Shadows in Bronze Read online

  Petro’s approach to fatherhood was pretty calm; he carried on with whatever he wanted to do while his rumbustious tots mountaineered all over him. The two eldest were scrambling up his powerful back, then slowly sliding down again, murdering his tunic braid. Tadia, the littlest, was viewing the countryside from my lap. Since she knew she ought not to be sucking her thumb she was gnawing-one of mine. Private informers are iron-jawed, hard-hearted brutes who treat women like casual flotsam, but Tadia was only two; she did not yet appreciate that her friendly Uncle Marcus would pick up any pretty girl and play with her, then toss her aside as soon as the next one smiled at him…

  Petronius had stopped the cart.

  Tadia had a wide-eyed, panicky, whimpering look. Her father reproached me coldly, ‘She obviously wants a lavatory, so why can’t you mention it?’

  Petro’s Tadia was famous for enduring miseries in silence; just the sort of woman I longed to acquire but never could.

  By then we were all tired, and all starting to wonder if this trip was a wise idea.

  ‘Well, I’ve stopped,’ announced Petronius. (He was a single-minded driver who resented interruptions, though with three children under five we had had plenty of those.)

  No one else moved. I volunteered to put her down.

  The Plain of Capua has no public facilities. Still, no one was going to mind if a two-year-old in trouble watered their crops.

  Petronius Longus waited with the ox cart while Tadia and I stumbled about the local scenery. We were in the most fertile region of Italy, whose thriving vineyards, neat market gardens and well-gnarled olive groves extend from the great Vulturnus River to the sweet Lactarii Mountains, where the flocks of sheep run to six hundred ewes at a time. We might as well have been in the deserts of Arabia Petrae. We had to look for a bush. Our immediate location offered only thin scrub. At two, Tadia was a woman of the world, which meant she refused to attempt a public performance so long as anyone within a five-mile radius might be buried in a foxhole watching her.

  Finding Tadia’s camouflage took us so far we could hardly see the road. It was rapturously peaceful. A cricket scraped at us from a sprig of flowering broom and there was a woozy scent of warm, bruised thyme underfoot. Birds were singing everywhere. I would have liked to dawdle and enjoy the countryside but Petronius held the rigid view that a family on a journey has to rush on.

  Tadia and I gave her bush a thorough dousing, then emerged.

  ‘Hmm! Tadia Longina, that’s a pretty butterfly; let’s wait here and watch him -‘

  Tadia watched the butterfly, while I stared nervously towards the road.

  I had glimpsed a dark, surly flurry. Men on horseback flooded round our companions like sparrows mobbing a crust. Then the slight figure of Arria Silvia stood up in the cart, apparently delivering Cato the Elder’s speech to the senate on the need to destroy Carthage… The riders galloped off, somewhat hastily.

  I seized Tadia, sprinted back to the road, recaptured a loose kitten, then vaulted up beside Petronius, who started the ox.

  Silvia sat in pinched silence while I tried to betray no excitement as Petronius drove on. He was steering as he always did, except when he spotted a narrow bridge ahead, or some squabble among his children was making him tense. He held the reins loosely in his left hand, leaning forwards on one knee, while his right arm lolled on his diaphragm. He looked as if he was nursing the first murmur of a heart attack, yet it was just how he relaxed.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I murmured discreetly.

  ‘Oh .’ He stretched his shoulders slowly before he spoke. ‘Half a dozen foul-mouthed countrymen in armour-plated helmets looking for some idiot who had stamped on their toes. They pawed our kit and threatened us all until Silvia gave them a piece of her mind -‘ Sampling Arria Silvia’s mind was as tricky as letting a midge fly up your nose. ‘I pretended I was just a Roman tourist who had stopped beside the highroad for an argument with his wife-‘ I wondered what they were arguing about; knowing them, probably me. ‘They rattled off towards Capua. The sour green cloak in charge said I was the wrong man anyway…’

  ‘Who did they want then?’ I meekly enquired.

  ‘Some stupid bastard called Falco,’ Petronius growled.

  XXIII

  Late June: everyone who could manage it had left Rome. Some visited their country villas. Most of those who chose the seaside must have arrived two days before us. The crowds gave my predicament more urgency; I wanted to be safely behind doors.

