A Body in the Bathhouse Page 13

  “What line are they in?” enquired the son. The father glared, as if it were a rash question.

  “Bathhouse construction.” Pa’s wonkily tiled Neptune had nothing in common with the cool sophistication that had been ordered up for the palace. “They do lay floors—subcontracted—but nothing of your quality.”

  Reluctant to say that the last time I stood on a new floor mosaic, I had put a pick through it and then my father squelched his tool into a corpse, I ended the interview. It had hardly advanced my knowledge. Still, I had formed some thoughts about how I would like my dining room at home relaid.

  One day. One day when I was really rich.

  XIX

  WHEN I CAME out from seeing the floorers, the fresco painters’ hut next door now lay silent. I looked in.

  It was the same kind of chaos, though more crowded since their best friend was a trestle. It had been given a home where the table would have been if these lads had been proud housekeepers. Instead, they ate squatting on the floor (I could tell from the mess) and had upended the table against a window, to give them more access to wall space. They wanted lots and lots of free area to cover with their sheer brilliant brushwork.

  The last painters I had dealings with were a mad crowd of crooked, aimless semicriminals from a wine bar called the Virgin; they wanted to bring down the government, but had no money for bribes and no charismatic charm to fool the plebs. Most of the time they could hardly remember their own way home. They were connected with my father. Enough said.

  These loud characters here were probably layabouts too. All gambling, drink, and high ideals about betting systems. What they possessed in abundance was talent. All over their hut were fantastic examples of mock-marble stumbling. Dainty purple flecks on red, with trickles of white. Wandering orange streaks. Two shades of gray, sponged in layers. A blank square patch of wall was satirically labeled LAPIS BLUE HERE, presumably because the jeweled paint was too expensive to waste in experiments. All other surfaces were daubed. Every time they came in for a break and a barney and a bit to eat, they must flick new paint around just for the joy of seeing different colors and effects. When they were feeling even more obsessive, they produced elaborate bands of wood-graining so perfect it seemed a tragedy that this crude hut with their experiments would one day be pulled down and burned.

  There were paint pots everywhere, mostly with great wet glops sliding down them. Paint rings stained the floor. I kept well outside.

  “Anyone home?”

  No reply. I did feel saddened.

  XX

  AS I LEFT the site huts, my heel slipped in a barrow rut. I landed flat out. Wet mud attached itself down the full length of my tunic. I had badly jarred my spine. When I stood up again, cursing, pain shot all up my back and into my head, to score a direct hit on a grumbling tooth that I was trying to ignore. I would be walking stiffly for days.

  I planted my feet apart, getting my breath back. This part of the palace grounds was in general use at present. The official hutments were fairly smart and arranged in a regular pattern. Scattered tents belonging to hangers-on and hobos had been pitched in an untidier camp. Smoke wreathed from untended cooking fires. The smell of dank leaves harbored duskier odors that I chose not to identify.

  Pyramids of enormous sawed logs, mighty oak trunks from some nearby forest, had been piled at the track side. In other rows, square stacks of bricks and roof tiles waited, layered with protective straw. Somewhere not far off, I could smell caustic smoke, probably lime being burned off for mortar. Here, heavy delivery carts, many still with their contents, were parked in a rough line, their oxen and mules unhitched and hobbled. If there was supposed to be a watchman, he had gone off for a pee in the woods.

  One of the carts belonged to Sextius. I limped over to it. I found Aelianus, looking heavily unshaven and distinctly gray. He was curled up awkwardly, in a cramped space in the back of the cart, fast asleep. The senator would approve of his son’s endurance—though Julia Justa, who favored her truculent middle child, would produce a more tart response.

  Seeing a rough hide cover, I manhandled it free and gently laid it over him. I was careful. Aulus did not wake.

  I leaned for a moment on the cart wheel, rubbing my sore back. Then I heard noises. Instinctively I felt guilty lurking there alone. It made me cautious how I emerged into public view.

  I must have crept like a mouse sneaking out from a skirting. A man who was atop a nearby wagon failed to see me at first. A flash of his extremely white tunic caught my eye. I had a good view of him. He was dragging up old sacks that covered the cart contents and peering underneath. He could have been the owner searching for something—or a thief. He looked furtive, not legitimate.

