"All honour to the knights," he exclaimed, applauding the middle class. Then added, fully serious as far as I could tell, "You ought to consider aiming for higher rank yourself. My father is anxious to build up the lists with good men."
The property qualification for the second rank is land worth four hundred thousand sesterces; Titus Caesar could not have realized what a ludicrous observation he had made. In some years the Falco income was so low, I qualified for tokens to claim the corn dole for the poor.
Ignoring the imperial jest, I pointed out that for twenty years Flavius Hilaris had been Vespasian's friend.
"Falco, it's a sad fact that when a man becomes Emperor he has to look twice at his friends."
"When a man becomes Emperor, sir, his friends may look twice at him!"
He laughed again.
Outside the door subdued voices were murmuring insistently now. Titus was staring into space.
"Has Flavius Hilaris been asked to write again?" I asked.
"We sent out an urgent message by signal flare, but traffic is very heavy because of the Triumph. A reply should come back after tomorrow."
"Do you still need it?"
It was then he finally turned over Sosia's tablet so I could read what it said for myself.
"I'm afraid so," Titus said.
There were various scratches on the tablet's pale wood; my hunch had been right, Sosia was a heavy-handed scribe. I could trace clear marks, strokes, even individual letters, all the way down the page.
But it was impossible to decipher the missing name.
LV
Titus Caesar folded his arms.
"Well, it changes nothing really. We shall just have to find out for ourselves. Have you any idea which brother it is?"
"No, sir. It could be the senator, who appears so anxious to help your father, but may be doing that to obtain the opportunity to sabotage our efforts. Or equally it could be his brother, who was certainly a close associate of Atius Pertinax. I suppose it could conceivably be both."
"Falco, how long have you had these suspicions?" Titus asked me curiously.
"Caesar, if you wanted mere speculation, I could have handed you a list a thousand names long six months ago"
Still gripping his arms across this chest, Titus tipped up that famous Flavian chin. "Hogging this family's involvement to yourself? You're attached to them obviously?"
"No, Caesar," I insisted.
We were on the verge of heated argument. No surprise; I had already quarrelled at some time or other with everyone else connected with the case. But Titus, with his strong sentimental streak, abruptly capsized. He threw back his head even further and exclaimed in a sad voice, "Oh Falco; how I hate this!"
"You hate it," I told him crisply, "but you will have to deal with it."
There was more movement outside. A tribune slightly older than the first, this one in the broad purple stripe of senatorial rank, entered the room. Seeing Titus and me with our heads together he stood quietly; he was obviously held in great confidence, and did not expect a rebuff. Plainly he believed their special day tomorrow took precedence over my own small moment of intrigue. His determined presence recalled Titus to their real order of business.
"Is there a problem, sir? Domitian Caesar has ridden ahead, but your father is delaying for you." "Yes. I'll come." The tribune waited. Titus let him stay.
"We need you to help us identify the remaining conspirators!" Titus urged me. I hesitated. I was too closely connected with people involved to judge the issues cleanly any more. My reluctance was not unexpected, I could see.
"Caesar, the Guards could take this forward for you now. There's a captain I recommend to you who knows something about it already; his name's Julius Frontinus. He became interested when the first ingot was found in Rome; he helped put me on the right track then"
"A friend?"
"He went to school with my brother."
"Ah!"
Dealing with a Caesar was unpleasantly civilized. His good manners gave me a sick qualm; instead of escaping I felt hopelessly pressurized.
"Falco, I can't force you to go on with the case, though I wish you would. Look, will you leave your decision just for a day? Nothing is going to happen in the next twenty-four hours. All Rome will be at a standstill. Tomorrow my father will be handing out gifts to people in his pay. You've certainly earned that; you may as well take advantage! Meanwhile, let us both consider what to do. After the Triumph come and talk to me again." He rose, ready now to answer the call from his staff, yet he did not hurry me.
