Lindsey Davis - Falco 13 - A Body In The Bath House

by A Body In The Bath House(lit)

  Covered with mud, I was hardly impressive. I went back to the old house and stripped off. Helena discovered me root ling through a chest of clothes. “Oh Marcus, what happened?”

  “Fell down.” I sounded like a sad little boy.

  “Did somebody push you?” Helena was not being maternal; she worried about me getting into serious fights.

  “What, some big rough bully? No, I fell down all on my own. I was dreaming and not looking where I put my feet. I’d been looking at work by some fresco artists; I must have been thinking about Larius.”

  Larius, my favourite young nephew, had bunked off to learn to be a painter in the Bay of Neapolis, where the rich had their fabulous villas and there was top-class work. It was three years since I had seen him. I tried luring him to Rome to help me decorate Pa’s Aventine house, but my letter went unanswered. Larius had always been a businessman, too sensible to commit himself to unpaid favours. Besides, in Rome he had his appalling parents. Galla and her ghastly husband were enough to drive any son to a remote apprenticeship.

  “Hmm… So that’s where it is!” Helena brushed past me suddenly to seize on a dress of hers. It was a cream affair, with wide bands of blue on the hems. Although simple, it had cost a sackful; the material was a gorgeous weave shot through with silk. As she lifted it out with a seductive rustle and held it by the shoulders, she caught me looking sceptical. “Hyspale keeps trying on my clothes. There’s no point. I am far too tall so they bunch on her.” I said nothing. “Yes, she does it to annoy me.”

  Another problem with the damned nurse. I sighed. “You know-‘

  “I know!” I held my peace.

  “When we get home,” promised Helena. I’ll tackle her in Rome. Mother will take her back.”

  “And she won’t be surprised.”

  Helena looked at me. “Are you sniping at my mother?”

  “No.”

  It was true. She might be my motherin-law, but I had observed the Camillus family enough to know she had had a strong influence on Helena’s development. I paid the proper respect to that. When a senator omits to divorce his wife after she has given him the correct number of children and he has used up the dowry, it generally means something too. I did not mess with Julia Justa.

  “Oh your under tunic mucky too, Marcus. You’ll have to take it off and bathe.”

  I was already halfway through the motion of peeling down to bare skin when I realised that Hyspale had come into the room.

  Helena flushed. “Hyspale, do knock, please!” I made sure I stayed decent. I can stand admiration from the wider public, but I rather liked Helena Justina deciding my body was her personal territory. She was shaking out the cream and blue dress. “Did you move this? Can we understand something, Hyspale - I would not allow my sister, my mother even, to borrow my clothes without asking me.”

  Hyspale glared at me as if she believed I had caused her reprimand.

  “Where are the children?” I asked coldly. Hyspale stormed out. Actually, I had already seen the children safe in the doting care of fair haired, fair-skinned women from the King’s household, who were entranced by my daughters’ dark eyes and foreign good looks. The baby was asleep. Julia always behaved perfectly for strangers.

  Helena and I looked at each other. “I shall deal with it,” she repeated. “At least she’s not beating or starving them. We just reached the stage where our servants are other people’s useless gifts. Next, we shall choose our own-no doubt bungling it through inexperience. Then at last we shall move on to exactly what we want domestically.”

  “I’d like to miss out some stages.”

  “You like to rush everything.”

  I grinned salaciously.

  I found my oil flask and strigil, selected clean clothes and went out to explore the King’s baths. Helena then scurried after me, growling under her breath and needing to relax in the steam. In a private bath house owned by a royal master there is always hot water. At off-peak times, you can virtually guarantee no one else will turn up to be shocked by mixed bathing.

  We found the bath suite was high quality. To one side of the entrance lay a room with a cold swimming pool. None of your shallow paddling puddles; this was more than waist deep with plenty of space for a good thrash, as Helena vigorously proved. I had never learned to swim. She kept threatening to teach me; a freezing pool in Britain did not encourage me to start lessons. I sat on the pink mortared bench and watched Helena for a while, though even she was gasping at the temperature. Slightly chilled, I wandered off to enjoy myself in not one but three different hot rooms, each of increasing temperature. She stopped showing off her stamina and joined me.