  In fact, I knew him. It was Magnus, the surveyor. I was so surprised to find him leaping about these transports on his own, I must have moved abruptly. He glimpsed me and tried to change position. Then he fell off.

  Wincing myself, I hopped over there as fast as possible. He lay on the ground, but making enough noise to prove that parts of him were undamaged. Obscenities came thick and vivid.

  “Stuff you, Falco! What a start you gave me—” I helped drag him to his feet. He roared and shifted to and fro, pretending he had to rejig his limbs in their joint sockets. His fall must have been so unexpected he had stayed limp and that saved him. Basically, he was unhurt.

  He had noticed my own filthy tunic, so I said, “Now there’s two of us stiffening up like planks—I took a tumble myself a minute ago. What were you up to, Magnus?”

  “Checking a marble consignment,” he breezed offhandedly. “And you?” Considering he had been behaving oddly, he was looking at me hard.

  “I’ve been trying to squeeze more than two words at a time out of the mosaicist.”

  “Philocles? Oh, he’s all gab!” Magnus laughed.

  “Right. He didn’t even tell me he was called Philocles. What about the other—his son, is it?”

  “Philocles Junior.”

  “Surprise!” Why waste imagination thinking up a different name?

  We had started to walk slowly towards the main site. Magnus had been battered by a far worse shock than me, but he was recovering. He must be in general good shape. Refusing to be put off, he insisted, “Going back to your office by the scenic route?”

  I reflected wryly that he sounded like me, harassing some suspect.

  There was no need to connect myself to Aelianus, so I told Magnus how the previous day I had met the man with moving statues to sell; I played up Great-Uncle Scaro’s interest in automata and just said I was curious. “The fellow isn’t there. Must be making his pitch to Plancus and Strephon.”

  “Good luck to him.” Magnus grinned. “Yes, I found his cart myself.”

  Now I did have to check. “And the snoring assistant?” I felt unease at someone else inspecting Aelianus without his knowledge. “Looks a rough character!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, Falco,” replied Magnus demurely. “Rather odd, I thought—did you not notice? He was wearing a very good quality tunic and has manicured hands.”

  “Oh dear!” I had been right to worry. I tried to pass it off. “One of the playthings they hawk about, is he? Maybe Sextius uses him to model moving parts.”

  Somehow I managed to maneuver the conversation onto delusional statuary. We ended up discussing Homer. That was another shock. According to Magnus, there was a scene in the Iliad where the underworld god, Hephaistos, appeared, complete with a set of three-legged bronze tables that moved around on wheels. “They follow him like dogs, dogs who will even turn round and go home by themselves at his command.”

  “Sounds like a good set of nesting tables for drinking parties.”

  “When your guests have had enough, you can whistle and the tables remove themselves.”

  I liked Magnus. He had a sense of humor. But I was surprised to find that he read Homer, and I told him so.

  “Surveyors take an interest in the world. Most of us are well read,�
� he bragged. “Anyway, we spend time alone. Other people think we’re tricky sods.”

  I made no comment. I had moved Magnus onto my list of men to watch. For one thing, checking important deliveries ought to be done by Cyprianus, the clerk of works. And I would expect marble to be kept not in some unsupervised encampment full of oddball hawkers and interlopers, but safe in the well-fenced site depot.

  Covered with mud, I was hardly impressive. I went back to the old house and stripped off. Helena discovered me rooting through a chest of clothes. “Oh, Marcus, what happened?”

  “Fell down.” I sounded like a sad little boy.

  “Did somebody push you?” Helena was not being maternal; she worried about me getting into serious fights.

  “What, some big rough bully? No, I fell down all on my own. I was dreaming and not looking where I put my feet. I’d been looking at work by some fresco artists: I must have been thinking about Larius.”