  At least I knew where I stood: Barnabas was still skulking about in that horrid viridian cloak. He was here in Campania - and now he was looking for me.

  There were plenty of towns and villages around the Bay but we ruled out some, and the rest rejected us. Neapolis itself, with its fine summer palaces, seemed too pretentious to afford, while Puteoli, which had been the main landfall for Rome until the development of Ostia thirty years before, remained a noisy commercial port. Misenum was lousy with officials, being home to the fleet. Baiae, the fashionable watering hole, was commoner but full of dirty lodgings which refused to welcome children. Surrentum straddled a marvellous ravine which had to be reached by sea or miles of winding road; if a demented assassin was pursuing me, Surrentum could form a dangerous trap. Pompeii was too brash, Herculaneum too prim, and the thermal spa at Stabiae chockablock with wheezing old gentlemen and their snooty wives. There were villages on the slopes of Vesuvius, but the children had been promised the sea.

  ‘If one more bare-arsed Campanian landlord shakes his head at our kittens and chamber pots,’ Petronius confided in a dangerous undertone, ‘I reckon I’ll lose my temper unpleasantly!’

  ‘How about Oplontis? ‘ I suggested, trying to assume an air of casual innocence.

  Oplontis was a small fishing hamlet in the centre of the Bay where the pervading scent of grilled mullet spoke well of the amenities. It boasted an immensely elegant villa complex, heavily boarded up. The smugglers were drinking peacefully and the beach boys pretending to mend their nets while they stared at us. This looked suitable. It looked cheap. It looked small enough to be safe; if an armed troop clattered in from Herculaneum, a curious crowd would flock out from every cottage on the beach. Oplontis (as it happened) was where I wanted to be.

  We found a gap-toothed old biddy in black who hired us two scrappy rooms on the first floor of a faded hostelry. I noticed Petronius working out how if anybody sinister entered the front courtyard we could evacuate his family through the stable at the rear.

  No one else was staying there; we could see why.

  ‘We can manage for a night,’ Petro tried to convince himself. ‘Then find somewhere better for tomorrow -‘ He knew once we settled in we would be fixed for our whole stay.

  ‘We ought to have stopped in Baiae!’ Silvia complained. Even when the rest of their tour party are tired as dogs, other peoples’ wives can always find the energy to whine. Larius kept sniffing; he had noticed an intriguing smell. Seaweed, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

  ‘Oh Larius, put a peg on your nose!’ I snapped. ‘Wait until you sample the public latrines in Stabiae and Pompeian drains!’

  There was a courtyard with a well and a thin vine struggling on a pergola. Larius and I had a wash and sat on a bench while Silvia organized the beds. It was obvious she wanted to quarrel with Petro. One of our rooms had a window covered by a hide, allowing Larius and I to overhear the family violence; the phrase ‘Nothing but trouble!’ cropped up several times: that was me.

  Petro’s pretty little turtle dove informed him that at first light next morning they would take their children home. His reply was too quiet to catch. When Petro swore he was astonishingly vulgar, but in a savage undertone.

  Eventually things grew less intense; then Petro came down. He dashed a bucket of water over his head, hesitated, then joined us on the bench; his need for solitude was evident.

  He produced a smokey-green glazed flagon, gulping straight from it like a traveller who had driven further than he inte
nded, and put up with a lot of abuse.

  ‘How’s the billet?’ I ventured, though I guessed. ‘Ropey. Four beds and a bucket.’

  ‘Is Silvia upset?’

  ‘It’ll blow over.’ A faint, tired smile touched Petro’s lips. ‘We’ve put the children and Ollia in one room; you two will have to be with us.’

  Sleeping our large party on the cheap posed tactical problems: worst for Silvia and him. I offered to take Larius out for an hour, Petro merely grunted irritably.

  He pulled again from his flask, which he did not offer round. Being clean again in a quiet place (with a drink) soon mellowed him sufficiently to go onto the attack: ‘You ought to have warned me, Falco!’

  ‘Look, I’ll find a different dosshouse-‘

  ‘No. If some mob-handed bully boy is chasing you, I want you in sight!’

  I sighed, but said nothing because his wife came down.

