The Silver Pigs mdf-1 Read online

  A torchlit floor show was in progress, enlivened by the clatter of fractured castanets. Three teenage girls with thin arms and amazing busts were cavorting together on a central mat wearing big fixed smiles and little leather thongs. Waiting on the sidelines they had a monkey; for what purpose, I refuse to speculate. At tables around the room dark figures with glassy faces drank overpriced liquor while they watched the show, from time to time exuding desultory cries.

  A short stout hostess loomed at us in off-the-shoulder violet gauze, slashed from the waist to reveal a yard of varicose-veined leg. Her transparent attire made me long to see less of her not more, as she demanded with a remnant of tired allure, "Bang on my tambourine, centurion?"

  Before I could stop her, the senator's daughter rapped briskly, "Don't cramp my style; his highness is with me!"

  The woman revived at this exotic hint. (I revived slightly myself.)

  "Ooh! It's two little gold pieces or four if you bring your own girl!" The man outside had charged me more than that, but I suppose both he and the monkey wanted a cut.

  "Corkage!" marvelled Helena; I was shocked. Women exchanging ribaldry are so coarse.

  "Don't be so unladylike! Hades, we were followed. Fine pickle you've lured me into here"

  A phalanx of bulky shapes came sliding in through the entrance behind us with ominous intent. Protests from the doorman indicated they had not paid his fee; once they laid hands on us they were not intending to stay.

  My companion muttered to her new friend, This clown's crossing his legs is there a…"

  "Out the back, dear"

  "Come on, Falco, I'll take you!"

  She pulled me straight across the floor show. Hardly anyone noticed. Those that did, thought we were part of it as for one ludicrous moment we were. A writhing young amazon with no sense of direction backed into Helena's arms; she passed her to me like an unwanted bread roll. I gave the girl a smacking kiss, regretted it (she tasted of sweat and garlic only to be borne when you taste of the same), then I positioned her tidily on the nearest table where she disappeared under the lecherous clutch of a group of happy Corsicans who could not believe their luck. Rival foreign parties roared with jealousy. The table toppled over, pulling down a curtain to reveal some citizen's white backside rising like the Moon Goddess as he did his anxious duty by a maiden of the house; the poor rabbit froze in mid-thrust, then went into eclipse. A cheer went up. Helena giggled: "Hail and Farewell!"

  By now outraged stokers and stevedores were swaying to their feet ready to spar with anyone, and not caring why. The monkey had been eating an apple while he waited until he was wanted. I clicked my fingers above his head, snatched his apple as he looked up, then drew back my arm like a javelin thrower to hurl the fruit at the gang who had followed us in. Baring his teeth, he leapt into their midst biting anyone whose face he could reach.

  Helena Justina had found a low doorway; she ducked me out into the back alley before I could gasp. We never even had a drink.

  Well, people don't go to a brothel for a drink.

  The space between the buildings was half a yard at most. Dark balconies hung over our heads hiding the sky. There was a smell as strong as lion's piss and I banged my knee on an onion crate. Under my sandals I felt the soft slide of liquid mud which after a few steps welled up coldly between my naked toes.

  As I limped bravely, the senator's daughter helped me to hurry with her sensible hand gripping my arm.

  "Didius Falco, I didn't know you were shy!"

  I glanced back over one shoulder, managing to mutter, "I didn't know you were not!" Our steps jarred on the lava blocks of a properly paved street. "Now that we've been to a brothel together, can I call you Helena?"

  "No. The floor show looked amazing; I was sorry to miss that!"

  "I thought we should leave; that mangy ape was giving you a funny look!"

  "It was a chimpanzee," Helena Justina retorted pedantically. "And I thought he was rather taken with you!"

  We slackened our pace but stumbled on until we came to a major street. Since we left the Palace the curfew had lifted and they were letting in the delivery carts. From all the gates of Rome ferocious vehicular activity converged on us; we covered our ears against the screeching of axles and cursing of carters. It was pitch dark, except where their lanterns bobbed. Suddenly there were shouts: we had been spotted. We were pursued by burly shapes. There was something about the way those shadows moved that convinced me they were soldiers. They came after us on unhurried feet, fanning down both sides of the highway, threading through the waggons like corks bobbing in a harbour, silently working their way through dark water into shore.

