Three Hands in The Fountain mdf-9 Read online

  Smuggling in cushions and large handkerchiefs which we could use as hats (illegal measures once, though tolerated now if you kept them discreet), we sat through the parade and the chariot race, then bunked off for lunch while the inferior gladiators were being booed, and returned to stay until dark. Helena remained at home with Julia after lunch, but rejoined us for the final hour or two. Being pleasant became too much of a strain for Aelianus and he left in the late afternoon, but his shy betrothed stuck it out to the finish with Helena, Justinus and me. We slipped away during the final fight, to avoid the traffic jams and the pimps who mobbed the gates at the close.

  Aelianus looked perturbed that his Spanish bride was so keen on circuses. He must have feared that he would find it hard to disappear from home for the traditional masculine debauch on public holidays if his noble lady always wanted to come too. While you're holding a parasol and passing the salted nuts it's hard even to get drunk and tell filthy stories; coarser male behaviour would be quite ruled out. Claudia Rufina did enjoy herself, and not just because Justinus and I encouraged Aelianus to slink away early. She was eager to be part of my enquiry. I was not simply relaxing at the Circus; I was looking out for something suspicious in connection with the aqueduct murders. Nothing happened, of course.

  The Roman Games last for fifteen days, four of them comprising theatrical performances. Aelianus never regained interest. For one thing he had treated us to the tickets for the opening ceremony (playing the generous bridegroom), so his purse was now rather light. Having to ask his brother or me to stand him his mulsum every time he wanted a beaker from a passing drinks-seller was bound to pall. By the third day it had become routine for Aelianus to escape with Helena when she went home to feed the baby. From time to time I would leave Claudia bantering with Justinus while I moved around the Circus looking for anything untoward. With a daily changing audience of a quarter of a million people, the chances of spotting an abduction in process were slim.

  It did happen. I missed it. At some point early in the Games a woman was lured to an ugly fate. Then on the fourth day a new victim's hand was discovered in the Aqua Claudia and the news caused a riot.

  As I returned to rejoin Claudia Rufina and Justinus after having lunch at home with Helena, I noticed large numbers of people rushing in one direction. I had come down from the Aventine on the Clivus Publicus. I was expecting to meet crowds, but these were clearly not heading into the Circus Maximus. No one could be bothered to tell me where they were going. It was either a very good dog fight, an executor's sale with astonishing bargains, or a public riot. So naturally I raced along with them. I ignore snapping dogs, but I always jump at a chance to acquire a cheap set of stockpots, or to watch the public throwing rocks at a magistrate's house.

  From the starting-gate end of the Circus the throng pushed and shoved through the Cattle Market Forum, past the Porta Carmentalis, around the curve of the Capitol, and into the main Forum, which lay strangely peaceful because of the Games. Yet even on public holidays the Forum of the Romans was never entirely empty. Tourists, killjoys, work-hogs, latecomers heading back to the show and slaves who had no tickets or no time off were always passing to and fro. Those who did not realise they were in the middle of an incident had their feet trampled, then were buffeted again as they stood around complaining. Suddenly panic exploded. Litters tumbled over. Off-duty lawyers (with their keen noses) hid in the Basilica Julia, which was untenanted and echoing. The moneylenders, who never closed their stalls, slammed their chests shut so fast some of them nipped their fat fingers in the lids.

  By now a certain element had turned themselves into an audience, sitting on the steps of monuments watching the fun. Others co-ordinated their efforts, raising chants of denigration against the Curator of the Aqueducts. Nothing too politically abstruse. Just sophisticated insults like 'He's a useless bastard!' and 'The man must go!'

  I jumped up into the portico of the Temple of Castor, a favourite watching post of mine. This gave me a fine view of the mob who were listening to orations under the Arch of Augustus; there various hotheads waved their aims as if they were trying to lose a few pounds while they declaimed against the government in a manner that could land them in jail being beaten up by unwashed guards – another offence against their liberty to roar about. Some of them wanted to be philosophers – all long hair, bare feet and hairy blankets – which in Rome was a sure way to be regarded as dangerous. But I also noticed cautious souls who had taken care to come out girded with water gourds and satchels of lunch.

