A dying light in Corduba

XXXVI

My social life was looking up. I was acquiring a full calendar, what with Optatus promising me japes among the bachelors of Corduba, and my free ticket down the Baetis.

Had the elder Cyzacus been the sole reason for visiting Hispalis I might have dropped him as a suspect to interview, but there was also the negotiator Norbanus, who arranged ocean-going shipping from the downstream port. I might even trace the elusive and murderous 'Sella' – assuming that the fake shepherdess who chucked the stone at me had used her real name. Hispalis posed a problem, however. On my mapskin it looked a good ninety Roman miles away – as the raven flies. The River Baetis appeared to meander atrociously. That could mean anything from a week to a fortnight floating down to do interviews that might add absolutely nothing to my knowledge. I could not afford to waste so much time. Every day when I looked at Helena Justina I was struck by anxiety.

Cyzacus and Gorax had almost certainly wanted to make me waste time for no good reason. If those two managed to put a government agent out of action for a fortnight by trapping him on a very slow barge miles away from anywhere, they would feel proud of themselves. They were protecting their father, not realising how urgently I wanted to trace the dancer and that if I did go to Hispalis she would be my main quarry. I felt sure their father must have reported full details of the dinner, though whether he had told them anything about the attacks afterwards would depend on how much he trusted them. Clearly the poet's time in Rome, while it failed to make him a famous man of letters, had taught him to be a thoroughgoing Celtiberian pain in the backside.

I had now interviewed two suspects, Annaeus Maximus and Licinius Rufius. There were two more in Hispalis, assuming I ever made it there. Yet another pair could well be implicated, even though they had ducked out of the dinner on the palatine: young Rufius Constans and the Quinctius son. They had both been in Rome at the right time. Optatus reckoned Quinctius Quadratus exerted a bad influence on Constans – though until I met Quadratus and judged him for myself I had to allow for some prejudice in his ex-tenant. Yet the wary Greek secretary at the house of Quinctius Attractus who first told me that the two young men had bunked off to the theatre had been very reluctant to give me details. Neither the youngsters themselves nor their whereabouts had seemed important to the enquiry then. Now I was not so sure.

This was one avenue I would be able to pursue immediately, for Optatus had established that the three Annaei were holding their party only a couple of evenings later. Through old channels of communication he had obtained a ready invitation for the pair of us. Young Rufius was trying not to offend his grandfather by openly fraternising with rivals, so he was pretending to visit us that evening and we were taking him. Marmarides would drive us, and later bring home any who had managed to remain sober. Helena seemed to be remembering the last time I went off without her, when I could not even find the right way home afterwards. She saw us off with an intense sniff of disapproval. Apparently Claudia Rufina was taking the same attitude; she stayed at home with their grandparents, though she seemed very fond of her brother and had sportingly agreed not to give him away.

I myself took a conscious decision that evening not to wear anything that might show stains. Optatus had dressed up; he was in a suavely styled outfit that made excellent use of the famous Baetican cinnabar dye, a rich vermilion pigment, complemented by heavily formal black braid on the neck and shoulder seams. With this came an incongruous set of antique finger-rings and a faint waft of balsam around his carefully shaved jowls. It all gave him an air of being up to no good. Even so, he was outshone by the youth.

This was my first real encounter with Rufius Constans. We were all just in tunics – no ceremony in the provinces – and his was the finest quality. I was barely neat; Optatus had on his best. Rufius Constans could well look down on both of us. In his casually worn white linen, his gleaming niello belt, his shaped calfskin boots and even a torque (Jove!), he was far more comfortable in his clothes; he had coffers full at home. So here was a rich lad with high aspirations, setting off for a night among friends, beautifully turned out – yet he was jumpy as a flea.

Constans was pleasant-looking, nothing more. His nose, set in a young, unformed face, was a weak shadow of his sister's but there was something of her in the way he peered shyly at the world. At twenty or so, I felt he had not yet decided his ethical position. He seemed unfinished, and lacking the weight he would need for the elite public career his proud grandfather had charted for him. Maybe I was feeling old.

'I've been meaning to ask you,' I tackled the young man casually, 'how did you enjoy the theatre?'

'What?' He had a light voice and restless eyes. It may be that any lad of twenty who finds himself knee to knee in a jolting carriage with an older man who has a lively reputation may automatically look shifty. Or perhaps he had something to hide.

