'I am bound to secrecy.'
'Let me unbind you.' I inspected the arms of his instrument, while prising apart the elegant yokes, forcing them against their cross-strut…
'Oh leave off, Falco! I had nothing to tell Laeta, except a list of who attended. The Greek with the big beard was dire, I have to say.'
'That Greek is a master of jurisprudence. He could sue you in three different courts for insulting him. He might even win.'
'He'd have to be sober!' The singer fought back with spirit. I had to stop this; I was starting to like him.
'I know that the caterers were stealing, for a ransom scam. You must have seen them at it, at other parties. I know who's paying them as well. Momus. You don't want to tangle with that bastard.'
'His money's good, if you're desperate.'
'So you work for Momus too?'
'Not if I can help it. Sometimes the landlord here is very demanding…'
I looked around. The place was bare and unappealing. Not as squalid as rooms I myself had parked in, but unsuitable for a court musician. He wouldn't want Laeta to spot fleabites. 'Whatever the rent, he's overcharging! You can afford better.'
'Who cares? I'm never here.'
'Have some self-respect, man!' I was turning into his wise old nurse. 'What do you spend your fees on?'
'Saving for a once-in-a-lifetime cruise to Greece.' That figured.
'Did it last year – - not all it's cracked up to be. Still, book it and go now. You could die of self-neglect and your efforts would all be wasted. So – - who were the tumblers and the band working for?'
'No one special.'
'What? We're talking about Cretan shepherds in hairy coats!'
'Cretan my rear end! The tumblers arrived last week from Bruttium and all the rest came straight over the Tiber from Nero's Circus.'
'You amaze me! And they have no money-making sidelines?'
'I didn't say that. I believe,' said Scorpus, with disgust, 'the strummers have been known to sell stories about indiscretions for the dirty scandal page in the Daily Gazette.'
I winced. 'That's low!'
'I agree – though I believe there is cash to be made.'
'Fortunately the Camilli – to whom I am related, by the way, so watch it – - are models of tedious morality. As for Anacrites, snitching on him would be madness: you could end up holding your next musical evening with Praetorian Guards, answering an arrest warrant signed by Titus Caesar, before they drag you on a very short walk to your death.'
I plucked his lyre, reflecting that the musicians he sneered at as strummers had played seven-string lyres too – - their instruments probably costing much less than this fine pearl-inlaid walnut specimen. The singer gave me a sideways scrutiny. 'So what were you doing there, Falco?'
'Oh all I got was indigestion and a sore head.'
Thinking this had made us friends, Scorpus tried again to get up. I shoved him back angrily. 'Oh get this over with! What do you want, Falco?'
'Who did you see? There were two agents lurking in a back room -was somebody else with them?'
He had had enough time between playing his sets for a thorough reconnoitre. He knew about the Melitans. But Scorpus claimed, convincingly it seemed, that he saw no one else; he did not know who occupied that other room, where the pilfering chef found the cameo.
I gave up and went home for lunch.
The singer had lied to me. I did not know it at the time, but when I found out afterwards, I felt no real surprise.
XXXVIII
After lunch my secretary needed me to attend to business; in superior homes it might be the other way around, but not with Katutis. He told me what I had to tell him to do. I complied. Still, I was lucky to have my hour with him. Now I was known to have a secretary, other people continually borrowed him. Katutis was supposed to take down my case-notes and start collating my memoirs, but he spent whole afternoons writing out soup recipes, curses and laundry lists.
Next, Helena wanted to discuss household matters, which meant more meek compliance. My daughters then had an urgent need to show me drawings and ask for new shoes like those their friend three doors down had been given by their spoiling parents. Even the dog stood at the front door with her leash in her mouth.
Only Albia tried to avoid anything to do with me, but I took her out anyway. That would teach her to tell Anacrites she could do an informer's job.
I was taking the cameo to Petronius. By the time we reached Maia's apartment, it was so near to evening we only just caught him before he left for duty.
'Hold on. I want to show you this, off vigiles premises.'
He got the message.
