A dying light in Corduba mdf-8 Page 33

  'So Quinctius Quadratus and Rufius Constans were preseut during one of the attacks. Do you know which one?'

  'No.'

  'Did either of the young men strike the victim at all?'

  'Not as far as I know. Not Constans, I am sure of it.'

  I linked my fingers, still trying to sound calm. 'Thank you for telling me, Claudia. Is that everything?'

  'That is all my brother told me. He was hysterical about it. I helped persuade him to go with Grandfather to admit everything to the proconsul – but they weren't able to have an interview. What should I do now?'

  'Nothing,' I said. One step at a time. I might later want to ask her to consider becoming a court witness, but there were difficulties about calling a woman, especially one of refined birth. Somebody male had to speak for her it always weakened the case.

  Helena glanced at me. She had realised that her plan to invite Claudia to Rome might be doubly useful now. We could get the girl there without antagonising her grandfather, then maybe ask Claudia to make a statement for the investigating judge, even if she was never called into court.

  'Have I done the right thing?'

  'Yes. Go home now, Claudia. I shall have to interview Quadratus, but I won't tell him where I learned my information. You need not even tell your grandfather you talked to me, unless you feel you want to.'

  'So everything is all right!'

  Nothing was all right. But we called for her carriage and her armed guards, then we sent her home.

  Dawn is the classic time to surprise a villain, though I never know why. You run a great risk that his doors are locked. While you are kicking them in he wakes up in a sweat, realises what is happening, and gets his sword out ready to run you through.

  It was still early evening. I decided to tackle Quadratus at once.

  Aelia Annaea stayed behind with Helena. Marius Optatus came with me. We took his strongest male slaves, plus Marmarides. I strapped on my sword. The others were armed with whatever came to hand, mostly rakes and sticks.

  The Quinctius estate was much like others I had visited, though it bore signs of the absentee landlord at his most astute: abundant flocks, tended by the fewest possible shepherds, and secondary cereal crops growing below the olive trees. Everything looked in respectable condition. Moneymakers don't neglect their land. Believe me, there was a great deal of land.

  The house had charm and character. Thick walls to keep it cool in summer and cosy in winter. Vine-clad pergolas leading to statues of coy maidens. A separate bath-house. A terrace for airy exercise. It spoke of wealth, yet wealth possessed by an honest country family. Long harvest lunches taken with the tenantry. Girls with pink cheeks and boys who were keen on horseflesh. Life lived with a constant supply of fresh fodder and an old earthenware jug of home-produced wine always ready to hand.

  Amazing. Even their damned house lied.

  We told the escort to wait quietly but to rush in like ravening wolves if we signalled them. In the event even bringing them proved unnecessary. Quadratus was not there. He had listened when I advised him to take up his job as quaestor. The same day he came home from staying with us he had packed some note-tablets, taken a litter and a pack-mule, a personal bodyslave, clean tunics and a mapskin of the area, then he had told his servants he was going on a surprise tour of the Corduba mines. The procurator whose job was to look after them, and who was probably perfectly competent since he had been appointed by Vespasian, would not be too happy at an unannounced official visit. Nor was I, come to that.

  Our trip to the estate was not entirely fruitless. I sensed that the staff there had almost been expecting me. They were surly and clearly nervous, and eventually one of them told me they had just been about to send over to fetch me from the Camillus farm when I turned up anyway. Somebody had left a message on the Quinctius premises, a message personally addressed to me. I could tell from the slaves' expressions I was not going to like it, even before they led me and Marius to the stable where this mysterious missive had been scrawled on a hitching post.

  All it said was For Falco, followed by a neat pictogram of a human eye.

  Lying on the straw below the drawing was the dancing girl called Selia. She was dressed in outdoor clothes, including a wide-brimmed travelling hat tied on over her own loosely knotted brown hair. She was dead. Her skin felt cold, though her limbs were still limp. She had been killed quickly and neatly by pressure to the neck. It was clearly carried out from behind before she realised what was happening. She had been lying here for a few hours. Unless Quadratus had sneaked back unobserved, the killing certainly happened after he had left for the mines. I could not believe he did it. The method was too professional.

