Scandal Takes a Holiday mdf-16

by Lindsey Davis

  Yes, I did. But thinking back to what he said, he was uneasy, 'Rusticus was fazed himself and didn't know why he had said no to the scribe. Diocles was a puzzle, not a phenomenon he recognised.'

  'Doesn't sound as though Rusticus suspected he was an arsonist. You still think Diocles was up to something?'

  'Yes, love. But it may have been nothing to do with his aunt.' Helena was silent for a moment.

  Then she said, 'His aunt was on his mind, Marcus. When Diocles told Holconius and Mutatus he was coming to Ostia, he said he would be staying with her.'

  'True. Maybe subconsciously he forgot her death. Maybe his mind played a trick on him.' Now Helena and I were both worried that Diocles might have come here and had a breakdown.

  'Talking of breakdowns,' Helena said, smiling and changing the subject as she tried to cheer me up a little. 'I had a surprise today,- I met your uncle!' I raised an eyebrow, sensing what would come next.

  'That's right, Marcus. The one nobody ever talks about.'

  XXVIII

  It was a quarter of a century since I had seen Uncle Fulvius. He did have a name; it was just damned to the memory. Had Ma's family been able to commission statues, his would have been broken up and re-used by Fabius and Junius to build a pig sty. I was curious to know how he had weathered.

  'We hardly exchanged more than a few words,' said Helena. 'He wanted your mother; I told him Junilla Tacita was staying with Maia now, as they have more room than us, and I gave him directions.' In the act of re-pinning an enamelled shoulder brooch, she paused for a moment. 'Mind you, I did gain the impression he was slightly odd.'

  'In what way?' I asked, grinning. Helena merely shrugged, unsure. 'I just felt happier when he left.' Albia looked up from the floor, where she was playing with the children.

  'What has your uncle done, Marcus Didius?' I suspected I had been too young to be told the full story. I supplied the safe part.

  'He ran away to Pessinus, but he got on the wrong boat.'

  'And now he has come back? That took him over twenty years?' exclaimed Helena, amazed. 'Surely when his brothers are restless, they just disappear for a couple of seasons and then come sidling home?'

  'Fabius and Junius are normal, compared to him. My uncles quarrel with each other,' I explained to Albia. 'Fabius thinks Junius cheated him over his share of the farm when my grandfather died; Junius is certain that Fabius will ruin everything through his unwise friendship with a neighbour's wife; Junius got depressed when the walnut harvest failed and he hates his brother's plans for intensive chicken-rearing, he is a filthy-tempered rat's tail anyway. Fabius knows he could be something big in the world if he could just find the right medium for his so-far-undetermined talents. Junius is looking for love, specifically; he thought he had found it but he had to go to market with the eggs because it was his turn that week, there are a lot of eggs because Fabius really has cracked it with his chickens in baskets, and the girl left town.' I ran out of breath.

  'Auntie Phoebe told me the girl Junius wants is engaged to a sewer contractor anyway,' Helena put in.

  'Great-Auntie Phoebe, my grandfather's freedwoman, keeps the farm together while the brothers are messing about. She stanches the blood when they attempt suicide. She keeps them apart with a pitchfork when they try to kill each other.'

  'I see!' Raising her finely feathered eyebrows, Albia went back to playing with my daughters.

  I took Helena to Maia's house, hoping Uncle Fulvius might still be there. Since he was the elusive one, Fulvius had been and gone. Instead, I ran into Gaius Baebius. Junia was trying to persuade Ma to take the invalid back to Rome in her cart. Ma very crisply disabused Junia. She seemed low in spirits; whatever she wanted from Fulvius, he must have been difficult about it. Now that she had talked to her brother, Ma was returning home to the Aventine, but there was no chance she would share the journey with my sister and her whining husband. Ma thought one benefit of being elderly was that she no longer had to be polite about Gaius Baebius. This presupposed she had ever been polite in the first place.

  'Ah, Marcus!' Rebuffed by Ma, Gaius latched on to me. 'I am thinking I shall go out to the Damagoras villa and place a formal complaint about the way we were treated. I shall never be the same man again-' An amateurish cough confirmed it. Junia rounded on me too.