'I nearly met you during your trip to Rome with your grandfather. But you and Quinctius Quadratus decided to go to tne theatre instead.' Was it my imagination or did the playgoer look hunted? 'See anything good?'

'Can't remember. A mime, I think. Tiberius took me drinking afterwards; it's all a blur.'

It was too early in the night to turn nasty on him. I smiled and let the lie go past. I felt convinced it was a lie. 'You want to be careful if you go out on the town in Rome. You could get mugged. People are getting beaten up on the streets all the time. You didn't see any of that, I suppose?'

'Oh no.'

'That's good.'

'I'm sorry I missed the chance of meeting you,' Rufius added. He had been brought up to be polite.

'You missed some excitement too,' I said.

I did not say what, and he displayed no curiosity. An exceptional young fellow, apparently.

I felt sour. I was still thinking about the dead Valentinus, and even about Anacrites, when the carriage pulled up at the smatt out-of-town Annaeus residence.

Lucius Annaeus Maximus Primus, Lucius Annaeus Aelius Maximus, and Lucius Annaeus Maximus Novatus (to honour Spunky, Dotty and Ferret officially) knew how to throw a bash. Money was no object, and neither was taste. They had the household slaves scampering about with great vigour. It was all much more exciting than the stultified jollifications I had seen here at the Parilia festival. Released from parental authority, our hosts were being themselves, and a hilarious trio they were. I was glad they weren't my boys.

They had bought up every garland of flowers in Corduba. Their father's frescoed house smelt like all the gardens of ancient Tartessos, its air thick with pollen, a nightmare for sensitive noses. To add to the lamp smoke, the floral scents and the all-pervading aromatic odours of young bodies given unaccustomed hours of grooming, the lads had devised an Egyptian theme for the evening. It involved a few home-made dog-headed gods, some wicker snakes, two ostrich-feather fans, and cones of scented wax which new arrivals were instructed to wear on their heads: as the heat of the party rose so the cones would melt, giving everyone a bitter aura of Pharaonic myrrh and impossibly matted hair. I made sure I lost mine.

Word had gone around all the baths and gymnasiums in town that the three great lads were holding a party. The news had spread like foot-fungus. The seediest youths of the city had suddenly muttered to their parents that they were going over to a friend's house, being careful not to specify which friend. All over Corduba parents were now vaguely wondering where their pallid offspring had scuffled off to, and why there was such a reek of breath-freshening pastilles. Inadequate teenage owners of large personal allowances, mostly with skinny shoulders and pustular skin, had been waiting weeks for this night. They were hoping it would make men of them; the only certainty was that it would make them bilious.

Girls had come too. Some were nice, though their reputations might not last the evening. Some were slightly soiled to begin with and would be horrendous by the time they had swallowed several jugs of unwatered wine and had their frocks pulled off behind laurel bushes. Some were clearly professionals.

'It's worse than I expected, Falco,' Optatus confessed. 'You're getting too old to take it?'

'I feel like a bad-tempered grandfather.'

'You're not entering into the spirit.'

'Are you?' he huffed defiantly.

'I'm here to work.' That made me wonder: what was Marius Optatus here for? He had some ulterior motive, I was sure of it.

Optatus and I were the eldest men there. At least ten years separated the Annaeus sons. Primus, the eldest, might be almost our age, but his youngest brother was not yet twenty, and Fortune had arranged it that he was the one with the most friends. This largest group coalesced first, though all they did was to mill around trying to find food, drink or sinful women; they were stuck with the stuff in cups and bowls because they did not know how to recognise the other. We worried them. (They worried me.) We belonged to a wholly different generation. They all slipped by us, avoiding contact, because they thought we were somebody's parental police.

A second party had developed in the cellar, to which friends of Dotty, the middle son, zoomed with a sense of purpose which would quickly leave them. They despised food, and had probably tried women, but were all betrothed to sweet, virginal girls (who were currently behind bushes with other young men). Suspicions that they were being deceived, and that life would only bring them more of the same, made the middle son's cronies a brooding, cynical group. Optatus and I exchanged a few witty thoughts with them, before we moved on.