With Albia watching, we inspected the jewel. It was carved from sardonyx, the redder form of onyx. 'It's like an agate, Albia – layered hard stone.'
'More education!'
'Listen and learn, girl.'
Petronius held the gemstone in his mighty paw while he tried to work out what was going on in the picture. It was a two-layered cut, in low relief. The onyx banding was white and red-brown, beautifully executed. The lower half of the design showed a gloomy bunch of captured barbarians. On an upper frieze, gathered around twirly horns of plenty, minor deities were applying triumphal crowns to the noble brows of bare-chested noble personages. An eagle, probably representing Jove, was trying to muscle in. 'Claudian imperial family,' Petronius guessed. 'They always have that clean-cut, very close-shaven look. They were all untrustworthy midgets really.'
Albia giggled.
'He's exaggerating, Albia. Lucius Petronius, being a great hulk himself, likes to make out anyone dainty is deformed. However, this is so special it may even have belonged to Augustus or someone in that family, either commissioned by them or given as a gift by a sycophant.'
Petro's eyebrows shot up. 'It's that good?'
'Trust me; I'm an antique dealer. Without provenance it's hard to be sure, but I would say this could be the work of Dioscurides. If not his own piece, it certainly came from his workshop.'
'Dio who?'
'Augustus' favourite cameo-cutter. Well, look at the workmanship! Whoever carved this was brilliant.'
Petronius leaned towards Albia and growled, 'Have you noticed how Falco keeps sounding like a bent auctioneer these days?'
'Yes, at home we all feel we are living with a fake-winejug seller.'
'Rag away!' I grinned. 'Whoever owned this – I don't mean some mystery lodger at the spy's house – knew its worth. The purchaser, who may have been a woman because it has been a necklace pendant, had the money and the knowledge to buy real quality.'
'Someone in mind?' asked Petro.
'I hope we can tie it to Modestus' wife, Livia Primilla. From the nephew's vagueness when I asked about any distinguishing jewellery she wore, I don't think he would recognise it, but he said she wore good stuff.'
Petronius perked up. 'If it was her, and if she was wearing this when she disappeared, there is a chance we can identify it.'
He told us that the Fifth Cohort had picked up a runaway slave living rough near the Porta Metrovia, who was called Syrus. They were bringing him over to the Fourth that night, for quizzing about whether he was the Syrus given to the butcher by Sextus Silanus – - the one who had waved Primilla off when she went to see the Claudii.
'Couldn't the Fifth have asked him for themselves?'
'They could have tried,' said Petro. 'But the slave's scared to talk and everyone knows Sergius is the best in the business.'
Sergius was the Fourth Cohort's torturer.
At this point I would have left Albia at Maia's house; sensing a brush-off, she insisted on coming to the station house with us.
Sergius was waiting for Petronius to arrive before he started. He had stashed Syrus in a small cell, like someone marinating a choice cut of meat for a few hours before grilling.
'You could just ask the man,' Albia suggested. It could have been Helena talking.
'Not half the fun,' said Sergius. 'Besides, the slav
e's evidence will only count if he screams it out while I'm thrashing him. The theory is, pain will make him honest.'
'Does it work in practice, Sergius?'
'Once in a while.'
'How can you tell whether what he says is true or not?'
'You can't. But then you can't tell when you're questioning a free citizen either. Most of them lie. That applies whether they have something real to hide – - or are just being buggers on principle.'
I thought Albia might have been upset by the whip man's attitude, but young girls are tough. She listened quietly, filing away the details in that strange little head of hers. 'If this is the right slave, what will happen to him?'
'He will be whipped hard, for causing us trouble, then returned to whoever owns him.'
'No choice?'
'Certainly not. He is their property.'
'A non-person?'
'That's the definition.'
Albia accepted this as one more fact that showed Romans were cruel – assuming that idea was what caused her enquiry. Sometimes she was unreadable.
Albia turned her pale little face to me. 'Do you think coming from a rough, hard background, being treated badly in their slave generation, explains why those Claudii turned out as they are?'
