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

by A Body In The Bath House(lit)

  There was no point trying to ask again whether it was him or Cotta who had killed Stephanus. Even if he had been able to speak, he would not have told me. If he had said anything, I would never have been sure I could believe it. To finish the business, to draw the requisite line in the sand, I waited there until he croaked.

  All right. In the circumstances croaked is the wrong word. I can still hear Gloccus in his dying moments. I mention it purely to give comfort to those of you who have found raw sewage backing up a waste pipe in your new caldarium, three days after your contractors vanished off the site.

  I was in a dark hole where life was brutal. The Rainbow Trout stayed open, whoever might be dying on their filthy floor. Customers did move aside to give me light and air as I crouched beside Gloccus. Someone even handed me a drink during the ghastly vigil. When Gloccus died, they just towed the body out through the back exit.

  Once he had gone, I felt no more cheerful. At least we avoided formalities. In Britain you don’t hear the vi giles whistle, then find yourself stuck with hours of questions all implying you are guilty of some crime. Given how I felt about Gloccus, his end lay lightly on my conscience. It was fitting. Best not to think that the arrow could have struck down one of us and we too would have been dumped in a narrow alley for the wild dogs. But the sense of unfinished business crippled me.

  As I made to leave, Timagenes the landscape gardener came in with Rectus the engineer. They must be regular drinking pals. In shock, perhaps, I blurted out what had happened. Rectus took a deep interest and decided he would haggle with the landlord to acquire the fart-arse Cupid. Its arm dropped off while he inspected it, but Rectus reckoned he could fix that.

  They too bought me a drink. It helped my toothache, which had started up again.

  “What are you two doing here? If you’ve come to watch the dancer ‘

  “Not us.” Rectus grimaced. “We came here on purpose to avoid all that.” Quiet types, unimpressed by the twirling of elderly pulchritude. Still, Rectus was a man who noticed things. He knew what was going on.

  “So where is she appearing?”

  “At the Nemesis.”

  That sounded like a place where any accidents would be neatly planned by Fate.

  Rectus and Timagenes gave me directions. Starting to feel lightheaded, I roamed off alone. Summer evenings in southern Britain can be pleasant enough (by their standards). If this had been a port there would have been noise and action, but Noviomagus lay slightly inland. It was partly surrounded by a river, nothing significant, not enough to encourage nightlife or any life that would satisfy Rome. The town was only half developed, still with many empty plots lining the silent streets. Where there were houses, they displayed no lights. I found my way purely by luck.

  This new dive lurked by the Calleva Gate, which was on the western edge of town. It was the approach road from the palace handiest for the site workers. I found the venue by the soft glow of lamps shining from the open doorway and the loud hum of men’s voices. It was the only place in Novio that night with any real hint of activity. I was sure this was the right location, next door lay a darkened lock-up, where a large signboard showed a human tooth. Gaius had mentioned the adjacent tooth-puller. Had he been open for business, I would have rushed in, demanding that the mouth-mangier relieve my pain. Like everywhere else except the bar, it was closed for the night.

  As I approached, I saw a tall woman, her body and head decently shrouded in a Roman matron’s stole. She paused briefly outside, then made herself go in boldly. She was no mystery to me: Helena. I called her; she never heard me; I rushed after her.

  Indoors was pandemonium. Helena could be determined, but she hated noisy crowds. She had stopped, nervous. I fought my way to her, breaking into my best grin.

  “You wicked piece! Is this how you spend your evenings? I never had you for a barfly-‘

  “It’s you! Thank goodness.” I do like grateful women. “Marcus, we have to find Hyspale —’

  “Maia told me.” Helena was covering her ears against the din. I saved my breath.

  There seemed no chance of acquiring a table, then a group of Italian diggers decided they would leap up and knock hell out of some Britons. The management had organised a party of big Gauls to keep the peace; they were of course eager for a ruckus, so all three lots went outside in good order and held their fight there. Impressed, I manoeuvred Helena to a free space, just beating a friendly set of Spanish hearties. They tried chatting to my girl on principle, but took the hint when I lifted up her hand and pointed to a silver ring I had given her.