"These are not my kind of people," I informed him awkwardly. "I can round up a thug or a thief and throw him at your feet with a noose round his neck, alive or dead, as you choose. I lack finesse for this."
Titus Caesar lifted an eyebrow sardonically.
"A cornered traitor is unlikely to respond according to strict court etiquette. Didius Falco, my father has had a letter from Flavius Hilaris, applauding your physical endurance and mental agility; he's spent three sheets of first quality parchment singing your praises! You have managed when it suited you to deal on your own aggressive terms with anyone who stumbled in your path, yet it does not suit you now?"
"Sir, very well. I'll honour my contract, identify who organized the plot"
"And find the silver pigs!"
"Sosia Camillina suspected where they were. I believe she was right all along."
"Nap Lane?"
"Nap Lane."
"Falco," Titus was thoroughly exasperated now, "I cannot keep my men in Nap Lane any longer! They have work elsewhere. The warehouse has been virtually stripped down and reconstructed several times. The value of the contents is a serious complication for the officer in charge. The lady you act for has been promised that my officers will leave"
Then let them," I suggested with a faint smile. "And let me tell Helena Justina that your men have been recalled to other duties as from tomorrow, the day of your Triumph. It might be useful if that news was to be broadcast amongst her family…" I did not explain why, but like other intelligent men he enjoyed a conversation that left him work to do.
"Nothing is going to happen so long as my soldiers are perching on the pigs? I agree. You may tell Helena Justina the warehouse is available. I will ask the Praetorians to inspect the place informally from time to time but Falco, I rely on you!"
I left the Palace on the northeast side, coming down to the Forum on the Clivus Victoriae. All the streets, normally so dark at night, were ablaze with the flickering light of torches as dim figures worked to adorn their porticos with garlands. Gangs of public contractors were erecting stands. The gutters ran with a constant chuckle of water as mud and debris were sluiced from one island block to another. Squadron after squadron of soldiery went marching past on their way to the great muster at the Plain of Mars. Citizens who would normally lock themselves into their shops and houses after nightfall hovered in groups outside, reluctant to leave the expectant atmosphere. Already the city hummed.
I sent one of my nephews with a note to Helena Justina. I said the spices were now hers but I could no longer make myself available for her proposed warehouse spree. I did not tell her why. By the time breaking my promise became an embarrassment, she would understand; meanwhile, I guessed she would assume I had decided to avoid her.
Perhaps I should.
I had never written to Helena before. Now I would probably never do so again. No doubt once she knew what I had done on Palatine Hill, the honourable Helena Justina would be only too keen to avoid me.
I told my nephew to wait for any answer, but she sent none.
That night I visited Petronius at his house. His wife, who takes a dim view of me at the best of times, was not at all pleased; she wanted him to spend time with their children to make up for having to waste all the hours of the public holiday keeping watch for shop breakers along the Ostia Road.
I told Petro what I believed was now afoot and he promised to stake out the warehouse with me wh
en I tipped him the word. I left him on his hands and knees being ridden like an elephant by his three tiny girls. His wife gave me a black pudding when I departed, I think as a present for leaving them alone.
I wanted to get drunk. Luckily for Petro's wife I hold the philosophy that you can be drunk at any other point in a case, but never when you know at last who it is you are looking for.
When I went up to the Palace I had thought it was all over. The cases you hate most never seem to end.
LVI
I took all of my sisters and a dozen small children to watch Vespasian's Triumph. For that alone my soul deserves quiet rest in Elysian fields.
I managed to miss the tedious march of the consuls and senators by the simple trick of having overslept. (Even with the city in ferment, up on the sixth floor I could doze deep into the morning as peaceful as a dove's egg in a stone pine nest.) Out on the Campus Martius the army drew up in parade, while Vespasian and Titus took their places on ivory seats in the Portico of Octavia to receive the troops' acclaim. When this shout tore the skies, even an Aventine sleepyhead leapt out of bed. While the Imperial party pecked at breakfast under the Triumphal Arch, I sorted out my holiday tunic, peacefully watered the flowers on my balcony, and combed my hair. I hummed on my way northwards, passing through the garlanded arcades, into a wall of sound.
