A Dying Light In Corduba Part 21

'Why, what did you do?'

'I found out that Dotty and his merry selection of friends were -'

'In the cellar?'

'Yes.'

'Soaking up all Papa's choice imported Falernian?' 'Yes.'

'Putting the world to rights like depressed witches when half the coven's failed to show - Yes?'

'And watching a dancing girl,' said Marius.

Helena Justina gripped me by the shoulders and removed me from my cosy position. I sat up with my arms around my knees. Helena demanded, 'Marius Optatus, would this be a dancing girl Marcus has seen before?'

'How should I know?' He was still angry, though being polite to Helena. 'I could not find Falco to compare points of similarity! I had decided to accost the girl myself, but then Annaeus Maximus came home and the row started. In the chaos the dancer slipped away somewhere; that was understandable. Clearly you had done the same,' he sneered at me. 'I wanted to leave myself, but I thought I should try and find out about the girl for you -'

'You've taken to undercover work! What was she like?' I inserted quickly. 'Loose-limbed, gorgeous and with luxurious black hair?'

'She was nothing of a looker - but she could certainly dance.'

That was a surprise. I must have been even more drunk than I remembered at the dinner for the Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica. I had thought Diana was fairly personable but her repertoire lacked skill. Aelia.n.u.s had also said she had her limitations. Maybe we were right; maybe Optatus took the uncritical view. For some men, if a woman has very few clothes on and is signalling that the rest might come off with modest encouragement, that's enough. 'Marius, Baetica is full of women wielding tambourines to make a quick denarius. Why did you decide this one was significant?'

'Dotty told me she had been asking curious questions. She wanted to know where his father was. He reckoned she was making sure there was no chance of parental displeasure - wrong, as it turned out.'

'She's a decent dancer, yet she was tantalising teenagers?' 'Most dancers are short of money,' he corrected me frostily.

'Was she dancing in a costume?'

'She was dancing in an immodest shift, Falco. That iswhat young men expect.' The stern Marius had reached the sarcastic stage.

'I wonder how they found her? Is some sort of directory of dubious entertainers kept at the Temple of the Capitoline Triad, perhaps? I don't suppose the young Annaei were able to consult the aedile's list; the aedile would have gone straight to their papa.'

'Please don't be facetious, Falco. Dotty was taking the credit for hiring her.'

'My good Marius, you've been working hard.'

'Don't bother to thank me! Dotty said that she had heard about the party and presented herself, offering to perform. He did not know where she came from.' She must be hanging around Corduba - and she must have her ear to the ground.

'Rich young men have all the luck.'

'I expect she charged a gigantic fee,' chided Helena. 'Rich young men don't feel the pain.'

'Anyway Optatus deflated and confessed with a sigh, 'I know this is not the girl you want, Falco. Dotty was perfectly frank. He knew of Selia - she is familiar to all those young men, apparently. They don't care that she is not the most perfece dancer - she has other attractions that compensate. Dotty hadn't been able to hire her this evening because she is supposed to have returned to Hispalis. He did say the older one, the one they did have there, had been trying to find out what other dancers he knew.'

'Did he own up to her that he had wanted Selia instead?'

'He's an oil producer's son, Falco! He's much too cute to do that.'

While I was wondering whether the appearance of a second dancer was just coincidence, Helena decided to confess about the two young disasters who were asleep in a guest bedroom. Optatus was furious.

However, he calmed down next day, thanks to a j.a.pe we two devised. The quaestor and Constans had arrived at our house the night before riding together on a highly bred horse which they had stolen from the Annaeus stable. Wesolemnly promised to return it for them before there was a hue and cry. Then I sent them off back to their own homes on a special horse of my own.

'His name's Prancer. You have to check him or he dashes away. Hold on tight in case he bolts.'

'Thanks, Falco.' Quadratus had already realised he was the b.u.t.t of a joke. 'But this leaves you without a mount -'

'I will find Marcus Didius a horse,' grinned Optatus pleasantly. 'You keep that one - with our compliments!'

XL

Where next?

I was glad Optatus had offered me a decent mount. I had run out of options in Corduba, and badly needed to visit Hispalis. According to the middle Annaeus, that was where Selia would be found. She had always been my prime target.

Had events been different, Helena and I would have enjoyed a slow boat ride together as offered by Cyzacus and Gorax. We had first come to know one another well on a trip across Europe which had included journeys by river. Ever since those long weeks falling in love we had adored water transport; we were nostalgic types. This time though, time was against us.

There was a good road all along the Baetis - the Via Augusta which travelled to Gades. If dispatch-riders of the imperial post with urgent missives could gallop fifty miles a day, I could certainly try to match them. I would use the horse our friend produced for me and ride into Corduba, then I would call at the governor's palace and demand that he give me authority to use the stables and lodges of the cursus publicus. Two days there; two days back; plus however long it took me to interview Cyzacus senior and Norba.n.u.s, then to search for the dancing girl.

