Time To Depart

XI

THANKS A LOT, Falco!'

We were back on the bench in the corridor. The chamberlain who shepherded visitors was looking curious. The white-tunic clad official strode off. Vespasian's mention of lunch told us that the `few minutes' we had been told to wait would be several hours. Petronius was furious. `Well if that was helping, thanks, Falco! Thanks to you mentioning money, the poor old buffer's, had to rush to his bedroom for a quiet lie-down!'

`Forget it,' I assured Petro. `Vespasian's famously tight, but he won't faint at the mere mention. If he hates our suggestion he'll say no.'

`Your suggestion,' Petro inserted. I ignored it.

We were silent for a while, mulling over events past and recent. `What in Hades have you got me into here?' Petro grumbled.

`At some point later, when we want to be having our dinner, we'll find ourselves advising a committee on the fine points of managing crime.'

`I just want to get back to my case.'

`This could be the most promising assignment of your life.'

`Stuff it,' Petro growled.

It was in fact lunch time when things started to happen. First the white tunic came and collected us. He wanted to pick our brains. We allowed it, but made sure we shared his lunch.

He introduced himself as Tiberius Claudius Laeta. Evidently a Palace freedman of great status, he had possession of a room that was twice as big as my whole apartment. There, when Vespasian didn't need a minion to push around, the good Laeta could sit and pick his nose. There, too, persons of lesser status brought him trayloads of sustenance.

`Nice!' we said.

`It's a living,' he replied. There was only one winecup but Petro quickly found a couple of dusty extras hidden behind some scroll boxes. The clerk tried to look impressed with our initiative as, smiling like happy new cronies, we poured his flagon for him. Since the wine was free, it proved good enough even for Petro. Laeta raised his cup to us, looking pleased to have company. Being top clerk, which he obviously was, can be a lonely life. `So! I gather you're Falco, one of Anacrites' men?'

`I'm Falco,' I answered patiently. `I'm my own man.'

`Sorry. I understood you worked for the bureau that we don't talk about.'

`I have worked for the Emperor. I found the rewards unrealistic, and I don't plan any more.'

'Ah!' The good Laeta managed to say this with an air of discretion, while implying that whatever bureau he served was scheming to put the Chief Spy on the rim of a live volcano and give him a big shove. `Maybe you would find it more rewarding working for us.'

`Maybe,' I said, fairly peacefully. If it upset Anacrites, I would consider anything.

Claudius Laeta gave me a considered stare, then turned to Petronius. Petro had been stolidly putting away a platter of cold artichoke hearts. As his attention was demanded by our host, I myself started on Laeta's dish of anchovies. `And you are Petronius Longus, of the Aventine Watch?' Petro nodded, still chewing. `Do set me straight about the vigiles. I confuse them with the Urban Cohorts.'

`Easily done.' Petronius filled him in politely. Replete, he leant back on a stool and gave Laeta his lecture for new recruits: `This is how law and order works in Rome. Top of the heap you have the Praetorian Guard; Cohorts One to Nine, commanded by the Praetorian Prefect, barracked at the Praetorian Camp. Fully armed. Duties: one, guarding the Emperor: two, ceremonial swank. They are a hand-picked elite, and full of themselves. Next in line and tacked on to them are Cohorts Ten to Twelve, known as the Urbans. Commanded by the Urban Prefect -a senator -who is basically the city manager. Routinely armed with sword and knife. Their unofficial job description is to repress the mob. Duties officially: to keep the peace, keep their ears open, and keep the Urban Prefect informed of absolutely everything.'

`Spying?' Laeta queried dryly. `I thought Anacrites did that?'

`He spies on them while they're spying on us,' I suggested.

`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 Britons 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 ourselves 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 was 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 answered 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 one-time 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.