A dying light in Corduba mdf-8 Read online

  We had no one to send ahead as a messenger and we were sick of inns, so we pressed on and turned up unannounced, quite late in the day. Our appearance caused no visible panic. The new tenant had passed the first test of his efficiency. Marius Optatus didn't exactly welcome us with fresh roses in blue glass bud vases, but he found us seats in the garden and summoned a passable julep jug, while he ordered curious servants to prepare our rooms. Nux scampered off after them to choose a good bed to sleep on.

  'The name's Falco. You may have heard Aelianus railing about me.'

  'How do you do,' he answered, omitting to confirm whether or not he had been told I was a reprobate.

  I introduced Helena, then we all sat around being polite and trying not to show that we were people with nothing in common who had been thrown together unavoidably.

  Helena's father had bought himself a traditionally built Baetican farmhouse almost alongside the nearest road. It had mud-brick foundations below wooden panels; the arrangement was one long corridor with reception rooms at the front and more private accommodation behind them. The tenant lived in rooms along one side of the corridor, with views over the estate. The other rooms, which flanked a private garden, were supposed to beset aside for the Camilli if ever any of them visited. This part had been left unused. Either the tenant was scrupulous – or he had been warned to expect visitors.

  'You're being extremely gracious!' I was cheering up now I had been told that the amenities included a small but functioning bath suite, slightly separate from the house. 'With young Aelianus barely off the premises you must have imagined you were safe from further inspection for at least twenty years.'

  Optatus smiled. For a Spaniard he was tall, very thin, rather pale, with a foxy face and bright eyes. Among the Balearic mix of curly Iberians and even more shaggy Celts, all of whom were stocky and short, he stood out like a thistle spike in a cornfield. He looked a few years older than me, mature enough to run a workforce yet young enough to have some hopes in life. A man of few words. Silent men can be simply bad news at a party – or dangerous characters Before we even fetched the baggage in I felt there was something about him I needed to investigate.

  Supper was a simple affair of salt tuna and vegetables, shared with the house slaves and our driver Marmarides, in the old family tradition. We all ate in a long, low kitchen at the back of the house. There was local wine, which seemed good enough if you were tired, and if you added enough water to make the old woman who prepared meals and the lamp boy (who were staring fixedly) think you vaguely respectable. But afterwards Helena suggested I invite Optatus to share a glass of a more refined Campanian I had brought with me. She declined the wine, but sat with us. Then while I, with my fine sense of masculine decorum, tried to keep the conversation neutral, Helena recovered from her weariness enough to start interviewing her father's tenant.

  'My brother Aelianus says we had great good fortune in finding you to take on the estate.' Marius Optatus gave us one of his reserved smiles. 'He mentioned something about you having had some bad luck – I hope you don't mind me asking?' she added innocently.

  Optatus had presumably met people of senatorial rank (not including Helena's brother, who was too juvenile to count), but he would rarely have dealt with the women. 'I had been rather ill,' he hedged reluctantly.

  'Oh, that I didn't know! I'm so sorry – was that why you had to find a new estate? You were farming hereabouts before, weren't you?'

  'Don't be grilled if you don't want to be,' I grinned, helping the man to a modest top-up of wine.

  He saluted me with his cup and said nothing.

  'I'm just making polite conversation, Marcus,' Helena protested mildly. Optatus wouldn't know she had never been the kind of girl who bothered with idle chat. 'I'm a long way from home, and in my condition I need to make friends as quickly as possible!'

  'Are you intending to have the baby here?' Optatus asked, rather warily. He was probably wondering whether we had been dispatched abroad to have it in secret and hide our disgrace.

  'Certainly not,' I retorted. 'There is a battery of antique nursemaids at the Camillus house all anxiously awaiting our return to Rome – not to mention the crabby but very cheap old witch who once delivered me, the highly exclusive midwife Helena's mother places her faith in, my younger sister, Helena's second cousin the Vestal Virgin, and phalanxes of interfering neighbours on all sides. It will cause a social scandal if we fail to use the birthing chair which helped Helena's noble mama produce Helena and her brothers, and which has been purposely sent to Rome from the Camillus country estate -'

  'But you'll gather most of Rome disapproves of us,' Helena quietly inserted into my satire.