  "More roughnecks! Better hitch a ride"

  "Oh Juno!" Helena wailed in despair. "Falco, not a cart chase up and down the Seven Hills!"

  The night came alive now. The streets clogged; queues; noise; spills and traffic jams. I put my foot on the back of a slow waggon, wriggled up then pulled Helena aboard. We cuddled a marble headstone for half a block, transferred to a manure cart, realized what it was, then stepped off hastily to share with some nets of cabbages instead.

  I was trying to work south, where I knew the streets. The cabbage-carter stopped to exchange abuse with a competitor who had scraped into his cart, so we scrambled down.

  "Mind your feet!"

  I nipped backwards from a passing wheel. Thanks. In here We took advantage of a side less dray. "Try to look like an amphora of robust Latian wine"

  I collapsed in mild hysterics as her sober ladyship obediently imitated a wine jar with her hands on her hips like handles and a face like a cracked chalk bung.

  Six ox carts later the shadows were still gaining. It was quicker to walk. We slithered down again; my party sandals landed in something warm a donkey had left behind. I was still carrying mother's sack of swag from Titus, and worrying about not being able to concentrate on protecting Helena. I had been frightened of losing her: no chance of that! While I was exclaiming, she seized my free hand ready to run. In the light from a tavern, her eyes flashed. I had let myself enjoy the delusion that Helena Justina was a staid piece. That was nonsense. She was determined not to be beaten, yet chortling at herself as she caught my startled look. Equally exhilarated, I laughed and ran faster myself.

  The waggons had carried us out of the Forum, across the Via Aurelia and further south. We dashed round the Circus Maximus at the starting gate end and scuttled east until we were level with the central Obelisk. When we approached the Twelfth Sector I drew to a halt, bolting into the shelter of an alley, as we both struggled for breath. I backed her ladyship against a windowless wall, flung one arm across in front of her, and stared about, frantically listening. After a time I let my arm drop and lowered my bag of gold silently to the ground. There was nothing but the low throb of general noise beyond the buildings round about. Where we were seemed suddenly peaceful. We stood in a discrete pool of quietness: me, the senator's daughter, the silhouette of an owl on a roof-tree, and the smell of old bean skins from a nearby rubbish dump. It might have seemed quite romantic to anyone with a passion for broad beans.

  "Lost them!" I whispered. "Enjoying your trip out?"

  She laughed, almost soundlessly in the back of her throat. "Beats sitting by a fountain watching slave girls sewing fringes onto frocks!"

  I was about to do something well say something, anyway,

  – when into the space where my words would have gone, some other villain spoke.

  "Now there's a fine Etruscan necklace, lady! Dangerous running about the streets like that. Better hand your glitter over to me!"

  XLVI

  Helena Justina rarely wore much jewellery, but all her best pieces were on her tonight. I sensed her anguish even in the dark.

  Without moving, she asked me in a low voice, "What shall I do?"

  "Whatever he says, I think. He's not very big but he's armed."

  I had found a blacker shadow, two yards away on my right. Instinct told me about the blade. I
scooped the lass across me to my left. The voice laughed scornfully: Treeing his sword arm if he had a sword! Lady, let's have your loot!"

  With a wrench of annoyance, Helena detached her scintillating earrings, a panther-headed bangle from each arm and the tiara from her hair. Holding all these, her fingers fumbled at her necklace catch.

  "Let me."

  "Lot of practice?" scoffed the thief.

  He was right; I had undone necklaces before. I could manage this. There were two loops of wire which I pushed together, then twisted apart; while it was on, the weight of the necklace held them in place. Her neck was soft, and warm from running. I know that because only a fool undoes a lady's necklace without tickling the lady's neck.

  "Hercules knot!" I answered suavely, then let the light skein of gold shiver into her hand.

  A scrawny paw reached out to take possession, then he snarled at me. "Your ring too!"

  I sighed. It was the only legacy other than debt that I had ever received. I tossed him my Great Uncle's signet ring.

