Scandal Takes a Holiday Page 23

  I remarked to Petronius, “Some people will volunteer for anything!”

  “Sad, isn’t it?” He grinned.

  The rest of his men gradually dispersed around the locality. Most had first obtained a bite to eat; the vigiles regard this as a sacred rite, which they must follow impeccably in order to placate the gods and guarantee the survival of Rome, Senate, and People. Once satisfied, they merged into nooks around the port. Fusculus was slumped on his back against the base of a crane, looking like a bundle of rags or a partner in one of the criminal scams that fascinated him. I half expected a sidekick to be hiding nearby, ready to jump out and rob anyone who bent down to see if the apparent heart attack victim needed help.

  Petro and I remained at the Dolphin, with its excellent view of both the Damson Flower itself and the approach road from the ferries. We were talking about family issues. We took as our starting point Gaius Baebius, which led to how I had always loathed my brothers-in-law, and the curious fact that my best friend was now one of them. “You may have to ditch Maia.”

  “How about I adopt her? Then she stops being your sister, so I can’t be your brother-in-law—”

  “But Maia becomes your daughter so you are not allowed to sleep with her.”

  “Bad plan!”

  Still filling in time, we discussed which of my brothers-in-law I hated most. This provided inexhaustible repartee. I could not decide between Verontius the road contractor, who was an obvious scab on society’s nether regions, and Mico the plasterer, who looked fairly harmless, but who had a lot of faults—especially his terrible plastering. But Petronius had a particular down on Verontius, whom he once tried to arrest for bribery on official contracts; Verontius had gotten off without a stain on his character (he bribed his way out of the charge). We avoided all mention of Famia, who had been married to Maia until he died a couple of years back; I could not remember whether Petronius had ever been told of Famia’s greatest moment. It was being kept a secret to save the children from the shame: Famia had been sent to the arena in Leptis Magna and eaten by a lion.

  Famia was a drunkard with an uncontrolled tongue, which was how he incurred his fate. But he had not achieved the depths of dirt, deceit, smelliness, and absenteeism which were mingled into a flavorsome brew by the toothless water-boatman father of my favorite nephews, Larius and Gaius. As soon as we mentioned Lollius, Lollius won outright.

  Time went by.

  Around us, the port had come to life. The few early loaders who had seemed to be working on their own initiative had now been joined by organized teams. Singing and joshing, they set about complicated maneuvers, which often involved long periods of inactivity where men stood on the quayside and talked through how to approach their task. At other times they seemed to have no problem, but swung into action with practiced assurance. Then sacks and barrels kept coming ashore or going on board in great quantity. At intervals along the mole, cranes had creaked into action, raising stuff from deep holds; usually the crane had a lonely operator, working with unseen companions who never seemed to communicate from the ship. If a load slipped, the operator had to leave the crane and remedy the disaster on his own. If he was lucky, a seagull came to watch.

  Handlers shifting produce manually crossed from one tightly packed ship to another, sometimes several, using gangplanks as bridges as they hauled amphorae of wine and olives or threw sacks and bales from hand to hand. Awkward items provided us with plenty of amusement. A whole string of Spanish horses had to be coaxed down a gangplank, teetering riskily even when someone suggested they be blindfolded. Divers arrived to work in one area of the dock, where a valuable commodity had been dropped in the water the previous day.

  We were there half the morning but the divers still had not found what they were searching for. We never discovered what it was. Petro wandered over to make friends with their supervisor since a contact among the divers might be useful to the vigiles.

  A new ranker arrived from the Island, looking nervous. He began to approach Fusculus, then noticed Petronius, who had spotted him and was hurrying back to the bar.

  “Sorry, chief—bad news. The scribes won’t be coming after all.”

  Petronius adjusted the position of his wine beaker on the counter; the gentle movement was deceptive and the scared messenger knew it. “Tell me.”

  “It’s all a fix.” Nervous of Petro, the ex-slave was rushing the story. “They started out, sure enough, got as far as the ferry, then had the money snatched off them while they were on the boat.”

