A Body In The Bath House

XXII

men had flocked to the scrimmage. More labourers than I had been aware of that day on site popped out of trenches and rushed to watch, all yelling, in various languages. I was soon in a crowd, jostled on all sides.

I pushed to the front. Jupiter! One of the protagonists was the elder Philocles, the white-haired mosaicist. He was going at it like a professional boxer. As I burst through the crowd, he knocked the other to the ground. Judging by his paint-spattered tunic, the man who fell had to be a fresco artist. Philocles wasted no time in exploiting his advantage. Astonishingly, he leapt up in the air, drew his knees up, then crashed down on his opponent, full in the stomach, landing with both boots and all his weight. I sucked in air, imagining the pain. Then I fell on Philocles from behind.

I thought others would help drag him off. No luck. My intervention was just a new phase in the excitement. I found myself tussling with this red-faced, white-haired, violent old-timer who seemed to have no sense of danger and no discernment over whom he attacked but only a furious temper and wild fists. I could hardly believe it was the tight-mouthed man I had met that morning.

As I tried to prevent Philocles causing more damage, to me especially, Cyprianus turned up. When the stricken painter struggled to his feet somehow and for no reason threatened to join in fighting me, Cyprianus gripped his arms and pulled him backwards.

We held the mosaicist and painter apart. They were both madly struggling. "Stop it! Cut it out, both of you!"

Philocles had gone crazy. No longer the taciturn drone who held himself aloof, he was still thrashing like a beached shark. He swung madly. Caught out by mud underfoot yet again, I skidded. This time I managed to stop falling, at the expense of another jarring of my back. Philocles lurched the other way, hanging like a deadweight so he pulled me over. We rolled on the ground, with me grinding my teeth but clinging onto him. Being younger and tougher, eventually I hauled him back upright.

He broke free. He swung around and took a swipe at me. I ducked once, then I clipped him hard around the head. That stopped him.

By now, the other man had realised just how painful being jumped on felt. He doubled up, collapsing to the ground again. Cyprianus bent over, holding him. "Get a plank!" he yelled. The painter was barely conscious. Philocles stood back, clearly reconsidering. Suddenly he was worried. His breath came fast.

"Is that Blandus?" I asked Cyprianus. The man was being stretchered onto a board so people could carry him. Alexas, the medical orderly, squeezed through the press to examine him.

"It's Blandus," Cyprianus confirmed grimly. He must be used to settling disputes, but he was angry. "Philocles, I've had just about enough of you two and your stupid feuds! You're going in my lockup this time."

"He started it."

"He's out of it now!"

Pomponius arrived. All we needed. "Oh this is ridiculous." He rounded on Philocles, shaking his finger furiously. "For the gods' sake! I have to have that man. There's nobody to touch him within a thousand miles. Will he live?" he demanded of Alexas, as peremptory as could be.

Alexas looked worried but said he thought Blandus would live.

"Put him in your sickbay," ordered Cyprianus roughly. "Keep him there until I say otherwise."

"Tie him to the bed if you have to! I look to you, Cyprianus," declared Pomponius in a mincingly superior tone, 'to keep your workforce under some control!"

He stormed off. Cyprianus glowered as he watched him leave, but somehow refrained from all the optional rude sounds and gestures. He was a standard clerk of works: first class.

The crowd melted away fast. Managers tend to have that effect. Blandus was carted off, with Alexas running alongside. Philocles was manhandled away too. Among the mutters as the melee dispersed, I heard one provocative jeer in particular. It was aimed at Lupus, the foreign-labour supervisor, by a sinister, bare-armed tough nut who was covered in woad patterns.

"Don't tell me," I muttered to Cyprianus. "That's the other gang leader the local workers' chief I see he has a feud with Lupus?" They had gone off in opposite directions, or it looked as though another tight would have occurred. "What's he called- Mandumerus?" Cyprianus said nothing. I took it I was correct. "All right so what's with Philocles and Blandus?"

"They hate each other."

"Well, so I see. I'm not reduced to reading with a concave spyglass yet. Tell me why?"

"Who knows?" replied the clerk of works, quite exasperated. "Jealousy, say. They are both leaders in their field. They both think the palace scheme will collapse without them."

"So will it?"

"You heard Pomponius. If we lost either of them, we would be pushed. Try persuading any craftsman with serious talent to come this far north." We were now standing alone together in the middle of the bare site. Cyprianus relieved himself of a rare bitter harangue: "I can manage to find carpenters and roofers without too much trouble- but we're still waiting for my chosen stonemason to decide if he will unclench his bum from his comfy bench in Latium. Philocles brings his son with him everywhere, but Blandus only has some daft new lad working on his team. He praises him, but…" He had gone off into a secondary path, then returned to the main tirade in a final flush: "All the fine finishes are a nightmare. Why should they travel to this hole? They don't need it, Falco! Rome and the millionaires' villas in Neapolis offer much better conditions, better pay and a better chance of fame. So who wants Britain?"

My recently changed tunic was now filthier than the previous one. Once more, I went back to my quarters to swap garments.

"Oh Marcus no!" Helena had heard me. She could tell my step at half a stadium's length. Nux had wuffed too. "I seem to have three small children-'

"Wonder if I can claim voting privileges?"

"Put laundry bills on your expenses sheet anyway!"

I had worked through my white and my buff-coloured outfits. Now I was down to the blueberry thing that had been re-dyed twice, with streaked results. I changed my boots as well this time. You can't win. In the city, hobnails sent you on your back when they skidded on stone pavements. On site, studs were useless and plain leather had no grip at all. I might be forced into wooden pat tens like those the workmen wore, or even to tie on nasty sacks.