  Meanwhile groups of pale, sad women in mourning garments solemnly laid floral offerings at the Basin of Juturna – the sacred spring where Castor and Pollux were supposed to have watered their horses. Invalids rashly taking the nasty-tasting liquor for their ailments fell back nervously as these middle-class matrons deposited their wilting blooms, amid much wailing, then took hands and circled in a dreamy fashion. They weaved their way over to the House of the Vestals. Most of the Virgins would be in their seats of honour at the Circus, but there was bound to be one on duty to attend the sacred flame. She would be used to receiving deputations of well-meaning dames who brought tasteful gifts and earnest prayers but not too much sense.

  On the opposite side of the Sacred Way, near the old Rostrum and the Temple of Janus, is the ancient Shrine of Venus Claocina, the Purifier. This too had its posse of clamouring protesters. Venus definitely needed to gird her beauteous thighs for action.

  From a fellow observer I heard that the new hand had been found yesterday in the Claudian Aqueduct, one of the newest, which poured into a collection system near the great Temple of Claudius opposite the end of the Palatine. That explained these scenes in the Forum. The citizens of Rome had finally realised that their water contained suspicious fragments that might be poisoning them. Physicians and apothecaries were being besieged by patients with as many kinds of nausea as a sick Nile crocodile.

  The crowd was more noisy than violent. That would not stop the authorities cracking down heavily. The vigiles would have known how to move people on with a few shoves and curses, but some idiot had called up the Urban Cohorts. These happy fellows assisted the Urban Prefect. Their job description is 'keeping down the servile element, and curbing insolence'; to do it they are armed with a sword and a knife each, and they don't mind where they stick them.

  Barracked with the Praetorian Guard, the Urbans are equally arrogant. They love any peaceful demonstration they can mishandle until it turns into a bloody riot. It justifies their existence. As soon as I glimpsed them marching up in ugly phalanxes, I hopped down the back of the Temple on to the Via Nova and strolled off up the Vicus Tuscus. I managed to leave the troublespot without having my head split open. Others cannot have been so fortunate.

  Since I was near to Glaucus' baths, I swerved inside and stayed there in the deserted gymnasium shifting weights and battering a practice sword against a post until the danger had passed. It would take more than the Urbans to get past Glaucus; when he said 'Entry by invitation only' it stuck.

  The streets were quiet again when I emerged. There was not too much blood on the pavements.

  Abandoning the Games, I headed back to the office in the faint hope of finding Petronius. As I sauntered along Fountain Court I could see something was up. This was too much excitement for one day. I backtracked immediately to the barber's; it was illegally open, since men like to look smart on public holidays in the hope that some floozy will fall for them, and anyway the barber in our street usually had no idea of the calendar. I ordered myself a leisurely trim, and surveyed the scene cautiously.

  'We're having a visitation,' sneered the barber, who harboured little respect for authority. His name was Apius. He was fat, florid, and had the worst head of hair between here and Rhegium. Thin, greasy strands were strung over a flaking scalp. He hardly ever shaved himself either.

  He too had noticed the highly unusual presence of some tired lictors. Desperate for shade, they were flopping under the portico outs
ide Lenia's laundry. Women brazenly stopped to stare at them, probably making coarse jokes. Children crept up giggling, then dared one another to risk their little fingers against the ceremonial axe blades that lurked in the bundles of rods that the lictors had let fall. Lictors are freed slaves or destitute citizens: rough, but willing to rehabilitate themselves through work.

  'Who rates six?' I asked Apius. The barber always talked as if he knew everything, though I had yet to hear him answer a straight question accurately.

  'Someone who wants to be announced a long way ahead of himself.' Lictors traditionally walk in single file in front of the personage they escort.

  Six was an unusual number. Two was a praetor or other high oflicial. Twelve meant the Emperor, though he would be escorted by the Praetorians too. I knew Vespasian would be chained to his box at the Circus today

  'A consul,' decided Apius. He knew nothing. Consuls also had twelve.