It was a lively day, warm and bright, with a lift in the air. A bad day for bunions; by the time I strolled out there was standing room only. All the temples had been thrown open, and the baths were closed; incense, smoking on a thousand altars, grappled with the whiff of half a million people perspiring in their holiday clothes without a chance to bathe all day. Apart from one or two dedicated housebreakers slipping through deserted alleys with discreet sacks of swag, everyone who was not in the procession was watching it. There were so many gawpers packed along the processional route that the marchers and floats could hardly crawl along.
My brother-in-law Mico (the plasterer) had for once been put to use. They sent him out at first light to erect a scaffold just for us in front of some unwary citizen's private house. There was not really room for a scaffold, but when the aedile's troops saw the entire Didius family installed on a day's hampers, all eating squelchy melons and wearing country hats, with their noses already stuck well down their gourds of wine and their throats full of ready abuse, the troopers accepted a slice of melon each then shambled off without trying to tear the scaffold down.
Luckily, by the time I arrived the senators had passed, so the trumpets and war horns were being carried by, their towering bell-like mouths just level with our heads. Victorina and Alia mouthed obscenities at me. The rest of the family covered their ears against the din and decided not to strain their vocal chords complaining I was late.
"Do you remember," Victorina reminisced in a loud voice, as the blaring ranks of trumpeters reached a momentary gap, "that time at the Triumph for the Conquest of Britain when the Emperor's elephants frightened Marcus so much he was sick?"
It had nothing to do with the elephants. I was seven. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside a tray of Persian sweetmeats that were standing in the shade. All I could view of the British Triumph were other people's legs. That whole afternoon I munched my way through three pounds of honey fried stuffed dates, until my little lips were tender from licking off the salt and my aching belly decided to revolt. I never even saw the elephants…
Maia threw me a hat. Of all my sisters, Maia displays the most consistent good nature towards me with the single exception of the fact that it was Maia who did me the honour of importing into our family my brother-in-law Famia. This Famia was a chariot-horse vet for the Greens and I would have found him a specimen of crass mediocrity even if I had not inclined quite strongly to the Blues. In fact I disliked all of my sisters' husbands, which was one reason I hated family gatherings. Being formally civil to idiots and wastrels was not my idea of a festive day. Apart from Galla's husband, whom Galla had temporarily thrown out on a rubbish heap, these despicable characters came and went in the course of the day, and my only consolation was that their wives treated them even more poisonously than they treated me.
And it was a long day. After heralding by the trumpets, we had the spoils of war. Titus was right, nothing like it had ever been seen anywhere in the world. It was a year since Vespasian seized the throne, six months since he came home himself. Plenty of time for the Palace to organize a spectacle, and they had. For hour after hour we were treated to representations of
Vespasian's Judaean campaign: deserts and rivers, captured towns and blazing villages, armies wheeling over baking plains, siege engines invented by Vespasian himself all teetering by in vivid tableaux on floats that towered three- or four-storeys high. Then, amid the aching creak of solid drum wheels and the smell of newly painted canvas as it cracked in the sun, stages with painted oars on their skirts blundered and dipped through the streets like high-crested sailing ships. I liked the ships best; sailing on dry land seemed perfect to me.