  “You found the fresco painters this morning?”

  “I found their hut. I saw the mosaicist.” My solemn lack of logic had Helena giggling.

  “Don’t play up, Falco.”

  I gave her a cheeky smile.

  Helena languidly went to a basin where she used a dipper to splash water over her shoulders. It ran down… well, where gravity was bound to take it. She came back to sit by me. That gave me the chance

  noto trace the water streaks with my fingers.

  “So,” she asked me doggedly, ‘what stage have you reached?”

  “Are you supervising?”

  “Wouldn’t dare.” Untrue. “We consult, don’t we?”

  “You consult and I confess…” She kicked me to encourage honesty. I sobered up to save my shins. “I’ve got the measure of the project architecturally. It’s a good structure and the planned finish treatments are striking. I’m eyeing up the personnel; that’s ongoing. Now I have to find an office ‘

  “I have sorted out a room near our suite for you.”

  “Thanks! That’s good not too close to the site managers. So next I take all the project documents into my new office and lurk there auditing. I know what scams I’m searching for. When I’m ready, I’ll pull in your brothers to help. Meantime, both are placed in good spying positions.” I omitted their seamy conditions. Their loving sister might storm off and rescue them.

  Within the thick walls of the bath house, we were cut off completely from the outside world. Nobody knew we were here. Naked and peaceful together, able to be ourselves. Once you have children, such private moments are rare.

  I gazed at Helena quietly. “Britain.” I took her hand, winding my fingers among hers. “Here we are again!” She smiled slightly, saying nothing. I first met her in this dismal province both of us at a low ebb at the time… “You were a snooty, angry piece and I was a sour faced, hard beggar.”

  Helena smiled more, this time at me. “Now you’re a snooty but mud stained equestrian and I’m…” She paused.

  I wondered if she was content. I thought I knew. But she liked to keep me on edge. “I love you,” I said.

  “What’s that for?” She laughed, suspecting bribery.

  “It’s worth saying.”

  I felt sweat trickling slowly down my neck. I had a vague scrape with my strigil. I had brought my favourite, which was bone. Firm, yet comfortable on the skin… like many fine things in life.

  When I complained about the pain in my wrenched back, Helena eased it with some interesting massage. “Toothache as well,” I whimpered pathetically. She leaned round from behind me and kissed my cheek gently. Flattened by the steam, her long straight hair fell forwards, tickling parts of me that decidedly liked being tickled.

  “This is nice. No one using these smart facilities but us… Maybe

  inwe should take full advantage, sweetheart…” I pulled Helena closer. “Oh Marcus, we can’t —’ “I bet we can!” We could too. And we did.

  XXI

  once you have servants, even rare moments of privacy are at risk. I fooled the woman, though. By the time Hyspale sought us out at the baths, Helena Justina was in the changing room, drying off her hair. I was coming out through the porch way newly clad in a clean tunic. With a mother like mine, I had long ago mastered the art of looking innocent. Especially aft
er a hot dalliance with a young lady.

  “Oh Marcus Didius!” Our freed woman podgy face glowed with satisfaction at disturbing me. “I’ve been looking for you-somebody wanted you!”

  “Really.” I was in a good mood, I tried not to let Hyspale dissipate that.

  “I should have sent him here to you…”

  She was determined to follow the cliche that men of affairs use the public baths to socialise with their lawyers and bankers, all dull creeps seeking dinner invitations. Not my style. In Rome, I patronised Glaucus, my trainer. I went to get my body fit. “I don’t take the conservative line. When I’m at the baths, Camilla Hyspale, it’s for cleanliness and exercise.” All types of exercise. I managed not to smirk. “I don’t want to be found.”

  “Yes, Marcus Didius.” She was an old hand at using people’s names as insults. Her meekness was a front. I had no faith in her to obey.