  If somebody was killing agents who had worked for Laeta, that could well mean they would now try to kill me.

  LXI

  Even before I explained what had just happened at the Quinctius estate, Helena Justina had lost the idyllic tenderness she displayed towards me earlier. She was cool. I did not blame her but I could have coped better with solicitude. We were in the garden again. I had hardly even started to discuss what I planned to do next, but we were close to quarrelling.

  'Not the mines, Falco!'

  'Just think of it as a tour of the local industry.'

  'That's what you were going to say, I suppose – had Marius Optatus not told me the whole truth before you could stop him!'

  'I don't lie to you.'

  'You hold things back – if you believe you can get away with it!'

  'I'm a man, Helena. I have to try. I tell myself I'm protecting you.'

  'You're annoying me,' she snarled.

  I said nothing. Pleasing honesty had failed: time to keep quiet.

  'Marcus, I'm in an impossible position now! I don't want you to go – but I don't want you to stay with me unwillingly, just because of my condition; I won't be made an excuse. You'd never forgive me afterwards – maybe I wouldn't forgive myself! Besides, I know just how badly you feel about the mines. You suffered all the torments of Hades once in a silver mine; it's too much for you to volunteer this time.'

  'I won't be digging for ore again. All I need to do is to apprehend Quadratus and haul him back to face a trial. But you're right. I'm not irreplaceable. Someone else can go.' Helena frowned. 'You think anyone else will bungle it.'

  'I don't care.'

  'Of course you care. And I care too!'

  Helena's passionate belief in justice was one of the reasons I first fell for her. Single-minded girls are always dangerous. A man can float along for years being cynical and flippant, then some fierce tyrant (who happens to have the advantages of a sweet mind, a delicious expression and a body that is crying out to be entwined with his) sneaks under his defences; next thing he finds himself taking a stand on some issue he would once have crept away from, simply to impress the girl.

  'I am about to be a father. That is my sole priority.' 'Oh Didius Falco, you have so many priorities you need an abacus to count them. You always did. You always will.' 'Wrong. You're going home, Helena – and I'm staying with you.'

  'Wrong yourself. You have to finish your work.' She had made up her mind now. 'I hate it, but that's the only way. You know I can't bear to see you nobly pretending not to fidget, while all the time you're in agony because the bastard has got away.'

  'I will not break my promise to you.'

  'I release you from it – temporarily. Marcus, I don't complain. You never pretended to be other than you are, and I never dreamed of reforming you. I love your persistence, though you know how hard it is for me just now… Go and find him, and arrest him. Then dear gods, Marcus -' There were tears she could not resist. 'Please promise that as fast as you can you will come back to me.'

  Tomorrow was the Nones of May. I could still remember clearly that hot night last August in Palmyra which was probably when our baby was conceived. May was only six days old. The child might not be born until the end of the month. I told myself there was still just time to do it all. I to
ld Helena, and hugged her. While she tried not to cry so much that I wouldn't endure it, I in turn kept her close against me so she would not see the gaunt expression on my own face.

  I was starting to hate this garden. Helena must have stayed here when we went over to the Quinctius place, as if she was worried that just moving indoors might start the pains again and cause the birth to begin. Her anxiety only increased mine.

  While I had been absent Aelia Annaea had kindly kept Helena company. She was still here. When Marius Optatus foolishly created a crisis by confessing that he thought I was now intending to ride after Quadratus, Aelia had quickly drawn him off the scene for a walk in the orchard while Helena tore me to shreds. Aelia seemed to be waiting around to give us the support of a friend when we reached our decision.

  Now she walked back to us, leaving Marius. He mooned in the background, as if he had been given definite orders to wait. Aelia Annaea was quiet, but brisk. Owning a gold mine gives a woman distinct confidence. I liked her, perhaps almost as much as Helena did.

