JUPITER MYTH Page 11

  I turned my back on the belts eventually (since I would not be caught dead in brick-red leather). Mooching into a shop full of jumbled hardware, I was trying to work out how I could carry back home with me ten stupendously good-value, but heavy, black pottery bowls. Despite a generous discount offered by the pleasant shopkeeper, I said no and started to inspect some interesting skeins of hairy twine. You can never have too much hairy twine around the house, and he assured me it was the best goat's hair, neatly twisted, the skeins only going for a song because of overproduction in the goat-hair-twine-making trade. I loved this tempting hardware emporium, where next I spotted a quite hilarious lamp. It had naked young ladies at either side of the hole, looking over their shoulders to compare the size of their bottoms-

  No chance to linger. I happened to glance outdoors and there were the two enforcers strolling past the shop.

  The amiable seller caught the direction of my glance, so I muttered, "Know those two?"

  "Splice and Pyro."

  "Know what they do?"

  He smiled bleakly. Pyro obviously set the fires, while Splice must have some painful specialty on which I would not speculate.

  In two heartbeats I was out of there and dodging after them. Informers learn not to load themselves up with shopping, just in case of such emergencies.

  I held back as the pair walked unconcernedly. I had recognized them at once: Splice, the short, well-built one, who probably did the chat and the brutality, and his leaner chum Pyro, who stayed on guard or played with flame. Splice had a square face decorated with two intriguing old scars; Pyro sported dirty beard-shadow and a speckled crop of moles. A snipper who knew how to wield steel had given them fine Roman haircuts. Both had muscled legs and arms that must have seen some nasty action. Neither looked like a man to argue with about the outcome of a horse race.

  Watching from behind, I could sum them up from how they walked. They were confident. Unhurried but not loitering. A bulge under Splice's tunic hinted that he might be carrying swag. Once or twice they exchanged words with a stallholder, light greetings in passing. These men behaved like locals who were old faces about the district. Nobody showed much fear; they were an accepted part of the scenery. People almost seemed to like them. In Rome they could have been typical spoiled wastrels: everyday adulterers who avoided work, lived with their mothers, spent too much on clothes, drink, and brothel bills, and dabbled with the sordid end of crime. Here, they stood out as Romans because of their Mediterranean coloring; they both had facial bone structure that was straight off the Tiber Embankment. Maybe that hint of the exotic attracted people.

  They had melded in, apparently very fast and without effort. Londinium had accepted extortion as easily as it accepted mist every morning and rain four times a week. That was how the rackets worked. The enforcers arrived in a place and made out that their methods were a normal part of the high life. People could sniff money when near them. Moneyed bastards will always attract sad people who yearn for better things. These thugs-they were no better-soon acquired status. Once they had beaten up a few stubborn customers, they carried another smell too: danger. That also has a perverse attraction.

  I saw it all working when they led me right back where I came from earlier, straight past the Swan to the other caupona, the Ganymede. They were well known to the waiter, who came out at once and chatted as he laid their table, a private one set slightly apart from the rest. It was lunchtime and a lot of people were calling for a hasty bite, but the enforcers were able to take all the time they liked over whether they wanted olives in brine or in aromatic oil. Wine came automatically, probably in their special cups.

  Pyro went inside, perhaps to visit the latrine, more likely to stash the money from their morning round. I had obviously found their operating base. Here, Splice and Pyro were openly holding court. Male visitors came and went constantly, like cousins at a Greek barber's. On arrival there would be formal standing up and handshakes. The two enforcers then got on with lunch, rarely offering hospitality, rarely being bought drinks. The point for everyone was to make contact. They were businesslike and even abstemious; they ate stuffed pancakes with simple side salads, no sweetmeats, and their wine flagon was the small size. The visitors would sit and gossip for a respectable period, then leave after more handshakes.

  I saw no sign that Splice and Pyro were being brought bribes or payments. People just wanted to register respect. Just as in Rome a great man holding public office will receive clients, supplicants, and friends in the formal rooms of his pillared house at set hours every morning, so these two lice allowed fawners to assemble at their table on a daily basis. Nobody handed out presents, though it was evident that this was a favor exchange. On one side, reverence was being offered in a way that made me bilious; on the other, the enforcers promised not to break the supplicants' bones.

  Passersby who did not choose to stop and grovel used the far side of the road. There were not many.

  I had positioned myself outside a booth selling locks. Unfortunately, as I pretended to peruse the intricate metalwork, I was standing in full sun. Only I could land myself a job in a province famous for its chilly fog on the one week in a decade when the heat would make a sand lizard faint. My tunic had glued itself to my body right across my shoulders and all down my back. My hair felt like a heavy fur rug. The inner soles of my boots were wet and slippery; a boot-thong that had never given trouble before had now blistered my heel raw.

  While I stood there, I was pondering a complication: Petronius. Had I been working alone, I would have returned to the procurator's residence to request a posse to arrest Splice and Pyro and search their base. I would then have the thugs incommunicado for so long that some of their victims might be reassured enough to speak out. The governor's inquiry team, his rough quaestiones, could meanwhile have played with the enforcers, using their nastiest instruments of coercion. The interrogators, who must be bored out here, were trained to persist. If Splice and Pyro felt enough pain and found their isolation too terrible, they might even scream out the name of the man who was paying them.

