A Dying Light in Corduba Read online

  Helena moved away from the bench at the table, needing space for two. With a slight sigh she eased herself into a chair near the hot water cauldron on the cooking bench. I put one leg up on the bench, twisting to look at our friend. I was still eating; I had more appetite than him.

  'Something struck me today,' Helena put in from her chair beside the cooking bench. 'Those two young women called the Quinctius son charming. They were not just saying it because he had flirted with them prettily; they meant that everybody thinks he is wonderful.'

  'Everyone except you,' I suggested to Marius Optatus. I would be the second exception, if I came up with my usual reaction to jumped-up lads in administrative posts.

  'Don't answer if you don't want to, Marius,' Helena said. 'We are all living in the same house, and there are rules of good manners.'

  She had sensed what was the matter, and he finally broke his silence in reply. 'What you do is horrible, Falco.'

  I pulled through my teeth a piece of sausage skin that was too tough to eat. 'How have I offended you?'

  'I think you must offend everyone.'

  'Close!' I took a spill from a vase that stood with the saltbox on the table. Everyone in Rome has been fed that myth about Hispanians cleaning their teeth with their own urine, so I was glad to find that in this villa rustica they had heard of using a sharp bit of stick. Never believe what you read. Half the time it has just been copied by a pig-ignorant hack from some previous author's bogus scroll.

  Optatus pushed away his bowl and swung out from the table. In the measured pace of life in the country he took a small pottery lamp, carried it to an amphora, filled a jug from the larger container, filled the lamp from the jug, brought it back to the hearth, lit his toothpick from the embers, lit the lamp wick, placed the light on the table and stood there thoughtfully. His actions alerted the lamp-boy to go about his task of lighting the rest of the house, and the cook to collect crockery to wash. Marmarides caught my eye, then went out to feed the carriage mules. People were now moving about freely in the kitchen, and our discussion took on a more informal tone.

  'The Annaei and Licinii Ruth are my friends,' he complained. 'I grew up with them.'

  'Would that be with the boys - or the girls?' I asked pointedly. 'Which am I not allowed to approach in my work, Marius?' He made no answer, so I added quietly, 'Aelia Annaea certainly knew exactly what our conversation was about - and I really don't believe I took advantage of Claudia.' Optatus resumed his place at the table at last, his tall shadow wavering on the kitchen wall as he sat down. 'They both know my role; I told them quite freely. If those two young ladies have made a pet of Quinctius Quadratus, they are both mature enough to take the consequences.'

  'I don't see what this has to do -'

  'His father is heavily implicated in a probable conspiracy. I think we can guess that deliberate influence was used to get the son his posting as quaestor. The Quinctii are building themselves a dangerous powerbase in Baetica. If I end up nailing Attractus, his son is almost certain to be disgraced at the same time. The son may be an innocent tool of a devious father, but that quaestorship makes him look a willing participant in the master plan. Even if he's as pure as snow, he's stuck with how it looks - though from what you told me about the way he kicked you out of your tenancy, "pure" is not the word to use.'

  Optatus was brooding on his personal problems. 'They will not succeed in their ambitions.' At least he was talking again. 'People here don't welcome their interference. people will resist them; I will do so myself. When I have money, I will buy land of my own. If I cannot achieve it myself, at least my descendants will be equal to the Quinctii.'

  'You've already been saving!' Helena guessed acutely. 'You're mulling over a plan!'

  'You could marry into an estate,' I suggested. 'That would help.' He looked at me, affronted. 'Marius Optatus, you are well respected in the local community. All sorts of people regard you kindly. Set your sights high.'

  'You are advising me from experience?' He sounded barbed.

  I said, 'A man should go for the girl he wants, my friend.'

  Helena was looking worried. 'She might not always be available!'

  'She might be,' I retorted. I pretended to be unaware of any feelings Optatus had. 'Take Claudia Rufina, for example - you could say the signs are all there that she's earmarked for the fabulous quaestor "Tiberius". But will it ever happen? I suggest it's unlikely. He comes from an old Italian family. The Quinctii are certain to look for a bride from the same patrician Roman background. Making money from the provinces is one thing. Making an alliance is another.'

  On reflection, Helena backed me up: 'It's true. If you took a census of the men in the Senate, you'd find the Spaniards are married to Spanish women, the Gauls to Gauls - and the Romans to their own kind. So, Marcus, that's why nothing is being said openly about Claudia and the quaestor?'

  'Nothing ever will be. The Quinctii aren't buying. Having met Claudia's grandfather, I'd call him shrewd enough to see it.'

  'The girl could be hurt by this,' Helena frowned.

  'Only if she's daft enough to fall in love with the charmer. I dare say she may be, but it need not be irretrievable. Well, there you are!' I exclaimed to Optatus. 'A nice rich girl who may soon have a heartache, and be going spare in the marriage market!'

  He took it well. 'Thanks, Falco!' He managed a grin and I knew we were friends again. 'But maybe Claudia Rufina isn't nice enough or rich enough!'

  Helena and I both beamed at him. We do like to manipulate a man who stands up for himself.

