'Well, you asked for it,' Helena said.
'No, my darling. Lucius Petronius Longus, my wonderful new partner, was the idiot who made the request.'
'And how are you getting on with Petro?' she asked me demurely.
'You know I've just answered that'
Once the public slaves inveigled their foremen into joining the game, Petro and I locked up the office and withdrew to my new apartment. Helena saw her chance. In two ticks she had dressed up in a smart red gown, glass beads chinking in her earlobes, and was tying on a sunhat. She was off to visit a school for orphans of which she was the patron. I made her take Nux for protection; Julia would take care of me.
The baby caused some friction.
'I don't believe you're allowing this!' Petronius growled. 'I tend not to use the word "allow" in connection with Helena.'
'You're a fool, Falco. How can you do your job while you're acting as a children's nurse?'
'I'm used to it. Marina was always parking Marcia on me.'
Marina was my late brother's girlfriend, a woman who knew how to leech. I was particularly fond of little Marcia, a fact Marina exploited with skill. After Festus died she had wrung me dry of sympathy, guilt and (her unashamed preference) cash.
'There have to be rules,' Petro continued darkly. He was sitting on my front porch with his big feet up on the rotted handrail, blocking the stairs. In the absence of action he was eating a bowl of damsons. 'I'm not having us appear unprofessional.'
I pointed out that the main reason we looked like stray dogs in a market was that we spent our time lounging around winebars because we had failed to acquire any paying clients. 'Julia's no bother. All she does is sleep.'
'And cry! How can you impress visitors with a newborn bawling on a blanket on the table? How can you interrogate a suspect while you're wiping her backside? In the name of the gods, Falco, how can you go out on discreet surveillance with a crib strapped on your back?'
'I'll cope.'
'The first time you're in a scrimmage and some thug grabs the babe as a hostage, it will be a different tale.'
I said nothing. He had got me there.
He had not yet finished, however. 'How can you even enjoy a flagon and a quiet discussion at a caupona-' When my old friend started devising a list of grievances, he made it a ten scroll encyclopaedia.
To shut him up I suggested we went for lunch. This aspect of the freelance life cheered him up as usual and out we went, of necessity taking Julia. When it was nearly time for her to be fed we had to go home again, in order to hand her over to Helena, but a short meal – like taking water with our wine jug for once – could only be healthy, as I pointed out to Petro. He told me what I could do with my praise for the abstemious life.
Helena was not home yet, so we settled back on the porch as if we had been there ever since she left. To reinforce the fraud, we resumed the same argument too.
We could easily have continued wrangling for hours. It was like being eighteen-year-old legionaries again. On our posting to Britain we had wasted days debating pointless issues, our only entertainment in the compulsory periods of guard duty that intruded between drinking Celtic beer until we were sick and convincing ourselves tonight would be the night we gave up our virginities to one of the cheap camp prostitutes. (We could never afford it; our pay was always in hock for the beer.)
But our doorstep symposium was to be disturbed. We watched the approaching trouble with interest.
'Look at this bunch of idiots.'
'Seem to be lost.'
'Lost and daft.'
'It must be you they want, then.'
'No, I'd say it's you.'
There were three deadweights and a dozy lout who seemed to be their leader. They were dressed in worn tunics that even my frugal mother would have refused to use as floorcloths. Rope belts, bum-starver skirts, ragged necklines, unstitched seams, missing sleeves. When we first spotted them they were wandering around Fountain Court like stray sheep. They looked as if they had come here for something, but had forgotten what. Somebody must have sent them; this group didn't have enough gumption to have devised a plan themselves. Whoever it was may have given full directions, but he had wasted his breath.
After a time they converged on the laundry opposite. We watched them discussing whether to venture inside until Lenia bounced out; she must have thought they were bent on stealing clothes from her drying lines so she had emerged to help them pick out something good. Well, she could see that they needed it. Their present attire was deplorable.