  “My daughter,” Helena explained, miming heavily that she had a baby, ‘is called Laeitana.” This went down well. They had no idea what she was saying; they were from the south. Baeticans don’t give an as for Tarraconensis. That my child had been named for a wine producing area near Barcino in the north had no effect. But Helena had made an effort and they made us share their flagon. Helena noticed I looked flushed. I blamed my tooth.

  Drink was being sold at a furious rate, though there was no sign of imminent dancing. I climbed on a bench and looked over heads; I saw nobody I recognised.

  “Where are my brothers and Larius?”

  “Who knows? I found Gloccus.”

  “What?”

  “Later!”

  “Pardon?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  There were so many men crammed in, it was hard to see what this bar looked like. I could tell how it smelt, and that we’d be lucky if the animal fat in the lamps failed to set the joint ablaze. If Noviomagus Regnensis lacked street lighting, there was no chance they had organised a patrol of firefighters. Once, when I was an efficient operator full of good sense and energy, I might have wandered through the back kitchens to locate a well and buckets in advance… No. Not tonight, after a death and several drinks.

  A plate of grilled meat snacks passed itself to our table. It sat there a while. No one seemed to own it, so I tucked in. I could not remember my last meal.

  The crowd heaved and reordered itself into new configurations. Through the press I glimpsed the Camillus brothers, squashed and red-faced. Helena waved. They started the long process of inching over to us, but gave up. I mouthed at them, Where’s Larius?” and they signalled back, Virginia? Then somewhere in the thick of the drinkers at the far end of the room a stillness fell. Excitement was transmitted through the hubbub, bringing silence. Eventually new sounds became audible through that silence: a shimmer of a tambourine, shaken with infinite restraint, and the faintest ripple of snare drum. Someone shouted to the people at the front to sit. Helena saw men climbing on a table near us. She flashed a glance at me. One minute we were both on our feet, the next standing up on the narrow bench.

  That was how we stayed, clinging to each other for balance. That was how, in that dirty, noisy, disreputable hovel by a gatehouse in a half-built town, we were taken halfway to Olympus the night we saw Perella dance.

  LVIII

  all the best performers are no longer young. Only those with experience of life, of joy and grief, can wring the heart. They have to know what they are promising. They have to see what you have lost and what you yearn for. How much you need consoling, what your soul seeks to conceal. A great mature male actor shows that although the girls scream after the ingenues, they are nothing yet. A great female dancer, in her prime, encapsulates humanity. Her sexual power attracts all the more because in popular thought only young girls with perfect limbs and pretty features are exciting; to prove that nonsense is a thrill for both men and women. Hope lives.

  Perella revealed almost nothing physically. Her dress seemed entirely modest. Her severe hairstyle emphasised the bones of her pale face. She wore no jewellery-no tacky anklets, no twinkling metal disks sewn in her garments. When she entered that dire den, her casual poise almost insulted the audience. They thrived on it. Her matter-of fact floating walk asked no favours. Only the respect with which her musicians waited for
her gave a hint. They knew her quality. She let them play first. A double flute, eerie with melancholia; a drum; a tambourine; a small harp in the pudgy, be ringed hands of an incongruously fat harpist. No cliched castanets. She played no instrument herself.

  At what point in her past history she had been taken up to dally with spies, I dared not contemplate. They must have approached her because she was so good. She would be able to venture anywhere. She had neither fear nor grand airs; she was dancing here as honestly as she must ever do. The only fault for her palace employers would be that she was so good, she would always attract attention.

  She began. The musicians watched and responded to her; she tempered her movements perfectly to their tunes. They loved that. Their enjoyment fuelled the excitement. Perella danced at first with such restraint of motion it seemed nearly derisive. Then each fine angle of her outstretched arms and each slight turn of the neck became a perfect gesture. When she burst forth abruptly into frantic drumming of her feet, whirling and darting in the confined spaces available, gasps turned to stricken silence. Men tried to fall back to give her room. She came and went, within the free area, flattering each group with their moment of attention. The music raced. It was clear now that Perella was in fact clad alluringly we could glimpse white leather trunks and breast-band under sheer veils of Coan silk. What she did with her supple body was more vital than the body itself. What she said through her dance and the authority with which she said it-mattered most.

