Time to Depart Read online

  ‘So the Sixth carry the big rissole here, then he’s handed over to you?’ I smiled at Linus. ‘How far does this slave-driver want you to go with him?’

  ‘All the way,’ answered Petro for himself.

  I shot Linus a look of sympathy, but he shrugged it off. ‘A lad likes to travel,’ he commented. ‘I’ll see him land the other side. At least the esteemed Petronius says I don’t have to shin up rigging on the journey back.’

  ‘Big of him! Where’s the rissole going?’

  ‘Heraclea, on the Taurica peninsula.’

  I whistled. ‘Was that his choice?’

  ‘Someone made a very strong suggestion,’ came Petro’s dry response. ‘Someone who does have the right to feed him to the arena lions if he fails to listen to the hint.’ The Emperor.

  ‘Someone has a sense of humour then. Even Ovid only had to go to Moesia.’

  The world had shrunk since emperors sent salacious poets to cool their hexameters on the lonely shores of the Euxine Sea while other bad citizens were allowed to sail to Gaul and die rich as wine merchants. The Empire stretched far beyond Gaul nowadays. Chersonesus Taurica, even further away on the Euxine than Ovid’s bleak hole, had vivid advantages as a dump for criminals: though technically not a Roman province, we did have a trading presence all along its coast, so Balbinus could be watched – and he would know it. It was also a terrible place to be sent. If he wasn’t eaten by brown bears he would die of cold or boredom, and however much money he managed to take with him, there were no luxuries to spend it on.

  ‘It’s no summer holiday for you either,’ I told Linus. ‘You’ll never get home this side of Saturnalia.’

  He accepted the news cheerily. ‘Someone needs to make sure Balbinus doesn’t nip off the ship at Tarentum.’ True. Or Antium, or Puteoli, or Paestum, Buxentum or Rhegium, or Sicily, or at any one of scores of seashore towns in Greece, and the islands, and Asia, that would lie on our criminal’s way into exile. Most of these places had an ambiguous form of loyalty towards Rome. Some were run by Roman officials who were only looking for a rest. Many were too remote to be supervised even by officials who liked to throw their weight about. Petronius Longus was rightly distraught about making the penalty stick. Linus, however, seemed to take his responsibility placidly. ‘This is my big chance to travel. I don’t mind wintering at some respectable town in Bithynia, or on the Thracian coast.’ Petro’s stooge had looked at a map, then.

  ‘Will you get your lodging paid, Linus?’

  ‘Within the limits,’ Petronius uttered sombrely, resisting any frivolous suggestion that Linus might be heading for a spree at the state’s expense.

  ‘Anything for a bit of peace!’ said Linus. Evidently there was a woman involved.

  Well, we were all henpecked. Not that most of us would have entertained four or five months beyond the Hellespont at the worst time of year simply to avoid having our ears battered. Linus could not have mastered the gracious art of sloping off to the public baths for half a day (a set of baths you are not known to frequent).

  * * *

  Martinus appeared in the doorway. He gave Petronius a signal that was barely more than a twitch.

  ‘They’re coming! Scram, Linus.’

  With a grin I can still remember, Linus slid from his bench. Keyed up for adventure, he was out of the wine bar and off back to the Chersonesus-bound ship while the rest of us were still bringing our thoughts to bear.

  We had paid for the wine. We all left the bar in silence. The landlord closed the door after us. We heard him fasten it with a heavy log, pointedly.

  Outside the darkness had altered by several shades. The wind freshened. As we regained the quay Fusculus shook a shin that must have had cramp, while we all adjusted our swords and freed them from our cloaks. Nervously we strained to listen for the sound we really wanted to hear above the creaks of ropes and boards, and the plashing of wavelets under buffers, floats and hulls.

  We could make out a movement on the harbour road, though still only faintly. Martinus must have honed his ears for this mission if he had heard something earlier.

