Venus In Copper Part 5

'Wrong side of the river.'

'It comes with shared use of a roof terrace.'

'Can't you understand Latin? Even if it comes with Julius Caesar's riverside gardens, Cossus, it's not my area! I'm not some d.a.m.ned itinerant matchseller. What else do you have?'

'Courtyard outlook, shaded by pine tree, opposite the Praetorian Camp -'

'Rats! Find a tenant who's deaf.'

'Ground floor, by the Probus Bridge?'

'Find one who can swim in the spring floods...'

We worked through all the dreary dumps he must have had on the stocks for ages, but eventually Cossus acknowledged he would have to shift those onto some raw provincial visitor. 'Now this is just the thing for you--a short lease in the Piscina Publica. Someone else has expressed an interest, but seeing as it's you, Falco -'

'Don't make a drama. Tell me what it offers?'

'Four good rooms arranged conveniently on the third floor -'

'Over the courtyard?'

'The street--but it's a quiet street. The neighbourhood is most attractive, well away from the Aventine warehouses, and favoured by a genteel clientele.' What comedian writes their speeches? He meant that it was too far from the markets and peopled with sn.o.bbish hydraulic engineers. 'The premises are being offered on a six-monthly basis; the landlord is uncertain of his plans for the block.'

That suited me, since I was uncertain of my plans for staying solvent enough to pay him. 'How much?'

'Five thousand.'

'Annually?'

'A half-year!' Cossus gave me a frosty stare. "This is the market for men of means, Falco.'

'It's a market for fools, then.'

'Take it or leave it. That's the going rate.' I gave him a look to say in that case I was going. 'Well, I could probably come down to three thou for a friend.' Half the price was his commission, if I read him right--which made him no friend of mine. 'Because of the short lease,' he explained unconvincingly.

I sat frowning in silence, hoping this would beat him down: nothing doing. The Twelfth is a tolerable district. It lies east of the Aventine on the far side of the Via Ostiensis--nearly home to me. The public fishponds which supplied its name dried up years ago, so I knew the mosquitoes had decamped... I made an appointment to troop along with Cossus tomorrow and inspect the let.

By the time I approached Fountain Court that evening I was determined to take the Piscina Publica apartment whatever it was like. I felt tired of bursting blood vessels climbing up stairs. I was sick of dirt, and noise, and other people's sordid troubles intruding into my life. Tonight I came back into the tangled ma.s.s of those Aventine lanes which feed into each other like the underground filaments of some disgusting fungus, and I told myself that four rooms, conveniently arranged, anywhere else must be better than this.

Still dreaming, I turned the corner within sight of Lenia's laundry. Tomorrow I would sign the lease that enabled me to stop feeling ashamed whenever I had to tell a stranger my address...

A pair of feet stopped my happy plans.

The feet, which were enormous, were kicking at each other in the portico of the basketweaver's lock-up about ten strides away from me. Apart from their size, I noticed them because that was where I always parked myself if ever I had some reason to squint at my apartment discreetly before I showed myself.

Those feet were definitely loafing. The person they were attached to was taking no notice of the weaver's artefacts, even though he had lolled up against a gigantic pile of general purpose wicker carrying-hods which would be a boon to any household, while at his feet lay an excellent picnic basket which any genuine bargain-hunter would have snapped up fast... I squeezed behind a pilaster for a closer scrutiny. I knew he was not a burglar; burglars like to have something to steal. Even the incompetent ones steer clear of Fountain Court.

A client or a creditor would go in and chat to Lenia. These outsize platters must have been sent here by Anacrites, the Chief Spy.

I eased myself backwards, and nipped through a side alley to the back lane. The area behind the laundry appeared its normal self. On this muggy summer evening the open cess trench was polluting the nostrils vibrantly. Two starved black dogs lay asleep on their sides in the shade. From behind a cracked shutter above my head I could hear the spiteful daily conversation of a husband and wife. A pair of female chicken-pluckers were arguing, or just gossiping, by a pen of off-colour capons. And a man I had never seen before was sitting on a barrel, doing nothing much.

He had to be another spy. He was in full sun. It was the last place you would choose to sweat, if your only motive in planting your posterior on a barrel was to rest your legs. But it was the only place to sit if you wanted to survey coinings and goings from Lenia's drying-yard. Unless he was in love with one of the teazle girls, he must be up to no good.

I opted for a strategic retreat.