  Silvia seemed quieter now. She took a spiteful pride in remaining efficient whatever the crisis, so had carried down a tray of cups. Larius got hold of the flask; I left it alone. I was looking forward to sampling the famous wines of Surrentum and Vesuvius, though certainly not tonight.

  ‘Falco, you ought to have warned us!’ Ant Silvia accused me bitterly, as if she really thought Petronius would have omitted saying it.

  I sighed. ‘Silvia, I have work to do. I’d like to stay unobtrusive in a family group. As soon as I can meet the man I need to interview, I’ll be off. Petronius is not involved-‘

  Silvia snorted. Her voice grew more tense. ‘Oh! I know you two! You’ll leave me alone with all the children in this terrible village while you do what you like. I won’t know where you are, or what you’re doing, or what any of it is about. Who,’ she demanded, ‘were those men this afternoon?’ Silvia had an accurate grasp of whatever her male companions were trying to conceal.

  I must have been weary. I was beginning to feel I could no longer cope; a typical holiday mood.

  ‘The one in green must be a freedman with a grudge called Barnabas. Don’t ask me who loaned him the cavalry… Someone told me he was dead-‘

  ‘Ghost, is he?’ Petronius rasped.

  ‘Matter of time!’ Petro gave me his sardonic smile; I decided to concentrate on Silvia. I poured her a drink; she had a prissy way of sipping wine that made my teeth grate. ‘Look, you know I work for Vespasian. A certain group have hung back from welcoming him to the purple; I’m persuading them that that is a bad idea-‘

  ‘Persuading?’ Silvia interrogated.

  ‘Apparently,’ I said drily, ‘the new diplomacy consists of reasoned argument - backed up by hefty bribes.’

  I was too tired to argue and far too much in awe of her. Silvia reminded me briefly of Helena at her worst, but a tussle over nothing with her ladyship had always given me the mental satisfaction some men find in playing draughts.

  ‘Earned any real cash from Vespasian yet?’ Petronius niggled. My reply would have been ill-natured but we were supposed to be here to enjoy ourselves, so I held back. In a scruffy lodging house beside the Bay of Naples you get no thanks for restraint.

  ‘I want to know what you are doing here?’ Silvia broke in.

  ‘My fugitive is on a boat that was spotted in this neighbourhood-‘

  ‘Spotted where?’ she insisted.

  ‘Oplontis actually.’

  ‘So,’ Silvia deduced inexorably, ‘our staying at this disgusting village is no coincidence!’ I tried to look suave. ‘What will you do when you find the boat, Falco?’

  ‘Row out to speak to him-‘

  ‘You don’t want my husband for that.’

  ‘No,’ I said, cursing inwardly. I can row. But I had envisaged Petronius doing the hard work while I jumped off at landing stages and steered. ‘Unless,’ I started with a cautious glance, ‘you can spare him to come to Pompeii to help me unload a cargo of ingots I’ll be using for my disguise?’

  ‘No, Falco!’ Silvia raged.

  Petronius made no attempt to speak. I avoided his eye.

  Arria Silvia shot me a look that was as poisonous as aconite. ‘Oh, what’s the point asking me? You’ll both do as you like!’

  It seemed a smart idea to take Larius upstairs to inspect the accommodation and unpack.

  This did not delay us long. We found our rooms up a dark corridor. We were hiring two stuffy cubicles with crumbling wattle walls. The beds had uneven softwood slats where they had lost their suspension ropes. Larius and I bent up our pallet to look for bugs but there was nowhere a bug who liked his comforts could make a nest, just a coarse cover, waxy with ancient dirt, which held together a few matted lumps of straw that would poke into our backs like mountain rock.

  I changed my boots for sandals and headed downstairs, intending to suggest that we left Ollia with the children while the rest of us went out to eat. Larius was fiddling secretively in a satchel; I told him to follow me. At ground level I stopped, waiting to bawl up at him when the absentminded sparrow forgot to come.

  Across the courtyard Petronius Longus sat where we had left him, with his head back against the pergola, his long legs stretched out, and a pain-free expression as he absorbed the evening peace. He hated quarrels, yet could let them slide over him. Now he had finished driving he was, despite everything, starting to enjoy himself. His familiar brown hair looked more ruffled than usual. His wine cup lolled at an angle; it was obviously empty, its weight in his hand merely comforting. His other arm was crooked casually round his wife.