  She came nearer. The entranced crowd parted for her. The smiling musicians slipped to their feet lightly, tracing her progress through the room so they neither lost sight of her nor left her insecure and unattended. Her hair came loose, a deliberate part of the act no doubt, so she swirled it free with a deep toss of her head. This was no slim and devious New Carthage beauty with a tumbling sheen of oiled, inky locks, but a mature woman. She might be a grandmother. She was aware of her maturity and challenging us to notice too. She was the queen of the room because she had lived more than most of us. If her joints creaked, nobody would know it. And unlike the crude offers purveyed by younger artists, Perella was giving us because she had nothing else to give the erotic, ecstatic, uplifting, imaginative glory of hope and possibility.

  The musicians strove to a high climax, their instruments at breaking point. Perella twirled to an exhausted halt, right in front of me. Applause burst all around us. A hubbub rose; men called feverishly for drink to help them forget they had been overcome. Congratulatory grins surrounded the dancer, though she was left alone respectfully.

  She saw who I was. Perhaps she had stopped here deliberately. “Falco!”

  Helena teetered dangerously on the bench edge; I could not leap down and seize the dancer, I had to hold on to Helena. A Roman does not allow the well-bred mother of his children to tumble face first on a disgusting tavern floor. Helena probably relied on that; she kept me with her on purpose. “Perella.”

  “I have a message for your sister,” she said.

  “Don’t try anything! Following my sister is a mistake, Perella ‘

  “I’m not after your sister.”

  “I saw you at her house-‘

  “Anacrites sent me there. He realised he went too far. He sent me to apologise.”

  “Apologise!”

  “A stupid move,” she admitted. “That was him, not me.” That was him dead then, I thought.

  “And what are you doing here?” I demanded accusingly.

  “Earning my fare home. You know the bureau: mean with expenses.”

  “You’re still following my sister.”

  “I don’t give two sleeve-pins for your bloody sister-‘

  A draft hit us. The noise dimmed for a moment as men sank their noses into beakers thirstily. The crowd in the outer door had moved to allow somebody admittance. It was someone whose manner always made men move aside for her. My sister walked in.

  A woman screamed.

  Helena was off that bench like a centipede fleeing the spade edge. Fighting through the press, she came to the curtained anteroom. It looked dark but we could see flailing limbs. A foul hole in which to deflower a fool.

  Helena reached the couple first. She had slipped between the drinkers where my wider shoulders jammed. While I was discouraging those whose beakers I had jogged, Helena Justina broke in on Blandus as he attempted to rape the screaming Hyspale. I saw Helena tear down the hide curtain, heard her yell at him. I called out. Somewhere behind me, I was aware of her brothers shouting. Other men turned to watch the scene, impeding me more. As I battled on, Helena took hold of the inevitable amphora used to imply fancy decor; she heaved it up, swung it and crashed it down on Blandus.

  He was tough. Now he was furious too. He threw himself off Hyspale and turned on Helena. He had grabbed her by the arms. I was desperate. Helena Justina was brought up to wear white, think clean thoughts, encounter nothing more exciting that a little light poetry read to her in a nice accent. Since she came to me I had taught her good sense on the streets and where to kick intruders so it hurt but she was no match for Blandus. Raging, publicly thwarted, still aroused, he went for her. She struggled. I struggled to reach them. Someone else got there ahead of me.

  Perella.

  I’ll have no rape at my events!” she cried to Blandus. “It gives me a bad name.” I choked quietly.

  He was lucky. She did not knife him. Instead, she high-kicked one powerful dancer’s foot in a fine arc straight to his privates. When he doubled up, she grabbed him, twirled him around bodily and showed him just how bendable his neck could be. Her strong hands reached down and did something horrible, once more to his nether regions. She thumped his ears, pulled his nose and finally sent him flying into the barroom. Blandus had suffered enough, but he landed in a space right beside the mosaicist, Philocles Junior. Now that was bad luck. Philocles had reached the point in his evening where he was ready to revive old family feuds…

  “Juno, I’m getting too old for all this,” Perella gasped.

