Poseidon's Gold

by Lindsey Davis

  We stopped asking.

  We moved to yet another lodging-house and kept our heads down, while Father and I started to watch the forum from doorways and arches where we could not be seen.

  Hanging around the forum of a strange town, in the middle of winter, when there is a gap in the local festivals, can make a man depressed.

  Helena told us on our return to the current doss-house that there were no fleas, but she had definitely found bedbugs and an ostler had tried to get into the room with her when we left her on her own.

  He tried again that night when both Pa and I were sitting there. Afterwards we argued for hours about whether he knew there were three of us and had come hoping for a full orgy. One thing was definite; he would not try again. Pa and I had made it plain we did not welcome friendly overtures.

  Next day we moved again, just to be safe.

  Finally we had some luck.

  Our new rooms were above a caupona. Ever one for a risk, I popped down for three platefuls of their green beans in mustard sauce, with a side order of seafood dumplings, some bread, pork titbits for Helena, olives, wine and hot water, honey…the usual complicated list when your friends send you out to pick up what they gaily describe as ‘a quick bite’. I was staggering under an immense tray, so heavy I could barely lift the thing, let alone open the door to carry it upstairs without spillage.

  A girl held the door for me.

  I took up the tray, grinned at my darling, stuffed some titbits between my jaws, and grabbed my cloak. Helena and my father stared, then fell on the food tray and let me get on with it. I ran back downstairs.

  She was a lovely girl. She had a body you would walk ten miles to grapple, with a carriage that said she knew exactly what she was offering. Her face was older than first impressions, but had only gained in character from extra years. When I sauntered back, she was still at the caupona, buying spare ribs in a parcel to take out. She was leaning on the counter as if she needed extra support for her abundant figure. Her bold expression had silenced all the street trade, while her dancing brown eyes were doing things to the waiter that his mother must have warned him not to allow in public; he didn’t care. She was a brunette, if it’s of interest.

  I settled down out of sight, and when she left I did what every man in the place was wanting to do: I followed her.

  L

  Don’t even think it.

  I never follow strange women with that idea.

  Anyway, the darling brunette was not entirely a stranger to me. I had seen her undressed (though she was unaware of it). And I had seen her at the Circus sitting next to Festus. I could have called out her name and tried to get to know her by saying, ‘Excuse me, but I think I saw you with my brother once’ (that old line!).

  Her name, had I wanted to play around like a barboy, was Rubinia.

  I did the decent thing. I trailed her to the love-nest she shared with the sculptor Orontes. They lived four miles outside the city and must have thought themselves safe from discovery, especially during the hours of darkness. The gorgeous model had been quite unaware that expert feet were silently slipping along after her.

  I waited until they had had time to eat their ribs and quaff their liquor and knot themselves together in an intimate arrangement. Then I went in without knocking.

  They were very surprised.

  And I could tell they were not pleased.

  LI

  Nudity does not affront me. Fighting it, especially in the female version, can be disconcerting for anyone.

  The outraged model came at me with a dinner knife. As she ran across the sculptor’s studio she was breasting the air with the formidable panache of the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace, though less formally clad. Luckily it was a large studio. I had a good view of her provocative features-and time to defend myself.

  I was unarmed and short of ideas. But a pail of cold water stood near at hand. Brought in from a well I had seen in the garden, it was the best resource available. I grabbed it and hurled the icy contents straight at the screeching girl. She let out a louder, even higher-pitched scream, and dropped the knife.

  I ripped a stiff cloth from the nearest statue and flung the unwieldy material around her, pinioning her arms.

  ‘Excuse me, madam; you seem to be lacking a stole-‘ She took this badly, but I clung on to her. We swung round in a wild dance, while the lovely Rubinia called me some names I was surprised a woman knew.

  The studio was in a high barn of a building, dimly lit by one taper at the far end. Dark stone shapes loomed on all sides, casting huge, peculiar shadows. Stepladders and other equipment lay everywhere, dangerous traps for a stranger with his mind on other things. Artists are not tidy people (too much time wasted on dreaming, for one thing; and in between the creative processes, too much drink).