  Optatus was still niggling about the way I had to work. 'I was taking you to task, Falco.'

  'About what I do?'

  'For all I know, when we converse in this friendly fashion, you are laying traps even for me!'

  I sighed. 'Rest assured. If there is a conspiracy, by the time the Quinctii started trying to arrange their cartel, you were on very bad terms with them. Only men who look amenable are invited on their friendly trips to Rome. Let's be fair to the Quinctii though; they may be honest as daisies.'

  'So you like to be fair!' he observed drily.

  'I've been caught out too many times! But I don't believe you were ever invited to join any price-fixing; you disapprove too strongly of corrupt practices.'

  Maybe I was being stupid. Maybe Marius Optatus was so utterly disgruutled by what had happened to him that he was the moving spirit behind the plot Anacrites had wanted to investigate. He had just told us he was saving hard and harbouring ambition. Perhaps I had been underestimating his importance here.

  'I'm flattered,' said Optatus. 'So you will concentrate your efforts on the young ladies' handsome friend, Falco?'

  'The charming Tiberius does pose one fascinating puzzle. If the Quinctii are villains, they appear to have everything well sewn up. But even so, the proconsul has sent Quinctius Quadratus on hunting leave.'

  'So what, Falco? He is a sporting type. He loves hunting; in a young man of promise that goes down well.'

  I smiled wisely. 'In a young man who has just started a major public role, this phrase has other connotations. He's not hunting at present, is he?'

  'He's enjoying himself in every way.'

  'Quite. Flirting with Aelia Annaea and Claudia. What a bastard.'

  'And he is influencing their brothers,' Optatus told me. 'Particularly young Rufius Constans; Quadratus has made himself the boy's mentor.'

  'That sounds unfortunate! But listen: I was telling you about hunting leave; you have to be aware of the subtleties here. In the army it's called "being sent up country". In civic life it's a different term, but same result: your quaestor is not actually expected to hunt. He can loaf on his father's estate, attend the gymnasium, entertain women - whatever he likes, just so long as he doesn't show his face. The fact is, at least temporarily, the proconsul has shoved this twinkling star out of the way.'

  Optatus looked pleased. He immediately saw that for the Quinctii and their ambitious plans this could be a disaste
r. The Senate might have been bought and the Emperor bamboozled, but here the proconsul had a mind of his own. Against all the odds, not everything was going right for Quinctius Attractus and his son. Apparently there was a black mark on a list somewhere, against the name of Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus.

  Maybe Laeta had sent me to Baetica to be the man who turned the mark into a line drawn right through the name. 'What happens now, Falco?'

  'That's easy,' chortled Helena sleepily from her place beside the fire. 'Marcus has the kind of job he likes: he has to find a girl.'

  'In order to disgrace one or both of the Quinctii,' I explained quietly, 'I have to link them to Selia, the dancing girl from Hispalis I mentioned to you before. She helped get a man killed in Rome - and someone almost certainly hired her.'

  For once it was Optatus who laughed. 'I told you before! You won't find many of those girls in Baetica; they all sail off to make their fortunes in Rome!'

  Well, that was good. It should be easier to identify the one who had sneaked back to Spain.

  I managed a grin, then followed it with a compromise: 'I need you! You've been summing up my job for me pretty accurately. How about being poked on to a seat at the theatre next to me?' I gave her my hand again, and we hurried together the way the procession had gone. Fortunately I possessed skills which most urban informers lack. I am an expert tracker. Even in a completely strange city I know how to trace a Parilia procession by following the newly deposited animal dung.

  My experiences in Baetica already warned me that when I caught up with the priest and magistrates I might detect an equally pungent smell.

  I hate festivals. I hate the noise, and the wafts of lukewarm pies, and the queues at the public lavatories - if you can even find one open. Still, coming to Corduba on the Parilia could prove useful as a study of town life.

  As we hurried through the streets, people went about their business in a pleasant mood. They were short and stocky, vivid evidence of why Spanish soldiets were the Empire's best Their temperament seemed level too. Acquaintances greeted each other with a relaxed style. Women were not accosted. Men argued over kerbside space for tying up wagons in a lively, but non-violent way. Waiters in wine bars were friendly. Dogs yapped, then soon lost interest. All this seemed everyday behaviour, not some holiday truce.

  When we reached the theatre, we found events were unticketed because the religious stuff was public and the dramatic scenes had all been paid for by the decurions, members of the town council; they, the Hundred Men, had the best seats, of course. Among them we picked out Annaeus Maximus again, and from his position he was a duovir, one of the two chief magistrates. If Corduba was typical, the Hundred Men controlled the town - and the duovirs controlled the Hundred Men. For conspirators, that could be very convenient.

  Annaeus was the younger of the two landowners I had met in Rome, a square-faced Spaniard with a wide girth, giving me maybe fifteen or twenty years. Coughing slightly in the wafts of incense as the pontifex prepared to slaughter the calf and a couple of lambs, Annaeus was the first to rush forward to greet the governor. The proconsul had arrived direct from his palace, escorted by lictors. He was wearing the toga I had seen him in, not a military breastplate and cloak; ruling the senatorial provinces was a purely civic office.

