Time to Depart Page 6

  ‘Petro sent for me.’ It was worth a try.

  ‘Petro’s not bloody here!’ Fusculus told me through bitterly clenched teeth as he pushed back a furious Gallic wine merchant by the simple means of lifting one leg and applying his boot sole firmly to the man’s belt buckle. The Fourth Cohort were slightly more sophisticated than others in Rome, but no one argued with them twice. ‘Petro’s in shit. A Praetorian Guard dragged him off to the Palace to explain this mess.’

  ‘I may as well get back to bed then!’

  ‘You do that, Falco…’

  The vigiles had their hands full. With so large a crowd, in such an ugly mood, I did not fancy helping them. Luckily they did not demean themselves by asking. I had a let-out anyway, for I heard my name roared by an unmistakable foghorn, and turned to be greeted by my papa. He clapped me in his arms affectionately. This was not his normal greeting, just showing off before a crowd of foreigners. I shook myself free angrily.

  ‘Marcus! Let’s get out of this stew – we’ve things to discuss!’

  I had nothing to discuss with my father. I experienced the usual sense of dread.

  He hauled me into a more-or-less quiet corner around the back of the old Galban granaries. Needless to say, the corner was in a wine bar. After my exhausting passage through the streets I did not object to that, though in an equal world since he had issued the summons, I would have preferred that he paid the bill. Somehow the chalked piece of tile landed on the table in front of me.

  ‘Oh thanks, Marcus. Your health!’

  My father was a sturdy character of sixty-odd, with a greying thatch of marauding curls and what passed for a twinkle in his untrustworthy dark brown eyes. He went by the name of Geminus, though his real name was Favonius. There was no point in the change; that was typical. Not tall, he was still a commanding presence; people who wanted to annoy me said we looked alike. In fact he was heavier and shiftier. His belly supported a money belt whose weight told its own story. His dark blue tunic was now old enough to be used when he was lifting furniture around warehouses, but the wrecked braid on it, still with traces of silver thread, gave a clue to the style he could afford when relaxing socially. Women liked his grin. He liked most things about women. He had run away with a red-haired one when I was a child, after which he and I could hardly exchange a civil word.

  ‘Your mad crony’s caused a bit of a pickle!’ One of the few paternal routines he still honoured was criticising my friends.

  ‘He would have had his reasons,’ I said coldly. I was trying to think of any possible reason for what Petronius had done. ‘This can’t just be a reprisal because some stallholder forgot to pay his market dues.’

  I have to admit, the thought had struck me that maybe Petro was so proud of himself for capturing Balbinus that he had become a power-crazed maniac. This had always been a Roman trait, at the first hint of success to dream of being deified. It seemed unlikely in Petro’s case, however. He was so rational he was positively staid.

  ‘Tertulla said you’d spoken to him,’ I prodded.

  ‘Oh you’ve seen Tertulla? That little mite needs looking after. You’re her uncle. Can’t you do something?’

  ‘You’re her grandfather! Why me?’ I felt myself going hot. Trying to instil a sense of duty into Father, who had already abandoned one generation, was hopeless. ‘Oh Jupiter! I’ll see Galla about it sometime … What’s the tale here, Pa?’

  ‘Disaster.’ My father enjoyed a spot of misery.

  ‘Well, that’s clear! Can we be more specific? Does this disaster involve a major defeat for the legions in a prestigious foreign war – or just the lupin crop failing in two villages in Samnium?’

  ‘You’re a sarcastic trout! It’s this: a gang of robbers burst in last night and cleaned out half the Emporium.’ Pa leaned back on his stool watching the effect on me. I tried to look suitably horrified, while still dwelling thoughtfully on my own fancy rhetoric. He scowled. ‘Listen, you dozy bastard! They obviously knew exactly what they wanted – luxury items in every case. They must have been watching for weeks, until they knew they could snatch an exquisite haul – then they whipped in, snatched the goods to order, whipped out and vanished before anything was noticed.’

  ‘So Petronius has shut the building while he investigates what happened?’

