Poseidon's Gold

by Lindsey Davis

  ‘Don’t call me Marcus,’ I said abruptly. ‘You don’t know me.’

  They blinked at me blearily. They were a long way from the real world. I could have tripped them up merely by asking for their names or when their birthdays were.

  ‘What’s up, Marcus?’

  ‘Let’s go back to the beginning: I am Marcus Didius Falco,’ I resumed, from an hour earlier. Thanks to the effects of my amphora their bravado was extinguished and they let me finish this time. ‘You knew Marcus Didius Festus. Another name; another face; believe me, another personality.’

  Manlius, the one who rescued them from trouble perhaps, waved a hand, managed to place it on the bed, and propped himself half upright. He tried to speak, but gave up. He lay down flat again.

  ‘Festus?’ quavered Varga, staring at the ceiling. Above his head, nicely positioned for gazing at while nearly insensible, he had painted a small, exquisite Aphrodite Bathing, modelled not by Rubinia but some small, exquisite blonde. If the painting was accurate, he would have done better luring the blonde to bed, but they do expect regular meals and a supply of glass-bead necklaces. No point investing in the hair dye otherwise.

  ‘Festus,’ I repeated, struggling to organise something sensible here.

  ‘Festus…’ Varga rolled himself sideways so he could squint at me. Somewhere in those puffy eyes a new level of intelligence seemed to glimmer. ‘What do you want, Falco?’

  ‘Vargo, I want you to tell me why, on a certain night five years ago when I saw you with him at the Virgin, Marcus Didius Festus wanted to meet with you?’

  ‘He can’t remember who he met at the Virgin five days ago!’ Manlius responded, gathering the shreds of his critical faculties. ‘You don’t want much!’

  ‘I want to save my neck from the public strangler,’ I retorted frankly. ‘A soldier called Censorinus has been murdered, probably for asking just this sort of question. Unless I can shed light on events, I’ll be condemned for the killing. Hear that, and understand me: I’m a desperate man!’

  ‘I know nothing about anything,’ Varga assured me.

  ‘Well you know enough to lie about it!’ I rasped good-humouredly. Then I lowered my voice. ‘Festus is dead; you cannot harm him. The truth may even protect his reputation-though I’m honestly not expecting it-so don’t hold back to avoid offending me.’

  ‘It’s a complete fog to me,’ Varga repeated.

  ‘I hate people who pretend to be idiots!’ I spun off the bed where I was lying, and got hold of his right arm. I twisted it enough to hurt. As I sprang at him I had whipped out my knife; I laid it against his wrist so the slightest movement would make him cut himself. ‘Stop messing me about. I know you met Festus and I know it’s relevant! Come clean, Varga, or I’ll slice off your painting hand!’

  Varga went white. Too drunk to resist, and too innocent to know how to do it anyway, he stared up at me in terror, hardly able to breathe. I was so frustrated by the enquiry, I almost meant what I said. I was frightening myself, and Varga could tell. A vague sound gurgled in his throat.

  ‘Speak up, Varga. Don’t be shy!’

  ‘I can’t remember meeting your brother-‘

  ‘I remember you meeting him,’ I declared coldly. ‘And I wasn’t even in on the conspiracy!’

  His friend shifted anxiously. At last I was getting somewhere.

  ‘There was no conspiracy involving us,’ Manlius burst out from the other bed. ‘I told that to the soldier when he came!’

  XXXIX

  ‘This is news to me!’ Varga pleaded.

  I pressed the knife harder against his arm, so he could feel the edge of the blade, though in fact I had it turned so it did not yet pierce the skin. ‘Careful. You’re very drunk, and I’m not entirely sober. One wrong move, and you’ve painted your last tantalising nipple…’ I stared at Manlius. ‘Carry on. I’m versatile. I can manage to threaten one man while the other does the talking!’

  ‘Tell him,’ Varga urged faintly. ‘And I wouldn’t mind knowing myself…’

  ‘You weren’t here,’ Manlius explained. They had peculiar priorities. His main concern seemed to be convincing his pal that there were no secrets at the lodging-house. ‘It was one of your days for taking Rubinia’s measurements…’

  ‘Cut the ribaldry!’ I grated. ‘What happened with Censorinus?’

