Meanwhile, for more manageable shipping that ventured straight to land there were still problems. As it finally reached the coast, the Tiber divided into two channels, both nowadays too choked with silt for ships of any size. Portus had been designed to relieve the problem, and to some extent it did. Many trading vessels now docked in the Portus basin. The muddy Tiber channels were still busy with traffic, especially the four different ferry services, all run by dour, toothless men whose families predated Romulus, who charged separate fares for locals and for visitors, and who could diddle your change in all known foreign currencies. I braved the ferry, then hitched a lift in a vegetable cart across the Island, a flat area of market gardens with rich soil through which a busy road now ran. I had been here several times over the years, usually making Portus my starting point for overseas missions.
Each time I had found more and more building work, as thewarehouses expanded and people chose to build new homes out here where they worked.
The new harbour was heavy-duty imperial magnificence. Encircling walls surrounded the great basin, forming two moles which thrust out to sea. On their far ends stood temples and statues, and between them lay a man-made island. This was famously formed by the sunken ship that had once brought from Egypt that enormous obelisk which now graced the central divide of Nero's Circus in Rome.
The delivery ship had been scuppered in deep water, while laden with ballast, and on to this base was planted a four-storey lighthouse, topped by a colossal statue of a monumental nude; to me it looked like an emperor, only lightly draped for modesty. Below him, shipping sailed in through the north passage and out through the south, with sailors and passengers staring up at the imperial never-you minds and thinking ooh, what a dramatic sight. The giant Julio-Claudian goolies were even more dramatic when under-lit by the pharos at night. The harbour itself was crammed with every kind of vessel, right down to summer visitors from the Misenum Fleet. On a famous occasion, the flagship had called in, the gaudy hexeris called the Ops.
Today I saw a line of three deserted triremes which were clearly military, in among the oceangoing traders. Tugs, each with sets of chubby oars and a sturdy towing mast, slowly shunted around large vessels as moorings needed to be rearranged. Bumboats skidded over the water like fleas, amidst shouts of abuse or greeting. Skiffs pottered aimlessly in the hands of those inevitable old harbour bores who hang about wearing seafaring caps and trying to cadge drinks off people like me. From time to time large vessels silently entered or left the harbour beneath the shadow of the lighthouse, then there would be flurries of interest among the cranes and offices on the moles.
I could not count the forest of masts and towering beaked prows, but there must be sixty or seventy sizeable ships tied up inside the harbour, plus a few strays anchored offshore and various vessels plying up and down at sea. I had travelled the world, but seen nowhere like this. Ostia was the hub of the widest trade market ever known. The Republic had been an era of modest prosperity which ended in civil war and hardship; the emperors, who were backed by legendary financiers and flush with spoils, soon taught us sumptuous spending.
Rome now gorged itself on produce. Marbles and fine timbers were bought in endless quantities from every corner of the Empire. Artwork and glassware, ivory, minerals, jewels and oriental pearls poured into our city. Fabulous spices, roots and balsams were brought in by the shipload. Brave men imported oysters from the northern waters, carried alive in barrels of murky salt water. Amphorae laden with salt fish, pickles and olives jostled for notice among thousand upon thousand of other amphorae brimming with olive oil. Dusky traders coaxed elephants down gangplanks, among cages of furious lions and panthers. Whole libraries of scrolls were delivered for great men who were too busy to read them, along with refined librarians and papyrus menders. Cloths and exorbitant dyes arrived. Slave dealers brought their human traffic. Some of these commodities were re-exported to enlighten distant provinces.
Goods created in Rome were sent abroad by smart entrepreneurs. Italian wines and sauces were dispatched to the army, to overseas administrators, to provincials in need of educating in what Romans valued. Tools, household goods, turnips, meats, potted plants, cats and rabbits went out in mixed cargoes of lawyers and legionaries to places that had once lacked all of them, places that would one day be exporting their local versions back to us.
When they did, a treat awaited. Gaius Baebius would be here. They would find him lying in wait on the quay at Portus, seated behind his customs table with his soft smile and his maddening attitude, ready to give them their first long, slow, unbearable experience of a Roman clerk. Only if they were very, very lucky would I turn up to drag him away.