A large family can be useful. I had numerous relations, all of whom a.s.sumed they owned me. Most would condescend to give me a bed in return for the chance to complain about my habits. My sisters would want to rant about our mother having to arrange my jailbreak, so I went to mother's instead. I knew that meant being obsequious about her standing sponsor but I thought I could put on a polite show. I did manage to play at being grateful for as long as it took to devour a bowl of her prawn dumplings, but when the strain of remembering to look humble became too oppressive I went home after all.

The watcher in the back lane must have been the well-organised one; he had fixed up a relief for himself. His replacement was now perched on the barrel trying to look inconspicuous; not a success, since he was a bald-headed, hook-nosed midget with a drooping left eye.

Around the front the monstrous feet were still outside the basket shop--all the more unconvincing since the weaver had taken in his produce, dragged across his sliding screen and bolted up. I slid into the local barber's, and paid one of his offspring to tell the feet that a homunculus wanted to speak to them in the lane. While footsie plodded round there for a fruitless chat with the midget, I planned to be pouring myself a goodnight drink six floors up on my balcony.

And so I was. Some days, some things actually go right.

Chapter XI.

Next morning I was up early. Before Anacrites' scruffy a.s.sortment were back watching my warren, I had hopped out of my hole and off to an outdoor cookshop table two districts away. I was enjoying a slow breakfast (bread and dates, with honey and hot wine--nothing too lively for a man on surveillance), while I watched the home of the professional bride.

Severina Zotica lived in the Second Sector, the Caelimontium. Her street lay some way beyond the Porticus Claudia (at that time in ruins, but earmarked for restoration in Vespasian's public building programme); the gold-digger inhabited the sedate triangle which lies between the Aqueducts and the two major roads which come together at the Asinaria city gate. Cossus must have realised the Caelian Hill region was too select for me. For one thing, the streets had names. I expect he thought this might have worried me; I expect the beggar thought I couldn't read.

Severina had established herself in Abacus Street. It was a tasteful thoroughfare, a single cart's width. The junction at one end had a well-kept public fountain; the other had a small street market, mainly kitchen pottery and vegetable stalls. In between, the shopkeepers washed and swept their own frontages; they were doing this at the hour I arrived, in a way I found pleasantly businesslike. Both sides of the street were lined with artisans' booths: cutlers, cheese shops, picklesellers, cloth merchants, and locksmiths. Between each pair ran an entry with stairs to the apartments above, and a pa.s.sage to the ground-floor accommodation which lay behind the shops. The buildings were about three storeys high, brick-faced without balconies, though many had neat window boxes supported on brackets, while in other places rugs and counterpanes were already being given their daily airing over windowsills.

Residents came and went. A straight-backed old lady, quiet businessmen, a slave walking a lapdog, children with writing slates. People rarely spoke, yet they exchanged nods. The atmosphere suggested most of them had lived there a long time. They were acquainted, though they kept to themselves.

There was a brothel four doors down from me. It was unmarked, but evident if you sat for any time. Patrons slipped in (looking strained) then strode out half an hour later (looking pleased with themselves).

I stuck with my breakfast. Though it made me remember mornings when I had woken warm from a night in companionable sleep, and enjoyed an extra hour in bed with some young lady I had lured home the evening before... Soon I was missing one in particular. I told myself there was no one in a brothel who could compensate for her.

Certainly, no one who would pay my rent.

It was still quite early when a slightly battered carrying chair emerged from the pa.s.sage between the cheesemaker's booth and a tablecloth shop, which was where I had been told Severina Zotica lived. Curtains hid the occupant. The bearers were a couple of short st.u.r.dy slaves, chosen for the breadth of their shoulders rather than for cutting a dash on the Sacred Way; they had large hands and ugly chins, and looked as if they did everything from carrying water to mending boots.

I had paid for my food already. I stood up, brushing off crumbs. They marched past me and away towards the city. I followed, casually.

When we arrived at the first aqueduct they branched left, cut through some backstreets, came out on the Via Appia, then followed the road round the Circus Maximus towards the Aventine. I felt a shock: the gold-digger was apparently having herself ferried straight towards the Falco residence...

In fact she went somewhere more civilised. The chairmen dropped her at the Atrium of Liberty. A woman of medium height emerged, swathed so modestly in a russet-coloured stole it was impossible to see more of her than a slight figure, an upright carriage and a graceful walk. She entered the Library of Asinius Pollio, where she handed in some scrolls, exchanged pleasantries with the library clerk, then booked out another selection which he had already prepared. Whatever I had expected, it was not that the woman had set off from home purely to change her reading matter at the public library.