  "Thanks, Falco!"

  "He knows you!" Helena sounded annoyed.

  The villain was obviously some Aventine scavenger, but a stranger to me. I chipped back sharply, "Lots of people know me, but not many of them would pinch my Uncle Scare's signet ring!"

  Helena tensed as if she hoped I would pull out some hidden weapon, then jump. Vespasian had stopped the Praetorians searching his visitors as a signal of quiet times, but I was not such a maniac as to visit the Palace with a knife up my sleeve; I had nothing to jump with.

  Our thief suddenly lost interest. Listening too, I heard why. I caught a whistle I recognized; the scavenger slipped down the entry and vanished with his swag.

  A man with a flare tumbled into the alley.

  "Who's there?"

  "Me Falco!" Someone else joined him hotfoot. Tetro, that you?"

  "Falco? We've just flushed out that runt Melitus he get anything off you?"

  "Jewellery. Lucky you turned up; I had a sack of gold, too!"

  "I'll follow it up. You had a what?"

  "Sack of gold."

  All the time we were speaking, Petronius Longus had been walking down towards me. Now, in the light of the patrolman's flare, he finally glimpsed a vision of my naiad.

  "Falco! Now that's downright perjury1." he exploded. He gripped his trooper's arm, then brought up the brand like a beacon. From then on, his eyes were ignoring me. In the torchlight Helena Justina shimmered, iridescent as an opal; excited eyes, that challenging expression, and the best set of shoulders in the Capena Gate She was the same height as me, so my big, slow friend gave us both four inches. He was dressed entirely in brown, with a wooden baton of office twisted through his belt. He wore leather wrist guards greaves strapped to the knee, and a knotted headband round his all but shaven head. I knew he played with children's kittens when he was at home, but he looked grim. Helena edged closer to me; I took the opportunity to slip my arm around her. He shook his head, still rapt in disbelief. Then, all dimpling innocence, the dimwit had to ask, "I suppose you'll try to tell me, this is your vinegar pot?"

  What a vindictive bastard!

  Before I could wriggle out of it, Helena broke free of my arm and rapped back in a thin voice: "Oh that's me! He usually says I make Medusa's snakes look like a pot of fishing worms."

  I bellowed, Tetronius Longus, for a quiet man you make a lot of unnecessary noise!"

  There was nothing I could say to her, so I grumbled at him.

  "She's a senator's daughter"

  "Where would you get one of those?"

  "Won her at dice."

  Thundering Jove! Where's the game?" he demanded, lifting her hand in his.

  "Oh put her down! Titus and Domitian Caesar have both made their poisoned marks on the poor wench tonight " Bright-eyed with the discovery of a friend in a predicament, Petro smirked defiantly, then kissed my senator's daughter's hand with the exaggerated respect he normally keeps for handing Vestal Virgins along the Ostian Way. I was struggling to stop him: "Mars Ultor, Petro! This is the Camillus girl"

  "Oh, I realized that! If it were one of your Libyan dancing girls you'd have her in some boudoir on her back!" He believed that I had deliberately lied to him about her; he was furious.

  "Oh I'll grant you the boudoir," I slammed at him through bared teeth though not necessarily on her back!"

  Petronius grew flustered. I knew that he would; for him lewd talk was private, between men. He released Helena abruptly so she lifted her chin. She was white as smoked linen. My heart sank.

  "Watch captain, advise me please. I want to reach my father's house, can anything be done?"

  I'll take her," I interrupted, warning him not to interfere.

  At that, quite unexpectedly, Helena flung at me: "No thank you! I've heard your opinion; now I'll tell you mine!" She had lowered her voice but Petro and I both winced. "You went to Hades and back in Britain; you saved my life; you are the only person in Rome who keeps a lamp lit for my cousin. You do all that, yet you remain foul-mouthed, prejudiced, and full of casual derision as lacking in good manners as you are in good nature or good will. Most of the things you blame me for are really not my fault"

  "I don't blame you for anything"

  "You blame me for everything1." She was wonderful. I could not believe I had ever thought otherwise. (Any man can make a bit of a mistake.) "If there's one thing, Didius Falco, I shall regret to the end of my days it's not letting you fall in the River Rhodanus while I had the chance!"