  'How true,' I said. 'But then I find myself increasingly disapproving of most of Rome… Optatus, in case you're wondering, you should treat Helena Justina as the noble daughter of your illustrious landlord, though you may pray to the gods that I whisk her away before her lying-in. You can treat me how you like. I'm here on some urgent official business, and Helena was too spirited to be left behind.'

  'Official business!' Optatus had found a sense of humour. 'You mean my new landlord Camillus Verus has not sent you out in a hurry to see whether his youthful son has unwisely signed a lease with me? I was intending to rush out at dawn to make sure the cabbage rows are straight.'

  'Aelianus was satisfied you know how to farm,' said Helena.

  I backed her up: 'He said you had informed him his father was being cheated.'

  A shadow briefly crossed the tenant's face. 'Camillus Verus was losing a lot of the profits from his olive trees.' 'How was that?'

  Optatus' face darkened even more. 'Several ways. The muleteers who take the skins of oil to the Baetis were stealing from him outright; they needed to be supervised. The bargemen on the river were also somehow miscounting when they stowed his amphorae – though they try to do that to everyone. Worst was the lie he was being told about how much oil his trees were yielding.'

  'Who was lying?'

  'The men who pressed his olives.'

  'How can you be sure?'

  'I knew them. They are from my ex-landlord's personal estate. Camillus Verus does not own his own press here. Millstones are very expensive and the number of trees does not justify it. Better if a neighbour contracts to do the work. My ex-landlord's family used to do it, on an amiable basis – but when your father bought his estate the good relationship was abandoned.'

  I sucked my teeth. 'And how would Camillus, thousands of miles away in Rome, ever have known he was being misled? Even when he sent Aelianus, the boy would have been too inexperienced to realise.'

  Optatus nodded. 'But I found out. My father and I had always lent workers to help our landlord at harvest, then his workers used to come to help us in turn. So my own people were present when the Camillus fruit was crushed. They told me of the fraud.'

  'Does this have anything to do with why you lost your own farm?' Helena put in suddenly.

  Marius Optatus placed his winecup on a stool, as if refusing to be lulled into any confidence by the drink – or by our offer of friendship either, if I was any judge. 'There were two reasons why I was asked to leave. Firstly, I was a tenant, as my family had been there for many years.'

  'It was hard to lose?' Helena murmured.

  'It was home.' He was terse. 'I lost my mother some years ago. Then my father died. That gave my landlord an excuse to alter our arrangement. He wanted the land back for himself. He declined to sign a new tenancy with me.' He was only just managing to remain calm. 'The second reason of course was my disloyalty.'

  'When you told Aelianus that my father was being cheated?' That would not have made him popular with anyone. Optatus had chosen the outsider, not the local community. Fatal, wherever you live.

  'people had been hoping to make money from Camillus.' 'Deceiving a foreigner is always a good game,' I said. 'And how did your ex-landlord manoeuvre you out?'

  Helena enquired.

  'Unluckily that was whe
n I fell ill. I had a fever on the brain. I should have died.' There was deep unhappiness behind this story. I rather thought the worst of it would never be told. 'There was a long period while I was too weak to do anything. Then I was ousted from my land on the pretext that it had been badly neglected; I was a bad tenant.'

  'Harsh!'

  'I had certainly not expected it. I stand by what I did – and had I not been ill, I would have argued the issue. But it's too late now.'

  'Did nobody defend you?' Helena demanded indignantly.

  'None of my neighbours wanted to become involved. In their eyes I had become a troublemaker.'

  Helena was furious. 'Surely once you had recovered everyone could see you would run things properly again?'

  'Everyone who wanted to know the truth,' I said. 'Not a landlord who was keen to end the tenancy. And besides, in that situation it's sometimes best to accept that goodwill has broken down.' Optatus agreed with me; I could see he wanted to end the discussion.