  ‘Laurentius,’ corrected Manlius.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He said his name was Laurentius.’

  I released Varga, but sat back on my heels, still holding the knife where they could both see it. ‘Are you certain? The soldier who died was called Censorinus Macer.’

  ‘Laurentius was what he told me.’

  If Censorinus had had a crony with him in Rome, I was very relieved to hear it; this Laurentius would be a prime suspect. Cronies fall out. They sit in a tavern having a drink, then they quarrel about money, or women, or political philosophy, or simply about whether their boat home leaves on Tuesday or Thursday. Then it’s natural that somebody gets stabbed and his pal legs it… Or so I tried to convince myself, overlooking to some extent the violence with which the centurion had been attacked.

  ‘So tell me about this Laurentius. What was his rank and legion, and when did he come to see you?’

  ‘A while ago-‘

  ‘Weeks? Months?’

  Being specific was not a habit here. ‘A month or two… possibly. I don’t know the other details.’

  ‘Oh come on, you’re a damned painter, aren’t you? You’re supposed to be observant! Did he carry a vine staff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then he was a full centurion. He would have been close friends with Festus. Did he tell you that?’ Manlius nodded. ‘Good. Now take a deep breath and tell me what he wanted.’ There was no flicker of rational thought below the painter’s long untidy fringe of hair. ‘Did he,’ I spelled out, ‘ask you about the Hypericon, for instance-or did he go straight to the matter of the Phidias?’

  Manlius smiled finally. It was a gentle, undeceptive smile. I did not place a scruple of trust in that soft grin-but the words he uttered rang true enough: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Falco. The soldier was asking about someone. I remember,’ he told me quietly, ‘because it was the same person Festus was so stirred up about on that night in the Virgin.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Orontes Mediolanus.’

  ‘The sculptor,’ Varga contributed.

  This was the part that did make sense.

  I kept my voice as steady as possible. ‘And where in Rome can I find this Orontes?’

  ‘That’s the point!’ Manlius burst out, with relaxed and unvindictive triumph. ‘Orontes has disappeared from Rome. In fact he vanished years ago.’

  I had already guessed the sequel. ‘He had vanished when Festus was after him?’

  ‘Of course! That was why Festus came looking for us. Festus wanted to ask us where in Hades Orontes was.’

  I went back a step. ‘How did you know Festus?’

  ‘He noticed models,’ Varga said, convincingly. We all glanced at his Amazon and imagined Festus taking notice of Rubinia.

  ‘And why did he think you could track down Orontes?’

  ‘Orontes used to lodge with us,’ Varga explained. ‘In fact, earlier this evening, you were lying on his bed!’

  I stared at it. The hard, lumpy mattress was covered with a thin blanket. Unwashed food bowls were piled underneath, and these two untidy idiots kept paint-kettles on one end, encrusted with copper oxides and enamels. Perhaps the bed had gone downhill since the sculptor lived here, but if not I could see why he might have left: maybe he was just fastidious.

  ‘So what happened to Orontes?’

  ‘Disappeared. One morning we went out and left him snoring; when we came back he had taken himself off. He never came back.’

  ‘Wandering feet! Sounds like my father… Did you worry?’

  ‘Why? He was grown up.’

  ‘Were his things missing?’
>
  I had asked the question casually. The painters half exchanged a glance before one said yes and the other no. ‘We sold them,’ Varga admitted. I could believe it. Their guilty expressions were right, since the property had not been theirs to sell. All the same, I sensed an atmosphere, which I noted. They could well be lying about this.

  I went over all the ground a second time, confirming the facts. There was little to add. I learned only that the centurion Laurentius had gone away as dissatisfied as I was. Manlius had no information about where this soldier had been staying in Rome. Neither of them knew what Festus had wanted the sculptor for.

  Or if they knew, they were not admitting it to me.

  I poured what remained of the amphora into their winecups and formally saluted them.

  ‘Farewell, boys! I’ll leave you to contemplate how fine art can save the civilised world from its sterility.’ From the doorway I grinned at the squalor they inhabited. ‘Own up. This is just a sham, isn’t it? Really, you’re two hard-working citizens who love the Empire and live like lambs. I bet you say a prayer to the hearth goddess every morning and write home to your mothers twice a week?’

