A dying light in Corduba

XIV

Three of us were seated together, like an intellectual symposium. Lack of space in the small, scroll-filled room made civilised reclining impossible. Letters, accounts and intriguing works of literature were piled all around us in teetering stacks. If challenged about his untidiness (as he regularly was by his wife) Decimus Camillus Verus would say that he knew exactly where everything was. One of his likeable characteristics: in truth he could have had no idea.

The senator and I were both upright on his reading couch. Aelianus had squeezed on to a stool which his father's secretary occupied in the daytime. While he fiddled with a pot of pens, a bust of Vespasian stared down from a shelf above him, as if our eminent Emperor were checking that the young man's neck was clean.

This son and his father looked fairly alike. They had matching strong eyebrows, though the boy was more thickset. He was also surly where his father was mild- mannered. It was a phase of youth – unfortunately a phase which could lose him the chance of making useful friends. There was no point telling him that. Being critical of his social skills was the certain way to rush him into making life's fatal mistakes.

'I don't have to talk to you, Falco!'

'It's advisable,' his father chastised him briefly.

I kept my voice quiet. 'You can talk to me informally here – or you can be sent for a full grilling on the Palatine.' 'Is that a threat?'

'Senators' sons don't get beaten up by the Praetorian Guard.' I made it sound as if they could be, when someone with my clout requested it.

Aelianus glared. Maybe he thought that if he had been anybody else's son I would have taken him to a wine bar and enjoyed a much more easygoing chat without involving his family. Maybe he was right.

'What's this about?' he demanded.

'One man dead and another close to Hades. A strong Baetican connection, and an unhealthy whiff of conspiracy. Your presence at the last Olive Oil Producers' dinner in close company with one of the victims now needs accounting for.'

He went pale. 'If I have to explain myself I want to see someone more senior.'

'Of course,' I agreed. 'I'll just point out that asking for special treatment makes you sound like a man in trouble. People with nothing to hide give their evidence to the regular official.'

'And that's you?' He was being careful now.

'It's me. Orders from the top.'

'You're trying to implicate me in something.' Dear gods, he was truculent. And I hadn't even started yet. 'Actually I want to clear you.'

'Just answer the questions,' his father instructed patiently.

Hoping for filial obedience, I tried greater formality: 'Camillus Aelianus, how did you come to know Anacrites, and why did he take you to that dinner as his guest?'

'Why don't you ask him?' Useless. Well, I was somebody's son. I should have known the odds on obtaining filial obedience were short.

'Anacrites has been attacked – and by thugs who killed one of his agents the same night. He's been taken to a place of safety, but he's likely to die. I need to find out very quickly what is going on.' I remembered how long it had been since I dumped the spy on my mother. It was time to make dutiful enquiries – or to relieve her of the corpse.

The senator leaned towards me anxiously. 'Are you saying Aulus may have been in danger that night?' Aulus must be his elder son's personal name. One which the young chap was unlikely to invite me to use.

Unless Aelianus had been dabbling in something far bigger than I gave him credit for, I could not believe professional killers would bother with him. 'Don't worry, senator. Presumably your son is an innocent bystander.' I thought the bystanding innocent looked leery, in fact. 'Aelianus, did you realise your dinner host was the Emperor's Chief Spy?'

The young man seemed chastened. 'I understood something of the sort.'

'What was your connection with him?'

'Nothing really.'

'Then how did you come to meet him?'

He did not want to tell me, but admitted, 'I had been sent to him with a letter when I returned from Corduba.'

His father looked surprised. Forestalling his interruption, I asked, 'Who wrote the letter?'

'It's confidential, Falco.'

'Not any more!' his father snapped briskly. He wanted to know about this as much as I did. Though he appeared so easygoing, Camillus had old-fashioned views on a father's rights. The fact that none of his children agreed with him was just a father's usual hard luck.

'It was from the quaestor,' Aelianus replied irritably. Quinctius Quadratus?'

He looked surprised at my knowledge. 'No, his outgoing predecessor. Cornelius had just heard that his father is sending him on a trip to Greece before he has to come back to Rome. Since I was coming back, he gave tne thing to me.'

We were talking about the young finance officer in charge of collecting taxes for Rome. 'A provincial quaestor would normally correspond with the Chief Secretary, Claudius Laeta.' His letters would travel via the cursus publicus, the imperial post service. It was quick, secure, and reliable. 'So why send something to Anacrites, and why entrust it to you? You were friendly with this Cornelius?'

'Yes.'

'If he wanted it entrusted to safe hands, was this letter very sensitive?'

'Presumably. Don't ask me what was in it,' Aelianus continued triumphantly, 'because it was heavily sealed and I had strict instructions to deliver it unopened straight to the Palatine.' Very convenient.

'Were you present when Anacrites read it?'

'He asked me to wait in another office.'

'And then what was his reaction?'

'He came in and invited me to the Baetican dinner as if to thank me for its safe delivery.'

I changed the subject: 'If you knew the outgoing quaestor, do you know Quinctius Quadratus too?' 'What's that got to do with anything?'

'He had been meant to attend the dinner as well. His father had booked him a place – but he went to the theatre instead.'

'I leave the theatre to my brother!' Aelianus sneered selfrighteously.

'Do you know Quadratus?' I repeated.

'Slightly,' he then admitted. 'He was in Corduba last autumn – preparing himself to bid for the Baetican quaestorship I imagine, though he never came clean at the time. I had a disagreement with him about some work his people did on my father's estate. Now we don't particularly get on.'

