A Dying Light In Corduba Part 18

'Who runs the business?'

'I reckon it runs itself.'

He was well trained. Most useless lags who pretend to be watchmen feel compelled to tell you at length how pitiful the management is and how draconian are their own employment terms. Life was one long holiday for this reprobate, and he didn't intend to complain.

'When was the last time you saw Cyzacus down on the wharf?'

'Couldn't tell you, legate.'

'So if I wanted to ask someone to arrange to ship a large load down to Hispalis, say, I wouldn't ask for him?'

'You could ask. It wouldn't do you any good.'

I could tell Helena was losing her temper. Marmarides, who nursed the fond idea that what he called agenting was tough work with interesting highlights, was beginning to look openly bored. Being an informer is hard enough,without subordinates who expect thrills and quaking suspects.

'Who runs the business?' I repeated.

The lag sucked his teeth. 'Well, not Cyzacus. Cyzacus has pretty well retired nowadays. Cyzacus is more what you'd call a figurehead.'

'Somebody must sign the invoices. Does Cyzacus have a son?' I demanded, thinking of all the other men involved in the conspiracy.

The man with the wine jug burst out laughing, then felt the need to take a hefty swig. He was already obstinate and awkward. Soon he would be obstinate, awkward, and drunk.

When he stopped chortling he told me the story: Cyzacus and his son had fallen out. I should have known, really. I fell out with my own father, after all. This son had run away from home - the only oddity was what he had run off to do: Spain produced the Empire's best gladiators. In most towns boys dream of upsetting their parents by fighting in the arena, but maybe in Spain that's the sensible career that they rebel against. At any rate, when Cyzacus junior had his blazing row with Papa aud left home for ever with just a clean tunic and his mother's h.o.a.rded housekeeping, he ran off to be a poet.

'Well, Hispania has produced a lot of poets,' said Helena quietly.

'It's just a different way of messing me about,' I snarled at the watchman. 'Now look here, you great poppy: I don't want a tragic ode, I want the man in charge.'

He knew the game was up. 'Fair enough. No hard feelings -' My feelings should have been obvious. Then he told me that when Cyzacus senior was disappointed by his boy's flight to literature, he adopted someone more suitable: someone who had been a gladiator, so he had nothing to prove. 'Now he has Gorax.'

'Then I'll speak to Gorax.'

'Ooh, I don't advise it, legate!'

I asked what the problem was and he pointed towardsthe large man we had seem earlier engaged in building a hen-house: Gorax had no time for visitors because of his chickens.

Helena Justina gave up on my investigation and said she would go into town for her purple cloth. Marmarides escorted her back to the carriage, reluctantly because he knew the name Gorax: Gorax had once been famous even as far as Malaca, though now he was retired.

Never one to shrink from challenges, I said chickens or no chickens, he would have to speak to me.

I approached quietly, already having second thoughts. He was covered in scars. What he lacked in height he made up in width and bodyweight. His movements were gentle and he showed no wariness of strangers: if any stranger looked at him the wrong way Gorax could just wrap him around a tree. Gorax must have been a gladiator who had known what he was doing. That was why, after twenty bouts in the arena, he was still alive.

I could see the big fellow was really enjoying himself, building his chickens a house. I had been told by the watchman that Gorax had a girlfriend who lived downstream near Hispalis; she had given him the poultry, to provide a safe hobby while he was away from her. It seemed to have worked; he was clearly entranced by the birds. The great soft-hearted lunk looked completely absorbed by his pretty c.o.c.kerel and three hens as they pecked up maize.

They were finer than common barnyard poultry, special guineafowl so delicate they begged to be fussily hand- reared. Neat, dark-feathered birds, with bare heads and bony helmet crests, all speckled like fritillaries.

As I tentatively approached him, he stood up to stare at me. He might have been willing to allow a polite interruption, especially if I admired his pets. But that was before he glanced around his little flock and noticed that only two of the precious hens were here. The third had wandered off along the wharf towards the tethered barge - where she was about to be spotted by Nux.

x.x.xV

The dog let out quite a tentative yip when she first noticed the hen. For a single drumbeat, Nux pondered in an amiable fashion whether to make friends with the bird. Then the hen saw Nux and fluttered up on to a bollard with a frantic cluck. Delighted, Nux sprang into the chase.

As the dog began to rush towards the little hen, the huge gladiator dropped the hammer with which he had been nailing up a perch. He pounded off to save his pet, holding another bird under his arm. I sprinted after him. He naturally had the turn of speed a fighter needs to surprise an unwary opponent with a death-thrust. Oblivious, Nux sat down on her tail and had a meditative scratch.