  Manlius, who was probably the sharper one of the disreputable pair, gave me a shamefaced smile. ‘Have a heart, Falco! My mother’s eighty-one. I have to show devotion to such age.’

  Varga, who lived among more private dreams, studied his Aphrodite mournfully, and pretended he had not heard.

  XL

  In Fountain Court everything lay still. That was worrying. Even in the dead of night there was usually some husband receiving brain damage from an iron pot, a pigeon being tortured by delinquent youths, or an old woman screaming that she had been robbed of her life savings (Metella, whose son regularly borrowed them; he would pay her back, if the string of prostitutes he ran worked double shifts for a fortnight). It must be nearly dawn. I was too old for this.

  As I reached the laundry, the tired trudge of my feet brought more trouble: Lenia, the drab proprietress, flung open a half-shutter. Her head flopped out, all tangles of madly hennaed hair. Her face was white; her deportment unstable. She surveyed me with eyes that needed an oculist and screeched: ‘Oi, Falco! What are you doing up so late?’

  ‘Lenia! You put the scares on me. Is Smaractus there?’

  Lenia let out a pathetic wail. She would wake the whole street, and they would blame me. ‘I hope he’s at the bottom of the Tiber. We had a terrible row!’

  ‘Thank the gods for that. Now kindly close up your dentistry-‘ We were old friends; we could dispense with compliments. She knew I despised her fiancIt had something to do with him being my landlord-and more with the fact he was as savoury as a pile of hot mule-dung. ‘Is this goodbye to the wedding?’

  ‘Oh no.’ She calmed down immediately. ‘I’m not letting him off that! Come in, come in-‘

  Resisting was useless. When a woman who spends her life heaving around monstrous troughs of hot water grabs your arm, you fly in the direction she pulls or lose a limb. I was dragged into the sinister cubicle where Lenia fiddled her accounts and accosted her friends, then pushed on to a stool. A beaker of cheap red wine fixed itself in my fist.

  Lenia had been drinking, like the whole of Rome this wintry night. She had been drinking on her own, so she was hopelessly miserable. With a cup banging against those awful teeth again, she cheered up, however. ‘You look rough too, Falco!’

  ‘Been boozing with painters. Never again!’

  ‘Until the next time!’ Lenia jibed raucously. She had known me a long while.

  ‘So what’s with Smaractus?’ I tried her wine, regretting it as much as I had feared. ‘Cold feet about the matrimonial benefits?’

  I was joking, but of course she nodded mournfully. ‘He’s not sure he’s ready to commit himself.’

  ‘Poor soul! Pleading his tender youth, I suppose?’ Whatever age Smaractus was, his notorious life had left him looking like some desiccated hermit half dead in a cave. ‘Surely that miser can see that he’ll make up for what he’s losing as a bachelor by gaining a prosperous laundry?’

  ‘And me!’ Lenia retorted snootily.

  ‘And you,’ I smiled. She needed someone to be kind.

  She gulped at her cup, then ground out vindictively, ‘How are your own affairs moving along?’

  ‘Perfectly, thanks.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, Falco!’

  ‘My arrangements,’ I stated pompously, ‘are moving to their conclusion with efficiency and style.’

  ‘I haven’t heard about this.’

  ‘Quite. I’m keeping clammed up. If you don’t let people interfere, things don’t go wrong.’

  ‘What does Helena say?’

  ‘Helena needn’t be bothered with details.’

  ‘Helena’s your bride!’

  ‘So she has enough worries.’

  ‘Gods, you’re a mad devil… Helena’s a nice girl!’

  ‘Exactly. So why warn her she’s doomed? This is where you went wrong, Lenia. If Smaractus had stayed blissfully ignorant of your approach with the sacrificial pig, you could have forged his name on a contract one night when he was sleeping off a flagon and he would never have felt the pain. Instead you’ve put the wind up him, and given him a thousand opportunities to wriggle free.’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Lenia cracked morbidly. ‘The careless prick left his beryl signet-ring.’

  I managed to steer the subject away from marriage and cheap jewellery. ‘If you want to upset me, try my arrest by Marponius.’