  Petronius now showed he was livid. “I cannot believe what I’m hearing! How was this cocked up?”

  “The ferry was attacked by another boat.”

  “What?”

  “Sure thing, chief. A gang had hijacked a tugboat. Four or five of them. The two scribes were coming over on one of the big Lucullan ferries—” Four different ferry services plied across the Tiber daily. The Lucullan line had multiple oars and took both passengers and heavy goods. They were big, unwieldy vessels.

  “And where were all of you?” asked Petro coldly. “I told you to keep a close tail on the scribes.”

  “We were in one of the vigiles skiffs, most of us. Parvus was supposed to stick with them on the ferry. Rubella said only one man was to be that close, in case they got suspicious.”

  “Rubella!” Petronius came even nearer to the boil.

  “If a tribune wants to come on a mission, chief—”

  “If he does, you lose him! Tell me the rest of this disaster.”

  “Parvus couldn’t get on the right ferry, because of the crowds, so he was squashed on the Rusticelian one—” Just a rowing boat for passengers. “But it was crossing at the same time, more or less parallel. He could see what was happening. The gang rammed the Lucullus ferry, jumped aboard, and ransacked the purses of everyone—all the passengers. Rubella reckons robbing the others was to make it look good—”

  “He thinks the Damson Flower instruction was just to get the scribes on the river?” snarled Petro. “This was how the money was always going to be collected? So the scribes had their chest taken in the scrum?”

  “Whipped off them and passed to the tugboat before you could blink.”

  “So where was Rubella while this pastoral scene unfolded?”

  “In our skiff. Jumping up and down and spitting fire. He kept yelling to be rowed nearer, but to be honest, none of the lads is very good at steering.” Every time a vigiles detachment was assigned to Ostia, the troops had to learn to manage their boat. In Rome they did not need one; there were bridges.

  “And where is Rubella now?”

  “Ostia. Comforting the scribes and explaining to them they are just victims of a trick.”

  Petronius ran his hands through his hair, taking this in. Always concerned for the men’s safety, he asked in a more temperate voice, “Anyone attempt to fight back? Any casualties?”

  “Parvus. He jumped into the water and swam over from the ferry he was on. He managed to get aboard the Lucullan. He’s a mad devil—he whacked one of the gang with an oar, nearly split his head open—” As firefighters, the vigiles are an unarmed force. They can do a lot with fists and feet, or they improvise. “But then someone poked Parvus in the guts and he fell off the ferry.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He went under. Rubella and some of the lads jumped in after him. We fished him out, but that held us up. By then, the gang were back on the tugboat, laughing at us all as they rowed off at a lick downstream. We tried to follow but the ferries got in our way—”

  “On purpose?”

  “Well, there was chaos. The current was swirling boats everywhere. The thieves seemed to know what they were doing on the water, but there were some collisions. I thought we were going to sink. We found the tug soon afterward. They beached it by the Isis sanctuary; there’s no sign of them now, and of course nobody saw anything suspicious when they landed there—or so they all say.”

  The man fell silent, looking guilty
. After a moment, Petro clapped the vigilis on the shoulders, to show there were no hard feelings. Then he signaled to Fusculus (who had been listening in, though at a careful distance). They summoned the troops and set about a full internal search of the Damson Flower.

  “Take this joint apart!” ordered Petronius. Sometimes he showed greater respect for people and property. But he had to relieve his feelings somehow.

  XLVII

  It was not the first time Petro and I had been in a brothel—always for professional purposes, of course. We had once risked our lives and our reputations in the biggest love nest Rome could offer, vainly searching for the gangster father-in-law of Petro’s bugbear Florius. By comparison, the Damson Flower was tiny and its services basic, though like all port establishments it had its own salty color. Small cells on two floors offered little more than hard, narrow beds. The deluxe ones each had a clothes hook outside in the corridor. The imperial suite boasted a cupboard containing a piss pot.

