A Body In The Bath House Read online

  '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 bath house, 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 sour faced, 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 favourite, 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 -' '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 porch way 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 freed woman 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 cliche that men of affairs use the public baths to socialise with their lawyers and bankers, all dull creeps seeking dinner invitations. Not my style. In Rome, I patronised 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 freed woman was even more shocked.

  I turned to the site.

  I had a feel for it now. In some ways, it reminded me of the toured walled complex of a military tort. With the same, slightly angular layout, the palace would be almost half the length and width of a full legionary base. They house six thousand men, two brion bases double that. Like a small town, a permanent fort is fitted with magnificent buildings, dominated by its Praetorium, administrative headquarters and the commandant's home. The nag's new palace was about twice the size of a standard Praetorium. That too, was designed primarily to impress.

  Activity in a far corner caught my interest. I made the diagonal hike march over there. Pomponius, the project manager, was in lively debate with Magnus, Cyprianus the clerk of works, and another person, whom I soon deduced was the drainage engineer.

  In this part of the site, where the level was natural, labourers had gone ahead with the stylobate platforms that would front each wing. They were laying the first courses of supporting blocks on which colonnades would sit. The planned extra height of the dramatic west wing with its audience chamber posed a problem the designers must always have known about - how to link it aesthetically to the colonnades of adjoining wings; where they abutted at the corners they would be much lower. Now Pomponius and Magnus were having one of the jong site discussions where such matters are thrashed out, feeding each other with suggestions - then each finding insurmountable difficulties for any idea that was put forward by the other man.

  'We know we have to step the colonnades,' Magnus was saying.

  'I don't want any variation in the visuals '

  'But you're losing five foot, off twelve foot, max. Unless you raise the ceilings, only dwarves will be able to walk in the ends of these wings! You need graded head space, man.'

  'We lift the colonnades, in gradual stages-'

  'Bitty. Much better to employ single flights of steps. Vary your roof line if you want. Let me tell you how -'

  'I have made my decision,' Pomponius asserted.

  'Your decision's crap,' said Magnus. He was frank, yet given that surveyors tend to be hot-headed know-it-alls, he spoke amiably enough. He was only concerned to explain the good solution he had devised. 'Listen - at each end, put in steps to move the people up to the west wing. Then, don't just run the lower colonnades along level until they bump into the big stylobate. Put in one taller column on each wing. Raise the colonnades at top height.'

  'No, I'm not doing that.'

  'These columns will need thicker diameters,' Magnus pressed on, deaf to the objection. 'It gives better proportions and if you tidy off with roof features, they'll be carrying more weight.'

  'You're not listening to me,' complained the architect.

  'You're not listening to me,' the surveyor answered logically.

  'The point is,' piped up Cyprianus, who had been listening to both patiently, 'if we go with Magnus, I need to put in our order for the over-height columns now. Those in your main run are twelve foot. You'll be going up to fourteen, fourteen and a half, for the larger ones. Specials always take longer-' Not even Magnus was listening to him.

  It was clear they would be wrangling over the corner design for hours yet. Days, possibly. Weeks, even. Well, be realistic; call it months. Only when the builders reached the point of no return would this design feature be settled. My money was on the Magnus plan. But Pomponius was, of course, in charge.

  Seated on a great limestone slab, from time to time the engineer put in, 'What about my tank?' No one so much as acknowledged him.

  From its placing, the slab under his backside seemed to be part of a preliminary mock-up
of one of the colonnaded walks that would line the interior garden. I deduced it was part of a gutter that would lie at the foot of the stylobate and catch the run-off from the roof. Its deep hollowing at least provided a shaped perch while the engineer waited to be heard.

  Pomponius and Magnus moved off slightly, still going endlessly over the same points. This probably often happened. Delaying the decision might allow time for new ideas to form; it could prevent expensive mistakes. They were not exactly quarrelling. Each thought the other was an idiot; each made that plain. But this seemed to be a perfectly routine confab.

  'Finials!' cried Magnus loudly, like an exotic obscenity. Pomponius only shrugged.

  I parked on another slab of limestone and introduced myself to the engineer. His name was Rectus. He must suffer from cold feet, for he wore knitted grey ankle socks in his battered site ankle boots. But his wide body must be tougher; he had only a single tunic, with short sleeves. Bushy eyebrows flourished above a big Italian nose. He was the type who always saw disaster coming - but who then without despair attacked the problem practically. Gloomy in aspect, he was a doer and solver. But he never gained the self-confidence to cheer up.

  'So you have a problem with a tank?' I sympathised.

  'Nice of you to notice, Falco.'

  'I'm here to apply bandages to this project's wounds.'

  'You'll need a few rags.'

  'So I'm learning, Tell me about your tank.'

  'My tank!' said Rectus. 'Well, I just need to remind those fart-arses to build it before they get any further with their farting stylo bates. It sits on a stone base, protruding into the garden, for one thing. I want a cavity dug out and the base laid. The sooner they put the tank in, the happier I shall be. Never mind the farting levels of their fancy colonnades.'

  I glanced at the sky: a typical British grey all over. 'So what is this pet tank?'

  'Settling tank for the aqueduct.'

  'Aqueduct?'

  'Oh, we have all the amenities here, Falco. Well, we will do.'

  'Right!'

  'I got approval for the aqueduct from the governor himself, during his state visit.'

  'State visit?'

  'Came to introduce himself to the Great King.'

  'Believe it!' he marvelled. 'We had to build a new latrine, in case the governor wanted a shit.'

  'He must have been delighted! Is this my pal Frontinus?'

  'He spoke to me!' exclaimed Rectus excitedly. Frontinus was extremely down to earth.