While I executed this fantastic feat of logistics, Helena could wait on the estate, sleeping mostly. That was what she needed now.

Helena Justina pointed out quietly that I hate horses. I said I was a professional. I thought she hid a smile.

I had been up at dawn so I was at the Palace waiting when the clerks first strolled into their offices discussing last night's drinking bout. They had barely got on to how manystairs they had fallen down when they found me, looking brisk. My previous visit had left me a hero. There was no need to see the proconsul; these lads were mine to command. My scandalous stories about their master, invented or not, had worked: clerks are always longing for somebody to brighten up their lives.

Permits to use the cursus publicus are not readily available. They have to bear the Emperor's personal signature; that's their validation. Governors of provinces are supplied with a finite number, which they are supposed to use only in the proper circ.u.mstances. Prissy ones actually write home to check whether they are following the rules. But the clerks of the proconsul of Baetica decided that their man would approve one for me, without being put to the trouble of knowing he had done it. Nice lads.

I usually go on foreign missions already equipped with my own pa.s.s. I had not thought about it this time, and neither had Laeta - a.s.suming he possessed the authority to give me one. I had been trying not to think about Laeta. But when I did, I asked the clerks whether he had become the official point of contact for intelligence issues.

'No, it's still supposed to be Anacrites, Falco.'

'Isn't that typical! I left Anacrites on his deathbed. He must have been formally replaced by now.'

'Well, n.o.body tells us - unless Rome's decided to leave a corpse in charge!'

'Believe me, lads, you won't notice any difference if they replace the Chief Spy with a stiff.'

'Suits us!' they giggled. 'We hate getting letters from him. The old man always goes on the rampage because he can't understand what Anacrites is on about. Then if we send for clarification we get the same message back, only not just in cypher; all the references are changed to code names as well.'

'How about Laeta? Have you noticed an increase in the volume of messages from him? More urgent signals, perhaps?'

'No more than usual. He can't use signals.'

'Why? No ent.i.tlement?'

'He writes too much. The beacon flares can only send one letter at a time; it's too slow for long doc.u.ments.' Too inaccurate as well; you need night-time, with exactly the right visibility, and even then every time a message is transmitted between watch-towers there is a risk that the signallers may misread the lights and pa.s.s along gobbledegook. 'Laeta sends scrolls, always via the dispatch-riders.'

'No sign of him having new responsibilities, then?'

'No.'

'I don't suppose he's bothering to enquire after me?' 'No, Falco.'

There was something I wanted to check up on. I gazed at them in a frank and friendly manner. 'I'm asking because if Anacrites is laid up or dead, there may be changes on the Palatine ... Listen, you know how I came out to Baetica with a letter for the proconsul saying I was a man on a secret mission?' They were bound to know; there was no harm in sharing the confidence. 'The old man told me you had already been asked to note the presence of another person n.o.body talks about?' They glanced at each other. 'I'm getting worried,' I told them, lying well. 'I think an agent might have gone missing. With Anacrites lying p.r.o.ne we can't find out who he had in the field.'

More obvious looks were now being exchanged. I waited. 'Letters of introduction from the Chief Spy's office carry the top security mark, Falco.'

'I know. I use it myself.'

'We are not allowed to read them.'

'But I bet you do!'

Like lambkins they agreed: 'Just before you came Anacrites sent one of his coded notes. It was his normal nutter's charter: the agent would not be making contact officially - yet we were to afford full facilities.'

'I bet you thought that was about me.'

'Oh no.'

'Why not?'

'The agent was a woman, Falco.'

'Well, you'll enjoy facilitating her!' I had grinned, but I was groaning inside.

Anacrites ought to have been planning to send out Valentinus. He was definitely working on the case and Momus, my crony at the Palace, had told me Valentinus had been the best agent Anacrites used. Why send a female? Well, Valentinus was a freelance, his own master. Perhaps he had refused to work abroad. That surprised me though. All I knew of him - not much, admittedly - had suggested he was a calm, efficient type who would not balk at anything. Most people welcome the offer of a free long- distance trip.

Surely even Anacrites hadn't fallen for the old belief that respectable businessmen like the oil producers of Baetica were likely to be seduceable? The ones I had met might possibly be so - but they were too long in the tooth to be blackmailed about it afterwards.

Maybe I had been living with Helena Justina for too long. I had grown soft. My natural cynicism had been squeezed out. I had forgotten that there will always be men who can be lured into pillow confessions by a determined dancing girl.

Just as I left I asked another question: 'What do you think about the new quaestor? What are your views on Quadratus?'

'A b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' my allies a.s.sured me.

'Oh go on. A quaestor is always a b.a.s.t.a.r.d; that's how they're defined. Surely he's no worse than the rest of them? He's young and jumped-up - but you've seen it all before. A few months with you showing him how the world works and he'll be all right, surely?'

'A double b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' the lads reiterated solemnly.

One thing I always reckon in the marbled halls of bureaucracy is that the best a.s.sessments of personalities come from the clerks they kick.