'Maybe. But some groups, some families are feckless by nature. People carry their character defects from birth, whatever their origin. You find freedmen who are loyal, kind-hearted, hard-working and decent to live with. Then you find noblemen who are vicious, deceitful and intolerable to be around.'
Albia smiled. 'Helena would say, "I blame their mothers!" '
Petronius clapped her on the shoulder. 'There may be some truth in that.'
'So how does this theory explain Anacrites the spy?'
Petro and I both laughed. I said it: 'He is just a poor sad boy who never had a mother!'
Albia gave me a long look. She did not say, since she could see I had just remembered it, that until Helena picked her off the streets in Londinium, she herself had struggled with neither parent.
Petronius, a father of girls, recognised her mood. 'Falco is right. Most people do seem to be born with a character inbuilt. So you, Flavia Albia, are destined to be decent, sweet and true.'
'Don't patronise me!' Of course, being Lucius Petronius, he had charmed her.
We left it there. Sergius, with his long whip, was impatient to begin.
He got as far as ascertaining that the terrified fellow the Fifth had brought us was indeed the slave Livia Primilla owned. When she went to see the Claudii, she had given him instructions to wait three days then if she failed to come home, to go to tell her nephew. Syrus, who looked as if he had come from the interior deserts of Africa, was able to describe the scene: Primilla mounted on a donkey, wearing a round-brimmed travel hat. The slave was poor on garments but thought her outfit was in shades of dark red, with a long fringed stole that was also red or damson coloured. Petronius showed him the sardonyx cameo; he failed to recognise it.
One new piece of information emerged. Petronius demanded: how could her staff, despite their duty of care to their mistress, have let Primilla go off alone to see the Claudii – especially after Modestus had already gone missing? Syrus said Primilla had intended to meet up with someone: the overseer who looked after the property and who had first found the broken fences, a man called Macer. This was a development. This man had not previously figured in the disappearances. He must be one of the family slaves who had run away.
At that point, we were thwarted. Loud hammering at the mighty gates of the station house announced unwelcome visitors. The gates were kicked open. In burst a small group of large armoured men. Plumes danced in their glittering helmets. Violence curdled the air.
Three tiers of military cohorts kept law and order in the city; neither law nor order had much to do with the feud between them all. The Praetorian Guards despised the Urban Cohorts and they both hated the vigiles. But the Praetorians protected the Emperor and were commanded by Titus Caesar now; whenever those thrusting bullyboys strode from their camp and appeared in public, there could be no contest.
They burst into the exercise yard like dam water after a leak. There was no stopping them. Petronius did not try. Somehow Anacrites had learned we had the slavey; he had sent the Guards to snatch Syrus. They made it plain, it would be foolish to request a warrant.
'Take the ungrateful bastard; I don't want him. Our budget's too tight for feeding runaways.' Well, Syrus was a slave. Nobody was going to make an issue of it. 'I heard the Fifth had found him,' Petronius told the Guards' leader helpfully. 'My plan was to check the facts and send him up to the Palace with a note. You're doing me a favour. He's all yours.'
'Oh he is!' snarled the Guards' leader. 'Word of warning – - don't meddle!'
'Are you speaking for Anacrites?'
'None of your business who I'm speaking for – back off, soldier!'
I could not believe the spy had been so crude – - and it went against the careful pretence of comradeship he had been laying on thick at his dinner party. But that was him, since his head wound. He was highly unpredictable. Capricious mood changes damaged his judgement. The one thing a spy needs is self-preservation – - and that demands self-knowledge.
Syrus was hauled from the interrogation cell by the Emperor's elite thugs while we stood around like puddings. Terror overtook him so his legs gave way; the Guards virtually carried him. His eyes rolled white and he shat himself. It had nothing to do with Sergius, who despite our teasing of Albia had barely touched him. Petronius was not preparing a witness statement; he had wanted answers, answers he could trust. Instead, as the Praetorians dragged the slave away, the poor creature knew his fate. He would be dead in a ditch within the hour. Anacrites, we were starting to suspect, either knew the answers already or he did not care.