Marmarides had been lurking by the carriage, unwilling to leave with Helena while I was talking to the famous Gorax. He saw the fun start. I glimpsed his slight figure running our way. Three of us were converging on the dog and the hen - though it was doubtful whether any of us would reach them in time.

Then the stunted watchman, still clutching his wine, began dancing about on the wharf. Nux thought it was a game; she remembered the hen and decided to fetch it for him. Marmarides whooped. I gulped. Gorax shrieked. The hen squawked hysterically. So did the other one, squashed against the mighty chest of Gorax. Nux barked again ecstatically and jumped at the hen on the bollard.

Flapping its wings (and losing feathers) the endangered fowl flew off the bollard, and scooted along the wharf just ahead of Nux's eager nose. Then the stupid thing took off and flapped down into the barge. Gorax rushed at Nux. She had been up on the edge of the planking having a bark at the hen but with a heavyweight bearing down on her, yelling obvious murder, the dog leapt straight after the hen.

The hen tried to flutter up off the barge again but was terrified of the watchman peering down and calling obscene endearments. Nux floundered amongst the necks of the amphorae, paws flailing.

I jumped off the quayside on to the barge. It was basic - no features to grab. I had no time to judge my footing, so one end of the boat swung out suddenly into the stream as I landed. Gorax, who had been about to step aboard himself, slipped on the thwart as the tethered end b.u.mped the quay unexpectedly; he crashed to the deck with one leg overboard. Landing on his chest, he crushed the hen he had been carrying. From his expression, he knew he had killed it. I teetered wildly, trying hard to keep my balance since I could not swim.

Marmarides skidded up the quay and chose a target. He gave the watchman a shove, so the befuddled fool tipped straight into the river. He started screaming, then gurgling. Marmarides had a change of heart and plunged in after him.

Gorax had let out a whine as he cradled the dead bird, but he dropped it as Nux scrabbled closer to the one that was still flapping. Gorax went for the dog, so I aimed at the fowl. We collided, lost our footing on the amphorae, and caused a nasty crack of pottery underfoot. The ex-gladiator had gone through one and was ankle-deep in broken pot. As he struggled to extricate his leg the container broke again, so he was up to his knee, with oil sloshing everywhere. To regain his balance he grabbed at me.

'Ooh, be gentle!'

Unlikely! I had a swift glimpse of his gullet as he let out a wild cry. Even his tonsils were terrifying. I thought he was going to bite off my nose, but just then a refined voice cut through the racket saying, 'Leave it out, Gorax! You're frightening the fish away!'

Gorax, all obedience, dragged his leg out of the smashed amphora, trailing blood and golden oil. Then he sat down on the edge of the barge and held the dead fowl on his ma.s.sive knee, while tears streamed down his face.

'Thanks!' I said quietly to the newcomer. I grabbed Nux with one hand, and made my way carefully to the river side of the barge, where a thin man who was propelling a raft with a pole had stuck his head above the deckline to see what was going on. I crouched and offered a handshake. 'The name's Falco.'

'Cyzacus,' he said.

I managed to keep my temper. 'You're not the man I was introduced to by that name in Rome!'

'You must mean Father.'

'Apollo! You're the poet?'

'I am!' he responded, rather tetchily.

'Sorry; I thought you had left home.'

'I did,' said Cyzacus junior, punting his raft around to the wharfside with some competence.

'You wield a mean oar, for a man of literature.' Clamping the dog under my arm, I had regained the wharf. After Cyzacus tied up his raft I reached down and helped him spring up on to the jetty.

He had a slight body and a few whiffs of hair, amongst which was actually a stylus shoved behind his ear. Maybe the fishing was a cover for writing a ten-volume magisterial epic to glorify Rome. (Or maybe like my Uncle Fabius he was the crazy type who liked to note down descriptions of every fish he caught - date, weight, colouring, time of day, weather, and bait used on the hook ...) He did look like a poet, saturnine and vague, probably with no sense about money and hopeless with women. He was about forty - about the same as his adopted brother Gorax. There appeared to be no animosity between them, for Cyzacus went to console the big hulk, who eventually shrugged, tossed the dead hen into the river, and came back on to the wharf cooing over the live one fondly while it tried to fly away. He had simple emotions and a short attention span; perfect in the arena, and probably just as useful sorting out wholesalers who wanted to hire s.p.a.ce on the barge.