As she left, she pa.s.sed quite close. I pretended to be browsing among the pigeonholes of philosophy, but managed to glimpse a white hand, clasping her new volumes, with a ring on her third finger with some red stone. Her gown was a subdued shade of umber, though its folds gleamed with an expensive l.u.s.tre. The hem of the stole which still hid her face was embroidered and set with seed pearls.

Had I lingered to quiz the librarian, I should have lost the chair. Instead I tailed her to the Emporium where she purchased a Baetican ham and some Syrian pears. Next stop was the Theatre of Marcellus; she had sent one of the chairmen to the ticket office for a single in the women's gallery that night.

After that the lady in brown had herself lugged back to the Caelimontium. She bought a cabbage (which I thought looked on the tough side), entered a female bathhouse for an hour, then minced out and went home. I had lunch at the cookshop (rissoles), then sat on there all afternoon. One of her slaves trotted out to get a knife sharpened, but Severina did not re-emerge. In the early evening she was taken straight back to the theatre. I excused myself from attending. It was a pantomimus performing a farce about adulterers pushing cuckolded husbands into conveniently open blanket chests; I had seen it; the dancing was terrible. In any case, observing a female subject at the theatre has its tricky side. If a good-looking specimen like me stares up at the women's seats too often, hussies from the cheap end of society start sending him shameless notes.

I went to see Helena. She had gone out with her mother to visit an aunt.

I met Cossus in a Piscina Publica wineshop, bought him a drink (a small one), then was taken to view the apartment.

To my surprise it was not bad: up a rather narrow lane, but a plain tenement block where the stairs were dusty but free of other detritus. Metal lamps stood in one or two corners on the way upstairs, though they were dry of oil.

'You could fill them if you wanted to light the way up,' Cossus said.

'The lessor could light them.'

'True!' he grinned. 'I'll mention it...'

I suspected there had been a recent change of ownership: I glimpsed builders' props in a pa.s.sageway, the shops at ground level were vacant, and although the princ.i.p.al tenant (who would be my landlord) reserved the large apartment behind them for his own use it was empty at present. Cossus told me I need not expect to see this main tenant; all the subletting was arranged through himself. I was used to spending so much time and trouble avoiding Smaractus, the new landlord's arrangements seemed sweet as a dream.

The apartment on offer was as good as any in the block, since they were all identical units piled on top of one another. In each the door opened into a corridor with two rooms on either hand. These were not much bigger than those I had at Fountain Court, but with four I could plan a more refined existence: a separate living room, bedroom, reading room and office... There were sound wooden floors and an encouraging smell of new plasterwork. If the roof leaked there were upper tenants whom the rain would soak before it dripped on me. I found no signs of pest infestation. The neighbours (if alive) sounded quiet.

Cossus and I smacked hands on the bargain.

'How many weeks' rent would you want at a time?'

'The full half year!' he exclaimed, looking shocked.

'If the term starts in July, I've lost two months!'

'Oh well--the next four months' then.' I promised to cash in my betting tokens right away and bring him the money as soon as I could. 'And the deposit against lawsuits,' he added.

'Lawsuits?' He meant I might drop a flowerpot out of a window and brain some pa.s.ser-by; the main leaseholder could be held liable, if I was just a subtenant. My current landlord Smaractus had never thought of demanding such indemnities--but most people on the Aventine find ways to right their grievances without becoming litigants. (They run up the stairs and punch your head.) 'Is this premium normal at your end of the market?'

'On new tenancies a deposit is traditional, Falco.' Since I wished to appear a man of the world, I gave way gracefully.

With Anacrites watching my old place, the sooner I moved into an address he didn't know the easier life would be. In any case I could hardly wait for the pleasure of telling Smaractus he could hire a slow mule to Lusitania and take the lease for his filthy sixth-floor dosshouse with him when he went. Before I could move however, I would have to arrange some furniture.

At home the spies were still watching. I marched straight up to the one with the feet. 'Excuse me, is this where Didius Falco lives?' He nodded before he could help himself. 'Is he in at the moment?' The spy looked vague, now trying to disguise his interest.

Still playing the stranger, I went up to see whether Falco was in. Which he was, once I got there.

