Shadows in Bronze

XVI

Milo told shrimp-features to keep watch outside.

The steward and I crammed into my allocated cell; I certainly would have enjoyed myself more enduring a sleazy night out in Croton with some light-fingered, moustachoed dancing-girl. There was no doubt what was going to happen to me here; the only question was when.

There were three beds, but few tourists could face a summer excursion to Croton so I had the room to myself. At least it saved anyone else getting hurt. Milo filled most of the extra space.

I found this Milo something of a trial. He was big. He knew he was big. He spent most of his time enjoying how big he felt crowding ordinary people in small rooms. His heavily greased muscles gleamed in the light of my rush. Close to, he had an oddly washed-out, antiseptic smell.

He pressed me down onto a three-legged stool with the effortless pressure of two massive thumbs which were itching to inflict more intimate pain. To worry me he prodded at my stuff.

'This yours?' he demanded, fingering my Gallic Wars.

'I can read.'

'Where did you steal it?

'Auctioneer in the family. I get first pick of the secondhand stalls in Rome-'

I watched unhappily. The volume had seemed a real bargain, though I would have to sell it back to obtain the next scroll in the set. It had well-cut edges and cedar oil still protecting the paper, while one of the bosses on the roller retained traces of gilt. (The other boss was missing originally, but I carved a replacement myself.)

'Caesar!' Milo noted, with approval.

I felt lucky I was reading military history, not some soft subject like beekeeping. This oaf used his massive body for moral crusades. He had the cold stare of a brute who had convinced himself it was his private vocation to snuff out the lives of prostitutes and poets. Just the sort to idolise a dictator like Caesar – too stupid to see that Caesar was a proud snob with far too much money who would despise Milo even more than the Gauls (who at least had sensational rites of human sacrifice, druids, and Atlantic-going boats).

Milo set my Caesar down awkwardly, like a thug who had been house-trained not to damage expensive things – except perhaps when his master specifically told him to frighten some victim by smashing a priceless ceramic in front of his eyes.

'Spying pays!'

'I doubt it,' I told him patiently. 'It doesn't pay me. I'm not a spy; I'm a dispatch carrier. All I get is a sestertius a day and the chance to find out the hard way how the magistrates in Bruttium never repair their roads…'

Still mooning over Caesar, Milo turned away. I rescued my scroll, then winced as my oil flask cracked onto the floor when he tipped out my luggage from its two frugal mule panniers. He called himself a steward, but I would not have trusted him to fold a pile of tablecloths. Six snarled tunics, one distressed toga, two neck scarves, one hat, one sponge, one bathscraper and a box of writing stuff later, he found the knife I had worked into the wicker of one of the panniers.

He turned to me. Drawing my knife from its scabbard, he tickled my chin with it. I jerked uneasily as he yanked the thong round my neck so he could pull out my petty cash and travel pass. Then he had to put down the knife, to hold the pass with both his stubby paws while he slowly studied it.

'M. Didius Falco. Why have you come to Croton?'

'Message for Gordianus.'

‘What message?'

'A private one.'

‘Spit it out.'

'It's personal; from the Emperor.'

Milo grunted. In Croton this probably passed for an elegant expression of logical thought. Gordianus won't see a hick courier!'

'He will when he knows what I've brought him.'

Milo rounded on me again. It was like being menaced by an overplayful plough ox who had just noticed that a hornet had stung him five minutes ago. Patiently I lifted my gaze to a shelf where the landlord had left some extra fleas nesting in rolled-up counterpanes. The shelf was close to the ceiling, which stopped you banging your head but meant you could waste a lot of time on a freezing southern night trying to find spare bedding in the dark. Up there now stood a fine porphyry vase, over a foot high and topped by a prettily fluted lid which I had secured with a spider's web of twine; knowing what was inside, I did not want the contents leaking out among my underwear.

'Get it!' Milo said.

I straightened slowly, then reached above my head. I seized the two handles, steadying my grip. The vessel was expensive green stone from the Peloponnese, and solid stuff; its contents weighed next to nothing, though your shoulders know when they are supporting a porphyry vase overhead like an unstable male caryatid. The stone is almost impossible to work, but Vespasian had paid a great deal for this; it was a smoothly-sculpted masterpiece and if it slipped through my grasp it would make quite a dent in the floor.

'Look!' I grunted, still with my arms up, 'this is something personal for Curtius Gordianus. I don't recommend you to uncover what's inside-'

Milo had a simple approach when anybody told him not to do something; he did it.

'What have you brought him?' He lunged closer, intending to look.

'His brother,' I said.

Then I crashed down the funeral urn on Milo's head.