Saturnalia Read online

  ‘The man who gave them their orders. But I won’t tell you who.

  You don’t need to know.’

  For another short moment Albia was silent. She was a bright young woman, my foster-daughter from Britain. There were many things I had never explained or discussed with her, yet she had picked them up from fragments of conversation, almost from facts that Helena and I had left unsaid.

  We walked maybe another five paces, sauntering to accommodate the pace of Nux, who had to sniff every inch of the pavement. Finally, Albia stated quietly, ‘Anacrites!’

  Then Nux stopped dead; she looked up at us both, with her ears right back, and growled faintly. Even my dog loathed to hear the name of the Chief Spy.

  XIX

  I suppose it is possible that someone, some well-meaning woman with an exceptionally soft heart, for instance, might wish that the Fates could provide Anacrites with a happy life. A freedman now, he must have been born in slavery—though to me, the concept of normal birth and Anacrites was a contradiction. I’d say he was dragged howling from the belly of a sea monster, one of those horrors and portents that are regularly catalogued in the Daily Gazette for the delighted terror of the squeamish. It was just too upsetting to think that around about the time when that maniac emperor Caligula was sleeping with his sisters, some poor little pasty-faced seamstress in the imperial household had been forced to endure birth pangs, only to find she had inflicted Anacrites on the suffering world. Now his mother had gone wherever old palace retainers go, remembered only perhaps by a bleak memorial slab. Jupiter knows who his father was. Such records are rarely kept for slaves.

  He could have been happy. If contentment had been in his nature—instead of the restless, seething envy that kept him fidgeting—Anacrites could have relaxed and enjoyed his achievements. He now held a respected high office under an emperor who seemed likely to last; he was flourishing. People will shower presents on a Chief Spy (being bribed by members of the public is one way a spy can identify who has something to hide). He owned a villa on the Bay of Neapolis that I knew of; and probably more real estate elsewhere. I had once heard that he had a lavish place on the Palatine, an old republican mansion that came with his job, though he never invited anybody there. That might have to be handed back one day, but he must have invested personally in property in Rome. How much movable treasure he had salted away was anybody’s guess. I was sure it existed. He had advised my mother on investing her savings, so he knew about banking—though he did not know enough, for he had nearly afflicted her with fatal losses when the Golden Horse Bank crashed so spectacularly two years ago. Ma had escaped disaster, although that was through her own nous and bloody-mindedness, not a result of tips from him; perversely, she still believed he was a financial marvel. Or so she said. I sometimes wondered if she saw through him after all.

  Anyway. A good Roman has a generous nature, so I concede that he may have had a fan club. It did not include me.

  What I knew of Anacrites was that he couldn’t run a harvest picnic, yet some idiot had placed him in full charge of spying in Rome. He also meddled in global intelligence. He and I had once worked together successfully, on a tax-collecting exercise in connection with the Great Census. Apart from that, he had several times deliberately put me in a position where I was nearly killed. He had terrorised my sister. He had attached himself to Ma and clung on, like a repulsive parasitic leech with a mouthful of needle teeth. When Helena was being charitable, she said he was jealous of me for my talent and for the life I led; when she was honest, she admitted he was dangerous.

  He also had a secret that could damn him. I kept his secret, so far avoiding blackmail. Sifting the dirt is informers’ work—but we don’t always sell our nuggets straight away. I was saving up for a real emergency. Now Anacrites had Justinus, but I would aim for a solution without cashing in my precious information. One day Anacrites and I were going head to head; I knew that as well as I knew I was right-handed. The fatal day had not yet come. When it did, I would need everything I had on him.

  This left me with only one tactic: I would have to be nice to the bastard.

  I took Albia home, dumped the dog, tickled the wife and kissed the children. Julia and Favonia fell on Nux with happy squeals, though they failed to acknowledge that their father had fulfilled his promise like a hero. i told Helena I would have to miss dinner, left Albia to scare her with the explanation, and went out again.

