Scandal Takes a Holiday Read online

  “Was it the first time you had been used in intelligence gathering?”

  “No.”

  A horrid thought struck. “Who asked you to do it? You don’t work for Anacrites?”

  Uncle Fulvius uttered something quiet and crude. “I do not.” Interesting. He obviously knew who Anacrites was, though.

  “Who commissions you then?”

  “Who wants the seas kept sweet and clean?”

  “The Emperor?”

  “I suppose so, though we try to ignore that dreary aspect.”

  “‘We’ is you and Cassius? And who pays you two?”

  “You don’t need to know, Marcus.” If I was ever to trust him, I did need to know.

  “Don’t treat me like a lad. I’ve done enough stinking official missions of my own.”

  “We are not offering you a partnership.”

  “I would not take it!”

  We both seethed quietly. It was like a low moment at a family birthday party. After a while I asked the inevitable professional question: “So what is the going rate for intelligence, with the Ravenna Fleet?”

  “More than you get, probably.”

  His arrogance was hard to take. Now I knew why, in the family, Fulvius had always been unpopular. “Don’t be too sure of that!”

  The discomfort was getting to me. “What’s happened?” I wondered restlessly. “Mutatus set off hours ago from the temple with the money. If this is the rendezvous, where has he gotten to?”

  “Fake trail,” Fulvius said curtly. “According to Zeno, Mutatus has been sent to a series of false drop sites. He’ll get about three messages until he is passed here. It’s to unnerve him, and perhaps shake off any followers … By the way,” said my uncle offhandedly. “I may have let you reach the wrong conclusion earlier. It wasn’t Caninus who locked us in; that was Cassius.”

  “What?”

  “If Caninus sees the door locked, he will never suspect that anyone is down here listening. I need to overhear what happens. He is an official; we have to trap him with hard evidence.”

  Oh great. So Fulvius and his life’s partner were not just government agents, they were a pair of idiots. I should have foreseen this. I was not sharing a well-planned exercise with a master spy; I was stuck in a hole with my mother’s elder brother. Fulvius was a sibling of Fabius and Junius. It followed that he was a lunatic.

  “Clever?” asked Fulvius, condescendingly.

  “Not clever! At least Cassius is still at liberty, on the outside.”

  “We can’t rely on the navy. He’s gone to fetch the vigiles.”

  “And I suppose,” I said viciously, “you and Cassius think that they live in an old shop by the Temple of Hercules Invictus?”

  That caused a silence. I just had to hope Uncle Fulvius was deliberately riling me.

  Fulvius complained of swollen ankles. I too had aching legs and feet, plus a pain in my back as I tried to avoid collapsing on my uncle.

  Suddenly we heard noises above us. Footsteps. We strained our ears to work out who was now in the shrine. It could be a priest, unconnected with our mission. I was hot and increasingly uneasy. None of my own associates knew where I was. Our only backup was Cassius. Thrills.

  Faintly audible, someone paced about. I was all set to risk calling up to ask if it was Mutatus, when a new person joined him.

  “Where is the money?” Caninus—muffled, but recognizable. Not close; probably near the shrine door. Fulvius nudged me excitedly.

  Mutatus, closer and louder, answered. “The money is safe.” He must be right beside the floor grille, immediately above our heads.

  “Where?”

  “I can get it. Falco was right. We don’t believe you have Diocles, but if you really can produce him—”

  “Falco—hah!” There came an abrupt movement. Things went wrong. We heard an angry shout. Caninus—closer—exclaimed, “You fool!” Something clanged and skidded, like a weapon falling on the grid. Down in our vault, Fulvius shouted out, but went unheard.

  Feet went pounding away from the shrine. Two sets? I thought so. “All you had to do was hand over the money!” Caninus, voice retreating, somewhere outside. A short scream, then more sounds of pain and fear.

  In the distance the sacrificial bull started bellowing, agitated by the commotion.

  Someone returned to the shrine, moving slowly. Filled with dread, Fulvius and I kept quiet. There were three awkward footsteps, a thump directly above us, then footsteps running out. The trace of light that had once penetrated the tauroboleum pit through its upper grille had vanished.