  Despite looking deserted from the quay, when we burst through the main door with belligerent vigiles greetings, the interior coughed up a slew of disreputable occupants. Sheepish sailors emerged from all quarters, many carrying kitbags and looking as if they were using the place simply as a cheap hotel. The girls came in many flavors, from sloe-eyed Easterners, through dusky dames from inner Africa with amazing busts and backsides, to a skinny Gaul with no bust at all who kicked Fusculus in the groin unexpectedly. They all had garlic breath and foul language. Several tried the old trick of shedding their clothes to disconcert us—where they were wearing clothes to start with. The madam called herself a Spanish dancer, but could never have been farther than the Rome Gate at Ostia in her life. In doing this job for decades, she had probably acquired more technical knowledge of binnacles and foremasts than most ships’ carpenters.

  The bouncer, at whom Ajax had barked so furiously the other day, was wearing a tunic that had played host to most of the moth population in Portus. It had more holes than cloth in between them; when he moved I expected clouds of little winged creatures to stream out as if we had disturbed a bats’ cave.

  “Have you even been in a bats’ cave, Falco?” demanded Petro scathingly. I was a spare-time poet; he had always disapproved of my fanciful tendencies.

  “Imagination is a rare talent.”

  “How about you apply it to helping us process these desperadoes?”

  The madam had refused to speak to us, it being a tenet of her trade that since she was a legal outcast because she was a prostitute, law officers from Rome had no jurisdiction over her. That was how she put it, anyway. Fusculus argued against this circular philosophy with the vigiles’ trenchant wit and good manners: he socked her on the jaw. It may seem harsh, but at the time he had been trying to drag her out of doors and she was standing on his foot; she weighed a lot and must have known her so-called Spanish dancing shoes had formidable high heels.

  Because of her noncooperation, Petronius was squeezing the bouncer’s balls. We wanted him to tell us whether any of the customers hailed from Cilicia. “Or Illyria,” I added. Petro reinforced the question manually.

  “Is that near Agrigentum?” The bouncer had been well trained in playing dumb, even when at risk of becoming a eunuch. We gave up on him. As a symbol of us giving up, Petronius clouted his ear. Petronius then explained to the watching customers that he was eager to try out his squeezing and clouting techniques on other parts of the anatomy, so anyone who wanted to give him any trouble could be a volunteer.

  This was too sophisticated, and anyway most of them were foreign. Or so they claimed. It was true that they all had great difficulty even understanding a request for their names and livelihoods.

  Petronius Longus put the men in a line, guarded by his troops, and said he would now go through the process of checking whether the customers were free Roman citizens or runaway slaves; he explained that although he hated xenophobia, he would be obliged to pay particularly close attention to those who were foreign. Anyone who did seem to be a runaway would be put in a heavy neck-collar and imprisoned until a countrywide search for his master had been carried out; due to pressure of work there was no guarantee at the moment how long these searches might take … But not to fear: all anyone had to do to be in the clear was to produce his valid certificate of Roman citizenship.

  Nobody carries their certificate around with them.

  Many citizens in Rome do have a birth certificate (or did when they were born and registered), freed slaves are given a tablet, and all ex-army personnel acquire their diploma of release (which we tend to keep carefully, in case we have to disprove accusations of desertion). In the provinces, where most of these men originated, citizenship is a loose concept. The gaggle of seafarers, loaders, negotiators, and short-order chefs all looked abashed, grew scared, and then played our game. A list of names, hometowns, and trades was created rapidly.

  Nobody owned up to being Cilician or Illyrian. Or Pamphylian, Lycian, Rhodian, or Delian. There was a Cretan, but he was on his own, only four feet high, had bandy legs, and threw up from terror when we questioned him. We decided he could not possibly be part of the scam on the two Gazette scribes—so we made him promise not to do it again (which he did even though he was innocent, swearing some peculiar Cretan oath). We let him go. As he scampered off down the quay, he cursed us. Fusculus looked nervous.

  “He has done something,” Petro decided darkly, with the voice of experience. But it was too late now. For a man whose legs were so bandy you could drive three goats between them, the Cretan could move like an Olympic sprinter who had the promise of a hot date if he came home from the stadium with a wreath. That was another reason for suspicion; most of the rest had sauntered off, deliberately looking unconcerned.