  Soon the noise clarified and became brisk hoofbeats, then we picked out wheels as well, somewhere in their midst. Almost at once a short cavalcade clattered up, the iron shoes of the horses and mules ringing loud. At the centre was an exceptionally smart carriage of the type very wealthy men own for comfortable summer visits to their remote estates – big enough to allow the occupant to eat and write, or to try to forget being shaken by potholes and to sleep. Balbinus was probably not napping on this journey.

  A couple of freedmen who must have decided, or been persuaded, that they could not bear to leave their master hopped off the top and began unloading a modest selection of luggage. Balbinus had lost all his slaves. That was part of stripping him of his property. What his freedmen did now was up to them. Soon they would possess more civic rights than he did – though they might still feel they owed familial debts to the master who had once freed them. Whether they saw it that way would depend on how many times he had kicked them for nothing when they were still slaves.

  So far the rissole had remained inside his carriage. It was a heavy, four-wheeled special, all gleaming bright coachwork and silver finials, drawn by two lively mules with bronze snaffles and millefiori enamels on their headbands. The driver enjoyed making play with his triple-thonged whip; the mules took it calmly, though some of our party cantered uneasily when he suddenly cracked the thing above our heads. We were on edge – still waiting for the big moment. Dark curtains across the carriage’s windows were hiding the occupant.

  Petronius walked forwards to greet the officers of the Sixth watch who had escorted the man from Rome. I stayed at his shoulder. He introduced Arica and Tibullinus, whom he knew. Tibullinus appeared to be the man in charge. He was a truculent, untidy centurion, and I didn’t like him much. With them was Porcius, a young recruit of Petro’s who had been formally attached to them as an observer. He lost himself among the rest of the Sixth’s enquiry team rather rapidly.

  While we were going through the formalities, another couple of horses turned up. Their riders slid down, then they too joined us, openly nodding to Petro.

  ‘What’s this?’ cried Tibullinus, sounding annoyed, though he tried to hide it. ‘Checking up? On the Sixth?’

  ‘Far be it from me to slander the meticulous Sixth!’ Petro assured him. He was a devious bastard when he chose. ‘Just a couple of lads I told to lend a hand when they’d finished something else. Looks like they only just caught up with you…’

  Everyone realised his couple of lads had attached themselves to the Sixth and their not-quite prisoner for the whole journey – and that the men of the Sixth had failed to notice they were being tagged. They should have known. It could have been any kind of ambush. We left it at that, before things became too sensitive.

  Something was about to happen.

  There was a moment’s unnatural atmosphere, then everyone straightened and grew watchful. The carriage door creaked as it opened. Then Balbinus emerged.

  V

  Always the same shock: you come face to face with a murderous master criminal, and he looks like a ribbon-seller.

  Balbinus Pius was five feet three digits – definitely not tall. He was looking me in the windpipe, and appeared not to notice that most of the officers present overstripped him by almost a foot. He had an oval head; an expressionless face; wavering eyes; an anxious expression that verged nicely on bewilderment. His manner was quiet; no more threatening than a ladybird.

  His hunched shoulders held up a dapper white tunic and short grey cloak. The cloak was pinned extremely neatly on the left shoulder by a round gold brooch set with five garnets. He had healthy pink skin. On the top of his head it was visible through the short, thinning down of near-baldness; the bushier stuff above his ears had been lathered with some discreetly piquant lotion. He wore dark grey leather travelling boots. His seal ring was gold, a Greek design of a winged female driving
a four-horse chariot. He wore two others for ornament, one set with sapphires and ovals, the other openwork, cut from sheet gold with added granulation. He wore the plain wide gold band of the middle rank. He carried no weapons.

  I was annoyed, and so was Petro, that Tibullinus, Arica and some of the other men of the Sixth stepped forwards and shook hands with him, bidding farewell. Words were exchanged. Unable to tolerate it, the rest of us looked away and breathed disapproval. We were reluctant to become part of the conversation. We were resisting being coerced. We had glimpsed the complacency amidst which corruption flowers.

  ‘How can you do that?’ Martinus spluttered at Arica; Arica had actually slapped Balbinus on the back, as if he were seeing off his own cousin to the army. Martinus always spoke his mind.

  ‘No harm being polite.’ The Sixth had been supervising Balbinus’ movements ever since he went to trial. Contact would have been unavoidable.