  'Frontinus enjoys the company of experts. And,' I said, grinning, 'he was commissioner of waterworks in Rome. He does like aqueducts.'

  'It will only be a small one.' Rectus subsided into embarrassed diffidence.

  'Still, you got your aqueduct... I know it has to have a settling tank. Otherwise your pipes would clog - so what's the problem, Rectus?'

  'Not included in the budget. Should have been a provisional sum.'

  'A what?'

  'Notional costing. The aqueduct itself is to be funded as a provincial amenity.' I had wandered into the picturesque byways of Treasury bureaucracy. 'But the collection tank is on our site, so it's our baby. Cyprianus can't arrange the work for me without a pig's pizzle docket.' Bureaucracy had summoned its own range of swear words. 'Since it was never allowed for, Pomponius has to issue me a variation order first. He piddling well knows he has to do it, but the bastard keeps putting it oft.'

  'Why?'

  'Because that's the kind of fart-arse bastard Pomponius is.'

  We fell silent. Rectus was still waiting for his talk with the architect. I had no firm plans.

  I was looking at the place where the workmen had begun building up the great base for the spectacular west wing. 'That platform base will be five feet high, am I right? With its colonnade sitting on top of it?'

  'Revetted,' said Rectus. 'Towering like a bloody great bulwark on a frontier fort.'

  'With a massive blank wall facing the garden, won't the overall look be extremely bleak?'

  'No, no. Same thought struck me. I've been talking to Blandus about that.'

  'Blandus?'

  'Chief fresco artist.' Possibly the mysterious visitor who missed me when I was bathing. 'They want to paint it - naturalistic greenery.'

  'A mock-garden? Can't they have real flowers?'

  'Plenty. When you look back towards the east wing they are going to install flowering trees on trellises, and beds full of colour will camouflage all the lower stylo bates. But all the internal walls behind the colonnades are to be painted, mostly picked out discreetly. This big wall has its own design. It will be a spread of bold dark green creepers, through which,' said Rectus, pretending to mock although he seemed to like the concept, 'you can peep at what seems to be another part of the garden.'

  'That's some thought!'

  I was intrigued by Rectus. Some of the workers here seemed to inhabit closed compartments. They only knew about their own craft, had no clue about the overall scheme. He took notice of everything. I could imagine him spending his lunch-break wandering into the architects' offices in the old military complex, to gaze at site plans just out of curiosity.

  'So... you know Frontinus?' He seemed fascinated by my famous contact.

  'We worked together once,' I said gently. 'He was the consular, enthroned; I was the runabout at gutter level.' It was not quite true, but passed off the connection graciously.

  'Even so... working with Frontinus!'

  'Maybe people will be saying to you one day 'working with Falco!', Rectus.'

  Rectus considered that; saw it was ludicrous; stopped being in awe of my prestigious friends. He then told me sensibly about his discipline.

  Scale was his main challenge. He had to cope with enormously long pipe runs, both to bring fresh water in along the various wings, and take away the rain outfall, which would be of huge volume in bad weather. Where his water pipes and drainpipes had to pass under buildings, it was essential to ensure they were completely free of leaks, their joints stopped tightly and the whole length surrounded by clay, before they became inaccessible under the finished rooms. Domestic needs were only part of his brief. Half the paths in the garden area would be laid over pipes to supply fountains. Even the wild garden by the sea, so richly supplied with streams and ponds, still needed a delivery pipe at one point for watering plants.

  He was a real expert. When we were talking about how he planned to drain the garden, he told me that on one run, the drop would be barely one in one eighty-three. That's a virtually invisible slope. Measuring it accurately would take patience and brilliance. The way he talked convinced me Rectus possessed that skill. I could envisage that when everything was up, water would be gushing away down this near-horizontal conduit quite satisfactorily.

  Pomponius had finished wrangling with Magnus. We saw Magnus stumping off with Cyprianus, both shaking their heads. Now the architect came wafting over to us, clearly intending to have a go at Rectus. The high-flown bully was transparent. He had failed to impose his will on the experienced surveyor and clerk of works, so he was now planning to shower scorn on the drainage scheme.

  Rectus had dealt with Pomponius before. He rose from his block of limestone looking nervous, but he had his speech ready: 'I don't want a fight, but what about my farting tank? Look, I'm telling you now, in front of Falco as my witness, the tank needs to be programmed in this week.'

  I was remaining neutral. I stayed seated. But I was there. Maybe that was why Pomponius suddenly backed off. 'Cyprianus can write out a docket and I'll sign it. Fix it up with him!' he ordered curtly. As clerk of works, Cyprianus was in charge of allocating labour to the task; he also had the authority to call up the right materials. Apparently that was all Rectus needed. He was a happy man. Pointless tension evaporated.

  Elsewhere things were not so calm. In the daytime the site was always noisy, even when little seemed to be happening. Now, shouts that sounded far more urgent than normal rang across the open area. I jumped up and stared over, towa
rds the south wing. It looked as if a fight had started.

  I set off there, running.

  XXII

  Men had flocked to the scrimmage. More labourers than I had been aware of that day on site popped out of trenches and rushed to watch, all yelling, in various languages. I was soon in a crowd, jostled on all sides.

  I pushed to the front. Jupiter! One of the protagonists was the elder Philocles, the white-haired mosaicist. He was going at it like a professional boxer. As I burst through the crowd, he knocked the other to the ground. Judging by his paint-spattered tunic, the man who fell had to be a fresco artist. Philocles wasted no time in exploiting his advantage. Astonishingly, he leapt up in the air, drew his knees up, then crashed down on his opponent, full in the stomach, landing with both boots and all his weight. I sucked in air, imagining the pain. Then I fell on Philocles from behind.