterical amusement, it was impossible to tell.
Down there, Rome must be harbouring plenty of fugitives. Men running from their mothers; their debts; their business partners; their own inadequacy. Or like Gnaeus Atius Pertinax Caprenius Marcellus: running from Fate.
LXXVII
I wanted to see Helena, but a small knot of doubt had started tightening inside me.
It was still evening when I took my travel-grimed body for a bathe. The gymnasium I often went to stood near the Temple of Castor; its clients were mostly dining at this hour – decent men who did not object strongly to eating in with their families, or whose idea of entertainment out was a plain three-course meal among old friends with light music and pleasant talk. Glaucus the proprietor would be at home himself by now. I was glad, because Glaucus would certainly make free with snide comments about the havoc two months in Campania had wreaked on my physique. As soon as he saw me he would want to bash me back into shape. I was too tired to let him start tonight.
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