  I stomped tetchily back to the Probus Bridge, made my way past the Trigeminal Portico to the Vicus Tuscus, and climbed up to the old palace that way. I ate a bad pancake en route, which gave me indigestion; I had gobbled it, irritated at having to abandon the delights of dinner at home. By the time I reached Anacrites’ office, with its unnerving smells of his clerk’s discarded lunch, ink, expensive hair lotion and old antiseptic ointments, I was so overwrought at the thought of exchanging pleasantries, I was ready to sock him as I came through the door.

  He was out. That made me even more angry.

  I managed to find Momus. He carried out exercises for the spy network, but was also an old contact of mine. I liked to think he admired me, and that he thought much less of the Chief Spy. He had once been a slave-overseer, and I did wonder if in his past life he had encountered Anacrites or members of his family; I had asked that once, making a joke of it, but you don’t get palace freedmen to give away much on the subject of their previous existence. They all pretend slavery never happened. They can’t, or won’t, remember it. I don’t really blame them.

  ‘Momus! Still working in Anacrites’ filthy unit? Still slogging it out for that cretin we all despise?’

  ‘Still here, Falco.’ He gave me a look, from bleary eyes, their eyelashes stuck together with seepage from some long-term infection. His ills probably had a sexual origin, a hangover from his perks when organising slaves. Momus was big-bellied and bald, a slapdash slob who rarely went to the baths. He wore a tunic that had not been laundered for weeks and hard boots for kicking people. These days it was an empty threat; he had grown too lackadaisical to make the effort. He still yearned to torture the helpless, so just amused himself imagining pain. ‘If anyone else accused me of working for Anacrites, I’d grab them so hard I’d pop their eyes out…’

  There were moments I pitied Anacrites. Not only was Claudius Laeta constantly plotting to subsume the intelligence service into his own spider’s web the next time secretariats were reorganised (as they were on an annual basis), but here was Momus looking on jealously, always hoping to see a big Corinthian capital fall off a column and crush the Spy, so he could inherit his post. Some of Anacrites’ own field agents were light on personal loyalty as well.

  ‘Sorry!’ I said.

  ‘You will be! What are you after?’

  ‘Who says I’m after something, Momus?’

  ‘You’re here,’ he answered. ‘Given how you hate him, that’s a bloody big clue, Falco! Don’t tell me—you want him to release that young purple stripe he’s holding?’

  ‘Quintus Camillus Justinus, a senator’s son. Well guessed. Where’s the bastard put him?’

  ‘If! knew that,’ said Momus, ‘I wouldn’t be able to tell you, Falco.’

  I could possibly disprove that statement by handing over money; Momus followed life’s simple rules. ‘If you really don’t know, I won’t bother bribing you.’

  ‘Keep your money.’ Like many corrupt men, Momus was fair. ‘Well then. His office is empty. I can’t even thump that pointless grubby-toed clerk he has. Save me from boiling over with frustration—I know he has a fancy house; where can I find it?’

  Momus leaned back and laughed gustily. I asked him what was funny, and he said the thought of me putting on a dinner-wreath and a pleasant face to go round for an evening drink and toasted nuts with Anacrites.

  XX

  I didn’t have to strain my face looking friendly; Anacrites was not at home.

  With directions from Momus, I had found his house. It was typical of those old, exp
ensive places that infrequently survive on the Palatine, perfectly placed with a view of the Forum just above the Vestals’ House. Once owned by names that are famous in history, these houses are now used as grace-and-favour payoffs for important officials. High walls obscured much of the view inside. The house stood on just enough land to allow carefully positioned pine trees in front of any windows people might see into. Most windows had closed shutters anyway. The property looked tended and occupied, yet it lay almost in darkness. I had the impression there would never be anyone about, no sign of household slaves even by day. But it would be well supplied with staff. Some would be for security. They would react first, and ask who you were when you regained consciousness.

  I managed to force my way in through double gates and knocked heavily at the front door. An obviously enormous dog began to bark somewhere indoors. Nobody answered for a long while. Then eyes looked out through a grille and a man’s voice told me the master was not at home. That was probably true. Anacrites would be so surprised someone had come to visit him, he would have me dragged indoors at once.

