Two For The Lions Read online

  "Good. You hammer those bastards so they leave some room for me!"

  "Rivalry? I thought your field was speciality acts, not the venatio?"

  "Why should I stand back when there are good times coming?" So here was yet another entrepreneur who saw the opening of the new Flavian Amphitheatre as a date with destiny. Well, I would rather Thalia made her fortune out of it than anyone else. She had a heart and she was a lively character. Whatever she offered the crowds would be good quality.

  I grinned at her. "I take it you don't stoop to any funny business to annoy the other managers?" Thalia gave me a hilarious round-eyed stare. If she trifled with them, she was not saying. I did not expect her to. In fact, I preferred not to know. "But is there serious trouble among the lanistae?"

  "Plenty. Look at today, Falco."

  "Today?"

  "Why, I could have sworn I met you entertaining a leopardess in the Agrippan Baths earlier, Marcus Didius is that an everyday occurrence?"

  "I assumed she had just escaped."

  "Maybe she did." Thalia screwed up her mouth. "Maybe she had help. Nobody will ever prove it--but I saw a whole bunch of Calliopus' bestiarii up by the Portico of Octavia, all leaning on statues laughing their little heads off while Saturninus ran rings around himself looking for his lost animal."

  "Bestiarii? Weren't they training back at the barracks? How could they have known there was a rumpus here? Calliopus has his place way out past the Transtiberina--"

  Thalia shrugged. "It looked peculiar. That doesn't mean I was surprised. Saturninus saw them too--so that's bad news. If he thinks Calliopus freed the leopardess to stir up trouble, he'll do something really evil in return."

  "A dirty tricks war? Has this been going on long?"

  "Never quite so serious."

  "There's bad feeling, though? Can you tell me about it?"

  "They're vying for the same contracts all the time," Thalia commented matter-of-factly. "Both for gladiatorial combats and for the hunts. Then they are men. You can't expect them to be civilised. Oh, and I heard once that they come from rival towns that have some frightful feud."

  "In Tripolitania?"

  "Wherever."

  "Calliopus is from Oea. What about Saturninus?"

  "Is there a town called Lepcis?"

  "Believe so."

  "Right. You know what these potty little neighbourhoods are like in the provinces, Falco. Any excuse for an annual punch-up, if possible with one or two killed. That gives them all a reason to keep the fight going. If they can tie it to a festival, they can drag religion into it and blame the gods--"

  "Is this real?"

  "The principle's right."

  I asked her if she had heard about the time when, according to the records that I'd seen, Calliopus and Saturninus briefly went into partnership. "Yes, they were trying to gang up and squeeze out anyone else from Tripolitania. Not that it worked--the other main player's Hannobalus; he's far too big to take on." She was of my opinion that when two men shared a business it was doomed to end in a squabble. "Well, you should know, Falco--I heard you've been playing a disastrous game of soldiers with that mate of yours."

  I tried to make light of it. "Lucius Petronius was merely going through a bad patch in his personal life--"

  "So you two old pals were struck by the thought you would love to work together. I suppose that turned out to be a nasty surprise when it failed?"

  "Close."

  Thalia roared with raucous laughter. "Grow up, Falco. More friendships have died that way than I've had fools in bed. You're lucky Petronius didn't seduce your best clients and embezzle all your funds. You'd stand more chance working with a sworn enemy!"

  I smiled bravely. "I'm trying that now."

  She calmed down. "You never know when to give up."

  "Doggedness is part of my charm."

  "Helena may think that."

  "Helena just thinks I'm wonderful."

  "Olympus! How'd you swing that? She can't be after your money. You must be a nippy performer--at something, eh, Jason?"

  I drew myself up sternly and decided it was time to leave. It meant stepping over the python, unfortunately. Jason liked to curl up right in the exit to the tent where he could look up people's tunic skirts. He wasn't even pretending to be asleep. He was staring right at me, daring me to approach "Helena Justina is a fine judge. I'm a sensitive poet, a dedicated father, and I cook a mean chicken wing."

  "Oh that explains it," simpered Thalia.