Spunky, who would be known to posterity and the Censor as the honourable Lucius Annaeus Maximus Primus, was pretending to be grown up. He had retreated from the noise and debauchery to his father's elegant library. It was a quiet upper room with a splendid balcony which gave views across the ornate gardens. There he and a few jaded companions were pulling scrolls from their pigeonholes, examining them satirically, then tossing them into a heap on the floor. An amphora had made a vicious ring on a marble side table. Another had been knocked over after uncorking, so some spirited soul had pulled down a curtain to mop up the mess. How thoughtful. I was pleased to see they were not all bad.

Optatus told me that this Annaeus, unlike his two younger brothers, was actually married, though to a girl so young she remained with her parents while he simply enjoyed the income from her dowry and pretended he was still safe from responsibility. He was a plump-faced, solidly built young Baetican, whose amiable nature made him instantly forgive me for being the man he and his brothers had shoved about (twice) the last time I visited their palatial home. He greeted Optatus like a lost lamb. Optatus seemed genuinely friendly towards him.

Rufius Constans, though rather young for this group, had already made his way here. I thought he coloured up when I first walked through the door, and after I found myself a place to squat he seemed to edge away as far as possible. Wine was being splashed around at that point, so maybe he just wanted to avoid the spillage. Slaves were serving, but they looked extremely nervous. When the guests wanted more, they bawled for it loudly; if nobody came soon enough they grabbed the jugs for themselves, deliberately missing their cups when they poured.

I had been among this type before. It was a long time since I had found them amusing. I knew what to expect. They would sit around for hours, getting pointlessly drunk. Their conversation would consist of bloody-minded politics, coarse abuse of women, boasting about their chariots, then making exaggerated assessments of their wealth and the size of their pricks. Their brains were no bigger than chickpeas, that's for sure. I won't speculate on the rest.

Several scions from other families were among this group. They were introduced to me at the time, though I reckoned there was no real need to remember them. These would be the chubby heirs to all the fine folk Helena and I had seen at the parilia, the tight little section of snobs who ran everything in Corduba. One day these would be the snobs themselves. There would come a time for most of them when a father would die, or they married, or a close friend was killed very young; then they would move silently from being crass young idiots to being the spit image of their staid fathers.

'Bollocks!' muttered a voice beside me in the chaos.

I had thought I was next to Optatus, but when I turned it was another who had joined us without introductions. I knew who he was. I had seen him here before, collecting Aelia Annaea, and since then I had learned that he was Quinctius Quadratus.

At close quarters familial resemblance to his father was clear. He had a thick thatch of black crinkled hair, muscular arms, and a lordly expression. He was tanned, hirsute and strong-featured. Sporting and popular. possessed of ease and happy arrogance. He wore a white tunic with broad purple stripes and had even put on his scarlet boots, things I had rarely seen in Rome: he was a senator-elect, and new enough to want to be seen in every detail of the historic uniform. I was looking at the recently appointed financial controller of Baetica. Even though the proconsul was unhappy with his assignment here, Quadratus himself was flaunting it. So I already knew one thing: he had no official tact.

The cause of his exclamation was not a spot of mind- reading, but an uncouth response to a scroll which he had plucked from the library columbarium. I couldn't read the title. He sneered, rolled it up very tightly, then stuffed it into the neck of an empty wine vessel like a plug.

'Well, well,' I said. 'They told me you were charming and gifted, but not that your talents extended to instant crits of literature.'

'I can read,' he answered lazily. 'I say, I don't believe we've met?'

I viewed him benignly. 'The name's Falco. And of course I know who you are, quaestor.'

'There's no need to be formal,' he assured me in his charming way.

'Thanks,' I said.

'Have you come out from Rome?'

'That's right,' I replied for the second time that night. 'We nearly bumped into each other there recently, but I hear you were at the theatre instead. The last dinner for the Society of Baetican Olive Oil Producers?'

'Oh, them!' he replied offhandedly.

'What was the play? Any good?'

'A farce, I think.' Rufius Constans had pretended it was a mime. 'So-so.' Or not. He paused. He knew what I was doing here. 'Is this an interview?'

'Great gods, no,' I laughed, reaching for more wine. 'I'm – bloody well off duty tonight, if you don't mind!'

'That's good,' smiled Tiberius Quinctius Quadratus, quaestor of Baetica. He was off duty too, of course. The proconsul had arranged that.