A dying light in Corduba

XXXV

The dog let out quite a tentative yip when she first noticed the hen. For a single drumbeat, Nux pondered in an amiable fashion whether to make friends with the bird. Then the hen saw Nux and fluttered up on to a bollard with a frantic cluck. Delighted, Nux sprang into the chase.

As the dog began to rush towards the little hen, the huge gladiator dropped the hammer with which he had been nailing up a perch. He pounded off to save his pet, holding another bird under his arm. I sprinted after him. He naturally had the turn of speed a fighter needs to surprise an unwary opponent with a death-thrust. Oblivious, Nux sat down on her tail and had a meditative scratch.

Marmarides had been lurking by the carriage, unwilling to leave with Helena while I was talking to the famous Gorax. He saw the fun start. I glimpsed his slight figure running our way. Three of us were converging on the dog and the hen – though it was doubtful whether any of us would reach them in time.

Then the stunted watchman, still clutching his wine, began dancing about on the wharf. Nux thought it was a game; she remembered the hen and decided to fetch it for him. Marmarides whooped. I gulped. Gorax shrieked. The hen squawked hysterically. So did the other one, squashed against the mighty chest of Gorax. Nux barked again ecstatically and jumped at the hen on the bollard.

Flapping its wings (and losing feathers) the endangered fowl flew off the bollard, and scooted along the wharf just ahead of Nux's eager nose. Then the stupid thing took off and flapped down into the barge. Gorax rushed at Nux. She had been up on the edge of the planking having a bark at the hen but with a heavyweight bearing down on her, yelling obvious murder, the dog leapt straight after the hen.

The hen tried to flutter up off the barge again but was terrified of the watchman peering down and calling obscene endearments. Nux floundered amongst the necks of the amphorae, paws flailing.

I jumped off the quayside on to the barge. It was basic – no features to grab. I had no time to judge my footing, so one end of the boat swung out suddenly into the stream as I landed. Gorax, who had been about to step aboard himself, slipped on the thwart as the tethered end bumped the quay unexpectedly; he crashed to the deck with one leg overboard. Landing on his chest, he crushed the hen he had been carrying. From his expression, he knew he had killed it. I teetered wildly, trying hard to keep my balance since I could not swim.

Marmarides skidded up the quay and chose a target. He gave the watchman a shove, so the befuddled fool tipped straight into the river. He started screaming, then gurgling. Marmarides had a change of heart and plunged in after him.

Gorax had let out a whine as he cradled the dead bird, but he dropped it as Nux scrabbled closer to the one that was still flapping. Gorax went for the dog, so I aimed at the fowl. We collided, lost our footing on the amphorae, and caused a nasty crack of pottery underfoot. The ex-gladiator had gone through one and was ankle-deep in broken pot. As he struggled to extricate his leg the container broke again, so he was up to his knee, with oil sloshing everywhere. To regain his balance he grabbed at me.

'Ooh, be gentle!'

Unlikely! I had a swift glimpse of his gullet as he let out a wild cry. Even his tonsils were terrifying. I thought he was going to bite off my nose, but just then a refined voice cut through the racket saying, 'Leave it out, Gorax! You're frightening the fish away!'

Gorax, all obedience, dragged his leg out of the smashed amphora, trailing blood and golden oil. Then he sat down on the edge of the barge and held the dead fowl on his massive knee, while tears streamed down his face.

'Thanks!' I said quietly to the newcomer. I grabbed Nux with one hand, and made my way carefully to the river side of the barge, where a thin man who was propelling a raft with a pole had stuck his head above the deckline to see what was going on. I crouched and offered a handshake. 'The name's Falco.'

'Cyzacus,' he said.

I managed to keep my temper. 'You're not the man I was introduced to by that name in Rome!'

'You must mean Father.'

'Apollo! You're the poet?'

'I am!' he responded, rather tetchily.

'Sorry; I thought you had left home.'

'I did,' said Cyzacus junior, punting his raft around to the wharfside with some competence.

'You wield a mean oar, for a man of literature.' Clamping the dog under my arm, I had regained the wharf. After Cyzacus tied up his raft I reached down and helped him spring up on to the jetty.