'And besides, you had cornered yourself an invitation from a mighty official? Being noticed by Anacrites would be something to brag about!'

Aelianus gave me a nasty look. 'Have you finished, Falco?'

'No,' I snapped back. 'We need to discuss your time in Corduba. Your father sent you out there to gain experience, and you were working informally in the proconsul's office -'

'I was never privy to policy meetings,' Aelianus took pleasure in telling me.

'No. It would be an unusual office if the governor's young staff actually noticed what was going on.' While he was here, and under parental supervision, I determined to pick his brains. 'There were some top Baeticans dining with Quinctius Attractus at the dinner. I presume you knew most of them?'

'Provincials?' Aelianus sounded hurt at being associated with foreigners.

'Given that men of Hispanic origin fill a third of the Senate that you yourself are trying to join, snobbery is short-sighted. I assume you know who they were! I'm interested in this group: Annaeus Maximus, Licinius Rufius, someone called Norbanus and another called Cyzacus.'

'Annaeus and Rufius are leading citizens of Corduba.' 'Big in olive oil production?'

'Annaeus has the largest estate. Licinius isn't far behind.' 'Is there rivalry between the landowners?' his father put in.

'Only mild jostling.' This was better. When he cooperated, Aelianus was a useful witness. The best kind: he liked showing off. He lacked the dry wit of other members of his family, but had grown up with their analytical attitude. He was, moreover, a great deal more intelligent than he wanted to allow himself to be. 'The producers all compete to obtain the highest yield and quality, and to demand the best prices, but in general there is a good community spirit. Their main obsessions are getting rich, then demonstrating their wealth by way of luxurious houses, benefactions in the community, and holding local magistracies and priesthoods. Long-term, they all want to buy positions in Rome if possible. They take pride in anyone from Corduba being successful, because that increases the status of all.'

'Thanks,' I said, rather surprised at his sudden fluency.

'What about the other two names Falco mentioned?' enquired the senator, who was taking a keen interest.

'Cyzacus is from Hispalis. He runs a fleet of barges; upriver at Corduba the Baetis is too narrow for big vessels, so bargees take the amphorae downstream. I knew him by sight, but that's all.'

'Not a producer himself?'

'No, he just collects. And Norbanus is a negotiator.' 'Negotiating what?' I asked.

Aelianus gave me a pitying look. 'Negotiating anything, but mostly space on the ocean-going ships that pick up the amphorae of oil once they are assembled at Hispalis. He's a Gaul.' The young man was dismissive.

'So everybody hates him!'

'Well, even provincials need someone else to despise, Marcus.' The senator joked, while his son merely looked superior.

'I'm getting a picture of a happy flock of middlemen,' I commented. The estate owners produce the oil, then the bargemen take it downstream to an entrep that's Hispalis – after which negotiators find it space in ships to take it abroad. So producers, bargemen, negotiators, and ship-owners are all expecting their cut. This is before any retailers in the Emporium and the Roman markets get their sticky fingers on the amphorae. If all these chancers are creaming off profits, no wonder we pay nice prices.'

'It's no worse than any other commodity.' Camillus Verus was a fair man.

'Except that oil carries the highest premium. It's a commodity everybody needs, from the Emperor down.' I turned back to Aelianus. 'So what is your evaluation of the commercial situation?'

He shrugged. 'Olive oil is increasingly important. Production in Baetica is rising steeply. It's rapidly overtaking the traditional sources in Greece or Italy. That's partly because from Spain it's easy to send it north to meet the huge demand in Gaul, Britain and Germany, as well as dispatching it direct to Rome. It's fine quality for emollient usages – and the taste is reckoned to be special too. The producers in Baetica are lucky men. There are fortunes to be made.'

'A star product.' I looked him in the eye. 'And what's the scope for funny business?'

'I don't know what you mean, Falco.'

'Price-fixing, for example,' I specified crisply. Once I started considering how many amphorae of olive oil were being shipped around the Empire, I realised that millions of sesterces were involved. 'Cornering the market and withholding supplies – The usual pretty tricks of commerce are what I mean!'

'I wouldn't know.' Now he had shown us that his time in the governor's office had at least taught him to give a sensible briefing, I reckoned he was being disingenuous.

I had no more to ask. His father let Aelianus go. The young man said he was off out again; Decimus told him to stay indoors, though he did not make too much of giving the order, in case Aelianus disobeyed.

Just as he reached the doorway I called out, 'One more thing!' He made the mistake of stopping. 'You carried the mysterious letter to Anacrites with you. How did you travel to Rome? By sea or land?'

'By sea.'

'That's a week's journey?' He nodded, and I gave him a pleasant grin. 'So tell me, Aulus -' He finally noticed I was not being friendly. 'What exactly did you read in the letter when your curiosity broke and you picked the seal?'

To his credit, Aulus Camillus Aelianus managed not to blush. He knew when he was rumbled. He sighed, thought about it, then slowly admitted the truth: 'It was a reply to a request from Anacrites to the proconsul for a report on the stability of the oil market. The quaestor had assessed the situation, and answered on the lines of what I told you earlier: that olive oil is going to be very big business.' Aelianus braced himself then added honestly, 'He also confirmed what you suggested, Falco – that there might be some scheming locally in Corduba. A possible cartel to rig and control the price of oil. He felt it was at an early stage, and could be contained.'

'Did he name names?'

'No,' said the noble Aelianus, rather quietly. 'But he said that the proconsul had asked him to mention that enquiries had not been welcome. He felt the situation could become dangerous for everyone involved.'