  'You will have to go with him! I cannot put myself in danger among a group of violent pirates, and Gaius is no longer fit to drive.' I saw my mother pin her sceptical gaze on Gaius. Wickedly, I heard myself promising to go to remonstrate. I had a fair idea what Damagoras and Cratidas would say if asked for money. I had no intention of antagonising them, but thought I might have another look at the Cilicians for my own purposes.

  'You ought to have a strong word with Uncle Fulvius too,' Junia instructed me. 'You are the head of the family.'

  Since my grandfather died, that ought to be Fulvius himself, but he declined the duties. From what I knew, he would sell off the busts of our ancestors [had we owned any.] 'Here's poor Mother trying to mediate and bring him back into the family, but he just refused to have anything to do with us. He upset Mother very badly.'

  'I am not upset,' lied Ma. She liked to choose for herself when to play helpless.

  'Do Fabius and Junius really want him back?' I queried.

  'Fulvius is the clever one,' Ma retorted as if the farm needed someone with intelligence. It was true, but I saw that as the very reason why his brothers might be happier if Fulvius stayed in exile.

  'So what is he doing, Ma, and why has he come to Ostia?'

  'He never said.'

  'What, and you failed to screw it out of him?' My mother must be holding back. Obviously Uncle Fulvius had found yet another wild career that would cause us huge embarrassment.

  Ma read my mind. So she quickly muttered, 'He told me he had taken up shark-fishing.' She had a way of making a declaration so you were never intended to believe it to be true. I was none too sure how old my mother was, but Uncle Fulvius was known to be ten years her senior, a bit geriatric to wrestle with deep sea man-eaters.

  It was typical of my family. Their craziness rarely led to real harm, but they never knew what was appropriate. I could have sat back and seen them only as good entertainment, – but nowadays members of the family were always pressuring me to reform other relatives, under that deathly edict, 'You are the head of the family.' Informers who play up their feckless side avoid this. I looked back to my irresponsible days with sudden fondness.

  Once again next day I hired a donkey and rode out along the coast. The gate to the so-called pirate's villa had a guard this time, but he let me in without trouble.

  As I rode down the sandy path, I passed a man leaving. He was going at a crazy pace, feet-out on a small mule like desert tribesmen in Syria, who liked to race off from oases in this madcap way. Because of the dust cloud, the rider had a long scarf wrapped around his face, but as I coughed in his wake I glimpsed a coat-shaped robe of Parthian cut, a balding dome, and eyes that looked sideways at me curiously.

  Damagoras received me. Perhaps his claim was true that he never left home, so he welcomed visitors. Little bronze cups on a matching tray were being removed by a woman in beaded slippers after his previous caller. No replenishments appeared for me. As I expected, Damagoras crushed any suggestion that my brother in-law deserved help with his medical bills and recompense for his time off work. We quickly abandoned that conversation. I pressed him again on the subject of Diocles, but that too hit a dead end.

  Then I mentioned the kidnaps. The old rogue became a little more attentive, but I could see he reckoned I had very few leads.

  'So what makes you link this to the Cilician community, Falco?' He was right. none of the victims had mentioned any provincial nationality, apart from 'the Illyrian.' I left Illyria out of it. When there is a viable bunch of suspects, why complicate matters?

  'I am making a direct connection between Diocles' interest in the kidnaps and his visits to you.' Damagoras gave me his honest-fe
llow laugh.

  'We never talked about kidnaps. What interest in kidnaps was Diocles supposed to have had?' I noticed the past tense. Perhaps Damagoras knew what had happened to the missing man.

  'The longer he is missing, the more closely all his interests will come under scrutiny,' I warned.

  'This is bad, Falco! Trying to frighten an old man who has done nothing wrong.'

  'You don't scare that easily. But don't let's quarrel about it, or not yet! Now I'd like you to give me a contact address, please, for your pugilistic crony Cratidas.' Damagoras went vague on me. 'Better to let me discuss what that angry swine did to my brother-in-law, Damagoras, than for Cratidas to find his name is on a surveillance-of-aliens list, being monitored by the vigiles.'

