Inside here, the mosaicists' quiet refuge, all the wall space was hung with drawings, some overlapping haphazardly. Most were mosaic designs in black and white. Some showed complete room layouts with their interwoven borders and tiled entrance mats. Some were small trial motifs. They went from the simplicity of plain corridors with straight-line double edgings, to numerous geometric patterns composed of repeated squares, cubes, stars and diamonds, often forming boxes within boxes. It looked simple, but there were elaborate crenellations, interlinked ladders and latticework such as I had never seen before. The profusion of choice argued huge talent and imagination.
The plan was for every room in the palace to be different, although there would be an overall style. Two large floor designs stood out as special, prominently nailed up in clear wall space. Among the few in colour, a preliminary mock-up had a fabulous complex guilloche of intertwining threads, which formed a centre roundel. That was currently blank. No doubt some handsome medallion was planned – with the King's choice of mythological subject still to be supplied. Within the twined border ran a ring of rich, autumn-tinted foliage, eight-petalled rosettes and elegant tendrils of leaf predominantly in browns and golds. Outside, the corners were in filled with alternate vases and, for some reason, fish.
'North wing,' said the chief mosaicist. Bleating so expressively almost finished him. He did not explain the marine life. I was left to theorise that it was to decorate a room for fish suppers.
The other grand design was fully worked out. This was black and white, a stunning carpet of dramatic squares and crosses, some of its patterns devised from arrowheads, compass rosettes and fleursdelys. The images had been put together so the effect was three dimensional, but I realised that irregularities made the patterns seem to shift. As I moved position, the perspective changed elusively.
'His 'flickering floor', said the assistant proudly.
'North wing,' grunted the chief mosaicist again. Well, skilled repetition was his art.
'People will love it,' I flattered them. 'It you run out of work here, you can come to my house!' Being slow men, whose lives ran at the restrained pace of their work, they did not quip back the obvious retort. I said it for them: 'I don't suppose I can afford you.'
Nothing gave.
I tried again: 'Not a lot for you to do around here at present.'
'We'll be ready when they are.' The chief spoke dourly.
'I can see you're a cut above the average. This client won't be fobbed off with apprentice work and a few preformed panels, cut in at the last moment.' Again, he did not deign to comment.
'Your most important activity takes place before you're even on site,' I mused. 'Creating the design. Choosing the stones. I assume it's to be mostly stone here, none of those glass fragments or sparkly gold and silver particles?'
He shook his head. 'I like stone.'
'Me too. Solid. Cut well, there will be plenty of light reflected back. You can achieve a gleam without gaudiness. Do you make the tesserae yourself?'
'When I have to.'
'Done it in your time?'
'I use a team now.'
'Your own? You trained them?'
'Only way to get good colour matches and consistent sizing.'
'Do you lay your own screeds?'
He scoffed. 'Not any more! Those days are behind us.'
He had put down his beaker. His hands dipped automatically into the baskets of tesserae that littered his table, running the matt miniature tiles through his fingers like embroidery beads. He didn't know he was doing it. Some of these samples were minute, at least ten to the inch. Setting them would take for ever. He had a trial block in front of him, with a band of tight interwoven border in four colours – white, black, red and yellow – executed exquisitely.
'Audience chamber.'
This was a fellow who saved himself. He let time pass by calmly; he would live long, yet his joints would go, despite the use of padded kneelers, and his eyes must be doomed.
The younger man must be his son. He had the same body weight, face shape and manner. These were archetypal craftsmen. They passed their skills from generation to generation, developing their art to suit the times. Their world had a tight circle. Theirs was solitary work. Limited by a man's private concentration, constrained by the reach of his arm.
These were workers who, in the course of their daily life, rarely looked up at what was going on nearby. Apparently they lacked curiosity. They had an air of ancient, honest simplicity. But I already knew from my study of this oversized building scheme, the mosaic workers were a bugbear. They wasted time, kept no proper records of supplies and overcharged the Treasury more relentlessly than any other trade. The chief knew I was on to it. He defied me silently.
