A Dying Light in Corduba Read online

  'No, it's still supposed to be Anacrites, Falco.'

  'Isn't that typical! I left Anacrites on his deathbed. He must have been formally replaced by now.'

  'Well, nobody tells us - unless Rome's decided to leave a corpse in charge!'

  'Believe me, lads, you won't notice any difference if they replace the Chief Spy with a stiff.'

  'Suits us!' they giggled. 'We hate getting letters from him. The old man always goes on the rampage because he can't understand what Anacrites is on about. Then if we send for clarification we get the same message back, only not just in cypher; all the references are changed to code names as well.'

  'How about Laeta? Have you noticed an increase in the volume of messages from him? More urgent signals, perhaps?'

  'No more than usual. He can't use signals.'

  'Why? No entitlement?'

  'He writes too much. The beacon flares can only send one letter at a time; it's too slow for long documents.' Too inaccurate as well; you need night-time, with exactly the right visibility, and even then every time a message is transmitted between watch-towers there is a risk that the signallers may misread the lights and pass along gobbledegook. 'Laeta sends scrolls, always via the dispatch-riders.'

  'No sign of him having new responsibilities, then?'

  'No.'

  'I don't suppose he's bothering to enquire after me?' 'No, Falco.'

  There was something I wanted to check up on. I gazed at them in a frank and friendly manner. 'I'm asking because if Anacrites is laid up or dead, there may be changes on the Palatine ... Listen, you know how I came out to Baetica with a letter for the proconsul saying I was a man on a secret mission?' They were bound to know; there was no harm in sharing the confidence. 'The old man told me you had already been asked to note the presence of another person nobody talks about?' They glanced at each other. 'I'm getting worried,' I told them, lying well. 'I think an agent might have gone missing. With Anacrites lying prone we can't find out who he had in the field.'

  More obvious looks were now being exchanged. I waited. 'Letters of introduction from the Chief Spy's office carry the top security mark, Falco.'

  'I know. I use it myself.'

  'We are not allowed to read them.'

  'But I bet you do!'

  Like lambkins they agreed: 'Just before you came Anacrites sent one of his coded notes. It was his normal nutter's charter: the agent would not be making contact officially - yet we were to afford full facilities.'

  'I bet you thought that was about me.'

  'Oh no.'

  'Why not?'

  'The agent was a woman, Falco.'

  'Well, you'll enjoy facilitating her!' I had grinned, but I was groaning inside.

  Anacrites ought to have been planning to send out Valentinus. He was definitely working on the case and Momus, my crony at the Palace, had told me Valentinus had been the best agent Anacrites used. Why send a female? Well, Valentinus was a freelance, his own master. Perhaps he had refused to work abroad. That surprised me though. All I knew of him - not much, admittedly - had suggested he was a calm, efficient type who would not balk at anything. Most people welcome the offer of a free long- distance trip.

  Surely even Anacrites hadn't fallen for the old belief that respectable businessmen like the oil producers of Baetica were likely to be seduceable? The ones I had met might possibly be so - but they were too long in the tooth to be blackmailed about it afterwards.

  Maybe I had been living with Helena Justina for too long. I had grown soft. My natural cynicism had been squeezed out. I had forgotten that there will always be men who can be lured into pillow confessions by a determined dancing girl.

  Just as I left I asked another question: 'What do you think about the new quaestor? What are your views on Quadratus?'

  'A bastard,' my allies assured me.

  'Oh go on. A quaestor is always a bastard; that's how they're defined. Surely he's no worse than the rest of them? He's young and jumped-up - but you've seen it all before. A few months with you showing him how the world works and he'll be all right, surely?'

  'A double bastard,' the lads reiterated solemnly.

  One thing I always reckon in the marbled halls of bureaucracy is that the best assessments of personalities come from the clerks they kick.

  I went back and sat down. I laced my fingers and leaned my chin on them. First the proconsul had taken the initiative to show he entertained doubts about Quadratus, and now these characters openly despised him without giving him a trial. 'Tell me? I said. So being obliging friends of mine, they did.

  Quinctius Quadratus was not entirely clean. His personal record had preceded him to Baetica, and although it was confidential (because it was), it had been pored over by the secretariat: there was a bad story, one that Quadratus would find hard to shake off in his future career. On his route to the Senate in his late teens he had served as a military tribune. Posted to Dalmatia he had been involved in a messy incident where some soldiers attempting to reinstate a bridge on a flood-swollen river had lost their lives. They could have waited until the torrent abated, but Quadratus ordered them to tackle the job despite the obvious risk. An official enquiry had deemed the affair a tragic accident - but it was the kind of accident whose details his old commanding officer had bothered to pass on personally to the proconsul who was just inheriting Quadratus in a new civil post.

  So there really was a black mark against his name.

