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  'And at the bottom,' Petro continued, 'doing all the real work, you have the vigiles, commanded by the Prefect of the Vigiles. Unarmed, but run on military lines. Seven cohorts, each led by a tribune who is an ex-chief centurion; each with seven centuries who do the foot patrols. Rome has fourteen administrative regions. Each cohort looks after two. Duties: everything those flash bastards at the Praetorian Camp won't lower themselves to touch.'

  'So in the Aventine Watch you cover the Twelfth and Thirteenth regions?'

  'Yes. We're the Fourth Cohort.'

  'And your tribune is?'

  'Marcus Rubella.' Petro rarely spoke of the tribune, whom he cordially dismissed as a legionary has-been who should have stuck to square-bashing.

  'An equestrian?'

  'Bought it with his discharge grant. Almost enough rank now to be a master criminal,' Petro replied dryly, thinking of Balbinus Pius.

  'And the main role of the vigiles is fire-watching?'

  'One role.' Petro hated to be thought of as a mere fireman. 'Yes, but since that involves patrolling the streets at night, when most crimes are committed, our remit expanded. We apprehend street thieves and housebreakers, round up runaway slaves, keep custodians of tenements and warehouses up to the mark. We spend a lot of effort controlling the baths. Clothes stealing is a big problem.'

  'So you remain a proletarian squad?' Laeta was falling into the administrator's trap of obsession with titles and rank.

  'We are freedmen and honest citizens,' snarled Petro, clearly not amused.

  'Oh, quite. And what's your own position?'

  'Casework,' said Petro. 'I head the enquiry team for the Thirteenth district The foot patrols pound the pavements, sniffing for smoke and apprehending wrongdoers if they meet them face to face. They're competent for basic tasks like thrashing householders who let stoves fall over. But each cohort has an officer like myself with a small team of agents doing house-to-house searches and general follow-up. Two, in fact, one per district. Between us we trace the stolen goblets and investigate who hit the barmaid over the head with a plank.'

  'Reporting to the tribune?'

  'Partly. We do a lot for the Prefect's office as well. Any case where more than a public, whipping is called for has to go forward to him. The Prefect has a full staff, including a registrar for various lists of undesirables, and an interrogation officer – '

  'He carries out the torturing?'

  'We find brute force can be counterproductive,' Petro replied: the official disclaimer.

  I laughed bitterly. 'Tell that to a hard case who has just had his privates squeezed in the little back room!'

  Petronius chose not to hear me.

  'So' Laeta moved on. 'Tell me your anxieties about the Emporium raid. Your theory is that we have an organised and daring gang moving in on the city centre? I'd like to know how much of Rome is threatened.'

  'Who can say?' Petronius knew better than to give neat summaries. Criminals don't follow neat rules. 'I'd reckon all the central watches ought to be put on alert.'

  Laeta made a note. 'So what is your assessment of the threat?'

  'They are aiming at commodities,' Petro answered confidently. 'It will be wharves and stores -not, I think, the general food markets. This affects the Thirteenth region mainly, but also the Eleventh and Twelfth, which include some specialist warehouses. I doubt if the granaries are vulnerable.'

  'Why not?'

  'With the state corn dole for the poor and the rich living off grain from their own estates, where's the scope for a black market? The bastards might take a swipe at the paper warehouse on the Quirinal. The Saepta Julia will also be a target. The jewellers should be warned.' Laeta was absorbing all this assiduously.

  He had a warm almond omelette under a cover, so we divided that up into three for him and shared it round. Soon the food tray was empty.

  Laeta then excused himself. We were allowed to put our feet up in his luxurious bolt hole until required.

  "This is a right mess, Falco!' Petro tested the flagon but we had already drained it. 'I don't want a bunch of amateurs all over my patch.'

  'Don't burst your pod. It was you who made yourself out to be a master of criminal intelligence.'

  'Hercules Victor! How was I to know a passing thought would be turned into an issue, with secretaries running around like rabbits and a full intersectional conference on major crime being thrown together the same day?'

  I grinned at him kindly. 'Well, you've learned something useful here- keep your thoughts to yourself?'