  She drew up a folding chair, left from our polite afternoon with Claudia. Smiling, she surveyed our present mood. 'So everything is settled.'

  I scowled unhappily. 'Are you asking us, or telling us?' Helena dried her eyes. 'Careful, Aelia. Marcus hates bossy women.'

  'That must be why he lives with one!' Rich widows can be very provocative. I had suffered clients like this – before I learned to turn them down. She grinned at me. 'Well, I have come to offer suggestions, that is all.'

  Helena and I both gazed at Aelia; we must have looked pretty wan-faced.

  'Marcus Didius has to find Tiberius.' Even now from habit Aelia retained the informal use of his name. 'Helena, if you intend returning to Rome, I think you should start out gently straight away. I have been discussing this with Marius, and I'm going to talk to Claudia. Claudia is very unhappy at home. I think she would like to accept your kind invitation to visit Rome.'

  'I haven't actually asked her -'

  'No, but I will! It will be hard to leave her grandparents so soon after her brother's death, but if she waits she'll never go. The excuse will be that she is accompanying you, Helena; you will obviously need help on the journey. So!' Aelia Annaea was direct and well organised. 'While Falco goes after the fugitive, you can travel very slowly by road. I'm going to come with you myself as far as the Tarraconensis coast. Claudia will be with us too, We shall take my carriage, which is spacious and comfortable, and I will return in it afterwards. This fellow -' She indicated me – 'can ride after us as soon as he is ready, then take you home by sea.'

  Helena looked troubled. 'Marcus may have to attend a court case.'

  'No,' I said. 'If there's a court case it will be in Rome.'

  There were special arrangements for senators-elect. Quadratus would have to be taken back home. There were probably even more interesting arrangements when two different branches of government service had concerned themselves with the crimes. Those arrangements probably featured provisions for silencing me.

  'So!' Aelia Annaea exclaimed again brightly. 'What do you think?'

  I took and kissed her hand. 'We think you're wonderful.' 'Thank you,' said Helena, clearly very relieved. 'Aelia, would you enjoy a visit to Rome yourself?'

  Aelia Annaea looked a little mysterious. 'No, I don't think so at the moment, Helena. I may be busy doing something here in Corduba.' She proudly accepted credit for her solution to our own problem, then stood up again presumably ready to take her leave of us. Since she had originally come with Claudia I asked, is Marius Optatus intending to arrange some transport for you?'

  'I expect so.'

  'Would you like me to speak to him?'

  No, don't worry. Marius and I are on good terms.' She smiled. Even without the jewels which normally weighed her down, she was a fine young woman, the more so when she felt cheerful and pleased with herself. Her veil fell back; her hair was loose for the funeral and the softened effect made her look even more appealing. She turned away and walked back to Marius, a slim figure with a firm step.

  I was intending to find Marmarides, to tell him that our ways must finally part, thank him, and settle up for the carriage. First, I finally persuaded Helena to go indoors. She rose, a little stiff from sitting so long, her shape thoroughly awkward nowadays. I walked with her, taking her slowly to her room. Then, while she was washing her face in a basin, I went to the shutter and quietly opened it. I whistled under my breath; Helena came to look out with me.

  Marius Optatus and Aelia Annaea were standing together under an almond tree. They were fairly close, talking quietly. Aelia was probably explaining her scheme for taking Helena to the coast. She had removed her veil and was twirling it casually from one wrist. Marius held on to a bough above his head; he looked even more relaxed. From his attitude, I suspected Marius was harbouring masculine plans.

  He spoke. Aelia responded, perhaps rather pertly, for she tilted up her chin. Then Marius slipped his free arm right around her waist and drew her to him while they kissed. It seemed a popular move with Aelia. And when Marius slowly let go of the almond bough to embrace her even more closely, it seemed that his love for the lady's gold mine might actually be slightly less important than the love he felt for her.

