Ode to a Banker

XXVIII

The situation changed. The agony decreased a little. They had stopped jumping about.

For a period most went away, although one large body remained sitting right upon my midriff, keeping me stuck securely under the weight of the mat. I heard voices sometimes. I could feel vibrations in the floor. People were moving about. They may have relit some lamps, though no trace of light was reaching me through the thick esparto matting.

I had managed to get my mouth and nose into a small air pocket. My ribs were compressed, which constricted my breathing, but I was alive. I could stay like this for a little while, though not for long.

At some point tonight either Petronius and his enquiry team or the rankers would return. How soon would that be? Not soon enough, from what I knew of them. If it was a quiet night, with few prisoners to process, they would be tempted to drop into a caupona. Flexing my dry tongue against the roof of my mouth, tasting old smoke and charcoal, I blamed none of them for lingering but I prayed for them to home in here.

Summer. Would anyone in this neighbourhood let a flaming candelabrum topple over? A night-light catch on a curtain? A skillet of hot oil set itself on fire? A furnace explode at a bathhouse? A log-store smoulder? The sources of disaster in normal life were many, though life was less dangerous in summer than in winter. Still, even if the whole Twelfth District had eaten salad and was slumbering by starlight, surely there was some friendly arsonist who would feel a mad impulse to watch the vigiles racing back to their store for the wherewithal to douse his efforts? I would stand him bail and compose a character witness statement, if he would hurry up and kindle just a small fire, so the alarm would be raised and I would be found…

Typical. Never a villain when you want one. All Rome must be lying peaceful tonight.

I tried groaning. The ballast merchant just dug his backside into the mat above me more heavily. Whether by accident or on purpose, he moved his weight onto my head.

This was going to finish me.

Perhaps I did pass out. But eventually, some of the pain lifted. Even the mat was pulled off me, rasping roughly across my body and legs. I was dazzled by light, temporarily blinding.

I lay still. That was easy. Pretending to be dead comes naturally when you are halfway there. Around me, the air was cool, a desperately pleasant change. I breathed in gently while I could, trying to revive my strength before they tackled me again – as I knew they soon would.

Squinting through relaxed eyelids, I glimpsed various crude shoes and sandals. Dirty feet, with black, unpedicured toenails, misshapen bones and flea-bitten ankles: slaves' feet. I heard shuffling, and a silence falling as if order was being imposed.

A man's voice asked, with only a trace of concern, 'What have you done to him?'

Someone lifted the neck of my tunic, dragging up my head. I kept my eyes shut. He let go. My head banged down on the stone floor.

Then there was a clank. Cold water brought me round, yelling. Someone had chucked a whole fire-bucket over me. This was not my favourite way to spend a balmy July night. Soaked through, I sat up, shaking my hair and wiping my eyes. I coughed up sputum. As if not caring who was here, I gripped my knees and laid my head down, gasping.

'You are Didius Falco?' enquired the same voice. I had its position now. He was the stuffed sheepgut in charge. That would be his mistake. 'Answer me!' He came nearer, so he could nudge me with his foot.

Then I rolled, and in one movement retrieved my knife from my boot. I wrenched myself upright, grabbed him, spun him with his back to me, pulled his head up by the hair, pressed an arm across his throat so he was choking, and held my knife to his throat. I backed myself into a safe position against the siphon trailer, using him as my shield.

'Nobody move – or I kill him!'

I yanked harder at the hair. His eyes must have been rolling, and he was no doubt grimacing. He had the sense not to struggle.

'All of you,' I told them grimly, 'go back now slowly to the wall opposite.'

When they hesitated, I made a brutal jerk with my arm on my captive's throat. He let out a wild croak of terror, trying to make them obey me. He was red in the face. They edged away. There were five. Slaves in plain tunics, unarmed of course. None seemed properly accustomed to violence. I was alone, but I knew what I was doing. Well, I thought I did.

'What's your name?' My prisoner gurgled. I wrenched at his throat viciously and shouted at the slaves, 'What's his name?'

'Lucrio.'

'Hah! Well, well. Is this your business practice, Lucrio? Do you beat up your clients? Extortion with menaces – that would explain a lot.'

One of the slaves made an unexpected movement. I gave Lucrio a brutal wrench, while shouting at his men to drop to the floor and lie still.

'Face down!'

When they were all prone, I moved Lucrio to a pile of ropes, unhitched a coil, tied his arms and fastened him to a wheel of the siphon wagon. I found an iron grappler lying on the floor, and grabbed it for extra protection.

I could not be bothered too much with the slaves, but I had them sit up one by one and lashed their arms to their sides. To make it difficult for them to stand up or try anything, I popped fire-buckets over all their heads. Some received full ones. Well, that would make them think twice next time they threw freezing cold water over a man who had been half suffocated.

'Right, Lucrio. I shall hear if your bother-team makes a wrong move, but let's face it – they're garbage. They should be deaf under the buckets. We'll have a private chat, shall we?'

First, I had a proper look at him.

'Hmm. Nobody is at his best with his tunic braid torn, and hanging from a cart wheel, I concede that.'

In fact he was looking more spruce than he could have done – unrepentant, anyway. He was forty, or more. He had been a slave once, but carried few signs of it. I had seen consuls who looked uglier.