  I shook the girl angrily, trying to keep her still.

  By this time a large man who must be the missing sculptor had struggled upright from the tangle of their bed in the far corner of the place. He too was completely naked, and recently aroused for a different kind of combat. He was broad-chested, no longer young, bald, with a bushy beard as long as my forearm. He cut an impressive dash as he powered across the dusty floor yelling abuse.

  These artistic types were noisy swine. No wonder they lived in the country, with no neighbours to annoy.

  Rubinia was still screaming, and wriggling so frantically I did not immediately notice that her lover had snatched up a chisel and a mallet. But his first wild swing missed, and his mallet hissed past my left ear. As he feinted, this time with the chisel, I turned sharply, so the girl was in front of me. Rubinia bit my wrist. I lost any inhibitions about using her as a shield.

  Still dragging the girl, I dodged behind a statue as Orontes lashed out. His chisel zinged off a half-formed nymph, modelled by someone more slender than the solid wench I was trying to subdue. Rubinia’s feet scrabbled on the floor as she tried to lock her legs around the nymph’s haunches. I jerked sideways preventing it, though I was losing my grip on the dust-sheet and its astonishing contents. She had slithered lower; any minute I should lose Rubinia too.

  The sculptor popped out from behind a marble group. I hurled myself backwards, just missing a ladder. He was taller than me, but made clumsy by drink and agitation; his domed forehead knocked into the obstruction. As he cursed, I seized what might be my only chance. I was losing my grip on the girl, so I flung her as far from me as I could, aiding the process painfully with my boot on her expansive rear. She crashed into a pediment, letting loose another mouthful of barracks invective.

  I grabbed the dazed sculptor. He was strong, but before he realised what I was up to I had whirled him in a half-circle. Then I pressed him into a sarcophagus that was standing on its end as if made to receive visitors. Seizing its massive lid, I slid the thing sideways and attempted to close the coffin on the man who was supposed to be mending it.

  The stone lid’s weight surprised me and I only managed to jam the thing halfway across before Rubinia came at me again, hurling herself on to me from behind and trying to tear out my hair. Dear gods, she was a stayer. As I squirmed around to face her she let go of my shoulders and grabbed the mallet. Frantic blows rained all around me, though her idea of how to hit a target was fortunately hazy. Landing a blow was made more difficult by the fact she was springing about like a maddened polecat, jabbing kicks at the part of me I prefer not to have attacked.

  With two of them to overpower, things were becoming desperate. I managed to lean against the sarcophagus lid to keep Orontes trapped behind me, and at the same time fastened Rubinia’s hammer wrist in my hardest grip. It must have hurt her badly. For a few seconds she went on trying to murder me, while I tried to prevent it happening. Finally I broke her hold on the weapon, gave her a clout on the temple, and grappled her.

  At that moment the door crashed open. In raced a familiar short sturdy shape, topped by frenetic grey curls.

  ‘Cerberus!’ exploded my father, with what
I hoped was admiration. ‘I only let you out on your own for a moment, then I find you wrestling with a naked nymph!’

  LII

  ‘Don’t just stand there cracking witticisms,’ I gasped. ‘Lend me a hand!’

  Pa sauntered across the studio, grinning like Festus would have done. ‘Is this some new form of excitement, Marcus? Having your end away on a coffin lid?’ Then he added, with glee, ‘The high and mighty Helena Justina is not going to like this!’

  ‘Helena’s not going to know,’ I said tersely-then I threw the naked model at him. He caught her and held on with rather more relish than necessary. ‘Now you’ve got the problem, and I’ve got the scenery!’

  ‘Cover your eyes, boy!’ growled Geminus cheerfully. ‘You’re too young… ‘ He himself seemed to be coping, but I supposed he was used to fine art at close quarters. Holding Rubinia’s wrists together and ignoring her passionate attempts to unman him, he catalogued her attractions with a deeply appreciative leer.

  I fell prey to some tetchiness. ‘How in Hades did you get here?’

