Venus In Copper Part 27

'Falernian?' He pulled up. 'Not here! You must mean the Setinum--they reckon it's superior--one of their fads.'

Setinum was what Viridovix had listed on his menu, certainly.

'Are you sure you hadn't made an exception for a special occasion? There was a nice wine here the night your master died. It was in a blue gla.s.s flask with silver l.u.s.tre on the shoulders ...'

The lad became even more definite. 'Not one I ever put out that night.'

'We were on orders to impress,' confirmed the chamberlain. 'Nothing less than the gold jugs and anything set with gemstones.'

'Your flask isn't one of mine,' Galenus a.s.sured me. 'I don't recall even seeing one like that.'

'It never came back to you in the b.u.t.tery?'

'No; I'm sure. I keep my eye open for fancy gla.s.s, for when the ladies want a tipple served up daintily in the afternoons.'

'That's very interesting!' I said. 'I wonder if it could have been a present someone brought?'

'Priscillus,' inserted another lad, a round and red-faced little apple who had been listening to us avidly. 'I was on shoe duty,' he explained. In the thick of it, removing people's sandals as they arrived. 'Priscillus brought the sparkling blue flask.'

I smiled at the russet. 'And was there a little bowl in matching gla.s.s?'

He did not hesitate. 'Oh Priscillus had that in a satchel put aside with his cloak. When he was leaving he suddenly remembered, and rushed to put the bowl on the sideboard with the flask. He had even brought some myrrh in a little bag, which he tipped in to make the present all complete ...'

What a touching thought. I could hardly contain my admiration: a model guest!

Chapter LVI.

I looked around for the skivvy Anthea, but the burning pyre seemed to have brought the cook's death fully home to her; the wheyfaced scullion was sobbing in the arms of two weepy cronies the way teenage girls do. I had a couple of questions ready, but I abandoned them.

Not long before the smoke died down, I recognised a figure approaching from the gatehouse. It was one of Severina's slaves.

'She wants you to come for lunch.' It was typical of this solid doorstopper that he grunted it without preliminaries.

'Thanks, but I won't be able to manage it.'

'She won't like that!' he said.

I was tired of his mistress trying to make demands on me when I had busy plans of my own, but to get rid of him I said I would break my previous appointment if I could (not meaning to try). Then I slung one end of my black cloak over my shoulder and studied the pyre like a mourner who was lost in melancholy thought: the transience of life, inevitable death, how to avoid the Furies, how to placate the Fates (and how soon can one politely make an escape from this funeral... ).

When the slave had gone I cast my garland and poured my oil, said a few words in private to the cook's soul, then collected my hired donkey and left the scene.

At the site where the cake stall once stood I reined in thoughtfully.

I had to be clear what I intended doing now. I had been working for Severina simply to stay close enough to study her as a suspect. It must be nearly time to choose where I really stood.

Yet it was beginning to look as if Severina's theories about who killed Hortensius Novus might be accurate. Priscillus for one had attempted it, after Novus took his stubborn business stand. And apparently either Pollia or Atilia was responsible for another try, with a poisoned cake.

I considered the one line of events which I could now trace satisfactorily: Priscillus planting the poisoned spices which killed Viridovix. A murder which did remove a key witness to what had happened that day in the kitchen--yet a murder brought about by chance. If I had not gone into the dining room for professional reasons that evening, Viridovix would never have rushed in there too. No one could have planned that. Poor Viridovix was an accident.

For obvious and very strong reasons I wanted to avenge the cook. For equally strong social reasons, there was no future in doing it.

True, I had enough evidence to ask a magistrate to indict Appius Priscillus. But face facts: Viridovix was a slave. If I showed that Priscillus had killed him--especially without intending to--what would probably happen if it ever reached a court would be not a murder trial, but a civil suit by the Hortensii for the loss of their slave. The worst charge levelled against Appius Priscillus would be a compensation claim for lost property. No court would put much value on a Gallic prisoner of war; a cook, and not even Alexandrian! Two hundred sestercii, at the outside.

That left my only hope of exacting retribution for Viridovix in the indirect approach: through proving what had happened to his dead master and bringing that culprit to book. All I knew was what had not happened. I could name suspects with motives, but possessing a motive to kill someone was not, in these enlightened days, enough to have them denounced publically. They had made attempts; yet as far as I knew the attempts had failed. Again, probably no charge.