'He organises the loads,' Cyzacus told me. 'I keep the records.'

'Of course, a poet can write!'

'There's no need for cheek.'

'I'm just fascinated. You went to Rome?'

'And I came back,' he said shortly. 'I failed to find a patron. n.o.body came to my public readings; my scrolls failed to sell.' He spoke with much bitterness. It had never entered his head that wanting to be famous for writing was not enough. Maybe he was a bad poet.

I wasn't going to be the man who pointed this out, not with Gorax standing beside him looking immensely proud of his creative business partner. An ex-gladiator's brother is ent.i.tled to respect. The two were about the same height, though the big one filled about three times the s.p.a.ce of the other. They looked totally different, but I already sensed there were closer bonds between them than between most real brothers who have grown up squabbling.

'Never mind,' I said. 'The world has far too many tragedies and almost enough satires. And at least while you're dreaming on a raft on the River Baetis you'll be spared too many cra.s.s interruptions to your thoughts.' The failed poet suspected I was ragging him, so I went on quickly, 'I was just explaining to Gorax when the fracas blew up, your father and I met at a very pleasant dinner in Rome.'

'Father does the trips abroad,' Cyzacus junior confirmed. 'What was it? Making contacts?'

Cyzacus and Gorax exchanged looks. One thought himself intellectual and one was a beaten-up punchbag - but neither was dumb.

'You're the man from Rome!' Cyzacus told me in a sour voice.

Gorax snarled. 'We were expecting you.'

'I should hope you were. I've been here three times!' I bluffed it out. The office has been closed.'

They exchanged looks again. Whatever they told me, Icould see it would be a concocted story. Somebody had already primed them to be difficult.

'All right,' I confided in a friendly fashion. 'Corduba seems a town that has no secrets. I don't know how closely you work with your old man, but I need to ask him about the oil business.'

'Father stays in Hispalis,' the true son said. 'That's where the guild of bargees have their headquarters. He's a big man in the guild.' He looked pleased with himself for this unhelpfulness.

'I'd better go down to Hispalis, then,' I retorted, undeterred. Once more I noticed the two brothers shifting nervously. 'Is this load on the barge going downriver soon? Can I hitch a ride?'

They did tell me when the barge would be leaving; they were probably relieved to let their father deal with me. From what I remembered, he had looked a tougher proposition. Gorax even offered to let me go to Hispalis on the barge for free. This was one of the perks of informing. People I interviewed often seemed glad to pay my fare to send me on to the next person, especially if the next person lived a hundred miles away.

'It must be slightly inconvenient for the bargees,' I suggested, 'having so much trade from Corduba, when your guild is set up at Hispalis?'

The poet, smiled. 'It works. At Cyzacus et Filii we see ourselves as go-betweens in every sense.'

I smiled back at the pair of them. 'Many people have told me that Cyzacus et Filii are the most influential bargemen on the Baetis.'

'That's right,' said Gorax.

'So if the oil producers were banding together to further their trade, your firm would be in there too, representing the guild of bargees?'

The younger Cyzacus knew full well I was referring to the proposed cartel. 'The bargees and the oil producers tend to stick firmly to their separate interests.'

'Oh, I must have got it wrong then; I understood yourfather went to Rome to be part of some negotiations for a new system of price banding?'

'No, he went to Rome as part of a visit to the guild's offices at Ostia.'

'I see! Tell me, does your father have any connections with dancing girls these days?'

They both laughed. It was perfectly genuine. They told me their parent had not looked at a girl for fifty years, and with the innocence of loyal sons they really believed it, I could tell.

Then we all had to stop sidestepping as our attention was claimed by a desperate cry. Still down in the river, my driver Marrnarides was floating on his back in an approved Roman legionary manner (which he must have learned in the service of his master Stertius), gripping the watchman under the chin to keep his head above water, while the watchman clutched his wine jug and they both waited patiently for somebody to throw them down a rope.

x.x.xVI

My social life was looking up. I was acquiring a full calendar, what with Optatus promising me j.a.pes among the bachelors of Corduba, and my free ticket down the Baetis.

Had the elder Cyzacus been the sole reason for visiting Hispalis I might have dropped him as a suspect to interview, but there was also the negotiator Norba.n.u.s, who arranged ocean-going shipping from the downstream port. I might even trace the elusive and murderous 'Sella' - a.s.suming that the fake shepherdess who chucked the stone at me had used her real name. Hispalis posed a problem, however. On my mapskin it looked a good ninety Roman miles away - as the raven flies. The River Baetis appeared to meander atrociously. That could mean anything from a week to a fortnight floating down to do interviews that might add absolutely nothing to my knowledge. I could not afford to waste so much time. Every day when I looked at Helena Justina I was struck by anxiety.

