'We won't be the only ones chasing Theopompus!' growled Pa.
'His comrades won't thank him for publicity.'
'You have tied the kidnaps to the Cilicians?' asked the other man of me.
'They have inadvertently let me identify a couple of their group.'
'Could be dangerous for you.'
'If my scribe turned up, I'd be out of here. The kidnappers have both the navy and the vigiles on their tail now. It can't be long to a showdown.'
'So then goodbye, Cilicians! If the navy and the vigiles are closing in, they may find your scribe for you. You might lose your fee.' Well, thanks for that!
'Favonius, I have to go…' The man had slipped away almost before we registered his polite self-extraction. He left behind a whiff of shaving unguent and, for me, a slightly cheated feeling. Nobody at the Emporium called my father Favonius. He was Geminus, his long-adopted cognomen. Geminus to everyone. Well, to everyone except Ma, in one of her vengeful moods. She insisted on using the name he had had before he ran away from us.
'You do know who that was?' Pa was signalling the waiter to refill our cups. He had already laid money on the marble to cover it so I was trapped.
I shook my head. 'Should I?'
'Too right, my boy! That weird streak was your Uncle Fulvius.' I gazed at Pa. He nodded. Suddenly, I grinned back. Now I could see it, though Fulvius had gained age, weight and a much more truculent attitude.
'As dreary as I remember! It's hard to see what all the fuss was,' I commented, though my uncle's deliberate way of annoying people explained a lot about his reputation. Pa and I both saw ourselves as members of the solid Didius clan; we were two bumptious boys from Rome, the only place worth living. So now we two kings of society lifted our winecups, saluted each other with a clink, and were for once at peace together. Now we were doing what town boys really enjoy: laughing at an eccentric country relative.
XXXVIII
Helena was intrigued when she heard of my meeting.
'So why didn't you recognise your uncle?'
'It's been years since I met him. I never saw much of Fulvius anyway. I can't have been more than five or six the last time, it was before Pa left us. My long holidays on the farm were later; Ma used to take us all to run around and tire ourselves out, when she could get somebody to give us all a lift into the Campagna. By that time Fulvius had gone.'
'Gone to do what?' asked Helena. 'What is the real story?'
'He didn't fit in.'
'He was driven out by the others?'
'No. Fulvius voluntarily took himself off.'
'Unhappy?'
'Just bloody awkward, I'd say.'
'Oh, nothing his nephew inherited then!' I got out of that by asking how Helena was progressing with the Diocles tablets. She had read them all already. I was not surprised. On a waxed tablet of her own, she had quoted bits she wanted me to see. A large proportion of what she had collated involved the meetings Albia had described, which were clearly confrontations between ships, where the named vessels came off worst. People were sold into slavery. Goods were seized and marketed for profit. Then occasionally deaths were noted.
'Deaths? Unnatural ones?' Helena gave out a restless sigh.
'No doubt of it. 'We took three losses.' Another time,'Too many to handle; five overboard.' I think that may mean thrown overboard. Later, They lost ten, the master caught it; would not give up, Lygon finished him.' Yes, Lygon is named. Do you think that's the same one you are interested in?' I shrugged. We had no way of knowing, though it seemed a big coincidence.
'Any other familiar people?' I was hoping for Damagoras or Cratidas, but was disappointed. Helena looked up her own notes to be sure.
'No, but Lygon is mentioned twice. The second time is horrible, 'Woman screaming; Lygon took her head off for us; silence!''
'Hey! I'm sorry I let you read this stuff.'
As I shuddered, Helena embraced me. I hoped that would distract her from the horror. We then sat huddled together, looking through the tablets. Try as we might, we could find no internal evidence as to who wrote them. Unfortunately, only schoolboys sign their personal note-tablets: Marcus owns this. Hands off, or the kindly Furies will strike you…
The logs must be from a captain. He never said what his own ship was called. It had travelled widely around the eastern Mediterranean, operating for years, from the Greek islands across to the Phoenician seaboard. His trade was bloody, and there was no doubt it was criminal. Nobody could call it anything other than piracy. This vessel preyed on other shipping. Plunder was its sole reason for putting to sea. It never took a cargo out, though almost always came back to land with one or more commodity for sale. To us it was theft. To the ship's captain, it was fair trade. Although we could not identify him, clues made us sure that he was a Cilician.