His teeth were bad, but he was fit and well-fleshed, decently nourished over a long period of his life, a bathhouse frequenter and able to afford a good barber. The tunic I had damaged was of fine cloth, usually laundered to a crisp white, though I had given it an equitable scruffy look. He was dark, with a face and eyes that spoke of Thrace if you looked closely, yet he could have passed for anyone. He would not be too exotic to do business in the Forum. He was not too foreign to have prospects in Rome.

'Were you looking for me – or for what I had commandeered?'

'You had no right to take anything from my house, Falco!' He was already at ease again, despite being tied up. He had a market commerce accent. I could imagine him in some brothel-cum-bar behind the Curia, joking with his cronies about huge sums of money – mentioning tens and hundreds of thousands as casually as if they were sacks of wheat.

'Wrong. I had a warrant, and what I took was removed in the presence of the vigiles.'

'It is private material.'

'Don't give me that. Bankers are always appearing as court witnesses -' I had subpoenaed plenty myself, when working as a runner for Basilica Julia barristers.

Lucrio seemed far too sure of himself. 'Only when their evidence is called for by the specific account-holder.'

'What's that?'

'It's the law,' he told me, with some relish. The details of a man's finances are his personal property.'

'Not Roman law!' I was trying it on. But I sensed I had lost this. 'What I took was possible evidence in a murder case. I assume you care about what happened to Aurelius Chrysippus? He was your chief at the Aurelian. You are his freedman and his agent at the bank – and, I've been told, the heir to his fortune?'

'True.' His answer was quieter. He might be a freedman but he was bright. He understood the implications of being heir to a murdered man.

'So you, Lucrio, as heir to a man who has died in very violent circumstances, have now broken into the patrol-house of the vigiles cohort who are investigating the suspicious death? Removing evidence has to look bad!'

'It is not yours to take – nor even mine to give,' said Lucrio. He knew his rights. I was shafted.'A magistrate has been asked to issue an injunction. I merely came to prevent any breach of confidence occurring before the order can be brought here.' He could have been in court already, pleading for me to be charged a huge fine. 'It is regrettable that before I arrived in person my staff, being eager to please me and rather excited, did perhaps overreact… though I suggest it was in response to provocative behaviour.'

I sighed. His threat would hold good. The vigiles were known for their tough attitude; being attacked in a patrol-house would garner me no sympathy. People would believe I had caused the trouble. Still, I answered back: 'I must get the cohort doctor to look at me. I'm stiffening up; there could be a hefty compensation claim.'

'I shall be happy to pay for any salves he recommends,' Lucrio professed hypocritically.

'I'll take that as an admission of liability.'

'No, the offer is without prejudice.'

'Am I surprised?' I was indeed feeling the pain now, and growing very tired after my ordeal under the mat. I gazed at the freedman; he gazed back, a man used to holding the power position in business discussions. 'We need to talk, Lucrio. And it's in nobody's interests for you to be tied to a pump engine.'

I had regained some kudos by reminding him he was roped up. I was doing well, in fact – until one extra slave who had, unknown to me, been secreting himself behind the spraying arms on top of the siphon engine finally found the courage to act. With a wild cry, he emerged, hurled himself off and fell on me.

He knocked my breath away. It achieved nothing, however. Because at that moment Petronius Longus entered from the street gateway. He was scowling and carrying what looked like the magistrate's injunction. Vigiles members crowded in after him. They had probably all indulged in a few quick refreshments somewhere, as I had earlier guessed they might. That would explain why they all found it quite so funny to discover a row of slaves sitting with their heads in buckets, a prisoner roped to their siphon, me on the ground not even bothering to resist attack, and one sad man who had briefly thought he was a hero, but who collapsed in fright when he saw the red tunics and had to be revived with kicks from a vigilis' boot.

Chaos ensued. I lay on my back and let them all get on with it.

Petronius, who was usually the master of a tricky situation, felt highly put out by the injunction; I could see that. (Well, his name had been on the 'warrant') He swiftly regained authority when his men discovered that Lucrio's slaves had set free the bathhouse thief who had been locked in the holding-cell. Instantly, Petro slammed all six slaves in the cell to replace the lost prisoner. He enjoyed himself inventing statutory punishments for what they had so foolishly done.

Lucrio was released and told he could go home. The documents would all be returned to him tomorrow, as soon as men could be spared from fire-watching to wheel the handcart to his house. Lucrio was to report to the patrol-house for formal interview when Petronius Longus returned to duty the next afternoon. We said goodbye to the freedman politely, stretching ourselves as if we were now off home for a good night's sleep.

As soon as Lucrio had gone, Petro tossed the magistrate's order in a fire- bucket, then we raced upstairs to the tribune's room. The slaves had not even found the key on the lintel, and they must have been scared to break down the door. Petronius, Fusculus, Passus, Sergius and I worked all through the night, scouring the daybooks for anything that would implicate either the freedman or one of his clients in wrongdoing. As we worked, we called out the names of any creditors we came across and Passus frantically wrote them down. Most were unfamiliar to us.

Unfortunately, we found nothing that struck us as a possible clue.