  She had a way with pleasantries that flayed a man's skin.

  She was so angry I became helpless, I leaned against the wall behind us, and laughed until I was weak.

  Petronius Longus continued to stare in embarrassment over our heads at the wall, but he said drily, "Regret it even more, lady; even in the army Falco never learned to swim!"

  She went whiter still.

  We heard shouts. Footsteps scuffled. The trooper on guard at the end of the alley called out in a low voice. Petronius moved forward anxiously.

  "Petro, help us out of this dead end?"

  "Why not?" He shrugged. "Let's shift He stopped. "Ladyship, I can take you"

  "Back off, Petro," I interjected sourly. "The princess is with me."

  "Trust him, lady," he condescended to say kindly to Helena. "He's wonderful in a crisis!"

  "Oh he's wonderful anywhere," Helena Justina capitulated reluctantly. "According to him!"

  From a senator's daughter, this startled him as much as it did me.

  We all squeezed out of the cul-de-sac into the noisy thoroughfare. His man muttered. We ducked back. Petronius growled back over his shoulder at me, "They're swarming like honeybees in Hybla. If we cause a diversion"

  "Steer them away from the river," I agreed quickly.

  "Shriek if the lady shoves you in the Tiber, so we can all watch you drown! Lend me this With a swift grin, Petronius unwound Helena Justina from the white mantle that she wore outdoors. He draped it round the smallest of his lads, who pranced out into the traffic followed by appreciative cheers from the rest.

  At the Ostian Way crossroad, Petro posted his men on traffic duty. I knew what to expect; everything ground to a standstill within seconds. I glimpsed a raised arm as Helena's mantle flickered white amid the screaming drivers, all standing up on their footboards, hurling abuse at the watch.

  In the chaos, we slipped away. To shed its weight while I was looking after Helena, I left the bag of gold for Petronius to take to mother's for me warning him it belonged to ma, so he had better not risk milking the contents for himself. Then I headed back fast on the way we had first come. Soon we were much too far west, but in quieter streets, the river side of the Aventine, near the Probus Bridge. I brought us south past the Atrium of Liberty, stopping by Pollio's Library to catch a hasty drink from a fountain. While I was about it, I washed my filthy shoes and legs. Helena Justina tentatively began to do the same, so I gripped her heels and swabbed her feet like a ver
y brisk banquet slave.

  Thank you," she murmured quietly. I gave my grimmest attention to cleaning off her beaded shoes. "Are we safe now?"

  "No, lady. We're in Rome, in the dark. If anyone jumps us they will probably knife us out of sheer disappointment that we've nothing left to steal."

  "Oh don't fight!" she cajoled me.

  I did not reply.

  I was trying to decide what to do. I reckoned both our homes might be being watched. Helena Justina had no friends nearby; everyone she knew lived further north. I settled on taking her to stay with my mother.

  "Have you realized what this is all about, ladyship?"

  She read my thoughts. "The silver pigs are at Nap Lane!" It was the only explanation for her ungracious husband's last-minute legacy. "His name was in our stolen letter; he realized he was now proscribed. He created that codicil in case he was betrayed by his collaborators, to deprive them of funds in revenge but what did he imagine I would do with the ingots if I found them?"

  "Return them to the Emperor. You're honest, aren't you?" I asked her in a dry tone.

  I tucked her feet into her shoes again and began to walk.

  "Falco, why are they chasing us?"

  "Domitian overreacting? Titus hinted we were suspicious about your legacy. And he may have listened outside the door before he came whistling in. What's that?"

  I caught a chuckle of sound. A bevy of horsemen swirled out of nowhere. A tall-sided garden rubbish cart was grumbling past empty; I dragged Helena aboard, jammed up the backboard, and we lay, petrified, while the horses dashed by.

  Perhaps it was coincidence; perhaps not.

  Two hours had passed since we left the Palace; the strain was beginning to tell. I peered out, saw a man on horseback, then ducked so hard I banged myself half-unconscious before I realized I had only glimpsed a statue of some ancient general going green about the wreath. Something snapped.