  Helena came out behind me. Hyspale looked shocked. And she only thought we had been bathing together.

  “Who was it?” I asked calmly.

  “What?”

  “Looking for me, Camilla Hyspale?”

  “One of the painters.”

  “Thanks.”

  With a terse nod to the women of my household, loved and loathed, I strode off to be a man of affairs in my own way. The one I loved blew me a kiss suggestively. The freed woman was even more shocked.

  H3-turned to the site.

  V * rt { had a reel for it now. In some ways, it reminded me of the toured walled complex of a military tort. With the same, slightly sid /.angular layout, the palace would be almost half the length and re(Vdth of a full legionary base. They house six thousand men, two brion bases double that. Like a small town, a permanent fort is fjfrimed with magnificent buildings, dominated by its Praetorium, cr;e administrative headquarters and the commandant’s home. The nag’s new palace was about twice the size of a standard Praetorium. K too, was designed primarily to impress. It Activity in a far corner caught my interest. I made the diagonal

  vite march over there. Pomponius, the project manager, was in rcWvy debate with Magnus, Cyprianus the clerk of works, and another n4ijn, whom I soon deduced was the drainage engineer. In this part of n* site, where the level was natural, labourers had gone ahead with the stylobate platforms that would front each wing. They were laying the first courses of supporting blocks on which colonnades would

  Vnds’ The planned extra height of the dramatic west wing with its audience chamber posed a problem the designers must always have

 

  ii own about-how to link it aesthetically to the colonnades of

  Adjoining wings; where they abutted at the corners they would be

  much lower. Now Pomponius and Magnus were having one of the jong site discussions where such matters are thrashed out, feeding each

  Ather with suggestions-then each finding insurmountable difficulties

  ;ja any idea that was put forward by the other man.

  “We know we have to step the colonnades,” Magnus was saying.

  “I don’t want any variation in the visuals ‘

  “But you’re losing five foot, off twelve foot, max. Unless you raise the ceilings, only dwarves will be able to walk in the ends of these vings! You need graded head space, man.”

  “We lift the colonnades, in gradual stages-‘

  “Bitty. Much better to employ single flights of steps. Vary your roof line if you want. Let me tell you how ‘

  “I have made my decision,” Pomponius asserted.

  “Your decision’s crap,” said Magnus. He was frank, yet given that surveyors tend to be hot-headed know-it-alls, he spoke amiably enough. He was only concerned to explain the good solution he had devised. “Listen-at each end, put in steps to move the people up to the west wing. Then, don’t just run the lower colonnades along level until they bump into the big stylobate. Put in one taller column on each wing. Raise the colonnades at top height.”

  “No, I’m not doing that.”

  “These columns will need thicker diameters,” Magnus pressed on, deaf to the objection. “It gives better proportions and if you tidy off with roof features, they’ll be carrying more weight.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” complained the architect.

  “You’re not listening to me,” the surveyor answered logically.

  “The point is,” piped up Cyprianus, who had been listening to both patiently, ‘if we go with Magnus, I need to put in our order for the over-height columns now. Those in your main run are twelve foot. You’ll be going up to fourteen, fourteen and a half, for the larger ones. Specials always take longer’ Not even Magnus was listening to him.

  It was clear they would be wrangling over the corner design for hours yet. Days, possibly. Weeks, even. Well, be realistic; call it months. Only when the builders reached the point of no return would this design feature be settled. My money was on the Magnus plan. But Pomponius was, of course, in charge.

  Seated on a great limestone slab, from time to time the engineer put in, “What about my tank?” No one so much as acknowledged him.

  From its placing, the slab under his backside seemed to be part of a preliminary mock-up of one of the colonnaded walks that would line the interior garden. I deduced it was part of a gutter that would lie at the foot of the stylobate and catch the run-off from the roof. Its deep hollowing at least provided a shaped perch while the engineer waited to be heard.