  It seemed a good solution. But I could still hear those terse words from Petronius: leave it, or I'm a dead man.

  Whatever he was doing, we had been wrong to suspect flirtation or debauchery. He was working, the devious hypocrite. He was under cover somehow. On what? The Verovolcus case had clearly intrigued him, though I failed to see the draw myself; I was puzzled by it, but I was only pursuing out of loyalty to Hilaris, Frontinus, and the old King. Petronius Longus had no such ties. I had no idea why Petro should get involved. But if he was watching these two bullies, I would not move against them before consulting them. That was a rule of our friendship.

  I was still fretting over this when a passerby who did not know the local respect system came tripping along: my sister Maia. What was she doing? Unaware of the two enforcers, she walked straight past the Ganymede on their side of the street. That meant I had no chance to warn her off, or ask why she was here. Wanting to stay unobtrusive, I could only watch.

  Maia was striking to look at, but she had grown up in Rome. She knew how to pass safely through streets full of obnoxious types. Her walk was quietly purposeful, and although she looked briefly into every shop and food place, she never met anyone's eye. With her head and body wrapped in a long veil, she had disguised her private style and became unremarkable. One man did lean over a rail and say something to her as she passed-some mutt who on principle had a try at anything in a stola-but as my fists balled, that chancer was treated to such a savage look he shrank back. He certainly knew he had encountered proud Roman womanhood.

  Mind you, my sister's self-possessed disdain could itself attract attention. One of the men with Splice and Pyro stood up. At once Pyro spoke to him and he sat down again. Maia had by then gone past the Ganymede.

  Nice thought: that the enforcers had a noble regard for women! But they just left women alone to avoid attracting the wrong public notice. Gangs who work through fear un
derstand, if they are efficient, that normal life should be allowed to flow through the streets unhindered. Some even go so far as to batter a known rapist or threaten an adolescent burglar, as a sign that they represent order, men who will protect their own. This implies they are the only force of order. Then the people they are threatening feel they have nowhere to turn for help.

  They had finished their lunch. They stood up and left. As far as I saw, there was no attempt to offer them a bill. Neither of them left money anyway.

  I followed them around for the early part of the afternoon. From place to place they went like election candidates, often not even speaking to people, just making their presence felt. They did not appear to be collecting. That would be better done after dusk. More worrying, and the wine bars would have more cash in the float.

  Soon they returned to the Ganymede and this time went indoors, no doubt for a good Roman siesta. I gave up. I was ready for home. My feet were taking special care to remind me how many hours I had been out walking. When I saw a small bathhouse, the feet headed that way on their own. I stopped them when I spotted Petronius Longus already on the porch.

  I was desperate to talk to him. I wanted to discuss the gangsters, and I had to tell him of his children's deaths. But I took his warning to heart.

  So far he had not noticed me. I stood still, in what passed for a colonnade-hardly what Rome would know as a grand arcade. Petro made no move to enter the baths, but stood talking to a ticket man who had come out for air. They seemed to know each other. They looked up at the sky as if discussing whether the heat wave would persist. When new customers drew the gateman indoors, Petronius settled down on a small bench outside as if he were a fixture at the baths.

  This street had a slight curve and was so narrow that by crossing over to the other pavement I could walk up close, keeping tight against the wall, without Petro seeing me. His back was slightly turned in any case. A neat bank of cut furnace logs, nearly four feet high, was stacked- blocking the pavement of course-on the bathhouse boundary. This made the road almost impassable but formed a tiny free area outside the premises next door. The baths were unnamed, but the neighboring hovel had a painted sign with red Roman lettering, calling itself the Old Neighbour. I passed the open door and saw a dark interior whose purpose was undetectable. It looked more like a private house than a commercial property, despite the sign.

  Whatever it was, it offered me a handy broken stool on which to lower my tired body only a few feet from Petronius; now I could try to attract his attention. It would have been ideal, but just as I dropped out of sight preparing to cough loudly, I saw my damned little sister again, approaching from the other direction. She stopped dead just as I had done. Then, being Maia, she threw back her stole and marched straight up to Petronius, who must have seen her coming. I huddled up to the furnace logs. If this was a romantic assignation, I now had no way to leave without giving away my presence.

  But my sister's manner had already told me that Petronius was not expecting her. Maia had had to brace herself to come and speak to him, and I knew why.

  XXII

  Lucius Petronius!"

  "Maia Favonia."

  "You want to tell me to get lost?"

  "Would it work?" Petro asked dryly. Maia was standing, facing my way I had to keep down low. Luckily she was not tall. "Maia, you are not safe here."

  "Why; what are you doing?" That was my sister all over: crisp, blunt, brazenly curious. Part of it came from motherhood, though she had always been direct.

  "I'm working."

  "Oh, but surely the vigiles have no jurisdiction in the provinces!"

  "Exactly!" Petro broke in harshly. "Shut up. I'm out of bounds. Nobody must know."

