Shadows in Bronze

XIV

Clutching swathes of my religious get-up, I hared past the courthouse without stopping to enquire if the magistrate would hear my case. Before the third dark alley I heard my rescuer's bare feet pattering behind.

'Thanks!' I gasped out. 'Well met. You seem a handy type!'

'What had you done?'

'I've no idea.'

'Usual story!' he exclaimed.

We took the road out of town and soon afterwards were sitting in an eating house on the shore. He recommended the shellfish pottage with saffron sauce.

'A melange of shellfish,' I commented cautiously, 'at a tavern with no nameboard, in a strange port, is a risk my mother taught me to avoid! What else do they do?'

'Shellfish pottage – without the saffron!'

He grinned. He had a perfectly straight nose which was attached to his face at an unfortunate angle of thirty degrees. His left side had the uptwitched eyebrow of a bright, comical fellow, and his right the down-jerked mouth of a moody clown. Both halves of his face were fairly presentable; he just lost ground on the composite effect. His two profiles were so different I felt compelled to stare at him, as though he were deformed.

We both ordered pottage, with. Life's short enough anyway. May as well drink deep and die in style.

I paid for a flagon while my new friend called up side dishes; a trug of bread, a saucer of olives, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce salad, whitebait, sunflower seeds, gherkins, slices of cold sausage, and so on. Having fixed a few nibbles, we introduced ourselves.

'Laesus.'

'Falco.'

'Captain of the Sea Scorpion, out of Tarentum. I used to do the Alexandria run, but I gave it up for shorter hops with fewer storms. I'm in Croton to meet someone.'

'I've ridden down from Rome. Arrived today.'

'What brings you to Bruttium?'

'Whatever it was, it now looks like a bad mistake!'

We raised our cups and tackled the hors-d'oeuvres. 'You never mentioned what you do, Falco.'

'Quite right.' I broke off some bread from a circular loaf, then concentrated on cleaning an olive stone between my front teeth. 'I never mentioned it!'

I spat out the stone. I was not so discourteous as to keep secrets from a fellow who had saved my life; Laesus knew I was teasing. We pretended to let it drop.

The place we had come to was surprisingly busy for midafternoon. Seafront canteens are often like that, catering for sailors who have no idea of time. Some customers were drinking at the counter indoors but most were packed onto benches in the open air, like us patiently waiting for their food.

I told Laesus that in my experience quayside tavernas are like that too; you sit for hours imagining they are filleting a fresh-caught red mullet just for you. The real truth is: the cook is a lackadaisical noddy who has disappeared on some errand for his brother-in-law; on his way back he quarrels with a girl he owes money to, then stops to see a dogfight before helping along a game of soldiers at a rival restaurant. He arrives in a filthy temper half-way through the afternoon, warms up a sickly bumper-fish in yesterday's rascasse broth and hurls in some mussels which he can't be bothered to clean, then an hour later you heave up your dinner into the harbour because you drank far too much while you were waiting for the cook.

'Console yourself, Laesus: a meal on a quayside never stays around long enough to poison you!'

He just smiled. Sailors get used to listening to strangers fantasies.

Our pottage came. It was good, in a hearty, harboury way. I had just mastered filtering it across my tongue to field the chunks of crab claw, when Laesus niggled slyly, 'Since you seem shy of telling me, I'll guess… You look like a spy.'

I was hurt. 'I thought I looked like a priest!'

'Falco, you look like a spy who's disguised as a priest!' I sighed, and we drank some more wine.

My new friend Laesus was a queer phenomenon. In a place where I had no reason to feel confidence in anyone, he seemed utterly trustworthy. Both his eyes were black and beady like a robin's. He always kept his sailor's hat on. It had a round, felted crown surrounded by a twirling brim so that it looked like an upturned field mushroom.