  Pomponius and Magnus moved off slightly, still going endlessly over the same points. This probably often happened. Delaying the decision might allow time for new ideas to form; it could prevent expensive mistakes. They were not exactly quarrelling. Each thought the other was an idiot; each made that plain. But this seemed to be a perfectly routine con flab

  “Finials!” cried Magnus loudly, like an exotic obscenity. Pomponius only shrugged.

  I parked on another slab of limestone and introduced myself to the engineer. His name was Rectus. He must suffer from cold feet, for he wore knitted grey ankle socks in his battered site ankle boots. But his wide body must be tougher; he had only a single tunic, with short sleeves. Bushy eyebrows flourished above a big Italian nose. He was the type who always saw disaster coming-but who then without despair attacked the problem practically. Gloomy in aspect, he was a doer and solver. But he never gained the self-confidence to cheer up.

  H5”So you have a problem with a tank?” I sympathised.

  “Nice of you to notice, Falco.”

  Tin here to apply bandages to this project’s wounds.”

  “You’ll need a few rags.”

  “So I’m learning, Tell me about your tank.”

  “My tank!” said Rectus. “Well, I just need to remind those fart-arses to build it before they get any further with their farting stylo bates It sits on a stone base, protruding into the garden, for one thing. I want a cavity dug out and the base laid. The sooner they put the tank in the happier I shall be. Never mind the farting levels of their fancy colonnades.”

  I glanced at the sky a typical British grey all over. “So what is this pet tank?”

  “Settling tank for the aqueduct.”

  “Aqueduct?”

  “Oh we have all the amenities here, Falco. Well, we will do.”

  “Right!”

  “I got approval for the aqueduct from the governor himself, during his state visit.”

  “State visit?”

  “Came to introduce himself to the Great King.”

  run?”

  “Believe it!” he marvelled. “We had to build a new latrine, in case the governor wanted a shit.”

  “He must have been delighted! Is this my pal Frontinus?”

  “He spoke to me!” exclaimed Rectus excitedly. Frontinus was extremely down to earth.

  “Frontinus enjoys the company of experts. And,” I said, grinning, ‘he was commissioner of waterworks in Rome. He does like aqueducts.”

  “It will only be a small one.” Rectus subsided into embarr
assed diffidence.

  “Still, you got your aqueduct… I know it has to have a settling tank. Otherwise your pipes would clog-so what’s the problem, Rectus?”

  “Not included in the budget. Should have been a provisional sum.”

  “A what?”

  “Notional costing. The aqueduct itself is to be funded as a provincial amenity.” I had wandered into the picturesque byways of Treasury bureaucracy. “But the collection tank is on our site, so it’s our baby. Cyprianus can’t arrange the work for me without a pig’s pizzle docket.” Bureaucracy had summoned its own range of swear words. “Since it was never allowed for, Pomponius has to issue me a variation order first. He piddling well knows he has to do it, but the bastard keeps putting it oft.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the kind of fart-arse bastard Pomponius is.”

  We fell silent. Rectus was still waiting for his talk with the architect. I had no firm plans.

  I was looking at the place where the workmen had begun building up the great base for the spectacular west wing. “That platform base will be five feet high, am I right? With its colonnade sitting on top of it?”

  “Revetted,” said Rectus. “Towering like a bloody great bulwark on a frontier fort.”

  “With a massive blank wall facing the garden, won’t the overall look be extremely bleak?”

  “No, no. Same thought struck me. I’ve been talking to Blandus about that.”

  “Blandus?”

  “Chief fresco artist.” Possibly the mysterious visitor who missed me when I was bathing. “They want to paint it-naturalistic greenery.”

  “A mock-garden? Can’t they have real flowers?”

  “Plenty. When you look back towards the east wing they are going to install flowering trees on trellises, and beds full of colour will camouflage all the lower stylo bates But all the internal walls behind the colonnades are to be painted, mostly picked out discreetly. This big wall has its own design. It will be a spread of bold dark green creepers, through which,” said Rectus, pretending to mock although he seemed to like the concept, ‘you can peep at what seems to be another part of the garden.”