  The whole group of the Sixth began standing back now that they had delivered the package to us. As soon as he saw them shaking hands with the criminal, Petronius Longus had abandoned any pretence that this was a joint mission. His normal easy-going manner had vanished; I had never seen him so serious. The rest of the climax belonged to him and to the Fourth. Once the Sixth had formally taken their leave, they slunk from the scene.

  I said nothing, but I had a sense that Petro’s night of triumph had just been spoiled.

  The freedmen had taken all the luggage on to the ship. They stayed aboard. We could see sailors assuming their places at the mooring ropes. The captain hovered at the head of the gangplank, impatient to sail now he had the breeze and approaching light. None of us made any attempt to look for Linus. It was best to forget he was there.

  The vessel was a roomy merchantman called the Aphrodite. Balbinus would be well set up; there was a cabin for the captain and favoured passengers, a latrine hanging over the stern, even a galley where food could be prepared. The Aphrodite was half as big again as the ship on which Helena and I had returned from Syria. She needed to be strongly built to make such a long voyage so late in the year.

  Now the criminal stood looking hesitant; he seemed uncertain what was expected of him. ‘Am I to board?’

  His doubt did not last. Petronius Longus appeared in front of him, flanked by Martinus and me. The other squad members clustered close, in a tight circle.

  ‘Just a few formalities.’ It was clear that now Balbinus was in the care of the Fourth Cohort there would be no hail-fellow handshaking. ‘I’ve waited a long time, Balbinus,’ Petro said.

  ‘No doubt you have done your duty, officer.’ The man spoke with reproach. He still seemed like a tunic-braid salesman – one who had just been told to his amazement that his embroidered Egyptian fancies had leaked crimson dye all over ten togas at some swanky laundry. ‘I am innocent of the crimes of which I have been accused.’

  ‘They all say that,’ Petronius complained, addressing the sky in despair. ‘Gods, I hate this hypocrisy! A straight villain always respects a straight arrest. He’ll shrug and accept that he’s caught. But all you self-justifying types have to make out that you cannot believe anyone could so terribly misjudge you. You convince yourselves all that matters in a civilised society is for men like you to continue your businesses without interference from officious sods like us. Sods who don’t understand.’ Petronius set his jaw so hard I thought I heard his molars crunch. ‘Only I do understand!’ he sneered. ‘I understand what you are all too well.’

  This rant had had no effect. Balbinus’ eyes, some colour you wouldn’t bother to notice, wandered to me. He seemed to realise I was an outsider, and was hoping for some sympathy. ‘You had your chance,’ I told him, before he could start whining. ‘The benefit of a jury trial, in the calm of the Basilica. Six lawyers. A jury of your equals, who heard about your activities without allowing themselves to be sickened. A judge who, even while passing sentence, was polite. Meanwhile outside, market traders still had their takings grabbed by your rampaging street gangs. Near-destitute old women were being tricked out of their savings. Men who dared to resist your hold-up thieves spilled their lifeblood into the gutter. Female slaves were sold into prostitution by angry mistresses after your footpads snatched the shopping money –’ Petronius moved slightly. I fell silent.

  ‘Is there anything further you wish to tell me about your business?’ Petro’s request was formal; a vain hope.

  ‘I am innocent,’ Balbinus intoned solemnly.

  Petro’s sarcasm was milder than I expected: ‘Oh, for a moment I thought you were going to surprise me and admit something.’

  * * *

  His men were on edge, wanting to retaliate, wanting something to make them feel good.

  Petronius held out his hand, palm upwards. ‘You can keep what you stand up in. I need your equestrian ring.’

  With automatic obedience, the big rissole pulled off the badge of his lost social status, struggling to wrench it over his first knuckle bone. He looked puzzled again. ‘May I have a receipt?’

  ‘No need.’ Petro took the small band of gold between finger and thumb as if it offended him. He set it edge up on the top of a bollard, then raised one boot. A full inch of layered oxhide stamped down, studded with iron and moulded by hard usage to intractable curves that echoed the shape of Petro’s foot. I knew, through having stumbled over it on many occasions when drunk, that my old tentmate’s massive trotter deserved respect.