I, too, examined a bunch of black stones. I let them clatter slowly back into their basket. 'Everyone else I have interviewed so far told me who they hate. So who annoys you?'
'We keep to ourselves.'
'You come along at the end of the job, the last finishing trade and you know nobody?'
'Nor want to,' he said complacently.
Loud guffaws sounded through the thin walls from the volatile fresco painters. I was starting to think they would be more fun. 'How do you get on with them next door?'
'We work it out.'
'Tell me, when a room has an elaborate floor, something like your 'flicker' design, then it needs quiet walls. You want people to admire it without distraction. And vice versa: when there is flamboyant painting or the occupants plan on using a lot of furniture the floor needs to be restrained, in the background. So who chooses the primary design concept each time?'
'The architect. And the client, I suppose.'
'You get on with Pomponius?'
'Well enough.' If Pomponius had kicked him in the privates and stolen his lunch-basket, this button mouth would never get excited about it to me.
'When they pick a style, do you have any input?'
'I show them layouts. They choose one, or a general idea.'
'And is there conflict?'
'No,' he lied.
If he completed his floors to the fine standard in his artwork, he was a high achiever. That did not alter the fact, this man was as surly as they come.
'Have you come across anyone called Gloccus or Cotta?'
He thought about it, taking his time. 'Sounds familiar…' He shook his head, however. 'No.'
'What line are they in?' enquired the son. The father glared, as if it were a rash question.
'Bath-house construction.' Pa's wonkily tiled Neptune had nothing in common with the cool sophistication that had been ordered up for the palace. 'They do lay floors sub-contracted but nothing of your quality.'
Reluctant to say that the last time I stood on a new floor mosaic, I had put a pick through it and then my father squelched his tool into a corpse, I ended the interview. It had hardly advanced my knowledge. Still, I had formed some thoughts about how I would like my dining room at home re-laid.
One day. One day when I was really rich.
XIX
When I came out from seeing the floorers, the fresco painters' hut next door now lay silent. I looked in.
It was the same kind of chaos, though more crowded since their best friend was a trestle. It had been given a home where the table would have been if these lads had been proud housekeepers. Instead, they ate squatting on the floor (I could tell from the mess) and had upended the table against a window, to give them more access to wall space. They wanted lots and lots of free area to cover with their sheer brilliant brushwork.
The last painters I had dealings with were a mad crowd of crooked, aimless semi-criminals from a wine bar called the Virgin; they wanted to bring down the government but had no money for bribes and no charismatic charm to fool the plebs. Most of the time they could hardly remember their own way home. They were connected with my father. Enough said.
These loud characters here were probably layabouts too. All gambling, drink, and high ideals ab
out betting systems. What they possessed in abundance was talent. All over their hut were fantastic examples of mock-marble scumbling. Dainty purple flecks on red, with trickles of white. Wandering orange streaks. Two shades of grey, sponged in layers. A blank square patch of wall was satirically labelled 'lapis blue here', presumably because the jewelled paint was too expensive to waste in experiments. All other surfaces were daubed. Every time they came in for a break and a barney and a bite to eat, they must flick new paint around just for the joy of seeing different colours and effects. When they were feeling even more obsessive, they produced elaborate bands of wood-graining so perfect it seemed a tragedy that this crude hut with their experiments would one day be pulled down and burned.
There were paint pots everywhere, mostly with great wet glops sliding down them. Paint rings stained the floor. I kept well outside.
'Anyone home?'
No reply. I did feel saddened.
XX
As I left the site huts, my heel slipped in a barrow rut. I landed flat out. Wet mud attached itself down the full length of my tunic. I had badly jarred my spine. When I stood up again, cursing, pain shot all up my back and into my head, to score a direct hit on a grumbling tooth that I was trying to ignore. I would be walking stiffly for days.