  I took a big step, nervously. Astride Jason, I remembered something. "this feud between Saturninus and Calliopus--it's already well warmed-up. Calliopus had a lion--"

  "Big new Libyan called Draco," Thalia reported unperturbedly. "I was after him myself; Calliopus beat me by going to Puteoli and nabbing him straight off the boat. And I heard he also owns a trained executioner."

  "He did. Leonidas. Saturninus had sold it to him under false colours."

  "Cheeky sod."

  "Worse than that. Leonidas has just been found dead, in very suspicious circumstances."

  "Jupiter!" The lion's murder aroused her fiercest feelings. Other wild beasts were brought to Rome purely to be hunted in the arena, but Leonidas had had work to do in the Circus. He ranked with her own animals and reptiles: a professional. "That's terrible. Who would do that? And why, Falco?"

  "I presume he had enemies--though everyone claims he was the sweetest lion you could meet. A benefactor even to the convicts he tore to pieces and ate, apparently. I'm working on the usual theories for a murder case: that the corpse probably slept around, amassed huge debts, caused fights when drunk, owned a slave with a grudge, was rude to his mother, and had been heard insulting the Emperor. One of those always turns out right--" I finally plucked up the nerve to finish stepping over the python.

  "Anyway," said Thalia, "Calliopus and bloody Saturninus may make all the noise, but they aren't the only people chasing after the beast contracts."

  "You mentioned one other big supplier? Also from Tripolitania?"

  "Hannobalus. He thinks he'll clean up."

  "Any other names?"

  "Oh go on, Falco! Don't tell me you haven't got a list on a nice official scroll."

  "I can make my own list. What about this other Tripolitanian gilthead, Hannobalus?"

  "You don't miss much, Falco."

  "We've got one from Oea, one from Lepcis--I suppose there had to be a Third Man, from the Third Town."

  "Neat," Thalia agreed noncommittally, like a woman who thought nothing involving the male sex was ever tidy.

  "Sabratha, isn't it? Very Punic, so I'm told."

  "They can keep that then."

  Thalia's opinion suited me too. I was a Roman. As the poet said, my mission was bringing civilised pursuits to the known world. In the face of tenacious opposition, I believed you whacked them, taxed them, absorbed them, patronised them, then proscribed human sacrifice, dressed them in togas and discouraged them from openly insulting Rome. That done, you put in a strong governor, and left them to get on with it.

  We beat Hannibal, didn't we? We razed the city and sowed the fields with salt. We had nothing to prove. That would explain why my hackles rose at the mention of anything Carthaginian.

  "Is the man from Sabratha Punic, Thalia?"

  "Don't ask me. Who are you going to hammer over that poor lion?"

  "A certain Rumex did it, according to my sources."

  Thalia shook her head sadly "He's an idiot. Calliopus will fix him good."

  "Calliopus is trying to cover it up"

  "Keeping it in the family."

  "He denies even knowing Rumex."

  "Pizzle."

  "Oh?"

  Thalia must finally have realised I had no trace on the fingered Rumex and that I was hoping she could give me a lead. She eyed me askance. I looked shamefaced; she roared with mocking laughter, but then while I wriggled with embarrassment she explained who the great Rumex was.

  I must have been the only man in
Rome who had never heard of him.

  Well, me and Anacrites. That only made it worse.

  XX

  ONCE YOU KNOW, the evidence leaps out at you from every wall:

  OUR MONEY's ON RUMEX:

  THE TANNERS OF DOGSTAR STREET

  WE LOVE RUMEX--GALLA AND HERMIONE

  RUMEX CAN HAVE APPOLLONJA ANYTIME HE WANTS

  HE HAD HER LAST WEEK!

  HE'S DEAD IF I CATCH HIM--APPOLLONIA'S MOTHER

  RUMEX IS HERCULES

  RUMEX IS STRONGER THAN HERCULES

  AND HIS [DOODLE] IS BIGGER TOO

  I even spotted in rather shy, small letters on a temple column an impassioned mutter of:

  Rumex stinks!!!