They all held a long conversation, after which the four dummies wandered off up the stone stairs that would lead – if they persisted – to my old apartment at the top. Lenia turned towards Petro and me with a rude mime that said it was us these inept persons were seeking. We also guessed she had told them that if they failed to find us up there they would not have missed much. Typically, she had made no attempt to point out that we were both lounging over here in full view.
Much later the four dopey characters ambled aimlessly back down again. They all hung around in the street for a while. Vague discussions took place. Then one spotted Cassius, the baker whose shop had been burned down during Lenia's ill-fated marriage rites. He now hired ovens somewhere else, but ran a stall here for his old regulars. The hungry dummy begged a roll, and must have asked after us at the same time. Cassius presumably owned up. The dummy wandered back to his companions and told them the story. They all turned round slowly and looked up at us.
Petro and I did not move. He was still on a stool with his feet up; I was lodged against the frame of the front door filing my nails.
Surprisingly, there was more talking. Then the four dimwits decided to come our way. We waited for them patiently.
'You Falco and Petronius?'
'Who's asking?'
'We're telling you to answer.'
'Our answer is: who we are is our business.'
A typical chat between strangers, the kind that happened frequently on the Aventine. For one of the parties the outcome was usually short, sharp, and painful.
The four, none of whom had been taught by their mothers to keep their mouths closed properly or to stop scratching their privates, wondered what they could do now.
'We're looking for two bastards called Petronius and Falco.' The leader thought that if he repeated himself often enough we would cave in and confess. Maybe nobody had told him we had been in the army once. We knew how to obey orders – and how to ignore them.
'This is a good game.' Petronius grinned at me.
'I could play it all day.'
There was a pause. Over the ranks of dark apartments rose the ferocious noonday sun. Shadows had shrunk to nothing. Balcony plants lay down fainting with hollow stems. Peace had descended on the dirty streets as everyone crept indoors and braced themselves for several hours of unbearable summer heat. It was time for sleep and unstrenuous fornication. Only the ants still laboured. The swallows still circled, sometimes letting out their faint high-pitched cries as they swooped endlessly over the Aventine and Capitol against the breathtaking blue of a Roman sky. Even the endless clack of an abacus from a high-up room where somebody's landlord usually sat counting his money seemed to falter a little.
It was too hot for causing trouble, and certainly too hot for receiving it. Even so, one of the dummies had the bright idea of grabbing me.
XIV
I hit him hard in the stomach before he made contact. At the same time Petro swung to his feet in one easy movement. Neither of us wasted time shrieking, 'Oh dear, what's happening?' We knew – and we knew what we would be doing about it.
I grabbed the first man by the hair, since there was not enough cloth in his tunic to allow a grip. These fellows were stunted and sleepy. None had any will to resist. With one arm round his waist I was soon using him as a sweeper to shoo the others back down the steps. Petro still thought he was seventeen; he had shown off by clambering over the handrail and dropping to the street. Winc
ing ruefully, he was then in position to field the crowd as they rushed down. Rounding them up in a pincer movement we were able to give them a thrashing without too much loss of breath. Then we piled them up in a heap.
Holding them down with his boot on the top one, Petro shook my hand formally. He had hardly raised a sweat. 'Two each: nice odds.'
We looked at them. 'Pitiful opposition,' I decided regretfully.
We stood back and let them pull themselves upright. In a few seconds a surprising crowd had gathered to watch. Lenia must have warned everyone in the laundry; all her washer-girls and tub-boys had come out. Somebody cheered us. Fountain Court has its sophisticated side; I detected a hint of irony. Anyone would think Petronius and I were a pair of octogenarian gladiators who had jumped out of retirement to capture a group of six-year-old apple thieves.
'Now you tell us,' Petro commanded, in the voice of an officer of the vigiles, 'who you are, who sent you, and what you want.'