He had a slight body and a few whiffs of hair, amongst which was actually a stylus shoved behind his ear. Maybe the fishing was a cover for writing a ten-volume magisterial epic to glorify Rome. (Or maybe like my Uncle Fabius he was the crazy type who liked to note down descriptions of every fish he caught – date, weight, colouring, time of day, weather, and bait used on the hook…) He did look like a poet, saturnine and vague, probably with no sense about money and hopeless with women. He was about forty – about the same as his adopted brother Gorax. There appeared to be no animosity between them, for Cyzacus went to console the big hulk, who eventually shrugged, tossed the dead hen into the river, and came back on to the wharf cooing over the live one fondly while it tried to fly away. He had simple emotions and a short attention span; perfect in the arena, and probably just as useful sorting out wholesalers who wanted to hire space on the barge.

'He organises the loads,' Cyzacus told me. 'I keep the records.'

'Of course, a poet can write!'

'There's no need for cheek.'

'I'm just fascinated. You went to Rome?'

'And I came back,' he said shortly. 'I failed to find a patron. Nobody came to my public readings; my scrolls failed to sell.' He spoke with much bitterness. It had never entered his head that wanting to be famous for writing was not enough. Maybe he was a bad poet.

I wasn't going to be the man who pointed this out, not with Gorax standing beside him looking immensely proud of his creative business partner. An ex-gladiator's brother is entitled to respect. The two were about the same height, though the big one filled about three times the space of the other. They looked totally different, but I already sensed there were closer bonds between them than between most real brothers who have grown up squabbling.

'Never mind,' I said. 'The world has far too many tragedies and almost enough satires. And at least while you're dreaming on a raft on the River Baetis you'll be spared too many crass interruptions to your thoughts.' The failed poet suspected I was ragging him, so I went on quickly, 'I was just explaining to Gorax when the fracas blew up, your father and I met at a very pleasant dinner in Rome.'

'Father does the trips abroad,' Cyzacus junior confirmed. 'What was it? Making contacts?'

Cyzacus and Gorax exchanged looks. One thought himself intellectual and one was a beaten-up punchbag – but neither was dumb.

'You're the man from Rome!' Cyzacus told me in a sour voice.

Gorax snarled. 'We were expecting you.'

'I should hope you were. I've been here three times!' I bluffed it out. The office has been closed.'

They exchanged looks again. Whatever they told me, I could see it would be a concocted story. Somebody had already primed them to be difficult.

'All right,' I confided in a friendly fashion. 'Corduba seems a town that has no secrets. I don't know how closely you work with your old man, but I need to ask him about the oil business.'

'Father stays in Hispalis,' the true son said. 'That's where the guild of bargees have their headquarters. He's a big man in the guild.' He looked pleased with himself for this unhelpfulness.

'I'd better go down to Hispalis, then,' I retorted, undeterred. Once more I noticed the two brothers shifting nervously. 'Is this load on the barge going downriver soon? Can I hitch a ride?'

They did tell me when the barge would be leaving; they were probably relieved to let their father deal with me. From what I remembered, he had looked a tougher proposition. Gorax even offered to let me go to Hispalis on the barge for free. This was one of the perks of informing. People I interviewed often seemed glad to pay my fare to send me on to the next person, especially if the next person lived a hundred miles away.

'It must be slightly inconvenient for the bargees,' I suggested, 'having so much trade from Corduba, when your guild is set up at Hispalis?'

The poet, smiled. 'It works. At Cyzacus et Filii we see ourselves as go-betweens in every sense.'

I smiled back at the pair of them. 'Many people have told me that Cyzacus et Filii are the most influential bargemen on the Baetis.'

'That's right,' said Gorax.

'So if the oil producers were banding together to further their trade, your firm would be in there too, representing the guild of bargees?'

The younger Cyzacus knew full well I was referring to the proposed cartel. 'The bargees and the oil producers tend to stick firmly to their separate interests.'

'Oh, I must have got it wrong then; I understood your father went to Rome to be part of some negotiations for a new system of price banding?'

'No, he went to Rome as part of a visit to the guild's offices at Ostia.'

'I see! Tell me, does your father have any connections with dancing girls these days?'

They both laughed. It was perfectly genuine. They told me their parent had not looked at a girl for fifty years, and with the innocence of loyal sons they really believed it, I could tell.

Then we all had to stop sidestepping as our attention was claimed by a desperate cry. Still down in the river, my driver Marrnarides was floating on his back in an approved Roman legionary manner (which he must have learned in the service of his master Stertius), gripping the watchman under the chin to keep his head above water, while the watchman clutched his wine jug and they both waited patiently for somebody to throw them down a rope.