I planted my feet apart, getting my breath back. This part of the palace grounds was in general use at present. The official hutments were fairly smart and arranged in a regular pattern. Scattered tents belonging to hangers-on and hobos had been pitched in an untidier camp. Smoke wreathed from untended cooking fires. The smell of dank leaves harboured duskier odours that I chose not to identify.
Pyramids of enormous sawn logs, mighty oak trunks from some nearby forest, had been piled at the track-side. In other rows, square stacks of bricks and roof-tiles waited, layered with protective straw. Somewhere not far off, I could smell caustic smoke, probably lime being burned off for mortar. Here, heavy delivery carts, many still with their contents, were parked in a rough line, their oxen and mules unhitched and hobbled. If there was supposed to be a watchman, he had gone off for a pee in the woods.
One of the carts belonged to Sextius. I limped over to it. I found Aelianus, looking heavily unshaven and distinctly grey. He was curled up awkwardly, in a cramped space in the back of the cart, fast asleep. The senator would approve of his son's endurance – though Julia Justa, who favoured her truculent middle child, would produce a more tart response.
Seeing a rough hide cover, I manhandled it free and gently laid it over him. I was careful. Aulus did not wake.
I leaned for a moment on the cart wheel, rubbing my sore back. Then I heard noises. Instinctively, I felt guilty lurking there alone. It made me cautious how I emerged into public view.
I must have crept like a mouse sneaking out from a skirting. A man who was atop a nearby wagon failed to see me at first. A hash of his extremely white tunic caught my eye. I had a good view of him. He was dragging up old sacks that covered the cart contents and peering underneath. He could have been the owner searching for something – or a thief. He looked furtive, not legitimate.
In fact I knew him. It was Magnus, the surveyor. I was so surprised to find him leaping about these transports on his own, I must have moved abruptly. He glimpsed me and tried to change position. Then he fell off.
Wincing myself, I hopped over there as fast as possible. He lay on the ground, but was making enough noise to prove that parts of him were undamaged. Obscenities came thick and vivid.
'Stuff you, Falco! What a start you gave me-' I helped drag him to his feet. He roared and shifted to and fro, pretending he had to re-jig his limbs in their joint sockets. His fall must have been so unexpected he had stayed limp and that saved him. Basically, he was unhurt.
He had noticed my own filthy tunic, so I said, 'Now there's two of us stiffening up like planks. I took a tumble myself a minute ago. What were you up to, Magnus?'
'Checking a marble consignment,' he breezed off-handedly. 'And you?' Considering he had been behaving oddly, he was looking at me hard.
'I've been trying to squeeze more than two words at a time out of the mosaicist.'
'Philocles? Oh, he's all gab!' Magnus laughed.
'Right. He didn't even tell me he was called Philocles. What about the other – his son, is it?'
'Philocles Junior.'
'Surprise!' Why waste imagination thinking up a different name?
We had started to walk slowly towards the main site. Magnus had been battered by a far worse shock than me, but he was recovering. He must be in general good shape. Refusing to be put off, he insisted, 'Going back to your office by the scenic route?'
I reflected wryly that he sounded like me, harassing some suspect.
There was no need to connect myself to Aelianus, so I told Magnus how the previous day I had met the man with moving statues to sell; I played up Great-Uncle Scare's interest in automata and just said I was curious. 'The fellow isn't there. Must be making his pitch to Plancus and Strephon.'
'Good luck to him.' Magnus grinned. 'Yes, I found his cart myself.'
Now I did have to check. 'And the snoring assistant?' I felt unease at someone else inspecting Aelianus without his knowledge. 'Looks a rough character!'
'Oh I don't think so, Falco,' replied Magnus demurely. 'Rather odd, I thought, did you not notice? He was wearing a very good quality tunic and has manicured hands.'
'Oh dear!' I had been right to worry. I tried to pass it off. 'One of the playthings they hawk about, is he? Maybe Sextius uses him to model moving parts.'