'Never mind that,' dared the leader, so we grabbed him and threw him between us like a beanbag until he grasped our importance in these streets.
'Hold off, the melon's getting squashed!'
'I'll pulp him if he doesn't stop acting up -'
'Going to be a good boy now?'
He was gasping too much to answer but we stood him up again anyway. Petronius, who was really enjoying himself, pointed to Lenia's girls. They were sweethearts as singletons, but together they turned into a hooting, foul-mouthed, obscene little clutch. If you saw them coming you wouldn't just cross to the other pavement, you'd dive into a different street. Even if it meant getting mugged and your money pinched. 'Any more trouble and you're all tossed to those lovelies. Believe me, you don't want to be dragged off into their steam room. The last man the washtub Harpies got hold of was missing for three weeks. We found him hung up on a pole with his privates dangling and he's been gibbering in a corner ever since.'
The girls made lewd gestures and waggled their skirts offensively. They were a cheerful and appreciative audience.
Petro had done the threats so the interrogation was mine. These pieces of flotsam would faint if I tried sophisticated rhetoric so I kept it simple. 'What's the story?'
The leader hung his head. 'You've got to stop making a fuss about blockages in the fountains.'
'Who gave out that dramatic edict?'
'Never mind.'
'We do mind. Is that it?'
'Yes.'
'You could have said it without starting a scrum.' 'You jumped one of my boys.'
'Your wormy sidekick threatened me.'
'You've hurt his neck!'
'He's lucky I haven't wrung it. Don't come around this part of the Aventine again.'
I glanced at Petro. They had no more to tell us, and we might get legal complaints if we bruised them too badly, so we told the leader to stop moaning, then dusted off his trio of backers and ordered them all off our patch.
We allowed a few moments for them to mutter about us in a huddle once they had turned the corner. Then we set off unobtrusively to tail them home.
We should have worked out for ourselves where they were going. Still, it was a good practical exercise. Since they had no idea of keeping watch, it was simple to stroll along after them. Petronius even turned off once to buy a stuffed pancake, then he caught me up. We went down the Aventine, around the Circus and into the Forum. Somehow this was no surprise.
As soon as they reached the office of the Curator of Aqueducts Petro threw what was left of his snack into a gutter and we speeded up. We marched in; the four goons had vanished. I approached a scribe. 'Where are the officers who just came in? They told us to follow them.' He nodded to a door. Petro whipped it open; we both strode through.
Just in time. The four dummies had started complaining to a superior; he had realised we would have followed them, and was on his feet to throw a bolt across the door. Seeing it was too late, he suavely pretended he had jumped up to greet us, then ordered his pitiful group of enforcers to leave. There was no need for introductions. We knew this fellow: it was Anacrites.
'Well, well,' said he.
'Well, well!' we retorted.
I turned to Petro. 'It's our long-lost shipwrecked brother.' 'Oh I thought it was your father's missing heir?'
'No, I made sure I had him exposed on a really reliable mountainside. He's bound to have been eaten by a bear.' 'So who's this?'
'I think it must be the unpopular moneylender we're going to hide in a blanket chest before we lose the key-'
For some reason Anacrites was failing to appreciate our banter. Still, no one expects a spy to be civilised. Taking pity on his head wound, we pretended to stop ganging up on him, though the sheen on his brow and the wary look in those half-closed grey eyes told us he still thought we were looking for a chance to hold him upside-down in a bucket of water until we stopped hearing choking sounds.
We took possession of his room, tossing scrolls to one side and shoving the furniture about. He decided not to make a fuss. There were two of us, one large and both very angry. Anyway, he was supposed to be sick.
'So why are you threatening us about our innocent curiosity?' demanded Petronius.
'You're scaremongering.'
'What we've discovered is cause for alarm!'
'There's no reason for disquiet.'
'Every time I hear that,' I said, 'it turns out to be some devious official telling me lies.'
'The Curator of Aqueducts takes the situation seriously.' 'That's why you're skulking here in his office?'