  Helena was still too angry. 'No, it's monstrous! Even at this late stage you should take your landlord before the regional council and argue for reinstatement.'

  'My ex-landlord,' Optatus replied slowly, 'is an extremely powerful man.'

  'But disputes can be heard before the provincial governor.' With her deep hatred of injustice, Helena refused to give in.

  'Or the quaestor if he is sent to the regional court as the proconsul's deputy,' Optatus added. His voice was tight. 'In Corduba that usually happens. The quaestor spares his proconsul the business of hearing pleas.'

  Remembering that the new quaestor was to be Quinctius Quadratus, the son of the senator I had met and disliked in Rome, I was losing my confidence in the regional rule of law. 'The quaestor may be young, but he is a senator-elect,' I argued, nevertheless. Not that I had ever felt any awe for senators-elect. Still, I was a Roman abroad and I knew how to defend the system. 'When he stands in for his governor he ought to do the job properly.'

  'Oh, I'm sure he would!' Optatus scoffed. 'Perhaps I should mention, however, that my previous landlord is called Quinctius Attractus. I should be making my petition to his son.'

  Now even Helena Justina had to see his point.

  XX

  I wanted to know Optatus better before I discussed anything with political overtones, so I yawned heavily and we went to bed. He had described some lively local disputes and crookedness. Still, that happens everywhere. Big men stamp on little men. Honest brokers stir up their neighbours' antagonism. Incomers are resented and regarded as fair game. Urban life seems to be noisy and violent, but in the country it's worse. Poisonous feuds fester behind every bush.

  Next day I persuaded Optatus to tour the estate with me. We set off to inspect the olive trees that all the fuss was about, while Nux gambolled wildly around us, convinced that our walk was for her sole benefit. She had only ever known the streets of Rome. She tore about with her eyes mere slits in the wind, barking at the clouds.

  Optatus told me that along the Baetis, especially running west toward Hispalis, were holdings of all sizes – huge estates run by powerful and wealthy families, and also a variety of smaller farms which were either owned or leased. Some of the big holdings belonged to local tycoons, others to Roman investors. Camillus Verus, who was perennially short of cash, had bought himself a pretty modest one. – Though small, the place had potential. The low hills south of the Baetis were as productive in agriculture as the mountains to the north of the river were rich in copper and silver. Camillus had managed to obtain a good position, and it was already cleat his new tenant was putting the farm to rights.

  Optatus first showed me the huge silo where grain was stored underground on straw in conditions that would keep it usable for fifty years. 'The wheat is excellent, and the land will support other cereal crops.' We walked past a bed of asparagus; I cut some spears with my knife. If my guide noticed that I knew how to select the best, how to burrow down into the dry earth before making my cut, and that I should leave a proportion for growing on, he made no comment. 'There are a few vines, though they need attention. We have damsons and nuts -'

  'Almonds?'

  'Yes. Then we have the olive trees – suffering badly.'

  'What's wrong with them?' We stood under the close rows, running in an east-west direction to allow breezes to waft through. To me an olive grove was just an olive grove, unless it had a chorus of nymphs tripping about in windblown drapery.

  'Too tall.' Some were twice as high as me; some more. 'In cultivation they will grow to forty feet, but who wants that? As a guide, they should be kept to the height of the tallest ox, to allow for picking the fruit.'

  'I thought olives were shaken down by banging the trees with sticks? Then caught in nets?'

  'Not good.' Optatus disagreed impatiently. 'Sticks can damage the tender branches that bear the fruit. Falling can bruise the olives. Hand-picking is best. It means visiting every tree several times in each harvest, to catch all the fruit when it is exactly ripe.'

  'Green or black? Which do you favour for pressing?'

  'Depends on the variety. Pausian gives the best oil, but only while the fruit is green. Regia gives best from the black.'

  He showed me where he was himself stripping back the soil to expose the roots, then removing young suckers. Meanwhile the upper branches were being severely pruned to reduce the trees to a manageable height.

  'Will this harsh treatment set them back?'