  'Why would a consul be visiting Lenia?'

  'To complain about dirty marks when she returned his smalls?'

  'Or a dull finish to the nap of his best toga? Jupiter, Apius – it's the Ludi Romani and the laundry's closed! You're useless. I'll pay you tomorrow for the haircut. It offends me to part with money during a festival. I'm off to see what's going on.'

  Everyone believes a barber is the source of all gossip. Not ours. And Apius was typical. The myth about barbers being up to date with scandal has as much truth as that tale foreigners are always being spun about Romans socialising in the public latrines. Excuse me! When you're straining your heart out after last night's rather runny rabbit-in-its-own gravy, the last thing you want is some friendly fellow with an inane grin popping up to ask your opinion of this week's Senate decree about freemen co-habiting with slaves. If anyone tried it with me, I'd ram him somewhere tender with a well-used gutter sponge.

  These elevated thoughts entertained me as I walked along Fountain Court. At the laundry the lictors told me they were escorting an ex-consul, one who had served earlier in the year but had stood down to give some other big bean a chance. He was over the road visiting someone called Falco, apparently.

  That put me in a happy mood. If there's one thing I hate more than high officials burdened with office, it's officials who have just shed the burden and who are looking for trouble they can cause. I bounced indoors, all set to try to insult him, bearing in mind that if he was still in his named year as consul I was about to be rude to the most revered and highest ranking ex-magistrate in Rome.

  XXII

  There are women who would panic when presented with a consul. One benefit of importing a senator's daughter to be my unpaid secretary was that instead of shrieking with horror, Helena Justina was more likely to greet the prestigious one as an honorary uncle and calmly ask after his haemorrhoids.

  The fellow had been supplied with a bowl of refreshing hot cinnamon, which I happened to know Helena could brew up with honey and a hint of wine until it tasted like ambrosia. He already looked impressed by her suave hospitality and crisp common sense. So when I marched in, hooking my thumbs in my festival belt like an irritated Cyclops, I was presented with an ex-consul who was already tame.

  'Afternoon. My name's Falco.'

  'My husband,' smiled Helena, being especially respectable.

  'Her devoted slave,' I returned, honouring her courteously with this blithe romantic note. Well, it was a public holiday.

  'Julius Frontinus,' said the eminent man, in a plain tone. I nodded. He shadowed the gesture.

  I took a seat at the table and was handed my personal bowl by the elegant hostess. Helena was striking in white, the proper colour for the Circus; although she wore no jewellery because of the marauding pickpockets, she was bound up in braided ribbons which made her frivolously neat. To emphasise how things were in this house, I pulled up another bowl and poured her a drink too. Then we both raised our cups solemnly to the Consul, while I took a good look at him.

  If he was the usual age for a consul he was forty three; forty four if he had had this year's birthday by now. Clean-shaven and close-shorn. A Vespasian appointment, so bound to be competent, confident and shrewd. Undeterred by my scrutiny and unfazed by his poor surroundings. He was a man with a solid career behind him, yet the energy to carry him through several more top-notch roles before he went senile. Physically spare, a trim weight, undebauched. Someone to respect – or walking trouble: primed to stir things up.

  He was assessing me too. Fresh from the gym and in festive clothes, but with militaristic boots. I lived in a squalid area, with a girl who had high social standards: a sophisticated mix. He knew he was facing plebeian aggression, yet he had been soothed with expensive cinnamon from the luxurious east. He was being bombarded by the peppery scent from late summer lilies in a Campanian bronze vase. And his drink came in a high-gloss redware bowl, decorated with exquisite running antelopes. We had taste. We had interesting trade connections – or were travellers ourselves – or could win friends who gave us handsome gifts.

  'I'm looking for someone to work with me, Falco. Camillus Verus recommended you.'

  Any commission sent via Helena's papa had to be welcomed politely. 'What's the job and what's your role in it? What would my role be?'

  'First I need to know your background.'

  'Surely Camillus briefed you?'