Lastly, there was Severina Zotica. Severina, who had established a wonderful motive for herself when Novus agreed to marry her--and lost it, the moment he died before their wedding contracts were exchanged.

Perhaps she had another motive. But if so, I could not fathom what it was.

Why do funerals always arouse such a tearing appet.i.te? I had to stop thinking about life, death, and retribution. All I could apply my mind to was the now futile memory of delectable cakes.

What inept.i.tude makes a landlord destroy such a boon to the community? Minnius would have been an a.s.set to the neighbourhood whatever rent he paid. By clearing him out, Hortensius Felix must have made his name a byword for pointless destructiveness all over the Pincian. Well, landlords are used to that. Who knows what labyrinthine form of reasoning churns in a lessor's perverted mind? Though in this case the answer was unfortunately obvious: Minnius knew too much.

What could he have known? Simple: Minnius knew who bought the dinner-party cakes.

It was dangerous knowledge. For a moment I even wondered if the cakeman might be dead. Perhaps one dark night after Hortensius Novus was poisoned, sinister shapes had come flitting down the hill from the freedmen's mansion, battered the unlucky pastry king while he was sleeping, and buried the corpse in a shallow grave on the site of his flattened oven and stall... No. I was still sick and rambling. One glance round the area convinced me that no soil had been disturbed. (I was a market gardener's grandson--but more than that, I had been in the army; the army teaches you all there is to know about digging hostile ground.) After a long hot Roman August it would be obvious if anyone had attempted to sc.r.a.pe at this hard-baked hillside. Only the sun had forced open these giant cracks where furiously aimless ants ferried themselves to and fro with specks of chaff while the more sensible lizards basked. Only wheels and hooves had ever packed down the surface of this road.

Minnius might be dead, but if so he wasn't here. And if he wasn't here, in the absence of other evidence I might as well hope he was alive.

So where would he go? Thinking back to my previous conversations with him, it was possible he had told me the answer himself: '... in those days I mas still selling pistachio nuts off a tray in the Emporium ...'

I turned the donkey down the hill, and set off across Rome.

It took me an hour to find him, but I managed eventually. So it was an hour well spent.

The Emporium sits on the city side of the Tiber bank, under the shadow of the Aventine. It is the main exchange in Italy for produce imported by sea, quite simply the greatest, most fascinating commodity market in the Empire--the hub of world trade. You can buy anything there, from Phoenician gla.s.s to Gallic venison; Indian rubies; British leather; Arabian peppercorns; Chinese silk; papyrus, fish pickle, porphyry, olives, amber, ingots of tin and copper or bales of honey-coloured wool; and from Italy itself all the building bricks, roof tiles, ceramic dinner services, oil, fruit and wine you could ever want--provided you are prepared to buy it in wholesale quant.i.ties. No point asking the man politely if he will pick you out just one nice nutmeg; it must be twenty caskfulls, or you'd better be on your way before he reinforces his raucous sarcasm with the sole of his boot. There are stalls outside for timewasters who only want something tasty for the family lunch.

I had known the cavernous interior of the Emporium building, the wharves where the Tiber wherries jostled in queues before they landed, and the unloading bays for the creaking wagons that rumbled overland from Ostia, since I was knee-high to a Macedonian. I knew more people in the Emporium than my brother-in-law Gaius Baebius did, and he worked there (mind you, unless he landed you with the calamity of his marrying your sister, who would want to know Gaius Baebius?) I even knew that although the place appeared to be stuffed with produce, there were good days at the Emporium; but when the right ships had just landed there could be even better ones. Mind you, the normal rules of human life applied here as well: if you dropped in for that special rose-tinted marble your architect had recommended to face your reconditioned atrium, the odds were that the very last sheets in stock would have gone out yesterday to some baker who was building himself an atrocious mausoleum, and as to when another consignment could be expected, legate--it would depend on the quarry, and the shipper, and the winds, and frankly, who could say} Odds on, you would buy yourself a Syrian perfume jar to save being altogether disappointed by the trip--then drop it on the doorstep when you reached home.

Leave that aside. My trip was a success.

The main building was the usual throng of porters and patter. Pushing my way round this noisy bazaar was not the wisest occupation for a recent invalid. But I did find him. He had gone down from a stall but was still one up from his old tray; he was now selling from a stone-faced counter, though he told me he had to take his wares to be cooked first at a public bakery.