  Maia lowered her voice, but she would not let go. "So were you sent here?"

  "Don't ask." His mission was official. Well, the bastard kept that quiet! I heard my own intake of breath, more angry than surprised.

  "Well, I'm not interested in that. I have to talk to you."

  Then Petronius changed his tone. He spoke quickly, in a low, painful voice: "It's all right. You don't have to tell me. I know about the girls."

  I was so close I could sense Maia's tension. That was nothing to the emotion I could sense in Petronius. Somebody local came walking up the road. "Sit down," muttered Petro, clearly thinking that by standing in front of him, agitated, Maia was attracting attention. I thought I heard the bench legs scrape. She had done as he said.

  After the man had passed, Maia asked, "How long have you known?" The acoustic had changed. I had to strain to catch what she said. She was more obviously upset, now that it was out in the open. "Did a letter reach you?"

  "No, I was told."

  "Marcus found you?"

  "I did see him earlier." Petronius was talking in staccato sentences. "I didn't give him a chance. I suppose that's why he's been searching for me."

  "We all are! So who did tell you?"

  Petro made a small sound, almost laughter. "Two little boys."

  "Oh no! Not mine, you mean?" Maia was angry and mortified. I felt no surprise. Her children had been fretting over where their hero was; they knew about the tragedy; they were an outgoing group who readily took independent action. Petronius stayed silent. Maia finally said ruefully, "So much for telling them not to bother you… Oh, I am so sorry!"

  "They caught me right out…" Petronius sounded remote as he began to talk, in the way of the bereaved, needing to recite how he had learned his dreadful news. "I had already spotted Marius. He was sitting on a curbstone, looking depressed. Ancus must have wandered away from him and he saw me-"

  "Ancus? Ancus told you?"

  Petro's voice softened, though not much. "Before I could growl at him to scarper, he ran up. I just thought he was pleased to see me. So when he climbed up on the bench, I put an arm around him. He stood here and whispered in my ear."

  Maia choked slightly. I was stricken myself. Ancus was only six. And Petronius would have had no idea what was coming. "You were never supposed to hear this from children."

  "What difference does that make?" Petronius rasped. "Two of my girls are gone! I had to know."

  Maia let his outburst quieten. She, like me, must have been worried what young Ancus had blurted out, because she made sure Petronius was given the details properly "This is it, then. You have lost two; we were not told which, stupidly. People are trying to find out for you. Chicken pox. My guess is that it happened shortly after you left Italy. The letter didn't say."

  "I must have caught it myself when I said good-bye to them. I infected yours," admitted Petronius. "I blame myself…"

  "They survived."

  "I survived." He was not the type to say he wished he had died instead, though it sounded close. "Just so I would have to live with this!"

  "You will, Lucius. But believe me, it's hard." My sister, who like most mothers had seen a child die, spoke bitterly. There was a silence, then Maia repeated, "I am sorry about the boys."

  "It was all right." Petronius was not interested in her apology "Ancus told me, then Marius arrived and they sat down one each side of me and stayed there very quietly." After a while he added, forcing some kindness into his voice, "And now you are sitting with me quietly."

  "I lost my first daughter. I know there is nothing else I can do for you."

  "No." I had rarely heard Petronius so defeated. "Nothing."

  There was quite a long silence.

  "Do you want me to leave?" Maia asked him.

  "Are you ready to go?" From his hostile tone, I guessed Petro was hunched motionless, staring ahead bleakly. I had no idea what Maia was doing. I had never seen my sister comfort the bereaved. Especially someone she had at least briefly wanted in her bed. That no longer seemed relevant-and yet she had persisted in the search for him. It was the old Didius affliction: she felt responsible. "I have to do this mission," Petronius explained, in a well-mannered, meaningless tone. "I may as well finish. There's nothing else for me."


  "You do have a daughter left!" snapped Maia. "And there is Silvia."

  "Ah, Silvia!" A new note entered Petro's voice. He showed some feeling at last, though it was not clear whether his ruefulness was a comment on his ex-wife, himself, or even Fate. "I think she may want us to get back together. I already detected it when I saw her at Ostia. That boyfriend she took on is a loser, and now-" It poured out, then he stopped himself. "Now we have a child to console."

  "So what do you want?" Maia asked him quietly.

  "I can't do it! That's the past." He would know how many men had decided to stand firm in such a manner, only to be dissuaded. Pain and conscience were lined up to entrap him. His surviving daughter's tearful face would haunt him.

  "Then Silvia has lost out all around." I was surprised my sister could be so fair. It had even been she who had reminded him that Arria Silvia needed him.

  "You think I should?" Petronius demanded brusquely.

  "I won't tell you what I think. This is for you. But"-Maia had to add-"don't make a mistake out of guilt."

  Petronius gave a small snort of acknowledgment. If it helped him make his decision, he was not revealing his thoughts. He had always been tight over his personal life. When we shared a tent in the army, there were things he could not hide from me, but since then I had had to guess. He kept his feelings to himself; he thought restraint would help. Maybe that had in fact contributed to problems when he was living with Arria Silvia.