  “Lemnus,” said Fusculus, double-checking the list. “Lemnus from Paphos. Works as a building site concrete mixer, freelance. Out of a job currently.”

  “So what’s he doing on the docks?” I asked.

  “Looking for work, he says.”

  “On a cheap whore’s mattress?” We all laughed. The madam of the Damson Flower then shrieked at us that her women were all highly trained and did not come cheap.

  Life had made this hag an excellent businesswoman. When the vigiles packed up to leave, she promised them a trade discount if they visited on a quiet night.

  Petronius Longus was taking his men back to Ostia. Rubella would not welcome my presence at the debriefing for that morning’s episode on the river. I told Petro that if he saw Helena he should reassure her that our mission had aborted on us. But while I was over here at Portus, I thought I would stick around and sniff about.

  The vigiles left. I went back to the Dolphin. Everything seemed to be over—but now I was alone without backup. For me, that was where the day’s adventures began.

  XLVIII

  I bought lunch. In open defiance of the imperial food-stall rules, dish of the day at the Dolphin was a hot fish stew. It should have been pulses but the waiter had a line over the harbor wall; fish were free. Portus was awash with officials, from the corn-supply aediles to the tax beetles to the harbormaster, the lighthouse staff, and the watchmen; this should have been a completely regulated area. No chance. In ports disobedience is as common as silt.

  I was mopping my bowl with a lump of rustic bread when who should I see come trotting back to the Damson Flower but Lemnus. His bandy Cretan legs were still kicking up dust like a house-slave in a flaming temper. With a furtive glance over his shoulder, he scampered inside the brothel. A minute later so did I.

  The male bouncer had gone off to lunch. A short, round, gloomy girl was now guarding the door. “You again!” she greeted me.

  “I love to be so memorable—where’s Lemnus?”

  “Mind it.”

  “Listen, fatty-chops—take me to the Cretan, fast!”

  “Or what?” She was expecting a threat so I showed her a half-denarius.

  “Or I won’t give you this.” I was not intending to gi
ve her that much money whatever she did, but she was less than bright and she fell for it.

  With what she thought was an alluring smile, she led me along the corridor. She was about as alluring as a pregnant duck, and she only looked about fourteen. Bad enough to be overweight and miserable at that age if you have a decent life; working in a brothel as well must have been deadly.

  Lemnus was sitting in a cell by himself.

  “Now then, little man from Paphos, what are you doing back here?”

  “Hadn’t finished.” Petro’s men had already established that under questioning Lemnus whimpered. He only showed his real style when he was out of reach. Then the curses flew as fast as his bent little legs.

  “Since you are in here on your own, the jokes are obvious and crude, Lemnus. Has he paid?” I demanded of the girl from the door, who was still hanging around in the hope of the coin.

  “He has a slate.” She tossed her hair derisively, which caused a mist of dandruff and cheap scent. I let her see me put away the coin I had offered, so she went back to her duties. “Time-waster!” she muttered, scowling.

  “I assume that’s you,” I told Lemnus cheerily—just as he stopped being a timid weasel, flicked open a folding knife, and lashed out at me.

  I had expected trouble. I elbowed his arm up and just escaped slashing. Lemnus barged out of the cell past me, but I had my boot out at ankle level. He crashed to the floor. I would have disarmed and overpowered him, but the doorkeeper had turned back and jumped on me. She was still after that half-denarius—and prepared to fight dirty for it.

  I freed myself from being choked and gave her a kneejerk that doubled her up, squealing. The Cretan had legged it again at top speed. As I followed, women appeared from all directions. The madam had been right: they were all highly trained—trained to get in my way. I shouldered aside a desert princess, squashed her pale friend against a doorpost, deflected one fury with my hip and another with my forearm. Lemnus had bolted out of doors and when I burst back onto the quay he had vanished from view. However, men were staring toward a public latrine as if a fugitive might have rushed in there, so I raced inside too.