Somehow I managed to manoeuvre the conversation onto delusional statuary. We ended up discussing Homer. That was another shock. According to Magnus there was a scene in the Iliad where the underworld god Hephaistos appeared, complete with a set of three legged bronze tables that moved around on wheels. 'They follow him like dogs, dogs who will even turn round and go home by themselves at his command.'
'Sounds like a good set of nesting-tables for drinks parties.'
'When your guests have had enough, you can whistle and the tables remove themselves.'
I liked Magnus. He had a sense of humour. But I was surprised to find that he read Homer, and I told him so.
'Surveyors take an interest in the world. Most of us are well read,' he bragged. 'Anyway, we spend time alone. Other people think we're tricky sods.'
I made no comment. I had moved Magnus onto my list of men to watch. For one thing, checking important deliveries ought to be done by Cyprianus, the clerk of works. And I would expect marble to be kept not in some unsupervised encampment full of oddball hawkers and interlopers, but safe in the well-fenced site depot.
Covered with mud, I was hardly impressive. I went back to the old house and stripped off. Helena discovered me rootling through a chest of clothes. 'Oh Marcus, what happened?'
'Fell down.' I sounded like a sad little boy.
'Did somebody push you?' Helena was not being maternal; she worried about me getting into serious fights.
'What, some big rough bully? No, I fell down all on my own. I was dreaming and not looking where I put my feet. I'd been looking at work by some fresco artists; I must have been thinking about Larius.'
Larius, my favourite young nephew, had bunked off to learn to be a painter in the Bay of Neapolis, where the rich had their fabulous villas and there was top-class work. It was three years since I had seen him. I tried luring him to Rome to help me decorate Pa's Aventine house, but my letter went unanswered. Larius had always been a businessman, too sensible to commit himself to unpaid favours. Besides, in Rome he had his appalling parents. Galla and her ghastly husband were enough to drive any son to a remote apprenticeship.
'Hmm… So that's where it is!' Helena brushed past me suddenly to seize on a dress of hers. It was a cream affair, with wide bands of blue on the hems. Although simple, it had cost a sackful; the material was a gorgeous weave shot through with silk. As she lifted it out with a seductive rustle and held it by the shoulde
rs, she caught me looking sceptical. 'Hyspale keeps trying on my clothes. There's no point. I am far too tall so they bunch on her.' I said nothing. 'Yes, she does it to annoy me.'
Another problem with the damned nurse. I sighed. 'You know-'
'I know!' I held my peace. 'When we get home,' promised Helena. I'll tackle her in Rome. Mother will take her back.'
'And she won't be surprised.'
Helena looked at me. 'Are you sniping at my mother?'
'No.'
It was true. She might be my mother-in-law, but I had observed the Camillus family enough to know she had had a strong influence on Helena's development. I paid the proper respect to that. When a senator omits to divorce his wife after she has given him the correct number of children and he has used up the dowry, it generally means something too. I did not mess with Julia Justa.
'Oh, your under tunic's mucky too, Marcus. You'll have to take it off and bathe.'
I was already halfway through the motion of peeling down to bare skin when I realised that Hyspale had come into the room.
Helena flushed. 'Hyspale, do knock, please!' I made sure I stayed decent. I can stand admiration from the wider public, but I rather liked Helena Justina deciding my body was her personal territory. She was shaking out the cream and blue dress. 'Did you move this? Can we understand something, Hyspale – I would not allow my sister, my mother even, to borrow my clothes without asking me.'
Hyspale glared at me as if she believed I had caused her reprimand.
'Where are the children?' I asked coldly. Hyspale stormed out. Actually, I had already seen the children safe in the doting care of fair haired, fair-skinned women from the King's household, who were entranced by my daughters' dark eyes and foreign good looks. The baby was asleep. Julia always behaved perfectly for strangers.
Helena and I looked at each other. 'I shall deal with it,' she repeated. 'At least she's not beating or starving them. We just reached the stage where our servants are other people's useless gifts. Next, we shall choose our own – no doubt bungling it through inexperience. Then at last we shall move on to exactly what we want domestically.'
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