'Come and have a drink, Gaius.'
'Steady on, Marcus; I have to be at my post.'
'You're the supervisor. Give your staff an opportunity to make mistakes. How can you put them right otherwise? This is for their own good
The underlings gazed at me with mixed feelings. A small queue of traders let out an ironic cheer. Oh Hades. Junia had made Gaius have Ajax for the afternoon. When I pulled him from his seat behind the tablets and money caskets, the dreadful dog came too. An uncontrollable tail knocked over two inkwells, as Gaius lifted off his wide-beamed backside and stood up reluctantly from his stool. That enormous wet tongue caught the back of my knees as the loopy creature bumbled after us. Every time we passed a porter with a handcart, Ajax had to bark.
'Leaving the desk is bad practice, Marcus.'
'Have a breather. Enjoy bumming off for once, like everyone else.'
'Ajax! Drop it! Good boy…' Portus was Elysium for an excitable dog. The harbour walkways were stuffed with bollards to pee against, sacks to jump on, amphorae to lick, cranes to wind a lead around. Short men who looked suspicious lurked everywhere, begging to be harassed with growls and bared teeth. There were wild smells, sudden loud noises, and unseen vermin scuttling in dark corners.
Eventually the dog found a bit of ragged rope to carry, then he calmed down.
'He needs discipline, Gaius. My Nux would be walking sedately at my side now.' Gaius Baebius was annoying, but not daft.
'If that's true, you must have got a new dog since I saw you last, Falco.' He sidetracked himself, wondering when our last meeting had been. Saturnalia, apparently. Julia had broken one of her deaf cousin's toys, and Favonia gave the dear little boy a nasty cold.
'Well, that was children,' I said callously, dragging the brother-in-law to the counter of a streetside foodshop. I ordered. I didn't bother upsetting myself by waiting for Gaius Baebius to play the host; we would have ended up being asked to leave the counter to make way for paying customers. I asked for a small dish of nuts and a spiced wine. Gaius Baebius held a lengthy debate about whether he wanted the lentil mash or something they called the pulse of the day, which looked like pork chunks to me. Gaius, unconvinced, expressed his uncertainty at great length, failing to interest anybody else in his dilemma.
I had tried solving problems for him in the past. I had no wish to end up dribbling with delirium again, so I just ate my nuts. Meat stews were banned in fast-food outlets, in case enjoying a decent meal incited people to relax their guard and express disapproval of the government. No food-seller was going to admit to Gaius Baebius that he was flouting the edict; every word Gaius uttered gave the impression of an inspector sent by some unpleasant aedile to check on infringements of the Emperor's hotpot regulations.
Eventually he decided on a bowl of nuts too. The proprietor gave us both a filthy glare and banged it down, only half full, at which Gaius cavilled stubbornly for a while. Dark plans for murdering him seeped into my brain. One customer edged away from us, declined a refill and fled. The other walked aside in a huff, and lapped up his potage while leaning on a bollard and shouting insults at seagulls. Ajax joined in, barking so loudly that heads popped out of the nearby grain and spice negotiators' offices, while the bouncer at the Damson Flower Boarding-House [which looked like a brothel] came outside to gla
re.
Ajax had been imbued with my sister's stiff morals. He hated the brothel bouncer; hurling into attack mode, he dragged at his lead until it pulled so tight he was frothing and half choked. Oblivious, Gaius Baebius fixed me, wagging his finger.
'Now come on, Marcus, stop holding up the issue. You want to ask me about that fellow called Damagoras. So why can't you get on with it?'
It took me some time to stop choking on my wine, then a few more moments of reflection on why it would be unwise to throttle Gaius Baebius. [Junia would turn me in.] Then I solemnly asked the crucial question, so Gaius Baebius gravely told me what he knew. I thought he told me everything. Later, I knew better. My brother-in-law mentioned a large maritime villa somewhere out of town. Holiday homes owned by wealthy grandees and the imperial family had long occupied the stretch of coast near Ostia. There was an attractive mix of forests full of huntable game and an ocean panorama; holidays could provide exercise and relaxation, and when they palled, Rome was only a few hours distant. That property lover, Augustus, had owned a spread which passed to Claudius, who kept elephants in the grounds. A nosy tourist, Gaius Baebius had once taken a trip to gape at these places, which were mainly deserted nowadays; a local had pointed out one great house that was actually occupied, where a man called Damagoras lived.