First there was the name of his crony Lygon, who, if he was the one I knew of- came from Soli/Pompeiopolis. Apprentice sailors were mentioned, sometimes with their place of origin, also in Cilicia; many were farmhands and despite claims that the people of the mountains had no part in piracy, it became clear that there was a regular progression of young men being sent from the land to find experience, reputation and riches at sea. From time to time the logs recorded alliances with other groups and nationalities.
'Agreed a treaty with the Pamphyllians, Korakesians -Melanthos. Side men in, but they won't hold… Off Akroterion met the Fideliter and the Psyche. Cattle and slaves; Melanthos took the cattle; he won't stay true… Meras of Antiphellos and his Lycians joined us. Meras left us again after could not agree over the hides… Sailing off Xanthos. Good pickings if the season holds, but the Lycians don't like us being here. Met a large trader out of Sidon but Marion came up during our action and we had to fight him off. Later followed the Europa, out of Thera, but no luck; Melanthos got that… Offer to partner the Illyrians but they are faithless and too violent…'
'Too violent'? That was hilarious. Once he had stripped his victims of valuables, the writer never hesitated to hurl people overboard to drown. He only took prisoners if they were suitable as slaves. Otherwise, he eliminated witnesses. He and his seamen lived by the sword. If stabbing failed, they used strangulation. Helena had found repeated notes of wounding during robberies, limbs lost on both sides, frequent records of mutilation and reckless killing. Sometimes they would go ashore in search of booty; once they sacked a shrine.
'I looked for mention of Illyrians,' Helena said. 'This sole mention of Illyrians being faithless and violent is all. But assuming the writer is Cilician, he does make partnerships from time to time, often swearing oaths of alliance with those he has quite recently quarrelled with or accused of breaking faith.'
'Could 'the Illyrian' we know of just be a nickname?'
'I suppose so, Marcus. But it must have some link to where the negotiator comes from.'
'Now,' said Helena, gathering up a small pile of tablets she had placed separately, the interesting part. I shall tell you what I believe Diocles was doing.'
'These other tablets are his own notes?'
'Yes. The handwriting and layout match the notes we found in his room. In these,' she went on, speaking calmly and without drama, 'the scribe is making a summary of the old logs. You could call it an outline of a proposed new work.'
'Do you mean that Damagoras told me the truth, Diocles really was going to help him put together his memoirs?'
'No doubt of it.' Helena pursed her lips. 'But it makes Damagoras a liar. First, he assured you, Marcus, that he just had a couple of brief discussions with Diocles, after which the scribe decided not to proceed. But for Diocles to make all these notes, the two of them must have gone into great detail together.'
'I was puzzled that he had given Rusticus, the vigiles recruiting officer, an address in the country, not the rental house at the Marine Gate…'
'Yes.' Helena was with me. 'Diocles probably went to live for a while at the villa. He worked up these notes while staying there. So Damagoras lied about how c
lose their relationship was. But the main area where he lied, and he's lying through his teeth, Marcus, is this. If these ship's logs are what Diocles had to use as the raw material for the memoirs, then there is no doubt, no doubt at all, about what Damagoras used to do for a living. The captain who composed these old records was a pirate.'
I nodded. 'And I'll tell you something else, my love, I don't believe the virtuous claim that he has long ago retired. He was a pirate – and I reckon he still is.'
Next morning I began to read the note-tablets myself. I took them down to the courtyard and sat on a bench in dappled sunlight, with Nux fast asleep up against me and the children nearby. From time to time I had to break off, because Julia Junilla was playing at shops and wanted me to buy some pebble that was supposed to be a cake. This happened so often that I asked for a trade discount – only to be given the same surly reaction I would get at the counter of a real shop. Helena had just come down to mediate in our commercial wrangling.