On it went. Row after row of bearers in crimson uniforms and laurel wreaths marched through the city from the Plain of Mars, past the theatres where crowds crammed the outer walls, through the Cattle Market, round the Circus, up between the Palatine and the Caelian, then on into the Forum by the Sacred Way. They brought banners and hangings in rich Babylonian stuffs, painted by fine artists or encrusted with jewelled embroidery. Swaying on palanquins, statues of the city's most cherished gods were carried by in festive dress. And flaunted in such quanitities that it became almost meaningless, came treasure by the ton: not only the rich gold and jewellery excavated from the rubble of devastated Jerusalem, but priceless marvels extracted with steely diplomacy at Vespasian's command from cities in the wealthiest corners of the world. Loose gemstones were tumbled in mounds on litters just as they came, as if all the mines of India had hiccupped overnight: onyx and sardonyx, amethysts and agate, emeralds, jasper, jacinth, sapphires and lapis lazuli. Then followed, on stretchers in casual heaps, the gold crowns of conquest, diadems spiked like glittering sunbursts, coronets set with monstrous rubies and great sea pearls. After that more gold, until the streets flickered with the glow of it as the molten tide flowed on towards the Capitol in one slow, swollen meander of heroic extravagance.
I remember that towards the afternoon the noise dimmed not because the crowds were hoarse (though they were) or losing interest (they were not), but as if folk could no longer contemplate this lavish show of Empire with the simple exuberance that first brought them to cheer. Applause no longer seemed enough. At the same time, the endless marching feet pressed past with increased pride at the climax of this, the main part of the procession: the treasures from the sacred Temple at Jerusalem the strange seven-branched candelabrum, a golden table weighing several hundredweight, and the Five Scrolls of the Jewish law.
"Festus should be here!" Galla whimpered, and they all sniffed. (The wine gourds were well drained by this point.)
There seemed to be a pause. Maia and I jumped all the children down to street level and marshalled them by families to the nearest public latrine. We took them back and filled them up with water again before they died of dehydration and excitement.
"Uncle Marcus! That man's got his hand up that lady's skirt!" Marcia. What an observant child. This sort of embarrassment had been happening all day. Her mother Marina said nothing; worn down by Marcia's constant piping indiscretions, Marina rarely does.
"Picking that lady's pocket, I dare say," I remarked recklessly.
Maia exploded. "Gods, Marcus, you're so lewd!"
Dazzling white animals, with flowers round their horns, were led by on crimson streamers by light-footed priests from all the sacred colleges. Flute players escorted them in a swirl of incense fumes, while dancers exultantly cavorted in handsprings wherever there was room. Acolytes carried golden censors and implements for the sacrifice.
"Uncle Marcus, that man's there! That man who stinks!"
A face in the crow
d. Well, a smell.
I saw him as soon as she shouted. He lounged against a portico pillar across the street. His long face, sallow skin and thin disgusting hair were unmistakable: the hot-wine waiter I found in my room after my British trip. It struck me at last that it was no coincidence Smaractus found a spare tenant when I was away. That rank piece of pungency had been planted, planted to watch me. He was watching me still. Unclamping a two-year-old who was sitting on my shoulders, I whispered to Maia that I was leaving her in charge while I slipped off to see a man about a racing tip.
I don't think our Maia has ever forgiven me; one way and another I never got back.
LVII
I crossed the street under the toes of the first ranks of the captives from Judaea. Seven hundred prisoners, specially selected for their impressive stature to be brought overseas and displayed by Titus in his victory parade. They were smothered in expensive robes to hide the bruises where soldiery had assaulted them on the journey; as I tumbled over the pavements before they ground me down, I could smell their fear. They must have known it was part of the Triumphal ceremony that before the Emperor made sacrifice on Capitol Hill, he would pause until word was brought that his enemies had been ritually executed in the Mamertine Jail. For all these poor blighters could tell, all seven hundred of them faced the noose, not just one token leader of their revolt.
A certain Simon son of Gioras had in fact been selected for strangulation today. Already getting their pecker up to thrash him in the kidneys as they dragged him out of the line at the Gemonian Steps, the prisoners' escort flailed viciously at me as I scurried across the road just in front of them. I barely made it intact to the crush on the other side. The waiter had spotted me coming and was squeezing off towards the Sacred Way. Packed as the street was, he had no difficulty persuading citizens to allow him a space to ooze by. Without the advantage of his personal fragrance my task was stickier, but frustration with this filthy case was giving me an edge; I elbowed people mercilessly out of my own way.
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