  'I'd like to hear it from you.'

  I shrugged. I never complain if a client is particular. 'I'm a private informer: court work, acting for executors, financial assessments, tracing stolen art. At present I have a partner who is ex-vigiles. From time to time the Palace employs me in an official capacity for work I can't discuss, usually abroad. I have been doing this for the past eight years. I served in the Second Augustan legion in Britain before that.'

  'Britain!' Frontinus jerked. 'What did you think of Britain?'

  'Not enough to want to go back.'

  'Thanks,' he commented drily. 'I've just been appointed to the next governorship.'

  I grinned. 'I'm sure you'll find it a fascinating province, sir. I've been twice; my first mission for Vespasian also took me there.'

  'We liked Britain more than Marcus Didius admits,' put in Helena diplomatically. 'I think if informers are ever barred from Rome we might even retire there; Marcus dreams of a quiet farm in a fertile green valley -' The girl was wicked. She knew I loathed the place.

  'It's a new country with everything to do,' I said, sounding like any pompous forum orator. I was trying not to meet Helena's dancing eyes. 'If you like work, and a challenge, you should enjoy your term there, sir.'

  He seemed to relax. 'I'd like to talk further – but there's something more urgent first. Before I leave for Britain I have been asked to supervise a commission of enquiry. I would like to see it completed as swiftly as possible.'

  'So this is not about a private investigation?' Helena enquired innocently.

  'No.'

  She fished the cinnamon stick from her bowl, squeezing it slightly against the rim. Nobody was rushing the formalities. Well, I could rely on Helena's finely probing curiosity. 'Is the commission for the Senate?' she asked.

  'The Emperor.'

  'Did he suggest Marcus to assist you?'

  'Vespasian suggested your father could put me in touch with someone reliable.'

  'To do what?' she insisted sweetly.

  Frontinus turned to me. 'Do you have to be given approval?' He sounded amused.

  'I don't even sneeze without permission.'

  'You never listen to me,' Helena corrected.

  'Always, lady!'

  'Accept the job, then.'

  'I don't know that it is.'

  'Papa wants you to do it, and so does the Emperor. You need their goodwill.' Ignoring Frontinus, she leaned towards me, beating my wrist lightly with the long slim fingers of her left hand. On one was the silver ring I had given her as a love token. I looked at the ring, then at her, playing moody. She flushed. I clapped my fist to one shoulder and hung my head: the gladia
tor's submission. Helena clucked reprovingly. 'Too much of the Circus! Stop playing. Julius Frontinus will think you're a clown.'

  'He won't. If an ex-consul demeans himself by a hike up the Aventine, it's because he has already read my immaculate record and been impressed.'

  Frontinus pursed his lips.

  Helena was still urgent: 'Listen; I can guess what you are being asked to do. There was a public disturbance today in the Forum -'

  'I was there.'

  She looked surprised, then suspicious. 'Did you cause it?'

  'Thanks for the faith, sweetheart! I'm not a delinquent. But maybe the public anxiety did originate with me and Lucius Petronius.'

  'Your discoveries are the talk of the town. You stirred it up; you ought to sort it out,' Helena said sternly.

  'Not me. There is already an enquiry into the aqueduct murders. It's under the auspices of the Curator, and he's using that bastard Anacrites.'

  'But now Vespasian must have ordered a superior commission,' said Helena.

  We both stared at Julius Frontinus. He had put down his bowl. He opened his hands in a gesture of acknowledgement, though slightly baffled at the way we had talked around him and pre-empted his request.

  Once more I grinned. 'All I need to hear from you, sir, is that your commission takes precedence over anything being carried out by the Curator of Aqueducts – so your assistants take precedence over his.'

  'Count my lictors,' responded Frontinus rather tetchily. 'Six.' He must have been awarded a special pack to match the special task.

  'The Curator of Aqueducts is only entitled to two.' So Frontinus outranked him – and I would outrank Anacrites.

  'It's a pleasure to do business, Consul,' I said. Then we swept aside the pretty drinking cups and settled down for a practical review of what needed to be done.