A Body In The Bath House

XXXI

"Look who's here! What happened to you?"

"Bitten."

"Badly?"

"To the bone, Falco. I am told it could go seriously septic." Aelianus was dismal. Then have died from less, you know. Alexas patched me up. I have to keep off this leg for a while but I'll be kicking people with it soon!" I could tell who he wanted to kick.

"You're just angling to be sent home to your mother."

"I am damn well not! I'm in enough pain."

"Helena will come over and sort you out. She can bring you to the palace. Camilla Hyspale can nurse you." Aelianus shuddered. "No, all right. You are suffering enough. Helena will tenderly care for you. i

I'm so relieved to see you, I may even straighten your bed covers."

I sat on his bunk. He shifted away petulantly. "Leave me alone, Falco."

"I have been searching everywhere for you," I assured him. "The thought that you had died on me was heart-rending, Aulus."

"Shove off, Falco."

"Everyone has been scouring the site. So how did you get here?"

I was the only entertainment available. Aelianus sighed and gave in, prepared to talk. "You went off one way and I headed back up the track. The mosaicist ignored me when I banged on his shutter. I had legged it as far as the painters' hut when some of the dogs caught up. I just managed to scramble inside, but one got his damned teeth into my shin. I shook the fiend off somehow, and slammed the door closed. Then I sat with my back jammed against that door and my knees braced hard, I can tell you!"

"I'm sorry I couldn't come for you. I was rescuing Helena."

"Well, I hoped you had her." The way he said it meant, on the other hand stuff you, Falco! "In the end the dogs were called off and taken away. I heard that mosaicist lambasting the men outside for the noise the dogs made. He was giving them a real earful- so nobody looked in the painters' hut, thankfully. I was not prepared to venture out again. I thought I wouldn't make it anywhere anyway. I must have drifted oft into oblivion then the painter lad came home."

"Your brother's pal?"

"He was completely out of it."

"Drunk?"

"Lathered."

"So no use?"

"Oh I was just glad to have human company. I told him what had happened and he listened blearily. He passed out. I passed out. Eventually we both woke up. It was at that point we noticed how much I had bled."

Aelianus told this tale with rakish fluency. He could be a prude over women, but I knew that as a young tribune in Baetica he was one of the crowd. Even in Rome, with his fond parents watching, he had been known to roll home at dawn uncertain of how he had spent the previous night.

"The painter brought you to be bandaged?"

"It was still very early; no one was about. So he hitched an arm around me and I hopped here. We told Alexas not to mention me to anyone."

"The painter could have let me know."

"He wanted to go back to sleep in his hut. He was not a well boy."

"Alexas could have given him a draught."

"Alexas said he wouldn't waste good medicine."

"Does this fine toper know you are connected to your brother?"

"He knows that Quintus is my brother."

"Then he knows everything by the sound of it."

"He's all right," said Aelianus, usually no fan of anyone. He must have felt really lonely in that hut last night until the painter joined him.

He closed his eyes. Shock had taken its toll. Dog bites hurt badly too. I patted his good leg. "You've done enough. Have your sleep. I am truly sorry you were wounded to no purpose."

Aelianus, who had propped himself up when I first entered, lay down again on his back. "Shall I tell him?" he asked the low ceiling. Yes I will! He treats me like shit, he abandons me to die and he jibes at me. But I am a person of honour, with noble values."

"You are warped." In fact he sounded like his sister. It was the first time any likeness to Helena had revealed itself. "Yet in a crisis you act responsibly. Spit it out then."

"The painter lad has a message from Justinus which were they not a pair of reprobates they would themselves be telling you urgently. Instead, my brother merely informed this adolescent painter, about whom we know absolutely nothing, and he deposited the vital facts with me, a drugged-up invalid. He did seem to think you would find me, Falco," Aelianus mused with some surprise.

"I'm glad someone has faith in me… What's the word?"

"You're in big trouble." Aelianus always gained too much pleasure from telling bad news.

I glared. "What now?"

"When Justinus and his friend were drinking in their favourite piss hole in Novio last night, they overheard some men from the site. Have you had a bunch of urchins collecting names and writing up a chart?"

I nodded. "Iggidunus and Alia. Checking up who really works on site as opposed to the inventive wages records."

"The men started out laughing about it. Thought you a real clown, wasting time on official nonsense. I hear there were jokes, some cruder than others. I was not given details," Aelianus said with regret. "But then one labourer who must have a sliver of brain saw the implications."

"They realise I am counting them?"

"You reckon there is a numbers diddle?"

"And I'm planning to stop it."

"That's what they worked out," warned Aelianus, no longer mischief-making. "So be on your guard. Justinus heard them making serious plans. Falco, they are coming after you."

I wondered what to do. "Has Justinus had his cover blown?"

"No, or he would be here, petrified."

"You underestimate him," I stated curtly. "What about you?"

"The painter says they all regard me as your spy."

"Well, donkey's dingalings, you must have been really careless!" For jeering at his brother, he was due some insults back. "I'll move you over to the palace as quickly as possible. We should have the King's protection in the old house. I'll ask Togidubnus to supply me with a bodyguard."

"Can you trust him?" Aelianus asked.

"Have to. The working presumption is that as Vespasian's friend and ally, he represents law and order." I paused. "Why do you ask?"

"The labourers who are after you are the British gang."

"Oh brilliant!"

Whether I could trust the King \when British tribesmen were against me was indeed an unknown quantity. Would his decision to be Roman override his origins? Would completing the project take precedence?

Suddenly it looked as if my personal safety might depend on just how much the royal homeowner wanted his new house.