  ‘I suppose so. But you know him; he wasn’t saying. He just looked solemn and closed it.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘Stallholders and wharfingers would be let in one by one, with his man Martinus –’

  ‘Another master of tact!’ Martinus, with his high opinion of himself, was especially dour when dealing with the public.

  ‘To make a list of what was missing.’ Pa completed his sentence doggedly.

  ‘Well that’s fair,’ I said. ‘Surely those idiots can see that their best chance of getting their property back will be if Petronius knows what to look for?’

  ‘Too subtle,’ replied Pa with the famous flashing grin that had laid barmaids on their backs from here to the Flaminian Gate. It only caused irritation in me.

  ‘Too organised!’ Petronius had my sympathies. Presumably he had come back from Ostia expecting a short stretch of peace after his Balbinus coup, only to be dragged from bed that very night to face one of the worst heists I could remember, in the most important building on his patch. Instead of enjoying a glorious rest as a community hero, he now faced working at full stretch for months. Probably with nothing to show at the end: it sounded as if this robbery had been scrupulously planned.

  One aspect was still niggling me. ‘Just as a matter of interest, Pa – why did Petronius tell you to send for me?’

  My father put on his reliable look – always a depressing portent. ‘Oh … he reckoned you might help me get back my glass.’

  * * *

  He had slipped it in as delicately as a fishmonger filleting a mullet.

  ‘They stole your glass?’ I could not accept this. ‘The glass Helena bought for you? That I nursed all the way back from Syria?’ I lost my temper. ‘Pa, when I left it with you, you told me you were carting the whole lot straight back to the Saepta!’ The Saepta Julia, up by the Plain of Mars, was the jewellery quarter where Pa had his office and warehouse. It was very well guarded.

  ‘Stop roaring.’

  ‘I will not! How could you be so damned careless?’

  I knew exactly how. Traipsing to the Saepta with a waggon would have taken him an hour or two. Since he only lived two minutes from the Emporium he had gone home and put his feet up instead, leaving the glass that we had nursed so carefully to look after itself for the night.

  Pa glanced over one shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘The Emporium should have been safe enough. It was just temporary.’

  ‘Now it’s temporarily lost!’ There was something shifty about him. My lava eruption checked in midflow. ‘I thought you said this lift was planned? That they knew just what they were going for? How could anybody know that you had half a treasury in Syrian dinnerware, coincidentally brought home by me that very evening and locked up there for only one night?’

  Pa looked offended. ‘They must have found it by chance.’

  ‘Oh donkey’s balls!’

  ‘There’s no need to be coarse.’

  I was doing worse than that: I was taking a stand. ‘Now listen, Pa, let’s get something straight. This loss is your affair. I don’t want to hear any nonsense like you’ll not pay Helena because you never took delivery –’

  ‘Stuff you!’ scoffed Pa. ‘I’d never cheat that girl, and you know it.’ It was probably true. He had a sickening respect for Helena’s rank, and a wild hope she would make him a grandfather of senators one day. This was not the moment to tell him he was halfway home on that one. In fact, that was when I started hoping we would have a girl. ‘Look son, I know how to shrug off a reverse. If the glass is gone for good I’ll have to carry the loss and keep smiling. But after you buzzed off last night, I looked through the boxes. It was beau
tiful quality –’

  ‘Helena can pick out a tasty jug.’

  ‘Too right. And I’m damned if I’ll let it go without a fight. I want you to help track it down for me.’

  I had already worked out what he wanted. I had my answer ready too: ‘I have to earn. I’ll need a fee. I’ll need expenses.’

  ‘Oh we can come to some arrangement,’ murmured Pa in his airy fashion. He knew Helena would be so upset when she heard this that I would probably end up searching for him for free. He also knew that finding stolen art was my speciality, so he had come to the best man. Other people would be after my services too. Pa had got to me first, before anyone else who had suffered losses today – anyone who might actually pay me – could claim my time.

  I downed my wine, then shoved the bill across the table pointedly. If he was paying my expenses he could start with the one for entertaining him. ‘I’m off then.’

