Poseidon_s Gold

LXVIII

It was late afternoon when I started my search. I had to tackle one after another of the grisly gang foremen, whose demeanour was worse than the prisoners they guarded. Each passed me on to some other filthy lout with a whip. Some expected money just for saying no. Most were drunk and all of them were nasty. When I finally found the right group of prisoners, talking to them was quite pleasant by comparison.

We spoke in Greek. Thank the gods for Greek-always there to help an informer dodge paying the price of an interpreter.

'I want you to tell me a story.' They stared at me, anticipating violence. It was giving me bad memories of a time I once disguised myself as a hard-labour slave. I found myself scratching reminiscently.

These were prisoners of war, nothing like the millions of nice, clean, cultured fellows Manlius and Varga had ranted about, the secretaries, stewards, toga-folders and wine-mixers who filled the streets of Rome looking just the same as their kempt masters. These were the few male survivors of various Judaean massacres, hand-picked to look good in Titus Caesar's Triumph. Most of the thousands of prisoners had been sent to forced labour in Egypt, the imperial province, but these shaven-headed, dirty, sullen youths had been carried off to Rome first to be paraded as a spectacle, then to rebuild the city in Vespasian's 'Roma Resurgans' campaign.

They were fed, but thin. Building sites start work at dawn and pack up early. It was late afternoon. They were sitting around braziers now, outside their crowded bivouacs, their faces dark and hollow in the firelight as the winter darkness fell. To me they looked foreign, though I dare say I myself was being regarded by them as an exotic from a culture where everyone had dark jowls, unsavoury religious beliefs, strange culinary habits and a big hooked nose.

'Bear up,' I consoled them. 'You're slaves, but you're in Rome. It may seem hard for hill-farmers to find themselves brought here for endless mud-shovelling, but if you survive this hard labour through to the stonecutting and construction work, you're in the best place in the world. We Romans were hill-farmers once. The reason we clustered here among our theatres, baths and public venues is quite simple-we noticed that hill-farming stinks. You're alive, you're here-and you have access to a better life.'

Jests were not required. Even well-meant stoicism failed. They were desolate and dreaming of their goats.

They let me talk, however. Anything different is welcome to men on a chain-gang.

I knew from their foreman that these hailed from the right area. I explained what I wanted. 'It happened about this time of year, and about three years ago. There had been a hiatus since the autumn before, after Nero died; you may remember a period of uncertainty when hostilities ceased. Then came spring. Vespasian decided to revive his campaign. He climbed into the hills-where you come from-and he occupied your towns.'

They stared at me. They said they did not remember. They said it like men who would lie to me even if they did.

'What are you?' they asked me. Even prisoners of war are curious.

'An informer. I find things for people. Lost things-and lost truths. The mother of this soldier has asked me to tell her how he died.'

'Does she pay you for this?'

'No.'

'Why do you do it?'

'He matters to me too.'

'Why?'

'I am her other son.'

It was as pleasing circuitous as a riddle. The slight shock drew a dry cackle of laughter from these demoralised men whose days were confined to digging foreign mud from a giant foreign hole.

A prisoner rose from his haunches. I never knew his name. 'I remember,' he said. Maybe he was lying. Maybe he just felt I had earned some sort of tale. 'Vespasian was placing garrisons in all the towns. He took Gophna and Acrabata. Bethel and Ephraim came next.'

'Were you at Bethel?' He swore that he was. Maybe he was lying now. There was no way I could really tell. 'Was it a stiff fight?'

'To us, yes-but probably, no.'

'Not much resistance?'

'Little. But we were going to fight,' he added. 'We gave up when we saw the fierceness of the Roman charge.'

Evidently he thought this was what I was wanting to hear. 'That's gracious of you,' I said politely. 'Did you see the centurion?'

'The centurion?'

'The officer. Mailed shirt, metal on his legs, fancy crest, vine stick-'

'The officer who led the charge?'

'He led it?'

'From the front!' smiled the prisoner, certain I would like that. Maybe he had been a soldier too.

'But he fell?'

'He was unlucky.'

'How?'

'An arrow squeezed in somehow between his helmet and his head.'

I believed that. This man had seen our boy.

Helmet not strapped properly. Trust him. Always unlaced, unhooked, half-belted. He hated feeling trapped. Loved sauntering into battle with his chin-strap waving free, as if he had just paused to dint the enemy on his way to somewhere else. Jupiter knows how that man got promoted.

Well I knew how. He was bloody good. Our Festus, with even only half his mind on a problem, could outstrip most of the dull plodders he was up against. Festus was the charismatic kind who soars to the top on talent that is genuine, easy and abundant. He was made for the army; the army knew its man. Stupid enough to show he did have that talent. Placid enough not to offend the establishment. Bright enough, once he was in position, to hold his own against anyone.

Yet still dumb enough to leave his helmet loose.

'Is this satisfactory?'

It was what I had come to hear.

Before I left they gathered around me with more questions about my work. What did I do, and who did I act for? I repaid their description of Bethel with some tales of my own. They were starving for stories, and I had plenty. They were fascinated by the fact that anybody from the Emperor down could hire me and send me out into the world as an agent; they even wanted to take me on for a commission of their own. (They had no money, but we were on good terms by then and I had mentioned that half my 'respectable' clients forgot to pay.)

'So what's your quest?'

'A retrieval.'

They began a long rambling saga involving a sacred item.

I had to break in. 'Look, if this involves the treasures that the conquering Titus lifted from your Temple at Jerusalem and dedicated on the Capitol, I'll stop you there! Robbing trophies from Rome's most sacred altar lies outside my sphere of activity.'

They exchanged furtive glances. I had stumbled on some much older mystery. Intrigued, I pressed for details. What they had lost was a large ship-like box of great antiquity, surmounted by two winged figures and supported on two carrying-poles. The Judaeans wanted to find it because it had magical properties which they believed would help them overthrow their enemies. Ignoring the fact that I didn't want my fellow Romans struck by lightning or smitten with fatal diseases (well not many of them), I was tempted. I love ridiculous stories. But explaining such a peculiar commission to Helena was more than I could face.

I grinned. 'Sounds as if you need a real daredevil for this job! I do divorces, which are hard enough, but I don't think I can undertake to find Lost Arks…'

I repaid their information about Festus with hard currency, and we parted friends.

As I picked my way from the bivouac, the unknown prisoner called out after me, 'He was heroic. His whole heart was in the matter. Let his mother be told, the man you seek-your brother-was a true warrior!'

I didn't believe a word of it. But I felt prepared to tell the lie.