Shadows in Bronze

XI

It's my opinion Rome's best houses are not the fine shuttered mansions on Pincian Hill, but the character dwellings that line the Tiber's bank in my own sector, with their quiet steps down to the river and wonderful views. Geminus lived there. He had money and taste and had been born in the Aventine; he would.

To make me feel better he always said they flooded. Well; he could field enough slaves to sweep the Tiber out again. And if an auctioneer finds his furniture wet, he can easily get more.

He was travelling back tonight in his normal quiet style – a lordly litter with six massive bearers, a gaudy troop of torchmen and his two private bodyguards; I hitched a lift. On the way he whistled through his teeth in the annoying way he had, while I hardly spoke. When he dropped me off two dirt tracks from home, he gave me a dark stare.

'Stick with your roots, Marcus; keep the nobility for fleecing, not flirting!' I was in no mood to argue. Besides, the man was right. 'Talk about it?'

'No.'

'You want to find yourself-'

'Please don't tell me what I want!' I sneered unpleasantly. I climbed out.

Geminus leaned after me to ask, 'Would money help?'

'No.'

'You mean, not from me-'

'Not from anyone.' I stood stubbornly in the street while his litter moved off.

'I never understand you!' he grumbled back at me.

'Good!' I said.

Reaching my apartment block, I heard the sinister cackle of Smaractus my landlord being entertained with raw wine and ribaldry by Lenia. I was exhausted. The sixth floor seemed a mile away. I had intended to bunk down at laundry level in some hamper of grubby togas, but the self-assurance of Smaractus had fired me with so much bad temper I went surging upstairs without a second thought.

A shutter flew open below me. 'Falco?' I could not face another quarrel about my unpaid rent, so I leapt to the next landing and kept going.

Six flights later I had just about calmed down.

As I opened my door in the dark I heard one or two astute roaches rustle off. I lit a rush and lunged about, batting hopefully at the rest. Then I squatted on a bench, resting my tired eyes from the glitter of rich men's marble as I gazed at the grey slatted walls of home.

I suppressed a curse, then unsuppressed it and let rip. My gecko shuffled on the ceiling, looking shocked. Half-way through the oratory I noticed an iron skillet sitting on my cooking bench; it was half-full of yesterday's veal cutlet stew. When I went over to peer under the upturned dish which I was using as a lid, the stew looked so clammy I could not face eating it.

A document had been left for me on the table: good quality papyrus and Vespasian's seal. I ignored that too.

Thinking of my talk with Geminus, the only statue I had room for was one of those three-inch clay miniatures people leave at shrines. There was nowhere for a fully grown wench who needed space to keep her dresses and somewhere to sulk in private when she found herself offended with me.

Fighting my weariness, I stumbled out onto the balcony and watered my plants. It could be windy up here, yet my hanks of dusty ivy and pots of blue scillas flourished better than I did. My youngest sister Maia, who looked after them when I was away, said that this gardening was meant to impress women. Our Maia was a shrewd little bun, but wrong about that; if a woman was prepared to climb six flights of stairs to see me, she knew in advance what kind of cheapjack here she was climbing those stairs for.

I breathed the night air slowly, letting myself remember the last young lady who visited my eyrie, then left with a flower in her shoulder brooch.

I was missing her badly. No one else seemed worth bothering with. I needed to talk to her. Every day without Helena seemed somehow unfinished. I could manage the hurly-burly, but the evening stillness reminded me what I had lost.

I fell indoors, too tired to lift my feet. I felt drained, yet Vespasian's letter got the better of me now. As I wrenched at the wax I was automatically assessing today's events.

A conspirator in a dead plot had died unnecessarily; a freedman who ought not to be important suddenly was. This idiot Sambas provided an irresistible challenge. Smiling, I unrolled the document. a) Curtius Gordianus (priest), heard to be at Rhegium. Departure: immediate. b) Trawl Gordianus herewith.

It sounded crisp. Needless to say, the ashes were missing; I would have to endorse someone's docket to get those released. For Rhegium read Croton. (Palace scribes are never accurate: they don't have to make the forty-mile detour over mountain roads when they get it wrong.) As usual, they had forgotten to enclose my travel pass, and there was no mention of my fee.

A vigorous snake in the margin in the Emperor's own hand exclaimed: c) Why am I rebuilding the Temple of Hyades? Can't afford it. Please explain!'

I found my inkpot behind half a cabbage and wrote on the back:

Caesar! a) The priest has been loyal. b) The Emperor's generosity is well known. The Temple was not any big.

Then I resealed the letter, and re-addressed it to go back.

Under the cabbage (which my mother must have left for me) I noticed another important communique from her. She stated darkly, 'You need new spoons.'

I scratched my head. I could not tell if this was a promise or a threat.

I set my cup on the corner of the blanket box, then peeled off my tunic, rolled under the hairy counterpane and drank my drink in bed. Tonight I just fell down on top and kept all my clothes on. I managed to think about Helena long enough to share all my worries, but just as I reached what might happen after that I could feel myself falling asleep. Had she been there in my arms events would probably have taken the same course…

Informing is a drab old business. The pay's filthy, the work's worse, and if you ever find a woman who is worth any trouble you don't have the money and you don't have the time; if you do, the chances are you simply don't have the energy.

I could no longer remember leaving my house that morning; I had come home tonight too exhausted to eat my dinner and too depressed to enjoy a drink. I had passed by my best friend without a chance to gossip; I had forgotten to visit my mother and let Helena guess my ghastly involvement in the disposal of her relative's corpse. I had shared my lunch with a watchdog, swapped insults with an Emperor, and thought I'd seen the ghost of a murdered man. Now my neck ached; my feet hurt; my chin needed shaving; I was longing for a bath. I deserved an afternoon at the races; I wanted a night on the town. Instead, I had committed myself to travelling three hundred miles to visit a man I was not allowed to interview, who would probably refuse to see me when I arrived.

For a private informer, this was just an average day.