'I've been co-opted on special assignment.'
'To clean out the fountains with a nice little sponge?'
He looked hurt. 'I'm advising the Curator, Falco.'
'Don't waste your time. When we came to report that there were corpses blocking the current, the bastard didn't want to know.'
Anacrites regained his confidence. He assumed the gentle, self-righteous air of a man who had stolen our job. 'That is how it works in public service, friend. When they decide to hold an investigation they never use the man who first alerted them to the problem. They distrust him; he tends to thinks he's the expert and to hold crackpot theories. Instead they bring in a professional.'
'You mean an incompetent novice who has no real interest?'
He smirked triumphantly.
Petronius and I exchanged one frigid look, then we leapt to our feet and were out of there.
We had lost our enquiry to the Chief Spy. Even on sick leave Anacrites carried more clout than the pair of us. Well, that was the end of our interest in assisting the state.
We could busy ourselves with private clients instead.
Besides, I had just remembered something terrible: I had come out without Julia. Dear gods, I had left my three-month-old daughter completely alone in a rough area of the Aventine, in an empty house.
'Well, that's one way to avoid carrying a baby and looking unprofessional,' Petro said.
'She'll be all right – I hope. What's worrying me is that Helena will probably be back by now and she'll know what I've done -'
It was too hot to run. Still, we made it back home at the fastest Possible gentle trot.
When we took the stairs, it soon became clear that Julia was safe and now had plenty of company. Women's voices conversed indoors at what seemed a normal pace. We exchanged a glance that can only be called thoughtful, then we sauntered in looking as if in our honest opinion nothing untoward had happened.
One of the women was Helena Justina, who was now feeding the baby. She said nothing. But her eyes met mine with the degree of scorching heat that must have melted the wings off Icarus when he flew too near the sun.
The other was an even fiercer proposition: Petro's estranged wife Arria Silvia.
XV
'Don't bother looking. I haven't brought the children.' Silvia wasted no time. She was a tiny spark, as neat as a doll. Petronius used to laugh at her as if she just had a vigorous character; I thought her completely unrea
sonable. Gripping her hands together tightly she mouthed, 'In an area like this you don't know what types they might meet.' Silvia had never minded being rude.
'They are my children too.' Petronius was the paterfamilias. Since he had acknowledged the three girls at birth they belonged to him legally; if he wanted to be difficult he could insist they lived with him. Still, we were plebs. He had no means of looking after them, as Silvia knew.
'That's why you abandoned them?'
'I left because you ordered me to.'
Petro's very quietness was working Silvia into a rage. He knew exactly how to drive her wild with restraint. 'And is that a surprise, you bastard?'
Silvia's rage was increasing his stubbornness. He folded his arms. 'We'll sort it out.'
'That's your answer to everything!'
Helena and I had carefully stayed neutral. I would have kept it that way, but since there was a lull Helena inserted sombrely, 'I'm sorry to see you two like this.'
Silvia tossed her head. She went in for the untamed mare attitude. Unfortunately for Petro it took more than a handful of carrots to calm her down. 'Don't interfere, Helena.'
Helena assumed her reasonable expression, which meant she wanted to hurl a bowl of fruit at Silvia. 'I'm just stating a fact Marcus and I always used to envy your loving family life.'
Arria Silvia stood up. She had a secretive smile that Petronius had probably once thought enthralling; today she was using it as a bitter weapon. 'Well, now you see what a fraud it was.' The fight died in her, in a manner I found worrying. She was leaving. Petronius happened to be standing in her way. 'Excuse me.'
'I would like to see my daughters.'
'Your daughters would like to see a father who doesn't pick up every broken blossom that drops in his path.'
Petronius did not trouble to argue. He stepped aside and let her pass.
Petro hung around just long enough to be sure he would not run into Arria Silvia when he went back out to the street. Then he too left, with nothing more said.
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