  Larius, my favorite young nephew, had bunkered off to learn to be a painter in the Bay of Neapolis, where the rich had their fabulous villas and there was top-class work. It was three years since I had seen him. I tried luring him to Rome to help me decorate Pa’s Aventine house, but my letter went unanswered. Larius had always been a businessman, too sensible to commit himself to unpaid favors. Besides, in Rome he had his appalling parents. Galla and her ghastly husband were enough to drive any son to a remote apprenticeship.

  “Hmm … So that’s where it is!” Helena brushed past me suddenly to seize on a dress of hers. It was a cream affair, with wide bands of blue on the hems. Although simple, it had cost a sackful; the material was a gorgeous weave shot through with silk. As she lifted it out with a seductive rustle and held it by the shoulders, she caught me looking skeptical. “Hyspale keeps trying on my clothes. There’s no point. I am far too tall, so they bunch on her.” I said nothing. “Yes, she does it to annoy me.”

  Another problem with the damned nurse. I sighed. “You know—”

  “I know!”

  I held my peace.

  “When we get home,” promised Helena, “I’ll tackle her in Rome. Mother will take her back.”

  “And she won’t be surprised.”

  Helena looked at me. “Are you sniping at my mother?”

  “No.”

  It was true. She might be my mother-in-law, but I had observed the Camillus family enough to know she had had a strong influence on Helena’s development. I paid the proper respect to that. When a senator omits to divorce his wife after she has given him the correct number of children and he has used up the dowry, it generally means something too. I did not mess with Julia Justa.

  “Oh, your undertunic’s mucky too, Marcus. You’ll have to take it off and bathe.”

  I was already halfway through the motion of peeling down to bare skin when I realized that Hyspale had come into the room.

  Helena flushed. “Hyspale, do knock, please!” I made sure I stayed decent. I can stand admiration from the wider public, but I rather liked Helena Justina deciding my body was her personal territory. She was shaking out the cream-and-blue dress. “Did you move this? Can we understand something, Hyspale—I would not allow my sister, my mother even, to borrow my clothes without asking me.”

  Hyspale glared at me as if she believed I had caused her reprimand.

  “Where are the children?” I asked coldly. Hyspale stormed out. Actually, I had already seen the children safe in the doting care of fair-haired, fair-skinned women from the King’s household, who were entranced by my daughter’s dark eyes and foreign good looks. The baby was asleep. Julia always behaved perfectly for strangers.

  Helena and I looked at each other. “I shall deal with it,” she repeated. “At least she’s not beating or starving them. We just reached the stage where our servants are other people’s useless gifts. Next we shall choose our own—no doubt bungling it through inexperience. Then at last we shall move on to exactly what we want domestically.”

  “I’d like to miss out on some stages.”

  “You like to rush everything.”

  I grinned salaciously.

  I found my oil flask and strigil, selected clean clothes, and went out to explore the King’s baths. Helena then scurried after me, growling under her breath and needing to relax in the steam. In a private bathhouse owned by a royal master, there is always hot water. At off-peak times, you can virtually guarantee no one else will turn up to be shocked by mixed bathing.

  We found the bath suite was high quality. To one side of the entrance lay a room with a cold swimming pool. None of your shallow paddling puddles; this was more than waist deep with plenty of space for a good thrash, as Helena vigorously proved, I had never learned to swim. She kept threatening to teach me; a freezing pool in Britain did not encourage me to start lessons. I sat on the pink mortared bench and watched Helena for a while, though even she was gasping at the temperature. Slightly chilled, I wandered off to enjoy myself in not one but three different hot rooms, each of increasing temperature. She stopped showing off her stamina and joined me.

  “You found the fresco painters this morning?”

  “I found their hut. I saw the mosaicist.” My solemn lack of logic had Helena giggling.

  “Don’t play up, Falco.”

  I gave her a cheeky smile.

  Helena languidly went to a basin where she used a dipper to splash water over her shoulders. It ran down … well, where gravity was bound to take it. She came back to sit by me. That gave me the chance to trace the water streaks with my fingers.

  “So,” she asked me doggedly, “what stage have you reached?”

  “Are you supervising?”

  “Wouldn’t dare.” Untrue. “We consult, don’t we?”