  Rooting amongst the scroll boxes, I discovered a slim alabastron of red wine that Laeta had already unbunged and half drunk on some previous occasion. We unbunged it again and helped ourselves. I replaced the container just where I had found it, so Laeta would not think we had been prying amongst his personal stuff.

  We took it in turns to nod off.

  Instinct told us when to rouse ourselves. This we had learned primarily while watching for moustachioed Britons to jump out from broom bushes. In fact, the tritons had never jumped us. But the instinct had proved useful for warning us of bad-tempered centurions who didn't think it was funny if the footsloggers on guard duty happened to lean against a parapet to discuss whether the Greens were having their best season ever in the chariot races at home. At any event, when Claudius Laeta bustled back to- fetch us, we were neither leaning nor dozing, but had washed our hands and faces in a bowl that a flunkey had brought for Laeta's use, then combed our hair like a couple of swanks going to a party, and sat outselves up like men who could be relied upon.

  'Ah, there you are…' Laeta gazed around his room nervously, as if he expected to find vandalism. 'The old man's gone across to his own quarters. We'll have to make the trip to the Golden House.'

  I smiled. 'Lucius Petronius and I would welcome a stroll in the fresh air.'

  Laeta looked worried a second time, as if he was wondering. what we had been up to that could necessitate a breather.

  Nero had set out his Golden House across the whole of central Rome. Via a garden that filled the entire valley of the Forum, he had linked the old Palace of the Caesars to a new complex completed for him by masters of architectural innovation and decor. Our conference was held in the new part. I had seen it before. It still made me gasp.

  To reach it, we had come down from the Palatine, through the cool, guarded cryptoporticus, and walked across the eastern end of the Forum, past the Vestals' House and the Sweating Fountain, then around the mess that had recently been the Great Lake dominating the country gardens that Nero had created in the bowl of the Palatine and Esquiline hills. The lake was now a gigantic hole where Vespasian had inaugurated his promised amphitheatre. On the Oppian crest beyond it still stood Nero's fantastic palace. It was too opulent for the new Flavian dynasty, who had restrained good taste, yet too costly and too exquisite to pull down. To build another palace when Rome itself lay in ruins would look a worse extravagance than Nero's. So Vespasian and his sons were living here. At least they could blame their mad predecessor.

  Claudius Laeta led us through a maze of marble-clad entrance halls and tall, intensely decorated corridors. I think we were in the east wing; the west seemed to be the private quarters. Guards nodded Laeta past, and he found his way with ease. To a stranger, the Golden House was deliberately bewildering. Rooms and passageways succeeded one another in a seemingly random profusion. The eye was dazzled with gilt and the gleam of the finest polished marble; the brain was bemused by twists and turns; the ear was assaulted by the continual music of water in fountains and cascades. Petronius stumbled into me as he tried to stare up at the minutely painted ceilings while Laeta hurried us along. Finally we took a dart to the left, glimpsed an apsidal hall, whipped past another room, and stepped into the famous fabulous octagonal dining room.

  In Nero's day people came here for orgies; just our luck to arrive when times had changed and the best we could get was a crime conference.

  The room was full of light. There w
as an open aspect to the south, with a heart-stopping view that we would not be gazing at. There was a theatrical cascade (turned off). There were curtained side rooms in which scenes of revolting debauchery had once occurred (now empty). Above our heads had been the legendary revolving ivory ceiling that had showered gifts down upon lucky diners (dismantled; no presents for us).

  Already assembled were Vespasian and his elder son, Titus, seated on thrones. Petronius would like the thrones. He approved of formality. Titus, a younger version of his father but with a jolly hint of chubbiness, gave me a pleasant nod; I showed my teeth politely. Calm administrators were handing them last-minute briefs.

  Other officials were just arriving with us. Summoned from their lunches were both the Urban Prefect, who thought he ran the city, and the Prefect of the Vigiles, who really did the work. Each had a fleet of office minions who were shuttled into the side rooms. To speak up for them (since they kept themselves unencumbered by practical knowledge), the prefects had brought all seven tribunes of the vigiles cohorts, including Rubella, the Fourth Cohort's own top man, to whom Petro was supposed to report any problems before they became public. Rubella had brought a paper cone of sunflower seeds, which he continued to munch surreptitiously. Despite Petro's scorn, I thought he looked pleasingly human.