  I knew who he was now all right. The man who had been named as the slayer of Leonidas was this year's most idolised gladiator from the Games. His fighting role was as a Samnite, not normally a popular category. But Rumex was a real favourite. He must have been around for years, and was probably lousy, but he had now achieved the fame that only comes to a few. Even if he was only half as good as his reputation, he was not a man to tangle with.

  There were graffiti on bakeries and bathhouses, and a poem nailed to a wooden Herm at a crossroads. Outside the Saturninus Gladiators' School stood a small but obviously permanent group of young female admirers waiting for a chance to screan1 adulation if ever Rumex appeared; a slave walked out with a shopping basket so to keep in good voice they screamed at him. Apparently used to it, he went over and cashed in by chatting them up. They were so hot for Rumex that in his absence they were fair game for anyone.

  Inside the barracks gate lurked a porter who was assembling his pension fund from bribes for taking in letters, bouquets, seal rings, Greek sweetmeats, addresses, and intimate items of women swear for Rumex. This was bad. To a civilised male it was positively embarrassing. Lest 1 should doubt that women who ought to know better were throwing themselves at this overdeveloped mongrel, two fine and fancy ladies were approaching the gate just as I arrived. They had jumped out of a hired chair together, brazenly showing flashes of leg through slit sideseams in their modest gowns. Their hair was curled. They flaunted shameless stacks of jewellery, advertising the fact that they came from well-oil; supposedly respectable homes. But there was no doubt why they were here today; they had already proffered the door porter a tip to admit them.

  Cursing, I recognised them both.

  I would lose them unless I did something about it. I raced up to the barracks angrily. They looked annoyed: these two hussies cruising for a hunk were Helena Justina, my supposedly chaste darling, and my irresponsible youngest sister Maia. Maia muttered something that I lip-read as an obscenity.

  "Ah, Marcus!" exclaimed Helena, without batting an eyelid. I noticed that her eyelid, were brilliant with antimonised paste. "At last you have caught up with us carry my basket now." She thrust it into my hands.

  Dear gods, they were pretending I was some domestic slave. I was not having that. "I want a word with you--"

  "I want a word with you!" hissed Maia, in genuine wrath.

  "I hear you've been giving drink to my husband--I shall beat you if it happens again!"

  "We're just going in here," Helena announced, with the peremptory high-class disdain that had once flummoxed me into falling for her. "We want to see someone. You can either follow us quietly or wait for us outside."

  Apparently their tip had been a huge one. The porter not only allowed them in, but bowed so low he nearly scraped his nostrils on the ground. He gave them directions. They swept past me, ignoring my glares. Whistling started up as soon as they were spotted by the riff-raff inside, so I bit back my indignation and hurried after them.

  The Saturninus barracks put Calliopus and his measly hutments in the shade. We passed a forge alongside an armoury, then a whole suite of offices. The timberwork was sharp, the shutters were painted, the paths were neat and swept. The slaves skipping about all wore livery. One large courtyard was simply for show: perfectly raked golden sand, with cool white statues of naked Greek hoplites positioned ostentatiously between well-watered stone urns of dark green topiary. There was enough outdoor art to grace a national portico. The shrubs were manicured into boxtree peacocks and obelisks.

  Beyond lay the palaestra, again huge and smart. The peace of the first courtyard gave way to highly organised bustle: more trainers' voices yelling than at the Calliopus establishment. More thumps and whacks of punchbags, weights, and wooden swords on dummy targets. In one comer rose the distinctive arched roof. of a private bathhouse.

  My two womenfolk stopped, not as I hoped to apologise, but to pin their necklines more revealingly. As they threw their stoles over their shoulders with more of a swagger and pegged back their little slips of modesty veils, I made a last attempt to reason with them. "I'm horrified. This is scandalous."

  "Shut up," said Maia.

  I rounded on Helena. "While you're shaming yourself at a school for killers, where, may I ask, is our child?"

  "Gaius is looking after Julia at my house," snapped Maia. Helena condescended to explain swiftly, "Your mother told us about that note Anacrites received. We're using our initiative. Now, please don't interfere."

  "You're visiting a damned gladiator? You're doing it openly? You have come without a chaperone or a bodyguard--and without telling me?"

  "We are just intending to talk to the man," Helena cooed.