  ‘Helena,’ he said, enjoying the emphasis, ‘felt worried when she noticed you sloping off with that nasty smirk on your face. And now I see why!’ he jibed. ‘Does she know what you’re like when you go off amusing yourself?’

  I scowled. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Not difficult. I was fifteen yards behind you all the way.’ That would teach me to congratulate myself on my expert tracking; all that time I was hoofing after Rubinia, so pleased with myself for doing it discreetly, someone had been tailing me. I was lucky the whole of Capua had not come to see the show. Father went on, ‘When you sat down on the well-head for your watchdog session, I nipped up the road for a flagon-‘

  Now I was furious. ‘You went off for a drink? And are you saying that even after the ostler incident you left Helena Justina all on her own at a lodging-house?’

  ‘Well this is no place to bring her!’ minced my pa, at his most annoying. ‘She’s a game girl, but believe me, son, she would not like this!’ His eyes wandered salaciously over both of our naked companions, pausing on the coffined Orontes with a harder glare. ‘I’m glad you’ve put that nasty piece of work in a suitable place! Now calm down, Marcus. With three bowls of beans inside her, Helena will be a match for anyone.’

  ‘Let’s get on with this!’ My voice was clipped.

  ‘Right. Release the corpse from the stoneware, and we’ll tell the nice people why we’ve come visiting.’

  I turned round, though still applying my full weight to the carved lid of the sarcophagus. It was a dreary thing to see an inch from your nose-all badly proportioned heroes, leaning askew as if they were marching up a ship’s deck.

  ‘I don’t know about releasing him,’ I mused, curling my lip at Orontes. ‘He can hear us from where he’s standing. I think I’ll find out everything we want before I let him hop out of it…’

  My father latched on to the idea eagerly. ‘That’s good! If he won’t talk, we can leave him there permanently.’

  ‘He won’t last long in that thing!’ I commented.

  My father, whose lurid sense of humour was rapidly reasserting itself, dragged Rubinia to a statue of a particularly lewd satyr, and used his belt to tie her to its hairy hindquarters in a suggestive position.

  ‘Ah Marcus, she’s started crying!’

  ‘She likes to make an effort. Take no notice. A girl who was prepared to kick me in the privates gets no sympathy from me.’

  My father told her he was on her side-but she had to stay there. Rubinia demonstrated more of her vivid vocabulary. Next Geminus helped me wedge a large lump of stone against the coffin lid, so it was held fast, still half covering the opening, with Orontes peering out. I was leaning on a ladder that was tilted against a wall opposite, while Pa climbed up a large enthroned goddess and settled demurely in her lap.

  I stared at Orontes, who had caused us so much trouble. He was, though I did not know it yet, to cause us rather more.

  With his bald top and his great curly, bushy beard he had once been handsome and still had the dramatic authority of some old Greek philosopher. Wrap him in a blanket and sit him in a portico and folk might flock to hear him straining his brain. So far he had had nothing to say to us. I would have to cure that.

  ‘Right!’ I tried to sound menacing. ‘I have had no dinner, I’m worried about my girlfriend, and even though your sultry model is a glad eyeful I’m in no mood to let this take all night.’

  The sculptor finally found his voice. ‘Go and jump in the Phlaegraean Marsh!’ It was a deep, sombre voice, made raspy by drink and debauchery.

  ‘Show some respect, cumin-breath!’ Pa shouted down. I liked to proceed with dignity; he loved to lower the tone.

  I carried on patiently. ‘So you are Orontes Mediolanus-and you’re a lying runt!’

  ‘I’m not saying anything to you.’ He braced himself against the inside of his stone prison, managed to shove one knee through the opening, and tried to grapple off the lid. Working with stone had given him muscle, but not enough.

  I went over and kicked the sarcophagus unexpectedly. ‘You’ll just tire yourself out, Orontes. Now be reasonable. I can lock you in the dark in this rather heavy sarcophagus and come once a day to ask if you’ve changed your mind yet-or if I decide you’re not worth my trouble, I can lock you in there and just not bother to come back.’ He stopped struggling. ‘We’ve not met,’ I went on, politely resuming the introductions as if we were lying on marble slabs in some elegant bathhouse. ‘My name is Didius Falco. This is my father, Marcus Didius Favonius, also known as Geminus. You must recognise him. Another relation of ours was called Didius Festus; you knew him too.’