As she agreed with Julia that I was being mean, someone came in through the entrance looking for me. It was Virtus, the slave from the vigiles patrol house. I was surprised to see him, and even more startled that Petronius Longus had sent him with a message.
'Fusculus and Petro have been called out to an incident. Apparently you will be interested, Falco. Some madman drove a chariot off the road in the middle of last night. Seems the 'accident' wasn't an accident, though, the horses both had their throats cut. They found a body. I can't stop; apparently the chariot is a known vehicle and I've got to go and see that man Posidonius.'
Tablets scattered as I stood up abruptly.
Sounds as if the worst has happened. They must have killed the girl…
I had been too abrupt; Helena gasped.
'Sorry, love. Give me directions, Virtus.' Helena was now calling for Albia to bring her a cloak and look after the children. I normally kept her as far from death as possible. But in Rome she had talked to the foolish girl, persuading her to confide her hopes and dreams. I knew that Helena would be determined now to pay her last respects to Rhodope.
XXXIX
We had to go out to the old salt workings. Salt was the staple that brought about the founding of Rome. A large marsh lies out on the Via Salaria -the Salt Road- just before Ostia as you travel in from Rome. Virtus said the wrecked vehicle was there. The chariot had been spotted by passing drivers that morning, off road and upended. Helena and I set off down the Decumanus on foot, intending to hire donkeys if we saw a stable. Luck was with us; an open cart rattled past, bearing a group of vigiles fresh from their patrol house. They were going out to the scene of the crime, and they let us hop on board with them. It would be a short journey. We could have walked, but it would have taken time and effort.
'What do you know about it, lads?'
'Debris was noticed at dawn. Salt workers were alerted and went over to see if there was anything to salvage. When they saw the situation with the dead horses, they got scared and sent a runner into town. Rubella dispatched Petronius; he passed back a message that we are to meet him on site, bringing transport and gear. Chariot fits a description of one we were looking for.'
'What's Petronius want the gear for?'
'Lugging back the chariot.'
'Get away! It's not his style,' I joked glumly. 'This is a rich boy's passion-wagon. Lucius Petronius is a stately ox-cart man.' The vigiles grinned nervously. They were restrained, because I had Helena sitting silent beside me. I was feeling anxious myself about bringing her. The body we were going to see was probably mutilated; if my suspicions were right, we had a witness being silenced – silenced by men who controlled their victims through fear. Next time they took a female captive, they would make free with ghastly details about what had happened to today's corpse. I had seen violated bodies. I did not want Helena to experience that. Clinging to the sides of the cart on that short bumpy trip, I never managed to think up a solution to spare her.
When the cart stopped, I jumped out feeling queasy. This was a lonely place for anybody to be brought to die.
There was high ground up ahead towards Rome, but these wetlands formed a great marshy hollow, probably lower than sea level.
Parts had been filled in by dumping the rubble from buildings destroyed by Nero's Great Fire in Rome, but the dumps only made the place seem even more unwelcoming. Most salt was now produced north of the river, but there were still a few workings here, as there had been since the dawn of Roman history. The main road ran on a raised causeway. The Tiber must be some distance away to our left. A brisk breeze was whipping across the low ground when we arrived, though when it occasionally faltered, the sun was burning. Wind and heat are the tools of salt manufacture. In the marshes on our right stood the hunched wattle huts of the saltpan workers, among the shine of low rectangular drying pools.
By one of the huts dilapidated carts were waiting to ply their ancient trade up the Salt Road to Rome. Hillocks of sparkling salt grains were mounded beside a turning area where they loaded up. Nobody was about. Everyone had gone to stare. The wreck was on the other side of the main road.
'Better wait here,' one of the vigiles suggested to Helena, but she stuck tight next to me. We walked down a slip road on to the marsh. Under our feet, the rutted path had a white gleam; we trod with care in case it was slippery. The worst risk was turning an ankle in a boggy hole. Old crystallisation pools were everywhere, though on this side of the road they looked unused. There was no reason for anyone to stop on this road, unless they had business at the saltpans. A lover might possibly bring his girl out here for a giggle somewhere private, but he would have to have heard there was a very good moon that night to romance her by. It was a stupid place to try driving a chariot off road deliberately. Everything was far too spongy under foot.