"Sorry; I couldn't help it."

"Maybe you should sit indoors quietly doing office work," suggested Helena.

"It will soon sponge oft," I reassured her as she sprang past me and got her hands on the newly grubbied buff garment. I had bundled it up carefully, but she threw it out flat to see the worst. She screamed and pulled a face. Mud does have a habit of looking like fresh ox dung from a beast with bad diarrhoea.

"Ugh! At least when we lived in Fountain Court Lenia's laundry was on hand. Now keep out of trouble, please."

"Of course, my love."

"Oh shut up, Falco!"

I did stay in the office for a while. Then she let me come out for lunch.

I was glad she cared. I "would hate to think we ever reached the point when my presence made her blase. I preferred it when she still came suddenly to find me, as if she missed me when I was absent for an hour or two. And when she looked at me, abruptly still. Then if I winked at her, she would say, "Oh grow up, Falco!"

And turn away, in case I saw her blush.

She made me go back and work in the office all afternoon. One of the clerks brought over more documents, shuffling in, believing I was safely out on site and would not confront him. I sat him down, ignoring his terrified look, and took this chance to get to know him. He was a spare, thin-featured fellow in his twenties, with short dark hair and a line of beard that was less successful than he must have hoped. He looked intelligent and slightly wary; perhaps he was worried by me.

Part of the problem with costs on the project quickly became obvious. They had changed the major records system.

"Vespasian wants to run things tightly. What's been altered? A few accounting tweaks?"

"New docketing. New logs. New everything."

I threw back my head and blew out air in frustration. "Oh don't tell me! Complex new bookkeeping, redesigned from scratch. It probably works perfectly. But you hated to abandon the system you knew- then when you tried the unfamiliar version, it didn't seem to work… I bet you started the palace project with the old system, then swapped halfway through?"

The clerk nodded miserably. "We're in a bit of a mess."

I realised what had happened. He was now using two different accounting strategies at once. He could no longer tell how much muddle he was in. "This is not your fault." I was angry and that worried him. He thought I was berating him personally. "The Treasury fly boys have set up a Corinthian-columned record scheme but none of the elevated brains who devised this fancy thing would ever dream of training you clerks!"

"Well, we only have to operate it, after all." This clerk was not as subdued as I had thought. He had worked in government service for maybe a decade, acquiring a dry wit to sustain himself. He was scared of me. But I wanted that.

"Did they send you out a new rule book?"

"Yes." He looked shifty.

I knew how things worked. "Anyone snipped the ribbon and opened the scroll yet?"

"It's on my desk." I understood that euphemism.

"Fetch it," I said. At my feet, Nux looked up curiously.

The costing clerk seemed bright enough; he must have been selected for this crucial project because somebody thought well of him. So as he slunk to the door I called out kindly, "You and I will get to grips with it together. Bring all the old site orders and invoices right from the start. We'll rewrite all the bookkeeping from day one."

I could send to Rome for an official to come here and train people. That would waste months- even if he ever arrived. Vespasian employed me for my dedication and my willingness to knuckle down. So I would sort it: / would read the rules. Knowing little of the old ones, I would not be flummoxed by changes. So long as the new rules worked, as they were likely to, then I would teach the clerks.

Some informers lead a life of intrigue, plunging into the dark seams of society, amazing people with their enquiry skills and their deductive talent. Ah well. Some of us have to earn our fees pondering who had put thirty-nine denarii for hardcore on the Ides of April in the wrong column.

At least if this site had any hardcore fiddles, I would trace them.

Grow up, Falco. There's no money to be made from hardcore. Any fool knows that.

(Thirty-nine denarii? Exorbitant! There was one slip of the stylus to be corrected right away.)

The clerk and I were soon getting along nicely, sorting flint requisitions into baskets on his side and work-sheets for the boy who brought round beakers of hot mid sum which I spiked to the table with my dagger, on mine.

"Tell this boy to include us in his rounds now. Mine's halt wine, half water, not too much honey and no herbs."

"He never remembers orders. You get it as it comes."

"Oh nuts! That means cold, weak and with funny floating things…"

"There's a good side, Falco: only half a cup. He spills most as he comes across the site."

We worked all afternoon. When the light faded too much for figure work and I decided we could stop, the clerk had relaxed somewhat. I was not so cheerful; I now saw the full scale of the job, and its boring qualities. And my bad tooth hurt.

"What's your name?"

"Gaius."

"Where do you normally work, Gaius? Where's your nook?"

"Alongside the architects." I had to stop that.

"Over in the old military block? Tell you what it will be easier if you work in my office from now on." I softened it: "At least so long as I'm here on site."

He looked up and said nothing. He was bright. He knew my game.

As he said goodbye, my new friend commented, "I like your tunic, Falco. That colour is really unusual."

I would have growled a stern response but inevitably, now that we were packing up, the mulsum boy arrived. That's life in an office. You wait all afternoon, then the refreshments finally appear, just as you are pulling on your cloak to go home. We asked politely if we could have our drinks slightly earlier tomorrow.

"Yes, yes." He scowled. He was a stroppy runt with a tray he could hardly carry, unable to wipe his snotty nose on his sleeve because he was holding the tray. Perhaps it was because he worked out of doors in the cold British air that his nose was very runny. It dripped. I put my beaker back on the tray. "I'm only a bit late. I have to tell everyone the news, don't I? Then people asks questions."

"So may I ask a question, please?" I was calm. The mulsum boy should never be rushed, crushed or otherwise offended. You need him on your side. "What news?"

"Give me a chance, legate- today's big thriller is: Philocles just died."