  Shortly afterwards, I had finally reached the corridor when I noticed some early arrivals queuing for an interview with the proconsul. A scribe who must be senior to the other men - because he had sauntered in even later and with an even worse air of being weighed down by a wine headache - had been waylaid by two figures I recognised. One was the elderly oil magnate, Licinius Rufius, the other his grandson Rufius Constans. The youth was looking sullen; when he spotted me he seemed almost afraid.

  I overheard the senior clerk say the proconsul would not be available that day. He gave them some good reason; it was not just a brush-off. The old man looked irritated, but was accepting it reluctantly.

  I nodded a courteous greeting to Licinius, but with a long hard ride ahead of me I had no time to stop. I took the road to Hispalis with problems cluttering my mind.

  Most puzzling was the female agent Anacrites had intended to send to Baetica. Was she the 'dangerous woman' he had been muttering about? Then where was she? Had he ever actually given her orders? When Anacrites was attacked, had she stayed in Rome without further instructions? Or was she here? Here perhaps even on her own initiative? (Impossible; Anacrites had never employed anyone with that much gumption.)

  The female agent had to be identified. Otherwise she might be the dancer I was pursuing. I might have drawn all the wrong conclusions about Selia. She could have been at the dinner as backup for Anacrites and Valentinus; she could be innocent of the attacks; she could have dropped her arrow in the street during a meeting with them; the wounds on the two men could have had some other cause. If so, what was she up to now in Corduba? Had she been dressed as a shepherdess at the Parilia parade in order to follow up the cartel? Had she then disguised herself as an old woman to try and interview Licinius Rufius? Were she and I all along working for the same ends? - Well then, who was the real attacker of Valentinus and Anacrites?

  The other possibility was that Selia was as dangerous as I had always thought - and that some other woman was in Baetica on the Chief Spy's behalf. One I had not encountered yet. Very likely the dancer Dotty had hired for the party. Some lousy fleabag Anacrites used, who was dogging my steps and liable to get in my way. That was the most likely. And it made me livid. Because maybe somebody at the Palace knew we were both out here - in which case why in Hades was it necessary? Why, when Helena Justina needed me, was I wasting my own time and duplicating effort?

  I dismissed the idea. The Palace might be well capable of keeping agents in the dark, but under Vespasian double payment was never sanctioned where a single fee would
do. So that meant there were two different offices actively involved. Laeta had sent me out, unaware that Anacrites had someone else in the field. Our objectives might be similar - or absolutely different. As I homed in on Selia, somebody else with conflicting orders could be doing the same. And in the long run, as I had suspected right from the night of the dinner on the Palatine, I myself would probably end up suffering: the hapless victim of a palace feud.

  There was nothing I could do. Communications with Rome took too long to query this. I had to set off for Hispalis and do my best. But all the time I had to watch my back. I risked finding out that another agent had got there first and all my efforts were redundant. Somebody else might take the credit. Somebody else might earn the reward.

  I could find no answers. Even when I had puzzled over the questions until I was sick of them there was still one more which might or might not be related, a new question that I had just left behind in Corduba. Why had Licinius Rufus wanted an interview with the proconsul? What had brought an elderly gentleman into the city so early in the morning, with his grandson morosely in tow?

  PART THREE:

  HISPALIS: CORDUBA

  MONTES MARIANA

  AD73: May

  What difference does it make how much is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already? You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

  Seneca

  XLI

  Three mornings later I was sitting in a foodshop in Hispalis. Every muscle ached. I had blisters in obnoxious places. My brain was exhausted too.

  Hispalis was growing hot. By midsummer this would be one of the most fiercely baked little towns in the Empire. Midsummer was closer than I dared contemplate. Weeks before then the child I had rashly fathered would be born. It could be happening while I was here. I could be breaking all my heartfelt assurances to Helena. The baby might have been born already without me. I could be a condemned man.

  I felt like one, as I positioned my backside with extreme caution on the bench of this quiet place near the southwestern gate, within smell of the quays. The silence suited me. Eating bad food in an empty bar felt like home. For a moment I could imagine I was giving myself bellyache with a limp salad, somewhere on the crest of the Aventine. I was still enjoying the memory when the tambourinists arrived. Spotting a stranger they sidled up to try their luck with a noisy serenade. I would have left, but my stiffened limbs did not want to be disturbed.

  Anybody who has lived in Rome has learned to ignore even the most vigorously orchestrated pleas from beggars. I had already set myself with my back to the wall, to avoid having my purse lifted from behind. I became resolutely deaf. Eventually someone who lived in a house next door threw open a shutter and screamed at the minstrels to lose themselves. They moved a few doorways up and stood there muttering. The shutter slammed. I kept chewing on rather tough lettuce.

  This was supposed to be the third town in Baetica, after Corduba and Gades. My route had brought me in from the east, along with the aqueduct. Staggering under the town gate on the Corduba road last night, exhausted, I had ridden straight down the main street and discovered a modern civic forum complete with meeting-house, courts and baths: all people needed to dabble in the mire of local politics and justice, then wash off the stench afterwards. This morning I crawled out from the mansio, bleary-eyed and bilious, and soon found the original republican forum, with elderly temples and a more serene atmosphere, now too small for this thriving town. Further on towards the river was a third, extremely large piazza, the most busy of all, where commercial life hummed. Here the baths were bigger than in the forum, since there was more cash to build them, and the porticos were more packed. Moneychangers had their stalls set out soon after dawn.