  “I have a bad feeling,” I said softly.

  Fulvius listened. “Something is dripping down on us …” Then he added in horror, “It feels like blood!”

  It was not the bull. We could still hear him bellowing …

  Fulvius and I realized the terrible truth: just above our heads lay Mutatus—either finished already, or now bleeding to death.

  LXII

  My uncle groaned once and called out to the scribe. There was no answer. We could do nothing to help Mutatus—and I knew it was probably all over. For the scribe’s sake, I hoped so. Like Diocles, he must have owned a sword and brought it here, in a crazy act of defiance and bravery.

  Unbelievable.

  We seemed to be there for hours. Eventually we heard Cassius arrive. He cursed, then hastened to release us. We fell out through the opened door, gasping, and he dragged us up the steps. Light and air dazzled us.

  Wiping sweat from my brow, along with who knows what, I stumbled to the body. It was Mutatus of course—and, of course, dead. I pulled him off the grid; he was not some damned cult sacrifice. I straightened him up on the floor of the shrine. His fingers had been shredded where he had tried to fend off blows from his own sword. Caninus had carved him as crudely as a raw recruit. Trust the damned navy not to know how to handle weapons. I knelt down in the pool of blood and closed the old scribe’s eyes. Then I shut mine, genuinely grieving.

  When I stood up, the other two were watching me. Cassius, looking familiar now, must be fifteen years my uncle’s junior. He had shed the beggar’s rags and wiped off some of the grime, though he still had dirt camouflage stripes blackening his face. What a poser. I had not filthied up my face for an action since I stopped creeping around northern forests as an army scout. With only a bunch of toadstools to hide behind, at least there was some point.

  Gray-sideburned as he was now, in the straight nose and brown eyes I could still trace the handsome younger man for whom Fulvius had fallen. Biceps strained against the tight sleeves of his tunic, his big calves were muscular, and there was no fat on him. I had seen him before: he was the fourth man from the public latrine where only yesterday Caninus had taunted me about Fulvius.

  Together, they were as noncommittal as a married couple; they would share a commentary later, in bed, possibly. I preferred not to think about that.

  “He managed to avoid me,” Cassius complained. The action man in the partnership—not doing much to help us. “I found a blood trail leaving the sanctuary, but he slipped past me somehow—”

  “Damned amateurs!” I was angry. At my feet lay a scribe who had exceeded his remit in the bravest way. Mutatus should have been pensioned off with honor, not crudely slain—with four or five ragged strokes—because this pair of incompetents could not round up one aging corrupt attaché who had already been wounded.

  Fulvius and Cassius exchanged glances.

  “I’ll go after him,” offered Cassius.

  I pushed him aside. “No, I’ll go!”

  But it was no longer necessary. Passus and a group of vigiles rushed into the shrine. They had men out already searching for Caninus, closer on his tracks than we would ever be now. Passus bent and inspected the departing trail of blood spots. “I’ll get a scent dog in.”

  “You know it’s Caninus we’re after?”

  “Brunnus had told us. He’s been checking up in Rome. The Ravenna boys are trying to keep it all
quiet, but the big epaulettes in the Misenum Fleet overruled them. A full-scale hunt is on—but you know Rubella; he intends the Fourth to get all the glory.”

  At the uproar of the vigiles’ arrival, the bull had begun to vocalize again; I found the noise unbearable. “The Fourth will have to catch Caninus then—”

  “You know us, Falco!”

  I could relax. The experts were taking over. Shaken in body and sick at heart, I staggered outside. The evening was beautiful. The selfish gods must be unmoved by our tragedy. I threw up on the steps of the Temple of Attis, to the horror of a priest.

  Uncle Fulvius calmed down the bull in due course. Well, he was born on a farm.

  Once it was clear I was no longer needed, I left them all without a word and went home to my wife and family.