  “You consult and I confess. …” She kicked me to encourage honesty. I sobered up to save my shins. “I’ve got the measure of the project architecturally. It’s a good structure and the planned finish treatments are striking. I’m eyeing up the personnel; that’s ongoing. Now I have to find an office—”

  “I have sorted out a room near our suite for you.”

  “Thanks! That’s good—not too close to the site managers. So next I take all the project documents into my new office and lurk there auditing. I know what scams I’m searching for. When I’m ready, I’ll pull in your brothers to help. Meantime, both are placed in good spying positions.” I omitted their seamy conditions. Their loving sister might storm off and rescue them.

  Within the thick walls of the bathhouse, we were cut off completely from the outside world. Nobody knew we were here. Naked and peaceful together, able to be ourselves. Once you have children, such private moments are rare.

  I gazed at Helena quietly. “Britain.” I took her hand, winding my fingers among hers. “Here we are again!” She smiled slightly, saying nothing. I first met her in this dismal province—both of us at a low ebb at the time. … “You were a snooty, angry piece and I was a sourfaced, hard beggar.”

  Helena smiled more, this time at me. “Now you’re a snooty but mud-stained equestrian and I’m …” She paused.

  I wondered if she was content. I thought I knew. But she liked to keep me on edge. “I love you,” I said.

  “What’s that for?” She laughed, suspecting bribery.

  “It’s worth saying.”

  I felt sweat trickling slowly down my neck. I had a vague scrape with my strigil. I had brought my favorite, which was bone. Firm, yet comfortable on the skin … like many fine things in life.

  When I complained about the pain in my wrenched back, Helena eased it with some interesting massage. “Toothache as well,” I whimpered pathetically. She leaned round from behind me and kissed my cheek gently. Flattened by the steam, her long straight hair fell forwards, tickling parts of me that decidedly liked being tickled.

  “This is nice. No one using these smart facilities but us. … Maybe we should take full advantage, sweetheart. …” I pulled Helena closer.

  “Oh, Marcus, we can’t—”r />
  “I bet we can!”

  We could too. And we did.

  XXI

  ONCE YOU have servants, even rare moments of privacy are at risk. I fooled the woman, though. By the time Hyspale sought us out at the baths, Helena Justina was in the changing room, drying off her hair. I was coming out through the porchway, newly clad in a clean tunic. With a mother like mine, I had long ago mastered the art of looking innocent. Especially after a hot dalliance with a young lady.

  “Oh, Marcus Didius!” Our freedwoman’s podgy face glowed with satisfaction at disturbing me. “I’ve been looking for you—somebody wanted you!”

  “Really.” I was in a good mood. I tried not to let Hyspale dissipate that.

  “I should have sent him here to you. …”

  She was determined to follow the cliché that men of affairs use the public baths to socialize with their lawyers and bankers, all dull creeps seeking dinner invitations. Not my style. In Rome, I patronized Glaucus, my trainer. I went to get my body fit. “I don’t take the conservative line. When I’m at the baths, Camilla Hyspale, it’s for cleanliness and exercise.” All types of exercise. I managed not to smirk. “I don’t want to be found.”

  “Yes, Marcus Didius.” She was an old hand at using people’s names as insults. Her meekness was a front. I had no faith in her to obey.

  Helena came out behind me. Hyspale looked shocked. And she only thought we had been bathing together.

  “Who was it?” I asked calmly.

  “What?”

  “Looking for me, Camilla Hyspale?”

  “One of the painters.”

  “Thanks.”

  With a terse nod to the women of my household, loved and loathed, I strode off to be a man of affairs in my own way. The one I loved blew me a kiss suggestively. The freedwoman was even more shocked.

  I returned to the site.

  I had a feel for it now. In some ways, it reminded me of the four-sided walled complex of a military fort. With the same slightly rectangular layout, the palace would be almost half the length and breadth of a full legionary base. They house six thousand men, two legion bases double that. Like a small town, a permanent fort is crammed with magnificent buildings, dominated by its Praetorium, huge administrative headquarters, and the commandant’s home. The King’s new palace was about twice the size of a standard Praetorium. It, too, was designed primarily to impress.