  LXII

  I told myself it was not going to be like the last time. Mines are simply places where ores are produced. In that respect they are no different from glass factories or pig farms. Or even olive groves. There was no reason for me to start sweating with terror simply because I had to visit one or two mines. Time was short. I would not be staying. A couple of questions to ascertain the location of Quadratus – whether he was there, or had already called there, or whether the local foreman had heard he was on his way. Then all I had to do was say a nice hello to him, present him with the evidence, extract his confession, and lead him off. Simple, really. I should be feeling confident.

  I could not help remembering what happened to me that other time. Something I hate to talk about. A nightmare to endure, then a cause of other nightmares for decades afterwards.

  It had been my first mission for the Emperor. Britain. A province I had served in earlier. I thought I knew everything. I thought I would have everything under control. I was proud, cynical, efficient as an eagle stripping carrion. The first thing that happened was that I met a wild, contemptuous, patrician young divorcee called Helena and long before I noticed it, she had knocked every certainty of the previous thirty years from under me. Then I was sent undercover to the mines. For reasons that had made sense to everybody else, I was sent in disguised as a slave.

  In the end it was Helena Justina who rescued me. She would not be doing that again. The last time her crazy driving of a pony cart had almost scared me more than all my sufferings in the silver mine as she raced me to a hospital before I died of exposure and cruelty; now she was herself being carried at a delicate pace along the Via Augusta to Valentia and then north towards a port called Emporiae. From there I would be taking her by sea around the southern coast of Gaul – a route that was famous for storms and shipwrecks, yet the quickest way back home.

  Three years. Nearly three years I had known her now. I had changed and so had she. I liked to think I had mellowed her. But she had mellowed herself to begin with, when she let herself feel concern for a man she had at first heartily despised. Then I had found myself falling too. I recognised my fate; I plunged straight in. Now here I was, riding up into the hills of another mineral-rich province, older, mature, responsible, a seasoned state official: still stupid enough to take on any task, still put upon, still losing more than I ever gained.

  It would not be like the last time. I was more fit and less fanatical. I distrusted too many people, including those who had sent me here. I had a woman and a baby to care about. I could not take risks.

  I had visited the proconsul to tell him my intentions. He listened, then shrugged, then told me I seemed to know what ought to be done so he would not interfere. Same old routine.
If it worked out well, he would want all the credit; if I got into difficulties, I was on my own.

  The proconsul's staff, who did seem to have decent orders about helping me in my mission, had supplied me with a set of mules. Even better, I had been given a map, and what must be the briefing on mineral deposits that they prepared for the proconsul when he took up his post. From it I learned in detail what I had previously tried to avoid knowing.

  Whereas the silver mines of Britain had proved to be disappointing, the landmass of Hispania was blessed with enormous riches. There was gold, gold in fabulous quantities. It had been estimated that the great state-owned mines of the northwest produced as much as twenty thousand pounds of gold every month; they were protected by the sole legion in the province, the Seventh Gemina. Besides gold there was silver, lead, copper, iron and tin. In Baetica there were old silver mines at Carthago Nova, silver and copper mines near Hispalis, gold mines at Corduba, cinnabar at Sisapo, silver at Castulo; in the ore-laden Mariana mountains – to which I had been told Quinctius Quadratus was heading – there were hundreds of shafts producing the finest copper in the Empire and an extravagance of silver too.

  A few older mines remained in private hands, but the Emperor was easing out individual ownership. Most of these establishments were now under government control. A procurator administered the sites; contractors or local mining societies could take a lease on identified shafts on payment of a hefty sum and a proportion of the minerals they produced. Presumably the keen new quaestor imagined he had tripped off on his scenic tour in order to audit the procurator. Unlike his cowardly action in abandoning Rufius Constans under the weight of a grinding-stone, questioning the rule of a high-powered imperial career officer was decidedly brave. I myself was not even looking forward to telling the procurator – if I met him first – that Quadratus had devised such a plan. He might be a senator- elect, and the proconsul's deputy, but compared with the man he was venturing to spy on he was a mere temporary figurehead. Any ferret-faced freedman with equestrian status in a salaried post would wrap the quaestor round a scroll baton and send him home at the bottom of the next dispatch-rider's pouch.