  In fact his role we soon saw, was as a figurehead on somebody else's ship. The cream of Corduba had welcomed him as an honorary member of their own tightly knit topnotch Baetican club. He sat on his throne in the centre of the front rows of seats around the orchestra, flanked by well-dressed families who gossiped and called out to each other - even shouting to the pontifex in mid-sacrifice - as if the entire festival was their own private picnic.

  'It's sickening!' I muttered. 'The Roman proconsul has been swallowed up by the ruling families, and he's become so much a part of the local clique it must be hard for him to remember that the Roman treasury pays his salary.'

  'You can see how it is,' Helena agreed, only a little more mildly. 'At every public occasion the same few men are in charge The same faces cluster in the best positions. They're terribly rich. They're completely organised. Their families are linked intimately by marriage. Their ambitions may clash sometimes, but politically they are all one. Those people in the front-row seats run Corduba as their hereditary right.'

  'And in Gades, Astigi and Hispalis it's going to be the same - some of the faces will match too, because some of the men will be powerful in more than one place. Some must own land in several areas. Some will have taken rich wives from other towns.'

  We fell silent for the sacrifice. In acquiring foreign provinces, the plan was to assimilate local gods into the Roman pantheon, or simply add them to it if people liked to keep lots of options. So today at the Parilia ceremony two Celtic deities with unintelligible names received a lavish sacrifice, then Jupiter was allowed a slightly weedy lamb. But the Baeticans had been wearing Roman dress and speaking Latin for decades. They were as Romanised as provincials could be. And like the patricians of Rome, keeping a rigid grip on local politics through a small group of powerful families came as naturally as spitting.

  'You can see it all,' I muttered to Helena. 'I bet the governor goes to all their private dinner parties, then when he holds a reception, this same crowd fills out the guest-list. These folk will be at the Palace every week, munching dainties and sipping free wine. No one else gets a look in.'

  'If you live here, and belong to the charmed circle, you have to hob-nob with the same suffocating group continually.' That tedium was never going to afflict a dusty pleb like me - and Helena would have lost her own invitation the minute the proconsul read Laeta's letter about me.

  'I'm just surprised the old man was as frank as he was!' I muttered.

  Helena looked worried. 'Do you regret making yourself known to him?'

  'No; I represent Laeta; I had to report in. It's safe; the proconsul is one of Vespasian's men. But now I've seen what social obligations he has, I'll hold back from contact again.'

  The dramatic performances began. These consisted of brief scenes or tableaux which had been decreed suitable for public show on an occasion of organised celebration. There was little content, and less humour. I had seen more exciting theatre; I had even written a better play myself. No one was going to wet themselves with outrage here.

  We watched dutifully for some time. I had been in the army; I knew how to endure misery. Eventually Helena wilted and said she wanted to go home. 'I can't see any point in waiting. Annaeus will never talk to you in the middle of all this.'

  'No; but since he's a duovir he has to keep a house within a mile of the town. He's bound to be there this evening. I could visit him then.'

  Helena looked depressed and I was not pleased at the thought of hanging around town all afternoon until my man made himself available. Still, I needed to tackle him about the cartel and see if I could establish a link between him and the dancing girl.

  Helena and I left the theatre, amazing the doorkeeper who thought we should have been engrossed in the drama. We rousted out Marmarides, who still seemed fairly sober, and I told him to drive Helena home. I would find my own transport back tonight or tomorrow - another prospect that made me glum. Riding home on a hired mule after dark through unknown roads can be disastrous.

  I went with them as far as the bridge over the Baetis. 'I'll make a bargain,' Helena declared. 'If I go home quietly and let you stay on your own to investigate Annaeus, then I'm going to go over to the Licinius Rufius estate tomorrow and make friends with his granddaughter.'

  'Find out if she can dance!' I chortled, knowing that the wealthy family she came from would be scandalised if she did.

  The bridge at Corduba is three hundred and sixty-five paces long, one for every day of the year. I know, because I counted as I marched miserably back.

  To fill in time I went to investigate the shipping offices of the bargees, in the vague hope of interviewing my other suspect, Cyzacus. All the wharfside huts were locked. A bleary-eyed ma
n fishing off a jetty said the offices were closed for the festival, and that they would be for the next three days.

  'Mind you ...' mused Optatus, as if he had had a thought he rather liked, 'I ought to be able to introduce you to someone else - Quinctius Quadratus.' I raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. He smiled. 'Falco, you need to meet people and sample some entertainment in Corduba. I know where to find it.'

  'One of the boys, eh?' I tried hard to believe it, though it was difficult to see him as a ringleader at a bachelors' night out.

  'In there with the best of them,' he claimed.

  'So what disreputable scheme do you have in store for us?'

  'I've heard that Annaeus Maximus is going to visit his Gades estate. The last time he left Corduba - when he went to Rome to see Quinctius Attractus - his sons held a party where so much damage was caused they were forbidden to invite their friends home again.'