'So why did Felix chuck you out?'

'Novus was the sweet tooth in that house,' Minnius mentioned warily.

'Oh I know that! I'm working on a theory that his sweet tooth was what finished Novus--' I stopped short. Best to avoid too much stress on the possibility that Minnius sold cakes that caused poisonings--even if it was somebody else who put the poison into them. 'So how are you managing?'

'Oh it's home from home. I should have come back years ago. I kept telling myself I ought not to leave there because I had built up a good pa.s.sing trade, but you just as soon create your regulars in a place like this.'

'You like the bustle. On Pincian Hill even the fleas are sn.o.bs.' Minnius served a porter with a giant-sized slab of tipsy cake. 'So--three questions, my friend, and then I'll leave you to get on!' He nodded. People like to know there will be set limits to the invasion of their time. 'One: tell me about the batch of confectionery you sent up the hill the night Hortensius Novus died. Were there any special instructions, or was the choice left to you?'

His face set slightly. My guess was, somebody had warned him to keep his mouth shut, but he decided to tell me anyway. 'The original request was for seven luxury pastries. The runabout ambled down the day before and placed the order--a mixture, my choice; but on the afternoon somebody came by and picked another out.'

'Much bigger than the ones you sent,' I said quietly. 'It was to go in the centre of the platter for effect. It would have caused an effect all right!' I commented, leaving Minnius to work out why. 'Question number two, therefore: who picked the extra cake, Minnius?'

I had money on two of them, mentally. I would have lost. Minnius, with his eyes steady, answered, 'Hortensia Atilia.'

The meek one! That was an unexpected treat. I thought about it. 'Thanks.'

'And your third question?' he nagged. Behind me a queue was waiting to be served.

I grinned at him. 'The third is; how much to buy two of your raisin-stuffed pastry doves, for me and my special lady?'

'How special?'

'Very.'

'Better do you a special price.' He wrapped two of the biggest in vine leaves, and gave them to me for nothing.

I put the cakes in my hat, which I carried. Then I set off for home and the special lady who was waiting for me there.

I left the donkey in the hiring stables since I expected to be indoors some while; there was no need to deprive him of shade, hay and companionship. Besides, I hate paying standing time.

The stables were just around the corner from where we lived. From this corner, you could see the entire block. I was like a lad with his first sweetheart, staring round in wonder at everything. I looked up, which you normally never do at your own house since you are thinking about wherever you have just come from, and trying to find your latch-lifter.

The sun was above me, hitting my left eye. I started to squint, looking away from the apartment. Then I had to look back.

Something produced an odd effect. I shaded my eyes. The building seemed to shimmer for a second, though not with light. I was about fifty yards away. The street was busy; no one else noticed anything at first.

The entire frontage of my apartment block crumpled, quite quickly, like a human face dissolving into tears. The building swayed, then visibly hung in the air. All the natural forces which keep a structure upright had lost their effect;for an instant every component was suspended in s.p.a.ce individually. Something maintained the shape of the building--then nothing did. The block neatly folded, with a strangely compact motion, falling in upon itself.

Then the noise overwhelmed the street.

Immediately afterwards we were swamped by a great cloud of masonry dust which enveloped everyone in its stinging, suffocating filth.

Chapter LVII.

First the incredible silence. Then people start to scream.

You have to clear the dust from your eyes first. Shaking yourself makes it worse. You cannot move until you can see. Your senses are righting to catch up with what is happening.

The first screams are the people in the street, startled and shocked, but grateful that they at least still have breath to scream. After that there may be others, from underneath the rubble, but it is difficult to tell until the panic quietens down and someone starts to organise. Someone always will.

There is a procedure to follow. In Rome, buildings often come falling down.

Word goes round the neighbourhood quickly; the noise a.s.sures that. In no time men run up with shovels and props. Others will follow with carts, grapplers, barrows from building sites, makeshift stretchers and perhaps even a hoist. But not soon enough. If the building was known to be occupied, those of you on the spot don't wait. Before the men come with shovels you start in with bare hands. It achieves little. But how can you just stand?

All I had in the world to worry about was two pastries in a hatful of dust. I put the hat down on a doorstep and laid my cloak over it. A gesture really; while I tried to cope.