The company thinned out. We were left with two old seamen and a few travellers who, like me, had fled for the sleepy port. Plus a trio of young ladies called Gaia, Ipsyphille and Merioe, with faded personalities and low-slung frocks, who went to and fro a lot. In the absence of fresh grapes or roasted chestnuts, these squeezy fruits were available upstairs as dessert.

Gaia was surprisingly attractive.

'Want to try your luck?' Laesus asked, intercepting my gaze.

He had a generous attitude; he seemed eager to keep my place at table if I went off with one of the girls. I shook my head slightly, with a lazy smile, as if it was simply too much effort to shift. Then I closed my eyes, stilt smiling, as I remembered another handsome girl I knew – and her scathing look if she was to catch me considering a cheap thrash with a harbour whore. The elegant and dignified Helena Justina had eyes the rich, dark browny-gold of palm dates from the desert – plus a snort like a bad-tempered camel when her highness was annoyed.

When I looked up, the girl called Gaia had gone upstairs with someone else.

'Tell me,' I suddenly asked Laesus. 'If you come from Tarentum, did you ever encounter a senator called Atius Pertinax?'

He finished a mouthful. 'I'm not on boozing terms with senators!'

'He was a ship owner, that was why I asked. While I was riding through the Sila forests, it struck me that since Pertinax was born a southerner he might have had his ships built here-'

'I'm with you!' Laesus said. 'Is he in trouble?'

'Oh, the worst kind; he's dead.' Laesus looked startled. I gulped my wine callously.

'So,' he ventured, recovering. ‘What was he like?'

‘Couple of years short of thirty. Lean build, thin face, nervous temper – he had a freedman called Barnabas.'

'Oh I know Barnabas!' Laesus flung down his spoon. 'Everyone in Tarentum knows Barnabas!' I wondered if they knew he was a murderer now.

Laesus remembered that four or five years earlier Barnabas had been busy at Tarentum on his master's behalf having two new merchant vessels built. 'Calypso and Circe, if I recollect.'

'Circe is right. She's impounded at Ostia.'

'Impounded?

'Ownership inquest. Know any more about these two?'

'Not in my line. Did this Pert owe you money, Falco?'

'No; I've got some cash for Barnabas. It's his master's legacy.

'I can make enquiries in Tarentum if you like.'

'Thanks, Laesus!' I did not mention the freedman's recent habit of roasting senators alive, since Vespasian wanted the political aspects hushed up. 'Listen, friend; I'm curious about these two for my own reasons. Were they popular locally?'

‘Barnabas was an uppity ex-slave. People he cadged drinks from hoped Rome would give him his come-uppance.'

‘Rome may yet! What about Pertinax?'

‘Anyone who owns ships and racehorses can convince himself he's popular! Plenty of flatterers wanted to treat him like a great man.'

'Hum! I wonder if he found Rome different? He was involved in a piece of stupidity; that could explain why – he wouldn't be the first small-town boy who went to show Rome how big he was, but his reception disappointed him.'

The people who had been sharing our table were leaving, so we both stretched our feet across to the opposite bench, spreading ourselves more comfortably.

'So who are you meeting here in Croton, Laesus?'

'Oh… just an old client.' Like all sailors he was highly secretive. 'What about you? Laesus asked with a sidelong look. 'In the marketplace you called yourself a messenger – you mean to Barnabas?'

'No, airiest. Curtius Gordianus.'

‘What's he done?'

'Nothing. I've just brought him some family news.'

‘Spying,' he commented, 'seems a complicated trade!'

‘Really, Laesus; I'm not a spy.'

'Of course not,' he answered, being very polite.

I grinned. 'I wish I was! I know one; all he does is office work and field trips to popular seaside resorts. Laesus, my good friend, if this was an adventure tale by some scurrilous court poet, you'd now exclaim, Curtius Gordianus – what a coincidence! The very male I shall be at talk tonight!'

He opened his mouth as if he was about to say it, paused long enough to milk every ounce of suspense – then collapsed.

'Never heard of the damned fellow!' Laesus declared agreeably.