  Present, though not named in the record, was Anacrites the Chief Spy. -

  'Falco!' His light eyes flickered nervously as he realised that I was alive, and deep in this unexpected enterprise. He did not ask how I had enjoyed his Eastern fiasco. When I was ready I would report to Vespasian personally, and my comments would be unrestrained by loyalty to the man who sent me there.

  'Excuse me,' I auswered coldly. 'I'm presenting a report..'

  Claudius Laeta must have overheard, for he waved Petro and me up close to him; his position was nearest the Emperor. On Vespasian's behalf he was chairing the meeting. What was said is, of course, confidential. The minutes ran to half a closely written scroll. In confidence, of course, what happened was:

  The regular officials conducted business briskly. They were held up sometimes by tribunes holding forth on personal theories that had nothing to do with the issue and were sometimes incomprehensible (unminuted). Once or twice a prefect ventured a trite remark (paraphrased succinctly by the secretary). Petronius Longus gave a clear account of his belief that with the removal of Balbinus some new crime lord had seized the initiative. (This, pretty well verbatim, took up most of the record.) Petro had moved in the course of that morning from a man who was talking his way out of trouble to one who looked a contender for a laurel crown. He took it well. Petronius had the right sceptical attitude.

  I found myself being consulted by Vespasian as his expert on life in the streets; I managed to produce some ideas that had a ring of good sense, though I forsaw problems explaining later to Helena Justina exactly what I had said.

  Anacrites was suddenly asked by Titus what his professional intelligence team had noticed. He offered nothing but waffle. His team was useless, unaware of pretty well everything that went on in Rome. The Urban Prefect gleefully stepped in and pretended his spies had spotted worrying signs of unrest. Asked to be more specific, he was soon floundering.

  It took two hours of debate before the Emperor was satisfied. The problem – if it existed – was to be tackled with energy (though no extra men would be drafted in). The Prefect of the Vigiles would co-ordinate a special investigation, reporting to the Urban Prefect, who would report to Titus Caesar. Petronius Longus, reporting to Rubella, reporting to the Prefect of the Vigiles, would identify the Emporium thieves, then evaluate whether they were a onetime strike or a more widespread threat He had the right to advise any cohort tribune of a perceived danger in a particular sector, and all had a duty to assist him if required.

  Anacrites was allocated no activity, though as a courteous gesture Titus said it was assumed the intelligence network would 'keep a watching brief'. We all knew this traditional phrase. It meant they were to keep out of the way.

  As an exceptional measure only (this was heavily stressed by Vespasian), compensation would be offered to those traders at the Emporium who had lost goods last night, so long as their names appeared on the official list. Martinus had brought this for Petronius, sent in via a flunkey. Vespasian, who knew how to dodge fiddles, told a copy clerk to duplicate the list for him immediately.

  I found myself assigned as a supernumerary officer, to work alongside Petronius. As usual with meetings, I came away not entirely clear what I was supposed to do.

  XII

  'So Marcus, you went out for a quiet stroll up and down the Forum,' mused Helena, passing a platter of cheese savouries to Silvia. 'By the time you came home, there was a major epidemic of crime, an imperial commission, and both of you hearty fellows had become special-enquiry officers?'

  'Beats shopping for radishes,' I commented, though since we had guests, I had done that too. A householder has to be versatile.

  'Working together will be nice for them,' remarked Arria Silvia. Petro's wife was petite and pretty. A bright, dainty girl with ribbons binding her hair, she was the kind I had once thought I wanted – until Petro acquired Silvia. She had a habit of stating the obvious; I suppose he found it comforting. They had been married for about seven years, and with three children to secure them in affection (or whatever it was), the union looked likely to last. I had therefore decided to put aside my reaction to Silvia. Which was that she brought me out in a rash.