Stay there... Don't stir--stay there and wait for me!

The walk to what had been our apartment seemed to take a year. Others were moving forwards with me. Even if you are a stranger you do what you can.

I wanted to shout; I wanted to roar. I could not bear to speak her name. Someone did shout: a cry, just a noise to say we were there. So next we stood, listening to the debris settling. That is the procedure; you shout or you knock on something; then listen; then dig. With luck, you are digging for someone. But you dig anyway. You wrench away whole beams as if they were cordwood, turn over doors which are still attached to frames, bend jagged spars, and scrabble among tons of anonymous rubble which somehow no longer bears any resemblance to the materials which originally went into the block. All around the air is cloudy. Shapes move. The ma.s.s beneath your boots sinks suddenly, with a lurch that makes your heart race, amid more sick clouds of filth. A four-inch nail, still as bright as the day it was first hammered home, gouges your bare knee. The backs of your hands are in shreds from sc.r.a.ping against bricks and concrete. Your sweat can hardly manage to trickle through the thick coating of pale dust that dries your skin. Your clothes are stiff with it. Your boots will never be worth pulling on again. Through their thongs your toes and ankles bleed. That dust clop your lungs.

Every now and then people stop again and call for silence; then somebody who has the heart for it shouts. And you listen to the slow trickle of loose mortar among the broken bricks and tiles and papery lathes that were once your home.

If it was a large building, you know before you listen that there is very little chance of anybody ever answering.

While we are working I hardly spoke to anyone. Even strangers must have realised the place was known to me. When the first spades came I s.n.a.t.c.hed one at once; I had proprietary rights. At one point there was a sudden rattle of subsidence so we all jumped back. I took the lead then, to supervise the forcing of props into place. I had been in the army. I was trained to take command of civilians when they were running round like chickens. Even in a catastrophe, you have to be businesslike. Even if I had lost her, she would expect that. The girl would expect me to do what I could, in case I could save someone else. If she was here, at least I was close to her. I would stay here, day and night if necessary, until I knew for certain where she was.

What I felt would have to come later. The later the better. I was not sure I could ever endure what my brain already said I felt.

When they found the woman's body, everything went quiet.

I never knew who said my name. A s.p.a.ce cleared. I forced myself to stumble over there and look; they all waited and watched. Hands touched my back.

She was grey. Grey dress, grey skin, grey matted hair full of plaster dust and fragments of building material. A complete corpse, made of dust. So covered with filth that it could be anyone.

No ear-rings. The wrong curve to the lobe, and no gold there--in fact no tiny hole to take the hook.

I shook my head. 'Mine was tall.'

Besides, once I was certain it was safe to look properly, I could tell that under the grey dust this woman's hair would still be grey. The hair was thin--just a sad trail in a braid no broader than my little finger, which petered out to a few strands after a foot or so. Mine had a thick plait, hardly varying in width, down to her waist.

Someone dropped a neck scarf over the face. A voice said, 'Must be the old woman on the upper floor.' The mad old bag who had so often cursed me.

I went back to work.

It had upset me. I was beginning to imagine now what I was going to find.

I paused, wiping the sweat from my filthy brow. Someone who knew he had more will than me at that moment took the shovel from my hand. I moved aside, as he attacked the swamp of masonry where I stood. Standing idle for a moment, something caught my eye.

It was the handle of a basket. I recognised the shiny black raffia wound round it by my mother when the original canework started to unwind. I dragged it to the surface. Something of mine. It used to hang beside the doorway in our living room.

I walked aside. Bystanders were quietly handing drinks to slake the rescuers' throats. I found a beaker shoved into my hand. There was nowhere to sit. I squatted down on my heels, swallowed the liquid, put down the cup, shook the dirt off the basket and looked inside. Not much. All I had left. The pride of our household: ten bronze spoons Helena once gave me; she had refused to let me hide them in my mattress now they were needed for daily use. A dish that belonged to my mother, put aside for her. My best boots; hidden from the parrot... And a cheese grater.

I had no idea why the grater had been singled out. I would never be able to ask. So much unfinished business: the worst result of sudden death.

I replaced everything in the basket, shoving my arm through the handles right up to the shoulder. Then my bravery ended; no longer any point to it. I buried my head in my arm and tried to shut out everything.