  LXIII

  Next morning, Helena kept the children quiet so I slept in long after everybody else had breakfasted. When she woke me, I was not pretty. A rough attempt last night to wash off the salt, blood, sweat, and dirt had failed to produce much improvement. I was rested, but felt shaken and deeply depressed.

  Helena knew all that had happened. I had unburdened myself to her before I fell asleep. Now she fed me, then told me a messenger had called that morning. Damagoras, still imprisoned by Rubella, was asking to see me. Helena reckoned she knew what he wanted.

  “While you go out to play at dares with the boys, Marcus, I just sit alone at home, surrounded by old note-tablets … I had been thinking about the tablets, actually. I suspect Damagoras wants his ancient diaries back. Remember you told me that Cratidas and Lygon made some joke about discussing literature?” If she said so, she must be right. Too much had happened recently for me to remember. “Maybe Damagoras had asked Cratidas and Lygon to retrieve his notes; when that dreadful slave, Titus, came here and saw Albia, he said that somebody had been asking about the tablets.”

  “Albia said Titus was frightened.”

  “Yes, Marcus; he would be scared stiff, if he had been threatened by Cratidas or Lygon.”

  It all seemed long ago. But I still wanted to find Diocles; in fact, with Mutatus’ death so much on my mind, I wanted it more than ever. Mutatus had paid a terrible penalty for his lost colleague. I owed it to both not to give up now.

  “Go and see Damagoras.”

  “I could take the shipping logs back to him—”

  “No!” Helena instructed in her crisp way. “You just find out if Damagoras is willing to exchange information for them.” She looked at me, with her head on one side. “You’re very quiet. Don’t give in to him.”

  “No chance,” I assured her gently. “Believe me, fruit—anyone who gets in my way today will find me very tough.”

  Helena produced clean clothes and my oil flask, accepting my filthy condition with no other comment. My daughters, playing down in the courtyard, were less diplomatic; they ran up to greet me, took in my disgusting state—then ran away squealing. Albia turned up her nose too. Nux came with me happily. Nux liked having a master who growled around the house and stank.

  I went out to the set of baths by the vigiles station house. That was deliberate.

  The baths were handsome and comfortable, built by the old Emperor Claudius when he first brought the vigiles to guard his new corn warehouses. After I cleaned up and slid into a new tunic, I left the dog sleeping blissfully on the filthy old one. She was loyal, but I saw no reason to subject her to the kind of scenes I knew I would find at the station house. While his men continued to search through Ostia and Portus for Caninus, Marcus Rubella would be interviewing prisoners. I knew his methods. Since he got results, nobody ever argued. But for him, “interviews” were never an intellectual exercise.

  On leaving the baths, I crossed the street and entered the dark gatehouse. To me in my current dismal mood, these crumbling barracks reeked of misery. I could hear no Cilicians or Illyrians screaming, but the subdued manner of the vigiles in the exercise yard told its own story. Marcus Rubella was a master of pain management: the excruciating mixture of torture and delay.

  I met Fusculus. He told me the prisoners were still reluctant to speak, but Rubella was slowly putting together a case. The vigiles had tracked down Arion, the man who was wounded with the oar during the ferry heist; with my evidence that I saw Cotys take him aboard the liburnian, this was enough to tie Cotys and the Illyrians to stealing the ransom chest. Rhodope’s testimony damned them for abducting her. Against Cratidas, Lygon, and the Cilicians, evidence was more circumstantial.

  “Oh gods, Fusculus—don’t say the Cilicians will get away with their part!”

  “No, Petronius is on that aspect. He’s out trying to find that boy, Zeno.”

  I pulled up. “Last seen at the Temple of Attis. My uncle had some priest looking after him—”

  “No sign of your uncle,” said Fusculus, looking at me carefully.

  I scowled. “Uncle Fulvius is famous for one thing—running away.”

  “Well, you know Brunnus came yesterday with information from the fleet headquarters. According to him, they don’t want their agent exposed.”

  I told Fusculus that in my experience Uncle Fulvius was a grumpy, unhelpful bastard anyway, then I went to see that other reprobate, the Cilician chief.