'I remember this, Marcus, because of the rather unusual name; it seemed to have a foreign ring.'
'So give me directions to the incomer's villa, Gaius.'
'You'll never find it. I'll have to take you there.'
'I wouldn't hear of it.'
'Oh it's no trouble,' declared Gaius [implying it was enormous trouble, so that I would feel guilty.] 'As you said so wisely, Marcus, my work can wait. They very much rely on me, but I should take time off occasionally.'
I was stuck. My dead-weight relation was now looking forward to a leisurely seaside day out. There was no alternative. I had no other clues to the whereabouts of Diocles. The mysterious Damagoras was my sole lead.
XIII
Once I prised him from his desk, Gaius decided to make the most of it. He suggested we take picnics, sunhats and our families. I said that would look unprofessional. Respecting the work concept, he agreed even though he had always thought my sphere of activity had all the glamour of the mighty mound of horse manure outside the Circus Maximus. I managed to persuade him we still had enough daylight to hire donkeys, visit the villa, and be back before dinner. We could make up a bathing party some other day…
Time was with us when we started. We left through the Laurentine Gate, riding fast through the enormous necropolis that lay outside town. Farms and orchards covered the plain, then when we hit the Via Severina, the main road to Laurentum, there were fancy villas every half a mile. After Gaius had lost himself down several wrong turnings, we were pushing it for time.
Off-duty fishermen had stared at us in a tiny seashore village when he took us off the main road. Returning to it, we had ridden through miles of light woodland. Gaius rejected numerous villas built for people with too little leisure time and far too much money.
The Laurentine coastline south of Ostia isa continuous ribbon of guarded homes set in elegant playgrounds and we had ridden past many of them.
The sun had mellowed and shadows were long when we took one final lumpy track off the high road, headed gloomily towards the sea, and turned up at the place we wanted, a large fenced property which by chance had no one at the gate. The gate was closed. We tethered our donkeys out of sight and climbed it.
I wanted to go exploring by myself, but nobody went on a solo foray when they were out with Gaius Baebius. He had no idea of diplomacy, and no intention of covering the rear. We walked up the entrance drive, keeping our ears peeled. If the owner of this place was the usual rich enthusiast with a menagerie that roamed loose, we were sitting targets.
Our boots sank into warm sandy soil on a soft track, where the coastal air was richly scented with pine needles. Cicadas whirred in the great trees all around us. Otherwise there was silence, except for the distant whisper of the waves, breaking in long low combers on the so-far hidden shore.
The villa we reached was built so close to the sea that it must often be uncomfortable to unfold the panoramic doors on its various dining rooms, lest the sea view came in a little too close and spray reached the serving tables, tainting the rich contents of the silver dishes and tarnishing their heavy decoration. Sea breezes would waken sleepers in the lavish guest bedrooms.
The salty air was already drying my skin. It must cause horticultural problems in the kitchen gardens beside the bath house, the trellised arbours covered with tough vines and ornamentals, and the wide, formally planted parterre where we ended up. There the paths had been gravelled, but sand constantly blew over them, and some of the box edgings had suffered from too harsh a climate. Nonetheless, a dogged gardener had produced a green area where he let his imagination run riot on topiary.
The estate did boast wild beasts, a half-size elephant raising his trunk [which had to be on wires] and a matched pair of lions, all clipped out of bushes. So proud was the topiarist of his careful handiwork that he had signed his name in box trees. He was called Labo. Or Libo. Or Lubo. LBO stood neatly at the end of the garden.
But the topiarist was unlucky. The villa's owner had wanted to see his own name in box trees. The missing vowel had just been beaten down to a stump by a furious man who now seized the topiarist by his hair. As Gaius and I arrived, he was about to cut off the screaming Lbo's head with his clipping shears.
XIV
Nobody had seen us. We could still scram out of the way.