  'Olives are tough, Falco. An uprooted tree will sprout again if the smallest shred of root remains in contact with the soil.'

  'Is that how they can live so long?'

  'Five hundred years, they say.'

  'It's a long-term business. Hard for a tenant to start afresh,' I sympathised, watching him.

  His manner did not alter – but it was pretty restrained to start with. 'The new cuttings I have planted this month in the nursery will not bear fruit for five years; it will take at least twenty for them to reach their best. Yes; the olive business is long-term.'

  I wanted to ask him about his old landlord Attractus, but I was not sure how to tackle it. Last night, with supper and wine inside him, he had shown his feelings more freely, but this morning he had clammed up. I am the first to respect a man's privacy – except when I need to extract what he knows.

  In fact he saved me the trouble of opening the discussion.

  'You want me to tell you about the Quinctii!' he announced grimly.

  'I'm not harassing you.'

  'Oh no!' He was working himself up well. 'You want me to tell you how the father did me down, how I suffered, and how the son gloated!'

  'Is that how it was?'

  Optatus took a deep breath. My quiet attitude had relaxed him too. 'Of course not.'

  'I didn't think so,' I remarked. 'If we had been talking about an obviously corrupt action you wouldn't have stood for it, and other people would have come out on your side. Whatever pressure the Quinctii applied to make you leave, you must have felt that technically, at least, they had the law on their side.'

  'I'm not the man to judge what happened,' Marius Optatus said. 'I only know I was helpless. It was all achieved very subtly. I felt, and still feel, a deep sense of injustice – but I cannot prove any wrongdoing.'

  'The Quinctii had definitely decided that they wanted you out?'

  'They wanted to expand their own estate. The easiest way, and the cheapest, of course, was to kick me off the land that my family had been improving for several generations and take it over themselves. It saved them buying more ground. It saved them clearing and planting. I couldn't complain. I was a tenant; if I gave them cause, ending the contract was their right.'

  'But it was harsh, and it was done badly?'

  'The father was in Rome. His son dealt with me. He doesn't know.' Optatus shrugged, still almost with disbelief. 'Young Quinctius Quadratus watched me leave with my bed, and my tools, and my saltbox – and he really did not understand what he had done to me.'

&
nbsp; 'You call him young,' I rasped. 'He has been given charge of all the financial affairs of this province. He's not a child.'

  'He is twenty-five,' Optatus said tersely.

  'Oh yes! In his year.' Quadratus had achieved the quaestorship at the earliest possible date. 'We're in circles where golden youths don't expect to hang about. They want their honours now – so they can go on to grab more!'

  'He's a shooting star, Falco!'

  'Maybe somebody somewhere has a sharp arrow and a long enough reach to bring him down.'

  Optatus did not waste effort on such dreams. 'My family were tenants,' he repeated, 'but that had been our choice. We were people of standing. I was not destitute when I left the farm. In fact,' he added, becoming quite animated, 'it could have been worse. My grandfather and father had always understood what the situation was, so every last wooden hayfork that belonged to us was inventoried on a list. Every yoke, millstone and plough. Every basket for straining cheese. That gave me some satisfaction.'

  Did Quadratus try to haggle about what you could take with you?'

  'He wanted to. I wanted him to try it -'

  'That would be theft. It would have destroyed his public face.'

  'Yes, Falco. He was too clever for that.'

  'He is intelligent?'

  'Of course.'

  They always are, those golden boys who spend their lives destroying other people.

  We strolled to the nursery where I inspected the tiny sprouts, each standing in a hollow to conserve moisture and with a windbreak made from an esparto sack for protection. Optatus was carrying out this task himself, though of course he had workers on the estate including slaves of his own. While we were there he puddled in his precious nurselings with water from a barrel, stroking their leaves and tutting over any that looked limp. Seeing him fuss, I gained some sense of his grief at losing the farm where he grew up. It did not improve my opinion of the Quinctius family.

  I could tell he wanted to be rid of me. He had been polite, but I had had my ration. He walked me back to the house formally, as if ensuring I was off the scene.