  "Necessitating four bangles apiece and your Saturnalia necklaces? He may have killed a lion."

  "Ooh lovely!" minced Maia. "Well he won't kill us. We're just two admirers who want to swoon over him and feel the length of his sword."

  "You're disgusting."

  "That," Helena assured me quite calmly, "is the general effect we were aiming for."

  I could see they were both really enjoying themselves. They must have spent hours getting ready. They had raided their jewellery boxes for an eye-catching selection then piled on everything. Dressed up as cheap bits with too much money, they were throwing themselves into it. I started to panic. Apart from any danger in this ludicrous situation, I had the awful feeling that my sensible sister and my scrupulous girlfriend might happily turn into flirting harridans, given the money and the chance. Helena, come to think of it, already possessed her own money. Maia, married to a determined soak who never bothered what she got up to, might well decide to seize the chance.

  Rumex was minded by four world-weary slaves. As a slave himself he could not actually own them, but Saturninus had ensured that his prize fighter was pampered with a generous back-up team. Perhaps female admirers paid for it.

  "He's resting. No one can see him." Resting after what the spokesman did not say. I imagined the unsavoury possibilities.

  "We just wanted to tell him how much we adore him." Maia flashed the slaves a brilliant smile. The spokesman surveyed her. Maia had always been a looker. Despite four children she had kept her figure. She combed her dark, tight curls in a neat frame to her round face. Her eyes were intelligent, merry and adventurous.

  She was not pressing the slaves. She knew how to get what she wanted, and what Maia wanted tended to be a tad different. My youngest sister sometimes failed to follow the rules. She still had hopes. She disliked compromise. I worried over Maia.

  "Leave whatever you've brought. I'll see that he gets it." The response was offhand.

  Helena adjusted the gold collar at her throat; she was playing the nervous one, the one who was afraid they would be named in the scandal column of the Daily Gazette. "He won't know who sent it!" He W1n't care, I reckoned.

  "Oh I'll tell him." The minder had given the brush-off to plenty before them.

  Helena Justina smiled at him. It was a smile that said these two were not the same as all the others. If he chose to believe it, the message could be perilous--not least for Helena and Maia. I was in despair. "It's all right," Helena assured the man, with all the confidence of a senator's daughter who was up to no good. Her refined accent announced that Ru
mex had acquired himself a delicate devotee. "We didn't expect special treatment. He must have lots of people who are desperate to meet him. He's so famous. It would be such a privilege." I could see the men thinking this one was really innocent. I was wondering how I had ever hitched myself to a girlfriend who was actually so much less innocent than the rude tightrope walking acrobats I had hankered for first. "It must be hard work for you," she commiserated. "Dealing with people who have no idea of allowing him any privacy. Do they get hysterical?"

  "We've had our moments!" the spokesman had allowed himself to be lured into a chat.

  "People throw themselves at him," Maia sneered knowingly. "I hate that. It's disgusting, isn't it?"

  "All right if you can get it," laughed one of the slaves.

  "But you have to keep a sense of proportion. Now my friend and me--" She and Helena exchanged the cloying glances of dedicated followers talking about their hero. "We follow all his fights. We know all his history." She listed it off: "seventeen wins: three draws: twice down but the crowd spared his jugular and sent him back. The bout with the Thracian last spring had our hearts in our mouths. He was robbed there--"

  "The referee!" Helena leant forwards, stabbing her finger angrily. This was some old controversy, apparently.

  "Rumex was tripped." I was impressed by their research. "He was winning, no question, then his boot let him down. He'd had three hits, including that tricky one when he did the cartwheel and cut up under the other man's arm. He ought to have been given the fight."

  "Yes, but accidents don't count," put in one of the slaves. "That bastard the old Emperor Claudius used to have their throats cut if they fell by accident," someone else said.

  "That was in case they were fixing it," said Helena.

  "No way. The crowd would spot that."

  "The crowd only sees what it wants to see," suggested Maia. Her interest seemed genuinely passionate. It looked as if the finer points of the Rumex loss against the Thracian would be haggled over for the next three hours. This was worse than overhearing a row between two half-drunk bargees on pay night.