  I was a Roman, so Damagoras took the threat as real. Coming to the notice of officials is the last thing a provincial in temporary residence ever wants. Any seafarer has quite enough to do, dodging import taxes and protection rackets, and haggling with the negotiators who try to dun him out of all his profits in an unfriendly market. To be marked for constant investigation and harassment is deadly. Unable to risk it, the old man reluctantly told me a bar where Cratidas could be found in Ostia. I noted the name.

  'And would you happen to know an adventurer called Theopompus?'

  'A common name among sailors,' he said. 'What has this Theopompus done? Is he one of your kidnappers?'

  I felt I had made a mistake. At least I had not mentioned the girl, Rhodope. There was no particular menace in the so-called pirate's tone, but if he knew anything about the ransom racket, I had just fingered a gang member who must have broken the anonymity code. Word of this stupidity by Theopompus would get back. Mind you, if the young girl's seducer was thrashed as a result, I had no qualms.

  'I suppose one of the female victims says she slept with him?' Damagoras read my thoughts as cunningly as my mother. 'Falco, I'll tell you, the woman will be lying. It was always a rule with the old pirates never to touch their guests.' Calling them guests' was a glossy euphemism. And of course he was still pretending piracy had died out.

  'The whole point was to convince friends and relatives to pay up, knowing that they could be sure the…'

  'Victim,' I supplied, as he paused. Damagoras smiled, but still left the word unsaid. 'Would be returned to them, alive and unharmed.'

  'Women,' I commented. 'Always tricky commodities.'

  'They lie,' he said, again baldly. 'They want to believe they have had a romantic love affair. It was well known, Falco. Women were trouble. The experts at ransoming never took women, if men were available. That way, they avoided untidy consequences.'

  'All the victims here have been women. It is a very particular scam.'

  'Craziness,' said Damagoras.

  'Maybe it will end like the most famous kidnap of all.'

  'Who's that?' demanded Damagoras. He squinted at me keenly, just like a man who thought I had insulted his trade.

  'Julius Caesar. He promised his captors that as soon as he was ransomed he would come back and crucify them all. He was true to his word.'

  'A noble guest,' observed Damagoras.

  'A hard man, very tricky to do business with!' I had distracted him from the Rhodope angle. There seemed nothing to gain from him, so I left.

  XXIX

  Cratidas drank at a tavern called the Aquarius. I had a feeling he probably lived there. It was by the Gate of Fortune, which was close to the bank of the Tiber and fairly near to my apartment, so after I rode back, I diverted and found it. I was expecting a verminous hovel where day would be as black as night, and night unspeakable.

  However, the house with the name of the zodiac water-carrier was a large establishment with a pleasant exterior and several shady interior courtyards. It lacked a river view, but being set back from the bustle of the waterfront made it seem more gracious. Casual trade used the snackbar, standing up at streetside counters on two sides of a corner. The servery there was larger than most, well equipped with shelves of flagons and bowls.

  The odours from the sunken pots of food inset in the marble counters were less repellent than the low fast feeders in Rome; the bar-girl was neat and clean, and she said I was welcome to pass down a short corridor to the ground floor courtyard area. Here, tourists sat about on benches under pergolas, congratulating themselves on finding such a good hotel, right near the Portus ferries.

  A businessman who clearly knew the place of old passed through on his way to a room upstairs, led by a burly slave carrying luggage. He was something big in corn; we were in an area of grain measurers and associated government officers.

  In this slightly unlikely setting, I found Cratidas. He was talking to another man, probably subordinate to him in the Cilician hierarchy. They had seats at a table under a fig tree, where they had established themselves in a way that suggested this courtyard was their private office so the tourists had all better use the other spaces. The tourists had taken the point. Maybe they thought Cratidas owned the Aquarius. In fact, for all I knew, he did. Maybe, though, people avoided him because there was just something about Cratidas that told them he was dangerous. I had met worse bullies, certainly more obvious ones, but he carried himself with an air. He was coiled for action.