  “Not as old as your caseload,” I taunted. “Marcellinus was crooked, but long out of it. There was a time an emperor might well have had him removed quietly. It would have saved money and curbed his corrupt influence on the King but that was another world, Perella. Other emperors, with different priorities. So is Anacrites still following up correspondence that’s ten years out of date? Pointless, Perella!”

  “I just do what I’m ordered.” Perella did look sick. For a skilled operator to be despatched on stupid missions by an inefficient clown like Anacrites must hurt.

  Helena was rescuing our nursemaid. As Hyspale sobbed hysterically, I flung my arms around Helena. She was too busy to need it, but I had not recovered from seeing her in Blandus’ clutches.

  A glimmer of silk slid by. I looked up and saw Perella had sashayed through the bar. She came face to face with Maia. She said something. Maia obviously scoffed at it.

  A violent flurry indicated new trouble. Verovolcus and his search party had worked their way to the Nemesis. Perella looked quickly at me. Instinctively I jerked my head. She needed no second warning. She was off through the crowd, who let her pass with gruff courtesy; then they closed in excitedly, hoping she would dance another set. Verovolcus had missed his chance. By the time he realised, Perella was hidden from view.

  I would be livid tomorrow that I let her escape. Tough.

  LIX

  maia forged her way to us. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Where are my children?” asked Helena.

  “Safe, of course. Fast asleep here, in beds in the Procurator’s house.” Maia was storming up to Hyspale. “Did he succeed?” she demanded of Helena.

  “Not quite.”

  “Stop bawling, then,” Maia rebuked Hyspale. She tweaked the red dress Hyspale was wearing. “It was your own fault. You have been stupid. Worse, you’ve been stupid wearing my best dress which, believe me, you’re going to regret. You can take that off. You will take it off this minute and walk hom
e in your under-tunic.”

  Women can be so vindictive.

  I kept out of it. If terror of Blandus failed to educate Hyspale, maybe embarrassment would.

  In the main room, the men realised that Perella had left them. Uproar ensued. Verovolcus and some of the King’s retainers had found a man I recognised as Lupus. They were punishing him for his feud with the disgraced Mandumerus. His own men, to whom he had sold jobs so dearly, watched in cynical silence. No one offered help. Once he was pummelled into pulp, Verovolcus and the others disappeared through the back exit, clearly not searching for the lavatory. They never came back, so they must have galloped off. Others in the bar decided to vent their frustration on anyone available. Deprived of the dancer for entertainment, the different groups of site workers chose to thrash each other. We cowered in our nook as fists thumped cheekbones. Men were on the floor; others jumped on their backs punching furiously. Some tried rescuing those who were down; they were attacked by the men they thought they were helping. Flagons went flying across the room. Beer was upended on the floor. Tables overturned.

  The trouble spilled out onto the street. That made space for more complex wrestling. We sat quiet and let it pass. I felt rough. I was cradling my cheek where my tooth now hurt so much I had to deal with it in the next few hours or I would die of blood poisoning.

  On the far side of the barroom, I could see the Camillus brothers. They had opted out of the fight and were seated aloof at a table like minor deities, munching food and commentating. Aelianus held his wounded leg out stiffly. Justinus lifted up a dish to me, offering to share their victuals; refusing, I mimed dental anguish. The Camilli had been talking to a man at the next table; Justinus pointed to him with one finger, showing his own fangs. They had found the local tooth puller. Deafened, harassed by the turmoil around me and in pain, I just wanted to die quietly.

  Suddenly the row diminished. As quickly as they had flared up, all the fights finished. Someone must have brought news of a good torch singer at yet another bar. Next minute our den was empty. The landlord was clearing broken pots. A few stragglers had their heads down on tables looking ill, but something like peace descended. My womenfolk were gathering themselves to take us home. I could see the Camilli negotiating terms for late-night dentistry.