Birds flew above us as we walked over to the scene of action. We could just make out two wheel scars where the vehicle had careered in a long curve across the saline flood plain, sinking deep into the wet ground and crushing the coarse vegetation. It was amazing that the chariot had made it so far without bogging down completely. Maybe it had had a lot of help. The sad corpses of the two once-handsome black horses were lying together beside the vehicle. A knot of people were gathered around.
One chariot wheel was off, the other leaning at an angle. From the road, you would think it had simply careered from the highway and crashed. Close to, I thought someone had used a mallet on the coachwork. Petronius Longus was talking to some locals. He saw us approaching; he gestured for me to keep Helena back.
'Stay here.'
'No, I'm coming.'
Lindsey Davis
Scandal Takes a Holiday
'Your choice, then.' The vigiles who had brought us immediately did what they were trained to do: they moved back the gawpers. The salt workers were gnarled little men with particular features and little to say. Their ancestors had stared at Aeneas in the same way these were staring at us now; their ancestors' ancestors knew old Father Tiber when he was an adolescent lad. Others in the audience were contract drivers who had noticed the crowd and left their carts up on the road. The men stood about with their thumbs in their belts, giving out opinions. Carters always know what's what… and they are usually wrong. I walked up to Petronius. We clasped hands briefly. Helena had gone straight to the chariot, but it was empty.
'We had to hunt for the body.' Petro muttered, but ever alert, she heard him. 'Come and see.' He walked with us across the marsh, away from the cluster of people. When we had gone beyond earshot and our feet were soaking wet, we saw something lying up ahead. Helena ran forward, but stopped in shocked surprise.
'It is not the girl!' A sudden rush of tears caught her. I stood at her side, bemused. There was some relief not to be looking at Rhodope, but at the body of a man instead. Petronius watched us both.
'This is Theopompus.'
'Thought so.' Petro and I were now back on old terms. Helena had crouched to look at his face. It was not pretty. Theopompus was
lying on his side, curled slightly. He must have been dead here half the night; what remained of his clothing was sodden. He had been beaten and then robbed of his finery. Troubling discolorations covered what we could see of him, though at least there was little blood. It looked as if he had been finished off with strangulation.
'Not easy to see what the girl saw in him!' Petro commented. Theopompus must have been twice Rhodope's age. He was short limbed and sturdy, deeply tanned even where his braided crimson tunic was drawn high up one thigh; the fine material was now filthy and stained. If it had stayed clean, we would probably have found him naked; his belt, his boots, and all his jewellery had been taken. Some of the gold at least had been worn a long time so it had left white skin on removal. a tight arm bracelet, finger rings, even ear-rings probably, because a trickle of blood had dried on his neck. I was not convinced the killers stripped the corpse. Those salt workers would have had a good look this morning; that could even explain how Theopompus came to be so far from his vehicle. The salt workers might have dragged the corpse away before they lost their nerve and sent for the vigiles. But he may have been alive when the chariot crashed, then ran for his life until he was brought down and finished off. Though none too handsome by classical standards, he had had more or less even features, before someone broke his nose for him last night. His dark, triangular face was slightly hook nosed. I supposed he was attractive, to a young woman who was ready for adventure.
'I don't imagine the girl did this.' Petronius was in the dry, brutal mood that often afflicted him when faced with a vicious death. 'Well, not unless she was built like a barracks, and she had just found out he was a love rat…'
'Her name is Rhodope,' said Helena, in a tight voice. 'She is timid and slight, aged seventeen. I hope she never saw him like this.' She gazed around anxiously.
'I hope she is not out here!' Petronius shrugged. For him, the girl had tangled with the wrong people and her fate was her own fault. If anything, he blamed her for making him and his men have to come out here and deal with this.
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