I went back and sat down. I laced my fingers and leaned my chin on them. First the proconsul had taken the initiative to show he entertained doubts about Quadratus,and now these characters openly despised him without giving him a trial. 'Tell me? I said. So being obliging friends of mine, they did.

Quinctius Quadratus was not entirely clean. His personal record had preceded him to Baetica, and although it was confidential (because it was), it had been pored over by the secretariat: there was a bad story, one that Quadratus would find hard to shake off in his future career. On his route to the Senate in his late teens he had served as a military tribune. Posted to Dalmatia he had been involved in a messy incident where some soldiers attempting to reinstate a bridge on a flood-swollen river had lost their lives. They could have waited until the torrent abated, but Quadratus ordered them to tackle the job despite the obvious risk. An official enquiry had deemed the affair a tragic accident - but it was the kind of accident whose details his old commanding officer had bothered to pa.s.s on personally to the proconsul who was just inheriting Quadratus in a new civil post.

So there really was a black mark against his name.

Shortly afterwards, I had finally reached the corridor when I noticed some early arrivals queuing for an interview with the proconsul. A scribe who must be senior to the other men - because he had sauntered in even later and with an even worse air of being weighed down by a wine headache - had been waylaid by two figures I recognised. One was the elderly oil magnate, Licinius Rufius, the other his grandson Rufius Constans. The youth was looking sullen; when he spotted me he seemed almost afraid.

I overheard the senior clerk say the proconsul would not be available that day. He gave them some good reason; it was not just a brush-off. The old man looked irritated, but was accepting it reluctantly.

I nodded a courteous greeting to Licinius, but with a long hard ride ahead of me I had no time to stop. I took the road to Hispalis with problems cluttering my mind.

Most puzzling was the female agent Anacrites hadintended to send to Baetica. Was she the 'dangerous woman' he had been muttering about? Then where was she? Had he ever actually given her orders? When Anacrites was attacked, had she stayed in Rome without further instructions? Or was she here? Here perhaps even on her own initiative? (Impossible; Anacrites had never employed anyone with that much gumption.) The female agent had to be identified. Otherwise she might be the dancer I was pursuing. I might have drawn all the wrong conclusions about Selia. She could have been at the dinner as backup for Anacrites and Valentinus; she could be innocent of the attacks; she could have dropped her arrow in the street during a meeting with them; the wounds on the two men could have had some other cause. If so, what was she up to now in Corduba? Had she been dressed as a shepherdess at the Parilia parade in order to follow up the cartel? Had she then disguised herself as an old woman to try and interview Licinius Rufius? Were she and I all along working for the same ends? - Well then, who was the real attacker of Valentinus and Anacrites?

The other possibility was that Selia was as dangerous as I had always thought - and that some other woman was in Baetica on the Chief Spy's behalf. One I had not encountered yet. Very likely the dancer Dotty had hired for the party. Some lousy fleabag Anacrites used, who was d.o.g.g.i.ng my steps and liable to get in my way. That was the most likely. And it made me livid. Because maybe somebody at the Palace knew we were both out here - in which case why in Hades was it necessary? Why, when Helena Justina needed me, was I wasting my own time and duplicating effort?

I dismissed the idea. The Palace might be well capable of keeping agents in the dark, but under Vespasian double payment was never sanctioned where a single fee would do. So that meant there were two different offices actively involved. Laeta had sent me out, unaware that Anacrites had someone else in the field. Our objectives might be similar - or absolutely different. As I homed in on Selia,somebody else with conflicting orders could be doing the same. And in the long run, as I had suspected right from the night of the dinner on the Palatine, I myself would probably end up suffering: the hapless victim of a palace feud.

There was nothing I could do. Communications with Rome took too long to query this. I had to set off for Hispalis and do my best. But all the time I had to watch my back. I risked finding out that another agent had got there first and all my efforts were redundant. Somebody else might take the credit. Somebody else might earn the reward.

I could find no answers. Even when I had puzzled over the questions until I was sick of them there was still one more which might or might not be related, a new question that I had just left behind in Corduba. Why had Licinius Rufus wanted an interview with the proconsul? What had brought an elderly gentleman into the city so early in the morning, with his grandson morosely in tow?

PART THREE:.

HISPALIS: CORDUBA.

MONTES MARIANA.

AD73: May

What difference does it make how much is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already? You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough. What difference does it make how much is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already? You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

Seneca .

XLI XLI.

Three mornings later I was sitting in a foodshop in Hispalis. Every muscle ached. I had blisters in obnoxious places. My brain was exhausted too.

Hispalis was growing hot. By midsummer this would be one of the most fiercely baked little towns in the Empire. Midsummer was closer than I dared contemplate. Weeks before then the child I had rashly fathered would be born. It could be happening while I was here. I could be breaking all my heartfelt a.s.surances to Helena. The baby might have been born already without me. I could be a condemned man.