  ‘News spreads!’ Lenia agreed. ‘We all heard you stabbed a soldier and ended up in manacles at a judge’s house.’

  ‘I did not stab the soldier.’

  ‘That’s right, one or two crazy types do reckon you might be innocent.’

  ‘People are wonderful!’

  ‘So what’s this fable, Falco?’

  ‘Bloody Festus has landed me in it as usual.’

  I told her the tale. Anything to stop her drinking. Anything to stop her pouring more for me.

  When I finished she hooted with her usual grating derision. ‘So it’s a fine-art mystery?’

  ‘That’s right. I strongly suspect that most of the statues and all of the people are fakes.’

  ‘You do talk! Did he find you that night, then?’

  ‘What night, Lenia?’

  ‘This night you’ve been talking about. The night Festus left for his legion. He came here. I thought I told you at the time… Late, it was. Really late. He banged on my door, wanting to know if you had staggered home so drunk you couldn’t make the stairs and were curled up in my washtub.’ Since six flights do hurt after revelry, it had been known.

  ‘I wasn’t here-‘

  ‘No!’ giggled Lenia, knowing about the Marina fiasco.

  ‘He should have known where I was… You never told me this-‘ I sighed. One more in a long string of undelivered messages.

  ‘You talking about him tonight just reminded me.’

  ‘Five years late!’ She was unbelievable. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He flaked out in here, making a nuisance of himself.’

  ‘He had had some.’ Much like us this evening.

  ‘Oh I can handle soaks; I get enough practice. He was broody,’ complained the laundress. ‘I can’t stand miserable men!’ Since she had elected to marry Smaractus, who was a long-faced, insensitive, humourless disaster, she was gaining practice in tolerating misery too-and with more yet to come.

  ‘So what was Festus on about?’

  ‘Confidential,’ sneered Lenia. ‘He groaned, “It’s all too much; I need little brother’s strong right arm”, and then he shut up.’

  ‘Well that was Festus.’ Sometimes, however, my secretive brother would be gripped by a bacchic drive to talk. Once the mood was on him, once he decided to display his inner being, he would usually open up to anyone who got in the way. He would ramble for hours-all rubbish, of course. ‘It’s too much to hope he revealed any more?’
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br />   ‘No. Tight bastard! Most people find me easy to talk to,’ Lenia boasted. I remembered to smile graciously.

  ‘So then what?’

  ‘He got fed up of waiting for his precious brother who had stayed out playing around with Marina, so he cursed me, cursed you a few times, borrowed one of my washtubs, and disappeared. He went off muttering that he had work to do. Next day I heard he had left Rome. You weren’t around much afterwards yourself.’

  ‘Guilt!’ I grinned. ‘I bummed off to the market garden until the heat died down.’

  ‘Hoping Marina would have a convenient lapse of memory?’

  ‘Maybe. What did he want a washtub for?’

  ‘Juno, I don’t know. It turned up again on the doorstep covered with mud or cement or something.’

  ‘He must have been rinsing his smalls… Why did you never tell me this before?’

  ‘No point. You would have been upset!’

  I was upset now.

  It was one of those pointless, tantalising events that sting you after someone dies. I would never really know what he had wanted. I could never share his problem; never help. Lenia was right. Better not to know these things.

  I found an excuse to leave (yawning heavily) and staggered upstairs.

  Six flights give you a lot of time for thinking, but it was not enough.

  Both missing and hating my brother, I felt exhausted, dirty, cold and depressed. I could have dropped on the stairs, but the landings were freezing and stank of old urine. I was heading for my bed, knowing that all too soon I had to be up out of it again. Despair made my feet heavy; I was chasing a hopeless puzzle, with disasters fast closing in on me. And when I reached my own apartment I groaned even more, because more trouble was waiting for me. Under the ill-fitting door a gleam of light showed. That could only mean someone was in there.

  I had already made too much noise to start creeping up and springing surprises. I knew I was too drunk for an argument and too tired for a fight.

  I did everything wrong. I forgot to be careful. I could not be bothered to organise a possible escape. I was too tired, and too angry to follow my own rules, so I just walked straight in and kicked the door shut after me.