  ‘Beginning already?’ Pa had the grace to look impressed. ‘Do you know where to look?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Well, I knew how to lie well.

  In fact, I had only one plan at this stage. Petronius Longus had been hauled to the Palace by the imperial guard. He was in grave trouble. After all the times he had criticised the way I carried out my own work, I could stand watching him squirm. I was off to see how he tried to convince the Emperor that he knew what he was doing.

  Besides, Petro was my oldest friend. There was a risk he was about to lose his job for today’s action. If I could, I would help him bluff his way out of that.

  X

  I marched up the Clivus Victoriae to the old Palace of Tiberius, where the bureaucrats still had their offices.

  Petronius Longus was sitting on a bench in a corridor. He had been there long enough to start looking worried. His face was pale. He was leaning forwards with his knees apart, staring at his upturned palms. I saw him twitch as I arrived. He pretended to look suave. I thumped his shoulder and berthed alongside.

  ‘Lucius Petronius – the man who brought Rome to a standstill!’

  ‘Don’t harass me, Falco!’

  ‘Don’t fidget. I’m here to back you up.’

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Well you can manage to get yourself into a fix.’

  ‘I don’t need a nursemaid.’

  ‘No, you need a friend at court.’ He knew I was right.

  ‘You’ve been there, I take it, Falco? What’s going on now?’

  ‘Fusculus is keeping the crowds penned out. Porcius is distributing riot shields. I didn’t see Martinus. Pa told me the gist of last night’s disaster.’

  ‘He lost that glass of yours, he says.’ Petro knew my father well enough to allow for possible deception. I was unperturbed by the insult to the family name. It had never stood high, least of all in respect of Papa. ‘They were a sharp crowd of thieves, Falco. I don’t like the smell of it. Geminus lost his glass; we know that was quality. Calpurnius was deprived of a huge haul of porphyry that also only came in yesterday. Someone else lost ivory.’ I wondered what, if anything, was special about goods landed yesterday. ‘Martinus is collecting full details, but we can see the losses are serious.’

  ‘I thought the Emporium was guarded at night?’

  Petro growled in the back of his throat. ‘All hit over the head and laid out in a line like dead sardines, tied up and gagged.’

  ‘Neat. Too neat?’ I queried thoughtfully. ‘An inside job, maybe?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Petro had thought of it. ‘I’ll work some of the guards over. When I get the chance.’

  ‘If!’ I grinned, reminding him that his position was about to be tested. ‘This could be your big chance to meet the Emperor.’

  ‘I’ve met him.’ Petro was terse. ‘I met him with you, Falco! On the famous occasion when he offered you a fortune to keep quiet about a scandal but you opted for the high moral ground and threw away the cash.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I had not forgotten refusing the fortune, merely that Petro had been there watching me play the fool. I had made the mistake of uncovering a plot that impinged too closely on the imperial family; struck by an urgent need to protect his son Domitian, Vespasian had rashly promised me advancement, a ploy he now regretted, probably. It had been pointless in any case, given that I had turned the offer down in a high-handed manner. ‘Nobody buys my silence.’

  ‘Hah!’ Petronius knew the only loser had been myself.

  Suddenly a chamberlain slid out through a curtain and gave Petro the nod.

  I stood up too. ‘I’m with him.’ The official had recognised me. If he thought I was trouble he was too well groomed to let it show.

  ‘Didius Falco,’ he greeted me smoothly. The two Praetorian Guards flanking the doorway gave no sign of hearing what was said, but I knew they would now let me pass inside without tying my arms in a Hercules knot. I had no wish to approach anyone of regal status looking flustered after a fight. I knew, even though we were not in the right part of the Palace, that we were about to meet regality: hence the Praetorians.

  Petronius had shot towards the curtain the minute he was signalled. Before he could object I stepped past him and entered the audience chamber. He grabbed the curtain and bounced in after me.

  Petronius would have been expecting an office, one full of people perhaps, but all with the kind of status he felt free to ignore. I heard him utter something, then cut it off short. It was a lofty room full of scribes. But there was one other, very particular occupant. Petro choked. Even though I had warned him, he had not seriously expected that he would meet the Emperor.