  Petro crushed the ring into a useless twist. Sneering, he handed it back. The state would forego that gold.

  ‘You’re enjoying this,’ Fusculus tutted, pretending to admonish his chief. Fitted out with a sense of irony, Fusculus must be the sensitive one.

  ‘I enjoy knowing that I’m never going to see this bastard again.’

  ‘Strip him of his rights!’ That was Martinus, ever eager for drama and about as sensitive as a dead newt.

  Petronius Longus folded his arms. Enjoying this he might be, but he sounded tired: ‘Tiberius Balbinus Pius, you stand condemned of capital crimes. The laws of Rome grant you time to depart. That is your only prerogative. You are no longer a citizen. You no longer possess equestrian rank, nor the honours attached to that rank. Your property is forfeit to the Treasury and your accusers. Your wife, children and heirs have no future claims upon it. You shall depart beyond the Empire. You shall never return. If you set foot in any territory governed by Rome, the penalty is death.’

  ‘I am innocent!’ Balbinus whined.

  ‘You’re grime!’ roared Petronius. ‘Get on the boat before I forget myself!’

  Balbinus shot him a vindictive look, then walked straight to the ship.

  VI

  Petro and I regained the quay later that morning. We had snatched a few hours’ snoring on a bench in a wine bar that was fractionally more friendly than our previous foray. While we were relaxing the scene had changed completely. It was light. The quays were full of people. After a long, nerve-racking night, the hubbub was a shock.

  As we hunted for the Providentia, which had brought me home from Syria, we could now make out fully the great man-made harbour basin. This was Portus. Claudius had first enclosed the spectacular new mooring that had replaced the old silted-up basin two miles away at Ostia. Nowadays only shallow-draught barges could use the old port. Portus had taken several decades of construction since Claudius sank the first breakwater – a massive ship once used to carry an obelisk for Caligula. That was now the base of a two-hundred-foot mole holding back the weather and carrying the three-storeyed lighthouse whose constant beacon announced from the harbour mouth that this was the centre of world navigation: one hundred and sixty acres of quiet mooring, to which all the Empire’s trade came, eager to cough up harbour tax. I had paid my tax like a good citizen, one whose brother-in-law was a customs officer who liked asking unwanted questions. I was now trying to reclaim my goods.

  There was more noise than earlier. Workers were already pouring in from Ostia along the road through t
he market and flower gardens, or via the Claudian canal (which badly needed widening and dredging): clerks, customs inspectors, owners of vessels and goods, all jostling on the jetties with passengers and porters. We were tired, and the scene was unfamilar. Somehow the waterfront turmoil stripped us of our normal authority. Petronius and I were battered and cursed along with every other stranger.

  ‘Sorry for getting you into this,’ I told him ruefully. He was taking it well, however. This was by no means the worst pickle we had been in. Balbinus had put us in a gloomy mood; we were glad to forget him. We applied ourselves to commerce like heroes on behalf of my auctioneer father. He irritated all Hades out of me – but he had at least given us a chance to skive at the seaside for a time.

  My father’s general habit was to cause me trouble. From the day he had run away from home when I was still in the tunic of childhood I had despised pretty well everything he did. I never dealt with him if I could help it, but he had a way of winding himself into my life however hard I tried to avoid it.

  He had known better than to ask me to help him make money from my trip to Syria. On hearing of our exotic destination he had commissioned Helena instead. Helena Justina, my girlfriend who had been brought up a senator’s daughter, thought Pa was just a likeable scamp. She said I was too hard on him. She wanted us all to be friends; this gave Pa a chance to inveigle her into any devious scheme, especially if he could do it behind my back.

  Though he claimed to be destitute (a piteous but fake complaint), my father had managed to dispatch Helena with instructions to get me to Tyre if she could – and with a two-hundred-thousand-sesterces banker’s draft. She had a free hand to spend this exorbitant sum. He must have trusted her taste. In thirty years he had never given me such leeway with his private funds.