  After five years suffering the hazards of marriage these two managed in private with less fuss than their public mask implied. Arria Silvia had edged in beside Petronius. She was weeping, reduced to a disappointed young woman who felt exhausted beyond her strength. Petro was letting her snuffle on his great shoulder while he went on dreaming to himself.

  Just when I had impressed myself with this clever dissertation on marriage, Silvia dried her eyes. I watched Petro rally his attention and wind her in closer. I had known him for years, and had seen him kiss more women than his wife would want to hear about; I could see the old reprobate was taking much more trouble now than a mere peck to keep the peace. Afterwards he said something to her, very quietly, and she answered him. Then they both got up and walked out towards the road with their arms round each other and their heads close.

  I felt an internal wrench that had nothing to do with lack of food. Larius appeared. I told him I had changed my mind about dinner, then dragged him back indoors.

  One aspect of my nephew’s difficult phase, I noticed, was that wherever anyone took him the young curmudgeon looked as if he wished he had stayed at home.

  XXIV

  Next day the sun was shining; in my mood, this came as a surprise.

  I strolled out to take stock; to the right and left the two arms of the Bay lay shimmering in a fine grey haze. Ahead, Capri was entirely hidden by mist, and when I glanced back over my shoulder the cone of Vesuvius loomed as a mere blur too. But even at that early hour the light off the sea was beginning to dazzle; this soft, all-pervading haze would precede a hot, blue, brilliant day.

  I felt dismal. My nephew had slept soundly, despite our rocky mattress. Petronius snored. So (I discovered) did his wife.

  ‘Falco looks jaded. We must find him a girlfriend!’ Arria Silvia chirruped brightly at breakfast, piercing a peach with her vixenish front teeth. I told myself that at least we had not been away long enough for people to collect stomach disorders and start comparing notes on them while we ate.

  ‘Give him five minutes in Pompeii,’ quipped Petro, ‘and he’ll find one for himself…’ For a moment I thought he meant a stomach ache.

  I could not concentrate on pointless domestic chat. I felt thoroughly preoccupied. Here I was in Campania in the holiday season. As we drove in yesterday I had sized up the laughing faces on all sides - frank young women in the pink of condition, relaxed and plumped up in the warm seaside air, each one wearing very little and just looking for a reason to take it off…
So here was I, a handsome devil in a nearly-new mustard tunic (a snip from a secondhand stall, jollied up by my mother with two rows of crinkled braid). And if a woman who looked like a Venus of Praxiteles had jumped out of a fountain straight into my lap wearing nothing but a pair of fancy sandals and a smile, I would have tipped her off and stomped away to brood on my own.

  Breakfast was water and fruit. If that was not what you were used to at home, you could omit the fruit.

  We men slunk off to Pompeii the same day.

  Just out of town at the mouth of the Sarnus lay a small harbour which also served the larger centres at Nola and Nuceria. We left the cart at the port; the Marine Gate was too steep to take it up. Larius wanted to stay watching the boats but I could not face telling my sister that her firstborn had received a rude awakening on the River Sarnus quayside from a barrel-waisted bosun, so we dragged him along with us. Petro and I went through the pedestrian tunnel on the left of the Gate; there was a separate slope for pack animals, which Larius pointedly shuffled up by himself. As we waited at the top, we could hear him muttering scornfully.

  Pompeii had wine, grain, wool, metalwork, olive oil, an air of thrusting prosperity, and ten smart watchtowers set in vigorous city walls.

  ‘A place that intends to last!’ One of my sharper remarks.

  All right; I do know what happened at Pompeii - but this was eight years before Mount Vesuvius exploded. Any student of natural science who did notice their local mountain was shaped like a volcano deduced it was extinct. Meanwhile, the Pompeian playboys believed in art, Isis, Campanian gladiators, and ready cash to purchase gorgeous women; few of the flashy bastards were great readers of natural science.

  At that time Pompeii was famous for two events: a riot in the amphitheatre when the Pompeians and Nucerians set about each other like hooligans, leaving quite a few dead: then a devastating easthquake. When we visited, eight years after the quake, the whole place still resembled a building site.