  Helena seemed able to get along with her, though their friendship lacked the warmth that I had noticed flowering naturally between Helena and my sister Maia, for instance. 'I hope you two won't quarrel,' Helena said to me, smiling quietly. The shrewd one, mine. Whether or not he recognised what she meant, Petronius did not respond but went out to the balcony, where he lifted up his eldest daughter so she could pee into one of my pots of bulbs. This would probably kill them but I said nothing. He was a competent, uncomplicated father. A lesson to all of us.

  I had the other two girls on my lap, playing with toys we had brought them. We were a happy party, stuffed with food and still enjoying a fine wine Petronius had donated from his extensive collection. Petro and Silvia had spent the early evening with us, laughing over stories of our travels in Syria. Friends do so love to hear about you suffering from ghastly climates, crooked moneychangers, and intense pain from poisonous arachnids. Saves them going on holiday themselves.

  There had been so much to say about the scorpion nipping Helena and other lively memories that she and I had managed to avoid mentioning the one item that Silvia would think important that we too might become a family.

  I won't say Helena and I were sneakily pleased to keep it a secret. It was too much of an issue; we were not ready to laugh about it. But we were close enough friends for Helena to let me see her wry expression as Silvia prattled cheerfully about her own little girls. Silvia was hinting that it was about time Helena started to feel jealous yearnings. Eventually I caught Helena's eye privately and winked at her. Silvia saw me do it. She shot a mock-scandalised look at Petronius, thinking I was being amorous. Petro pretended, as usual, that he had no idea at all what was going on.

  The wink remained as a moment of stillness between Helena and me.

  The women were taking a greater interest in our new task than either Petro or I wanted. Silvia had realised that Helena Justina was used to more free consultation than Petronius allowed her. She plunged in, picking over issues as tenaciously as she had earlier torn apart her chicken wings in peppered wine sauce.

  Petronius and I had been allies for a long time. While Silvia speculated, we just talked quietly among ourselves.

  'I want you to come over the road later, Petro. There's a property Smaractus is offering on the market. It's a dump, but a better one than this if it was done up a bit.'

  'Done up a bit? Petro squinted at me as if he had just caught me stealing wine jars from caupona counters. 'Will Smaractus invest in improvements?'
r />   'No, but I'm determined to find another place for us, even if I have to renovate a wreck myself.'

  'I've not heard about this!' said Helena, taking one of Petro's girls from me. The other scampered off to play on the balcony. 'Shouldn't I be the one to inspect the real estate?'

  'And why can't you find another landlord?' Silvia put in.

  I grinned at Helena. 'The person who needs to inspect it is the kind associate who will be helping me install the new windows and floorboards!'

  'Forget it!' exclaimed Petro, looking appalled.

  'You're a good carpenter.'

  Helena laughed. 'And he was a good friend!'

  'I'm going to have my hands full with this initiative against the Emporium thieves,' said Petronius firmly. Sometimes he would help out in my crazy schemes; sometimes he didn't want to know. I let it drop. He was too stubborn to change his mind.

  'So why has our bijou tuche here lost its charm after so long?' Helena asked with the air of a Fury lightly fingering her scourge.

  'I'm getting old. My legs are hating the stairs.' My beloved gave me a very sweet smile that meant I was toying with serious trouble.

  'You should try it with three children hanging round your neck!' Silvia's remark was too close for comfort; I was dreading it with just one, particularly on Helena's behalf in the long months before our shrimp was born. I could alteady hear helpful relatives suggesting she should live somewhere more accessible, hoping that would be the first step to her leaving me for good.

  Presumably Helena realised why I wanted a better billet. She leant back on her stool, cradling Tadia, and gave me a long stare. It was a challenge to tell Petro and Silvia the situation we were in. I returned the stare but stayed silent.

  'Now doesn't Helena look good holding a baby!' Silvia rebuked me, clearly not even suspecting the truth. I had denied it to Petro, and he must have passed this on. Feeling mild pangs of guilt on his behalf, I condescended to survey Helena. She was wearing blue, with a tasteful row of bracelets covering her scarred arm, and silver earrings on which I had squandered a week's earnings one day in Palmyra just because I knew she was enjoying herself travelling the world with me. -