Cyzacus and Gorax had almost certainly wanted to make me waste time for no good reason. If those two managed to put a government agent out of action for a fortnight by trapping him on a very slow barge miles away from anywhere, they would feel proud of themselves. They were protecting their father, not realising how urgently I wanted to trace the dancer and that if I did go to Hispalis she would be my main quarry. I felt sure their father must have reported full details of the dinner, though whether he had told them anything about the attacks afterwards would depend on how much he trusted them. Clearly the poet's time in Rome, while it failed to make him a famous man of letters, had taught him to be a thoroughgoing Celtiberian pain in the backside.

I had now interviewed two suspects, Annaeus Maximusand Licinius Rufius. There were two more in Hispalis, a.s.suming I ever made it there. Yet another pair could well be implicated, even though they had ducked out of the dinner on the palatine: young Rufius Constans and the Quinctius son. They had both been in Rome at the right time. Optatus reckoned Quinctius Quadratus exerted a bad influence on Constans - though until I met Quadratus and judged him for myself I had to allow for some prejudice in his ex-tenant. Yet the wary Greek secretary at the house of Quinctius Attractus who first told me that the two young men had bunked off to the theatre had been very reluctant to give me details. Neither the youngsters themselves nor their whereabouts had seemed important to the enquiry then. Now I was not so sure.

This was one avenue I would be able to pursue immediately, for Optatus had established that the three Annaei were holding their party only a couple of evenings later. Through old channels of communication he had obtained a ready invitation for the pair of us. Young Rufius was trying not to offend his grandfather by openly fraternising with rivals, so he was pretending to visit us that evening and we were taking him. Marmarides would drive us, and later bring home any who had managed to remain sober. Helena seemed to be remembering the last time I went off without her, when I could not even find the right way home afterwards. She saw us off with an intense sniff of disapproval. Apparently Claudia Rufina was taking the same att.i.tude; she stayed at home with their grandparents, though she seemed very fond of her brother and had sportingly agreed not to give him away.

I myself took a conscious decision that evening not to wear anything that might show stains. Optatus had dressed up; he was in a suavely styled outfit that made excellent use of the famous Baetican cinnabar dye, a rich vermilion pigment, complemented by heavily formal black braid on the neck and shoulder seams. With this came an incongruous set of antique finger-rings and a faint waft of balsam around his carefully shaved jowls. It all gave him an air ofbeing up to no good. Even so, he was outshone by the youth.

This was my first real encounter with Rufius Constans. We were all just in tunics - no ceremony in the provinces - and his was the finest quality. I was barely neat; Optatus had on his best. Rufius Constans could well look down on both of us. In his casually worn white linen, his gleaming niello belt, his shaped calfskin boots and even a torque (Jove!), he was far more comfortable in his clothes; he had coffers full at home. So here was a rich lad with high aspirations, setting off for a night among friends, beautifully turned out - yet he was jumpy as a flea.

Constans was pleasant-looking, nothing more. His nose, set in a young, unformed face, was a weak shadow of his sister's but there was something of her in the way he peered shyly at the world. At twenty or so, I felt he had not yet decided his ethical position. He seemed unfinished, and lacking the weight he would need for the elite public career his proud grandfather had charted for him. Maybe I was feeling old.

'I've been meaning to ask you,' I tackled the young man casually, 'how did you enjoy the theatre?'

'What?' He had a light voice and restless eyes. It may be that any lad of twenty who finds himself knee to knee in a jolting carriage with an older man who has a lively reputation may automatically look shifty. Or perhaps he had something to hide.

'I nearly met you during your trip to Rome with your grandfather. But you and Quinctius Quadratus decided to go to tne theatre instead.' Was it my imagination or did the playgoer look hunted? 'See anything good?'

'Can't remember. A mime, I think. Tiberius took me drinking afterwards; it's all a blur.'

It was too early in the night to turn nasty on him. I smiled and let the lie go past. I felt convinced it was a lie. 'You want to be careful if you go out on the town in Rome. You could get mugged. People are getting beaten up on the streets all the time. You didn't see any of that, I suppose?'

'Oh no.'

'That's good.'

'I'm sorry I missed the chance of meeting you,' Rufius added. He had been brought up to be polite.

'You missed some excitement too,' I said.