'Excuse me!' Gaius shot forwards, a righteous clerk at full pelt with his chin up stubbornly. He was interfering dangerously and I should have abandoned him. The shears may never have been sharp enough to decapitate the gardener, but they had drawn blood.
The furious man was gripping the blades together one-handed, digging them into the neck of the topiarist as if he was tackling a stout branch. He was strong and handy. Pompous and plump, Gaius Baebius shook his finger like a feeble schoolteacher.
'Now I suggest that you stop right there.' Judging by the furious man's expression, we were next for having our fronds lopped. Gaius carried on calmly, 'I'm all for chastising errant slaves, but there are limits.'
The man with the shears hurled the gardener to the ground, where he lay gurgling as he clutched his throat. Killing your slave is legal – though unless you catch him screwing your wife, it is generally frowned on.
The attacker stamped on the topiarist and marched towards us. He was not Roman. His clothing was rich and colourful, beneath a patina of careless grime; lank hair tumbled down to his shoulders; gold glinted at his throat. Most knuckles on the hand that gripped the long bladed shears were armoured with gemstone rings. He had dark skin, weathered in some open-air occupation; from his manners, he had reached the top of his career by trampling on subordinates and bludgeoning rivals. Whatever that career entailed, I did not think he earned his living by delicate silk-thread embroidery. I tried to defuse the tension.
'Your fellow looks in need of help,' I called, still at a distance and keen to stay there.
'He may never clip a spiral again… Pity. His work is a fine standard…' It was debatable whether this man could understand Latin, but he clearly disagreed. I expected trouble, though not what happened. He threw the shears straight at me.
The tool came flying at neck height. If he had targeted Gaius, Gaius would be dead.
As I swerved aside, my brother-in-law shrieked.
'Hey, this is Didius Falco! You don't want to mess with him!'
That was a challenge, one I myself would not have issued. I feared that our attacker had very sharp knives tucked into every fold of his richly layered tunics and cummerbunds, but that he could kill an enemy with his bare hands anyway. Now he was going to kill me.
Experienced in conflict, I made a quick decision. 'Gaius, run like mad!' We both took off. The furious man
roared. He pounded after us. So did the gardener, now staggering to his feet to join in. As we reached the end of a hedge, several other men appeared.
We ran past a detached sun lounge and guest suite. We reached the limits of the grounds. We hit the beach. The sand was dry powder, hopeless for running. Gaius Baebius carried too much weight so he was floundering; I grabbed his arm to haul him along faster, and as I glimpsed his flushed face I saw that this was the most exciting thing to have happened to my staid brother-in-law since Junia broke her toe on an empty amphora. To me, it felt like disaster. We were unarmed, way out in the country where they make their own rules about strangers, a long way from our donkeys, and heading in the wrong direction. Our pursuers caught up with us five yards across the beach.
Some slaves overpowered us first. I ordered Gaius not to fight. Quickly I owned up to trespassing at the villa, and appealed to good sense. I had just had time to introduce myself when the furious man strolled up, glaring. On his side the courtesies were basic. I was thumped. Gaius Baebius suffered the fate of the foolish. He was thumped, knocked to the ground and given a kicking. Then he made the mistake of scolding the topiarist for ingratitude, and got kicked some more. By the topiarist, this time.
We were dragged back to the main villa and pushed somewhere, headlong. When our eyes grew accustomed to the dim light filtering through an air vent above the doorway, we knew we were locked up in a small empty store room. For a while I did not want to talk. Gaius Baebius shrank into himself; temporarily, he too stayed silent. I knew he would be feeling sore, hungry and terrified. I was in for a lot of complaints, none of which would help. I did think that if they intended to kill us, they would have done so. But there were plenty of other horrible things that could yet happen.
Although Helena Justina knew vaguely where we were going, it would be some time before she realised we must be in trouble. Then we would have to wait for her to alert Petronius Longus, and for him to find us. It would soon be too dark for him to search. Given our captor's brutality, an overnight stay as his prisoner did not appeal. I wondered if this was what had happened to Diocles. If so, he might still be here. But somehow, I felt it more likely the scribe was long gone.
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