  “You are my only hope, Falco! That tribune says I have to give up all my little luxuries.”

  I leaned on the doorframe at Damagoras’ cell. So far he had managed to hang on to cushions, rugs, bronze side tables, a portable shrine, and a well-padded mattress. “There are worse jails, Damagoras. If you want to see a hellhole, try the underground tomb at the Mamertine in Rome.”

  The old pirate shuddered. “Nobody gets out of there.”

  My voice was cold. “I did!”

  He gazed at me. “You’re full of surprises, Falco.”

  “Sometimes I surprise myself. At this moment, knowing that you run organized kidnap rackets, I am surprised to find myself talking to you … You had nothing to say when I approached you for aid before. Why do you want to see me, old man?”

  I noticed now that Damagoras was thinner and older-looking than when he dealt with me so arrogantly at his villa. Time was running out for him. This cell in the decrepit barracks was no place for his ancient bones, already aching after a long, active life at sea. “You still want to find Diocles, Falco?” he asked.

  “In return, I am to offer you … ?”

  “My old ship’s logs. You have them, don’t you?”

  “Evidence.” That was stretching it. Only Damagoras himself was implicated in those old sea fights—and only if he admitted that the logs were his. Reference to the Cilicians’ violent past was mere color. But the way Rubella worked, a sympathetic magistrate would be asked to review evidence like this—circumstantial but yet shocking—then his condemnation would send the kidnappers straight to crucifixion or to the arena beasts. Nobody would see a trial. The sailors were men of humble background, unlikely to possess proof of citizenship, and what’s more, they were foreigners. Enough said.

  I came farther into the cell. “All right—what have you got for me?”

  “You’ll give me the logs?” Damagoras demanded eagerly.

  “If I find the scribe, I will give you the logs.” He was eighty-six. His own activities must be limited and any of his cronies who remained free after Rubella’s purge would be kicked out of Italy, so he would lack subordinates. Things were different now, in any case. Damagoras was on a watch list.

  He leaned forward from a battered chair. “The scribe and I were closer than I may have said.” I nodded. “Diocles knew a lot about me.”

  “He stayed at your house.”

  “You knew? He was with me for a couple of weeks. When he disappeared, I had my boys find out what had happened.”

  “He is dead, isn’t he?”

  “I reckon so, Falco. That was why I stopped looking.”

  I crouched down in front of Damagoras, elbows on my knees. “So what did you find out?”

  “He really w
as going to write my memoirs, you know.” Damagoras spoke now as if he was describing a good friendship. “We went into everything in detail—”

  “I know that. Diocles made copious notes.”

  “You’ve got his notes?” demanded Damagoras. I gave him a tantalizing smile. “We got on well. I trusted him, Falco. I told him all about my past—and when he had had a drop to drink, he told me what was on his own mind. He had troubles.”

  “His aunt had been killed. He blamed the firefighters—not the vigiles, the builders’ guild.”

  “You’re right. He had come to Ostia to do something about it.”

  “Is this how he came to grief?”

  “All I know,” said Damagoras, “is that he started working for one of the builders. He got himself a job as a carrier for a concrete maker, Lemnus—”

  “Lemnus from Paphos!” I shouted, leaping up. Lemnus—the bow-legged Cretan who attacked me at the Damson Flower, then scarpered … Petronius had reckoned he had a conscience about something … Well, Petro could pull him in now, if he could still find him.

  Lemnus was freelance, though. “Whose contract were they working on?”

  “I don’t know, Falco.” Lies. The old pirate was far too busy making sure he did not look too shifty.

  “Not good enough, Damagoras! Tell me the contractor.”

  “You can’t touch the man; he is too big in this town—”

  “Nobody is too big for me.” I grabbed Damagoras by the front of his white tunic and hauled him from his chair. He was taller than me, but he quailed. “It was the man Diocles blamed for his aunt’s death, wasn’t it?” I shook him.

  Damagoras dropped his voice. “Shh! He’s always hanging around here—he wants the contract to rebuild this station house—” He drew a finger across the top of his head, to signify stranded hair. “Privatus.”