  Rubinia emitted a high-pitched noise. It could be terror or annoyance. ‘What’s that squeak for?’ growled my father, gazing down at her with salty curiosity. ‘Hey, Marcus, do you think I should take her out the back and ask her some questions privately?’ The innuendo was obvious.

  ‘Wait a bit,’ I restrained him. I hoped he was bluffing, though I was not entirely certain. Ma had always called him a womaniser. He certainly seemed to throw himself into any available form of fun.

  ‘Let her brew, you mean…’ I saw Father grin evilly at Orontes. Maybe the sculptor remembered Festus; anyway, he did not look keen to see his glamorous accomplice leaving with yet another rampant Didius.

  ‘Think on,’ I murmured to him. ‘Rubinia looks like a girl who may be easily swayed!’

  ‘Leave me out of it!’ she caterwauled.

  I pushed myself off the ladder and ambled over to where Rubinia was tied up. Beautiful eyes, brimful of malice, sparkled at me. ‘But you’re in it, sweetheart! Tell me, were you swayed by Didius Festus the night I saw you at the Circus?’ Whether she remembered the occasion, she coloured slightly at my brother’s name and my heavy innuendo. If nothing else, I was storing up domestic strife between Rubinia and Orontes when they reminisced about our visit after we had left. I turned back to the sculptor. ‘Festus was madly trying to find you. Your girlfriend here passed him on to your friends Manlius and Varga and they bamboozled him nicely… Did he ever find you that night?’

  Inside the sarcophagus Orontes shook his head.

  ‘Pity,’ said Pa, in a clipped voice. ‘Festus had his methods with traitors!’

  Orontes proved as great a coward as his friends the two painters had been. All the fight was going out of him before our eyes. He groaned, ‘In the name of the gods, why don’t you all just leave me alone! I never asked to get into this, and what happened was not my fault!’

  ‘What did happen?’ both Pa and I demanded simultaneously. I glared at my father angrily. This would never occur with my old pal Petronius; we had a well-established routine for doing a dual interrogation. (By which I mean Petro knew when to let me take the lead.)

  But as it turned out, shouting at Orontes from two directions worked the required effect. He whimpered pathetically, ‘Let me out of here; I can’t stand confined
spaces…’

  ‘Shut the lid a bit more, Marcus!’ commanded Pa. I strode towards the stone coffin, looking determined.

  The sculptor screamed. His girlfriend yelled at him: ‘Oh tell the bastards what they want and let’s get back to bed!’

  ‘A woman with the right priorities!’ I commented quietly, a foot from her entombed lover. ‘Are you ready to talk then?’

  He nodded miserably. I let him out. Immediately he made a dash for freedom. Expecting it, Father had slid gracelessly down the front of the vast matron who was forming his armchair. He landed in front of Orontes and punched up the sculptor’s chin with a mighty blow that knocked him out.

  I caught him under the hot hairy armpits. ‘Oh brilliant, Pa. Now he’s unconscious! This way he’ll tell us a lot!’

  ‘Well what else did you want? To see the bastard escape?’

  We got him laid neatly on the floor, then threw a jug of cold water over him. He came to, to find the pair of us lolling against the statuary while I complained to my father. ‘You do have to overdo everything! Settle down, will you? We want him alive at least until he’s talked

  ‘I should have hit the girl harder,’ mumbled Pa, like some demented thug who liked torturing people.

  ‘Oh she’s all right-so far.’

  Orontes stared around wildly, looking for Rubinia. There was no sign of her in the studio. ‘What have you done with her?’

  ‘Not too much-yet,’ smiled Father.

  ‘Missed his vocation!’ I commented. ‘Don’t worry; she’s just a bit frightened. I’ve managed to hold him back so far, but I can’t go on doing it. Now talk, Orontes, or you get a chisel somewhere you may not expect and Jupiter only knows what this maniac will inflict upon your bit of decorative womanhood!’