  I contemplated lurking in a gateway opposite until the Spy was brought home in a litter, then jumping out and giving him a nasty shock as he fumbled with his door-key, but it was a cold night. For all I knew he had a woman somewhere and would stayout with her. More likely, he would wind up back in his office, brooding alone though his return there could be at any hour. Now, he could be enjoying himself at an imperial banquet; he pretended to be unobtrusive, but he liked to socialise. The thought of him nibbling snacks somewhere warm and hospitable while I tramped the dark streets on a blind errand killed my best intentions. I lost the heart to persist.

  I had made an effort; before I left the Palace, I had left a cryptic note on his desk: ‘Something to tell you—MDF.’ This might not set the Spy’s pulse racing, but he would eventually turn up at an inconvenient moment to discover what I wanted; when I used to work with him, I had seen his curiosity boil over. The harder he pretended to be indifferent, the sooner he jumped up and rushed to investigate. It indicated lack of confidence in his own judgement. Some of us can toss an annoying note in the rubbish pail, then forget it.

  No chance of that for Anacrites: Momus would also make sure he knew I had been there, and would delight in being mysterious. Anacrites always thought Momus had been put on the same corridor so he could report on him to his superiors, or to watch him for Claudius Laeta. Momus encouraged this fear by giving himself increasingly dark titles such as Inspector of Audit Inspectors. (This also upset Internal Audit, a body that assumed inflated rights and privileges under Vespasian, whose middle-class father had been a tax inspector.) Everyone but me failed to notice the salient fact: Momus was a lazy hound, whose sole aim as a government employee was to hide from notice and do absolutely nothing.

  They were all paranoid at the Palace. Knowing what I did, most of them were right.

  Tomorrow I would probably have too much to do; tonight there was nothing else I could achieve. From Anacrites’ house, I set off for home, cursing this waste of effort and time. It was typical of the Spy to thwart me. Typical that he did it without even knowing that I was . trying to find him.

  It was now late. I walked quietly, keeping to the centre of the street, checking dark entrances and looking carefully down alleys as I passed. The wintry air tingled with cold. There must be snow up in the hills; sometimes ice creeps a long way down from the Alps and along the Apennines, sheeting on the edges of the lakes. Blizzards can occasionally gust as far south as Sicily. Tonight the sky was clear, making it even colder. More light filtered down from the stars high above than from lanterns, though thin cracks of lamplight showed around the edges of ill-fitting shutters. People were quiet. We had a lull in the run-up to Saturnalia, as everybody braced themselves for the real festival. Mostly I seemed to be alone.

  It was too cold for burglars and street-muggers, though you can never entirely rely on that. At times I heard hurried footsteps as determined drinkers made their way to bars, or slower footfalls as they left. Family businesses that would normally show lights all evening had their folding doors pulled tight across. Furniture-makers and copper beaters had finished work early. There were very few builders’ delivery carts. This was no time to discover a leaky water pipe or to lose half your roof tiles; nobody can get any work done over Saturnalia, and that isn’t because frost ruins mortar. Most trades in construction had already closed down for an extended holiday. Other deliveries seemed equally slack. Instead I could hear ghastly a cappella drunks serenading themselves in wailing caupona choirs. It robbed me of any desire to stop for a drink.

  I had been forced to take a long route. Anacrites’ billet lay at the far end of the Forum, so I had to trek home around the Circus Maximus. I chose to trudge across the valley at the apsidal end, which lay closest, aiming to turn towards the river once I made the far side. Going from the Palatine to the Aventine is a real pig. The monumental racetrack completely blocks your way, and I happened to know that climbing in and walking the length between two great empty banks of seats at night was a great jape only for the young and crazy. I was far too old for dodging night-watchmen. Being somewhere I was not supposed to be no longer held a thrill. I had had to do it too many times in the normal course of my business.