Petronius cursed. He knew nobody would ever see that slave again. At least we still had the cameo. Petro retrieved it from a murky bucket of water where he had quickly dropped it when the Guards crashed in.
As for them giving us orders to back off, it was blatant intimidation. Nothing new for the Praetorians; not so new for the spy – but foolish. So stupid, in fact, that Petronius and I wondered if Anacrites had lost his grip.
XXXIX
'You two great men have lost yourselves!' Albia was a frank wench; it was liable to get her into trouble. 'Why don't you ask the big question: if the cameo really belonged to Primilla, and if it was taken by a killer – - how did Anacrites get it?'
I pointed out coldly that I had spent all morning among the dregs of artistic society trying to find out. 'Anyone else, Petronius and I would go along to his house, pin him to a wall with a meat skewer and demand an explanation. But the spy can't be handled like that. He claims it belongs to some woman he had had at the house.'
Petronius snorted. 'She must be desperate.'
'So many are, sadly,' Albia commented. 'That is how you men get away with things.'
'Helena is teaching her a lot!' said Petro.
'Sarcasm especially. It's always possible the spy does have a girlfriend.'
Albia biffed this aside. 'The jewel was found by the hog-chef, tucked away in luggage that we think belongs to the Melitan brothers. If they are Melitan. Or even brothers. Who said so? Nobody. This is just a fantasy Falco dreamed up last Saturnalia, when he had had too much wine with his hot water. I remember the pair of them watching our house, and the only thing we could tell was that they were idiots.'
'You ought to be at school, young lady,' Petronius instructed her. 'Not hanging around a vigiles house, causing upset.'
'I'm making sensible suggestions. And, by the way, I am home-tutored by Helena.'
'Oh take her home, Falco.'
'I can't. You and I have to talk about this cameo – '
'Send her then. Albia, be off with you!' Petro lowered his voice to me. 'I could assign a man to escort her -'
'I don't need a bodyguard!' snapped Albia. 'I'll go by myself
/> She went.
Petronius Longus stared at me. 'You let her walk in the streets alone?'
'Nothing else is practical. You allow Petronilla out unchaperoned, don't you?'
'Petronilla is a child. Much safer. Your girl is marriageable age.' He meant beddable.
We left it.
'She's right,' I grumbled. 'We need to explore how the cameo came to the Melitans.'
'Surely you mean the idiotic agents of unknown origin?'
'Bastard! I'm sure they look like brothers. Listen – - if there is an innocent explanation for them having it, that saves us trying to link this to the Pontine killings. Maybe Anacrites really does screw women. Asking him for more details will be a waste of effort – but we could find his unknown-origin agents and ask them questions. He won't like it, but by the time he finds out, it's done. Can't you put troops out to look for them?'
Petronius groaned. 'I'd love to. I haven't got the manpower, Falco. If Anacrites keeps them close to him at home or in his office, those are no-go areas. I can't send troops into the Palace and I am not getting a formal reprimand for watching that swine's private house – especially not on a case I was told to drop,' Petro concluded reasonably.
'Last night, he suggested they were his bodyguards.'
'Then the whole idea is definitely off
'You didn't tell me it was on.'
'I'm thinking about it.'
In the end, Petro taxing his brain proved unnecessary. One of my nephews turned up at the station house, bringing a message. Katutis had written it out. His writing was so neat, I always had difficulty deciphering the letters.
'What exactly is the point of your secretary, Falco?'
'Oh he goes his own way. That keeps him happy.'
Petro got his clerk to decipher. Albia had spotted one of the hangdog Melitans. Anacrites was watching my house again.
'The bastard! He's made this too easy for us – -'
Petronius grabbed my arm. 'Now hang on, Marcus; we need to plan this properly -'
I nodded. Next minute he and I were scuffling in a doorway, laughing like ten-year-olds, as we each tried to be first through as we dashed out to run down the Aventine by the nearest steps to the Embankment. We knew that in taking on the Melitan we would be taking on Anacrites. Nothing of what happened next had been adequately considered. But with hindsight, it is fair to say Petronius and I would still have done it.
Nemesis mdf-20 Page 21