  Not long after that the throngs of distributors, merchants, shippers and other speculators started to appear. I had soaked in the atmosphere until I felt at home. Then I found this backstreet bar. I had been over-confident in my choice.

  When more street musicians hove in sight, I paid the bill (pleasingly cheap). I took the last of my bread and smoked ham, and ate as I walked. I headed out of town to the river. Here the Baetis was broad and tidal. Its banks were crowded with jetties made from hewn stone blocks, and noisy with boatmen and porters. Everywhere were negotiators' offices. Everywhere cargoes were being transferred from barges to deep-sea vessels, or vice versa. Substantial fortunes were being made from commodities which nobody here would be using and nobody here had produced. Oil, wine, cloth, minerals from the interior mines, and cinnabar were being shipped in quantities. It was a middleman's dream.

  Returning from the waterside hubbub, I discovered the clubhouse of the guild of bargees near the commercial square. A few permanent fixtures were already there; they probably lived in the clubroom - and they were certainly the bargees who did least work. I learned that the elder Cyzacus was not there today. They spoke with a note of jealousy, and said he lived out at Italica.

  'He's in demand a lot lately! What's making him so popular?'

  'I can't answer that. I have never really met the man - who else wants him?'

  'Someone we'd prefer to you! Someone a lot prettier.'

  'A woman?' It came as no surprise. And it irritated me intensely. Trust Anacrites to lumber me. Trust one of his minions to spoil the show before I had the chance to survey the ground. But I was working for Laeta (much as I distrusted him) and I felt determined not to stand back and give Anacrites a free run. The only time Anacrites had employed me direct, he dumped me and tried to kill me. I would never forget that. 'So does Cyzacus come into Hispalis for meetings with lissom girls?'

  'Not him. The old bastard comes into Hispalis to tell the rest of us what's what!' I gathered they viewed him as a leisured degenerate who thought himself above them.

  I knew what that meant. Cyzacus really was the best. He had worked hard all his life. He had sons who still ran his business for him successfully. He won all the contracts because people could rely on him. He devoted effort to the affairs of the guild. Meanwhile these grumpy layabouts who liked to start lunching immediately after they finished breakfast sat about here playing Soldiers and drinking posca, and steadfastly complained.

  'Was his girlfriend lissom - or long in the tooth?' They cackled with grainy laughter, and I could get no sense out of them.

  I had a good idea why Cyzacus might prefer the quiet life in Italica. I found out how to get there, then moved on to my next task.

  Norbanus, the Gallic negotiator who arranged shipping space, occupied a majestic office right on the commercial square. People from whom I asked directions told me where it was, sneering openly. Nobody likes foreigners who demonstrate how successful they are. It was clear from his wide portals, carpeting of polychrome mosaic, statuettes on marble tripods, and neatly dressed office staff that Norbanus knew all there was to know about making money from other people's goods.

  The staff were neat, but just as sleepy as subordinates anywhere once the master goes out. Because he was a Gaul, many of his menials were family. Their response was pretty Gallic. They excitedly discussed my question concerning his whereabouts amongst themselves for a long time, then one admitted with extremely formal wording that he wasn't here. They could have told me in a few words right at the start, but Gauls like the embroidery of debate. Urbanity for them means an impression of superior breeding - coupled with a barbarian yearning to swipe off your head with a very long sword.

  I asked when Norbanus might be returning. They gave me a time that I felt was just a put-off. We all shook hands. They were smooth; I stayed polite. I ground my teeth in private. Then, having no option, I left.

  It was death to my blisters, but I walked back to the mansio, claimed a new horse, and set off across the river to ride the five miles to Italica.
<
br />   XLII

  Founded by Scipio as a colony of veterans, Italica boasted itself the oldest Roman town in Hispania. fore that the happy Phoenicians had known it, and the ancient tribes of Tartessos had made it a playground when the shepherds, who had already exploited wool as far as possible, learned that their land possessed great mineral wealth and eagerly took to mining. Set on slightly hilly ground, with an open aspect, it was a very hot, dusty cluster - relieved by the presence of a grandiose complex of baths. Those who lived to be old men would know this dot in the provinces as the birthplace of an emperor. Even when I was there the rich used it as a hideaway, separated from Hispalis by just sufficient distance to make Italicans feel snooty.

  There was a theatre, and a good amphitheatre too. Everywhere was spattered with plinths, fountains, pediments and statuary. If there was a bare space on a wall, someone erected an inscription. The wording was lofty. Italica was not the kind of place where you find a poster from the guild of prostitutes pledging their votes to some deadbeat in the local elections.