  * * *

  Vespasian was reclining on a reading couch, glancing over a note tablet. His craggy face was unmistakable; he had certainly not bothered to demand a flattering portrait when he approved the new coin issue.

  There was no pomp. The couch was against a side wall, as if it had been placed there for casual visitors. The whole impression was that the lord of the Empire had just dropped in and made himself at home in someone else’s cubbyhole.

  Centrally, there was the long table, covered with scrolls and piles of tablets. Secretaries were stationed there with their styli. They were scratching away very fast, but the speed was unforced. A young slave, smart though not particularly handsome, stood quietly near the Emperor, a napkin over one arm. In fact Vespasian was pouring his own drink – half a cup, just to wet his whistle. He left it on a bronze pedestal so that he was free to stare at us.

  He was a big, easy-going, competent character. An organiser, he had the direct glance of a blacksmith, with the country-born arrogance that reminded me of my grandfather. He knew what he believed. He said what he thought. People acted on what he said. They did it nowadays because they had to, but people had been jumping when Vespasian barked since long before he was Emperor.

  He had held all the civil magistracies and the highest military ranks. Every post in his career through the cursus honorem had been screwed out on merit and in the face of Establishment prejudice. Now he held the final post available. The Establishment was still prejudiced against him, but he need not care.

  He wore the purple; it was his entitlement. With it he had neither wreath nor jewels. For him the best adornment of rank was acute native intelligence. That was aimed at us. An uncomfortable experience.

  ‘Falco! What are you doing here, and who’s your big bodyguard?’

  I walked forwards. ‘I act as his guardian actually, sir.’ Petronius, annoyed at my joke, followed me; I shoved him to the front. ‘This is my friend Lucius Petronius Longus, whom you want to see: the enquiry captain of the Aventine sector in the Fourth Cohort of the vigiles. He’s one of the best – but he’s also the happy fellow who shut the Emporium today.’

  Vespasian Augustus stared at Petronius. Petronius looked self-conscious, then thought better of it and stared boldly at the floor. It was marble; a tasteful acreage in black and white. The tesselations had been laid by a sharp tiler.

  ‘That took nerve!’ commented the Emperor. Pet
ronius looked up again, and grinned slightly. He would be all right. I folded my arms and beamed at him like a proud trainer showing off his best gladiator.

  ‘I apologise for any inconvenience, sir.’ Petronius always sounded good. He had a mellow voice and a calm delivery. He gave a trustworthy impression. That explained his success with civic selection boards, and with women.

  ‘Apologies may not be enough,’ replied Vespasian. Unlike selection boards and women, he could spot a rogue. ‘How do you know Falco?’

  ‘Colleagues from the Second Augusta, sir.’ Our legion was one Vespasian himself had once led. Both Petro and I allowed ourselves a certain cockiness.

  ‘Really.’ The Second had disgraced itself since Vespasian’s day. Regretfully, we all let the subject drop. ‘You two work in different areas now.’

  ‘We both strive for law and order, sir.’ A bit too pious, I thought. Petro could get away with it perhaps, since Vespasian had not known him long. ‘Which is what I was doing today after the robbery at the Emporium.’ Petronius liked to gallop straight to the point. The concept of first being weighed up through friendly chatter was so alien to his blunt nature that he was rushing the interview.

  ‘You wanted to assess the damage before people trampled everywhere.’ Vespasian could assimilate information swiftly; he rapped out the explanation as if it were obvious. I saw Petro flush slightly. He now realised he had plunged in too fast. Given our relative positions in this conversation, forcing the pace was rude. Being rude to an Emperor was the first step to having a lion sniff your bum. ‘Why’, asked the Emperor coolly, ‘could you not have made the merchants responsible for alerting you to their losses in due course? It is in their own interests to provide the information. They will want you to retrieve the stolen goods. So why cause a riot?’

  Petronius looked alarmed. He had done things his own way. It was a way that would work, so he had not bothered with alternatives. Alternatives tend to be messy. Just thinking about them wastes time.