  Negotiating the arches of the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Appia, I was so near the Capena Gate I took the opportunity to call in on Helena’s family. I could boast I was pursuing their lost person by both day and night. As I cut away horn main highways on my short detour to the senator’s house, which lay close to the aqueducts, I came down one dark side street where I sensed trouble. I had thought I heard somebody scuttle away as I turned around the corner. Then I stumbled over a pair of legs. I jumped back, with the hairs standing up on my neck.

  I was going for my knife, but paused. The figure on the ground lay too still. This did not feel like an ambush, but I made sure no accomplice rushed out of the darkness to rob me. Gingerly, I stretched out one leg and moved rags aside with a toe. The man was dead. I could see no signs of foul play. A stinking vagrant, too rank to inspect closely, had succumbed to cold and hunger, curled up in misery against the bay tree outside some householder’s forbidding door.

  I listened: silence. If I ran into the vigiles, I could report the corpse. Either they would cart it away routinely or the householder would discover the deceased tomorrow and inform the relevant aedile that something unpleasant needed to be cleared from a respectable street. Another pauper, another runaway slave, another inadequate had lost the fight to survive. Fleas would be hopping off him, searching for a new host, so I kept well back.

  I eased my tense shoulders, listened once more, then walked on. At the end of the street I turned back. A fellow-traveller, cloaked and hooded, appeared nom the far shadows, leading a donkey. Unwilling to delay longer when I could offer no help, I slipped into my own patch of shadows and moved off again without speaking.

  The Camillus door porter was a long-headed loon with a tiny brain and a truculent attitude, whose main delight in life was turning away legitimate visitors. He took his time answering my knock, and then claimed nobody was in. This was traditional. He had known me for six years now, knew I was a regular visitor, knew I was married to Helena. I asked this Janus politely if he could give me some idea how many more aeons I had to endure before I gained rights of entrance. The insufferable squit played dumb.

  I was just threatening to beat him so he would recognise me next time, when he was rescued by the senator. Decimus Camillus had heard the commotion and came out in his house slippers to let me in himself. This spared me from having to decide what I would tell Julia

  Justa and Claudia Rufina, and more importantly, what at this stage of uncertainty I would not tell them.

  However, I relayed to the senator everything I had found out. He said, ‘That’s not much!’

  I said, ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

  The Camillus family lived in the more run-down
of a pair of houses, spacious by my standards but cramped when compared with most senatorial homes. The senator and I walked quickly, like conspirators, through the black and white tiled hall, where the faded dado had at last been given a repaint, this time in a rather hot orange. Unwise, I thought. I said nothing, in case the senator had chosen it. We ended up in his tiny study, overlooked by statue busts and high shelves of book canisters. Richer men keep their scrolls in ornate silverware; Decimus had wood, but it was delicately scented cedar wood and the fittings were smart. Unlike many an aristocrat, I knew he read the scrolls. His children had grown up welcome to take and read anything they chose; Helena still came back on raids when we needed to research, and I too was allowed borrowing rights.

  I cleared a space among the untidy documents, finding a stool hidden beneath the mess. ‘It’s a tricky situation, sir. The Praetorians were seen arresting your son, and my private information is that Anacrites—who is attached to the Guards, of course—is currently holding him. I take it no one has informed you? Well, that’s illegal for starters. You have to decide whether you want to go straight to Vespasian, and make indignant protests. As the Emperor’s old friend, as a member of the Senate, and just generally as the father of a free Roman citizen, you can demand an immediate audience.’

  We were both silent. Decimus gazed at me. He was tall but stooped, his hair thinner and greyer than when I first knew him; both age and family troubles had taken their toll. ‘I see you really want me to wait, Marcus.’ He often looked as if he disagreed with my methods, but we rarely fought over it.

  I had never shown him fake respect. I told him bluntly, ‘I’d like to interview Anacrites first. Find out his game. If that fails, then we have the heavy option.’

  ‘You think the man is dangerous.’

  ‘I think I’d like to remove every hair on his body, using the slow singe method, then baste him with honey and leave him tied up by a hornets’ nest.’ It would be at a time of my choosing, however. ‘He makes a bad enemy. Rationally, therefore, it would be best to extract Quintus without making Anacrites feel he has been publicly overruled. ‘