Anyone watching a building should record who goes in and make sure they come out again. I rigged up a trip rope attached to an iron griddle pan which would wake the whole tenement if it was kicked down the stairs in the dark, but no one followed me upstairs. Cheap expertise is all the Palace pays for. I knew that; I had once worked there myself.

Chapter XII.

On the second day of my surveillance Severina Zotica must have stayed in to read her library scrolls. There were household deliveries--amphorae of olive oil and fish pickle -followed by a woman trundling a rackety handcart full of hanks of wool. It had badly set wheels, so I strolled over and lifted the base with the toe of my boot as she struggled to lever the thing up a kerb.

'Someone's going to be busy!' I commented nosily.

'She always buys a quant.i.ty.' The wool distributor backed her ample rear down the entry to Severina's house, huffing as she towed the load. 'She weaves it herself,' she told me, boasting on her customer's behalf. A likely tale.

It was a poor day if I was hoping to publish my diary to literary acclaim: breakfast; Lucanian sausage for lunch (with indigestion afterwards); hot weather; a dogfight in the afternoon (no interesting bites)...

The chair finally veered out of the pa.s.sage in the early evening, followed by a thin maid with a cosmetics box in one hand and a strigil and oil flask dangling from her other wrist. Severina vanished into the same bathhouse as before, dragging the maid. An hour later she flounced back out down the steps. Her sandals were gilded, a lacing of gold threads embroidered every hem on her get-up, and what looked like a diadem came to a point beneath the inevitable stole. The maid who had tricked her out in this finery set off home on foot with her cast-offs and the cosmetics, while the chairmen hauled Severina north to the Pincian: a social call at the Hortensius house.

She stopped at Minnius' cake stall, where she acquired one of his leaf-lined baskets. I pursued her as far as the Hortensius gatehouse and winked at the porter, who confirmed for me that madam was dining with her fancy man. There seemed nothing to gain by waiting outside all evening while they gorged themselves and exchanged pretty nothings. I went back to see Minnius.

'Does Severina call here often?'

'Every time she goes to see Novus. He's a glutton for sweet stuff; they have a regular order up at the house, but she usually takes him a t.i.tbit.'

I bought another piece of must cake for my sister, but I ate it on my way to visit Helena.

'Marcus! How are you getting on with your enquiry?'

'All the evidence suggests the gold-digger is just a home-loving girl, improving her mind, who wants a cla.s.sic tombstone. Apart from She lived with one husband, which we can a.s.sume she has abandoned, it's to be Chaste, virtuous, and well-deserving... She spun and worked in wool--'

'Perhaps she really is well-deserving!'

'And perhaps there will be a snowstorm in Tripolitania! It's time I took a closer look at her -'

'In her women-only bathhouse?' Helena pretended to be shocked.

'My darling, I'll consider most disguises--but I can't pa.s.s for a female once I'm in the nude...' Wondering whether I could somehow manage to infiltrate myself as a sweeper, I gave Helena a salacious grin.

'Don't flash your teeth at me, Didius Falco! And don't forget you're already on bail from the Lautumiae...' After a moment she added apropos of nothing, 'I missed seeing you yesterday.' Her voice was low; there was a true note of yearning in it for a man who wanted to be persuaded.

'Not my fault. You were out when I came.'

She stared at the toes of her shoes (which were leather in a discreet shade, but with dashing purple laces). I mentioned, also apropos of nothing, that I had taken a new lease. I was wondering how she would take it. She looked up. 'Can I come and see?'

'Once I've acquired some furniture.' No self-respecting bachelor invites a good-looking girl to his apartment until he can provide a mirror and anything else they might need. Such as a bed. 'Don't worry--as soon as word of my move gets round among my family, I expect to be showered with everything they've been longing to get rid of--especially my brothers-in-law's bodged efforts at carpentry...'

'My father has a battered reading couch he intended to offer you, but perhaps you won't want it now you're going up in the world?'

'I'll take it!' I a.s.sured her. Her gaze faltered. Helena Justina could always interpret my motives too easily.

Reading is not the only thing you can do on a couch.

I left early. We had run out of things to talk about.

One way and another I had hardly given my darling so much as a kiss. By the time we said goodbye she seemed rather standoffish, so I kept aloof too and strode away with just a nod.

Before I fetched up at the end of her father's street I felt a serious pang of misery, and wished I had been more affectionate. I nearly went back. But I had no intention of letting a senator's daughter see me behave like a dithering idiot.