  Clearly, he was just looking for an excuse to take offence and he expected to win his fights. That would probably be because he fought dirty, but complaining about his methods would not be much help after he had sliced off your hand or blinded you. He had scars, including a long knife wound, which had healed years ago in a silvered crease, running from his eyebrow to his jaw. The end of one finger was missing. His companion looked fairly presentable until he laughed; then I saw he had very few teeth. Cratidas was still wearing the long crimson robe he had flaunted when he attacked Gaius and me at the villa; this one was in a dull greenish ensemble. It looked filthy, but the braid on the neck and the edges of the long sleeves included genuine gold thread. I recognised his balding crown and the long multicoloured scarves flung around his thick hairy neck. Nobody would mistake this pair for philosophy teachers. They were rough. Very rough.

  As I approached, I had heard harsh voices and abrupt, coarse laughter. That was before they noticed me. After that, their hostility hung between us as tangily as woodsmoke.

  'Nice base you have here! Remember me? I'm Falco.' Cratidas turned to his companion and said something in a foreign language. Evidently he did remember, and the recollection caused them both to grin nastily.

  'Sorry to interrupt,' I said. Is this a Greek symposium?'

  'Oh yes, we were discussing literature!' Cratidas replied. The pair laughed at some huge private joke. I raised an eyebrow coolly. The other man stood up. He was Eastern-looking, and when he swayed past me, looking sideways with a sneer, I definitely recognised him. I had last seen him riding away from the Damagoras villa at a cracking pace. Now he left us too, once more grinning at Cratidas as he went. I had been standing with my thumbs in my belt, but I now joined Cratidas. Spreading myself, as I took a bench opposite him at the table, I moved one end of it away from the table to make myself more room. I began discussing the disability he had inflicted on Gaius Baebius. I knew it would be a waste of time. Cratidas spat fiercely at the fig tree. After that, he slammed a dagger into the table. The point just missed my hand. I kept my hand motionless, not even flinching at the noise. He could decide for himself whether this was because I was stupid, or so stunned I couldn't move.

  'That's an old trick.' I made it dry and languorous. 'Did you mean to miss, or are you just incompetent?' Then, under the table, I jerked up one thigh to trap his knees against the boards so he had no leverage; I used my other foot to kick away the bench he was sitting on. He crashed down to the floor; it must have jarred his back. Of course he was up again instantly. I threw myself right over the table and grabbed him by his long hair. [Never have hair long enough to be grabbed by an assailant, as my trainer says.] When Cratidas lunged at me, I went with the motion, but swung him around and got him fa
ce down on the table with an arm up his back. I was pinning his head down with my body weight. His nose was so bent he must be finding it difficult to breathe.

  'Now listen!' He seemed helpless, but I was not intending to stay that close in case he wrenched free and took off some part of me.

  'I think that you and your sidekick in the dirty Parthian dressing-gown are part of a racket to kidnap merchants' wives. Probably Damagoras runs the racket. Other people are looking into it, so you can take your chance with them. I want to know, and I want to know now, Cratidas, what happened to the scribe, Diocles?'

  'I don't know!'

  'Oh I bet you do! Was he investigating your ransom scam?' He made another negative gurgle. I lifted him up partially and banged his face against the table. As a favour to Gaius Baebius, I bashed him down really hard. If Cratidas was impressed that I could match him in brutality, he didn't show it.

  'Where is he, Cratidas? What have you done with him?' I felt him tense for action. I was vulnerable, lying half on top of him, so I flew off him as he burst free.

  He spun around, teeth bared. We had fallen apart a couple of yards distant. He saw I had snatched his knife from the table. He was one blade down [though I reckoned he had others,] and he had yet to discover what weaponry I carried. He hauled up the bench he had previously fallen off. People were taking notice of us now, though. Cratidas probably wanted to continue his stay here so he needed to calm the situation, or the nice people who were sitting under the pergolas would huffily ask the affable tavern landlord to evict him. He swung the bench around, about the height of my head, but then placed it back down. The fight was apparently over, not that I trusted him.

  'I don't know,' he said, in that coarse voice with the rasping tone, 'what went on with the scribe. Damagoras toyed with him, but even he lost interest. You can find out where the man went or what he wanted for yourself, Falco!'

  'I will,' I said. 'And then I'll be back, Cratidas.' We omitted goodbyes.