Shadows in Bronze

XXIII

Late June: everyone who could manage it had left Rome. Some visited their country villas. Most of those who chose the seaside must have arrived two days before us. The crowds gave my predicament more urgency; I wanted to be safely behind doors.

At least I knew where I stood: Barnabas was still skulking about in that horrid viridian cloak. He was here in Campania – and now he was looking for me.

There were plenty of towns and villages around the Bay but we ruled out some, and the rest rejected us. Neapolis itself, with its fine summer palaces, seemed too pretentious to afford, while Puteoli, which had been the main landfall for Rome until the development of Ostia thirty years before, remained a noisy commercial port. Misenum was lousy with officials, being home to the fleet. Baiae, the fashionable watering hole, was commoner but full of dirty lodgings which refused to welcome children. Surrentum straddled a marvellous ravine which had to be reached by sea or miles of winding road; if a demented assassin was pursuing me, Surrentum could form a dangerous trap. Pompeii was too brash, Herculaneum too prim, and the thermal spa at Stabiae chockablock with wheezing old gentlemen and their snooty wives. There were villages on the slopes of Vesuvius, but the children had been promised the sea.

'If one more bare-arsed Campanian landlord shakes his head at our kittens and chamber pots,' Petronius confided in a dangerous undertone, 'I reckon I'll lose my temper unpleasantly!'

'How about Oplontis? ' I suggested, trying to assume an air of casual innocence.

Oplontis was a small fishing hamlet in the centre of the Bay where the pervading scent of grilled mullet spoke well of the amenities. It boasted an immensely elegant villa complex, heavily boarded up. The smugglers were drinking peacefully and the beach boys pretending to mend their nets while they stared at us. This looked suitable. It looked cheap. It looked small enough to be safe; if an armed troop clattered in from Herculaneum, a curious crowd would flock out from every cottage on the beach. Oplontis (as it happened) was where I wanted to be.

We found a gap-toothed old biddy in black who hired us two scrappy rooms on the first floor of a faded hostelry. I noticed Petronius working out how if anybody sinister entered the front courtyard we could evacuate his family through the stable at the rear.

No one else was staying there; we could see why.

'We can manage for a night,' Petro tried to convince himself. 'Then find somewhere better for tomorrow -' He knew once we settled in we would be fixed for our whole stay.

'We ought to have stopped in Baiae!' Silvia complained. Even when the rest of their tour party are tired as dogs, other peoples' wives can always find the energy to whine. Larius kept sniffing; he had noticed an intriguing smell. Seaweed, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

'Oh Larius, put a peg on your nose!' I snapped. 'Wait until you sample the public latrines in Stabiae and Pompeian drains!'

There was a courtyard with a well and a thin vine struggling on a pergola. Larius and I had a wash and sat on a bench while Silvia organized the beds. It was obvious she wanted to quarrel with Petro. One of our rooms had a window covered by a hide, allowing Larius and I to overhear the family violence; the phrase 'Nothing but trouble!' cropped up several times: that was me.

Petro's pretty little turtle dove informed him that at first light next morning they would take their children home. His reply was too quiet to catch. When Petro swore he was astonishingly vulgar, but in a savage undertone.

Eventually things grew less intense; then Petro came down. He dashed a bucket of water over his head, hesitated, then joined us on the bench; his need for solitude was evident.

He produced a smokey-green glazed flagon, gulping straight from it like a traveller who had driven further than he intended, and put up with a lot of abuse.

'How's the billet?' I ventured, though I guessed. 'Ropey. Four beds and a bucket.'

'Is Silvia upset?'

'It'll blow over.' A faint, tired smile touched Petro's lips. 'We've put the children and Ollia in one room; you two will have to be with us.'

Sleeping our large party on the cheap posed tactical problems: worst for Silvia and him. I offered to take Larius out for an hour, Petro merely grunted irritably.

He pulled again from his flask, which he did not offer round. Being clean again in a quiet place (with a drink) soon mellowed him sufficiently to go onto the attack: 'You ought to have warned me, Falco!'

'Look, I'll find a different dosshouse-'

'No. If some mob-handed bully boy is chasing you, I want you in sight!'

I sighed, but said nothing because his wife came down.

Silvia seemed quieter now. She took a spiteful pride in remaining efficient whatever the crisis, so had carried down a tray of cups. Larius got hold of the flask; I left it alone. I was looking forward to sampling the famous wines of Surrentum and Vesuvius, though certainly not tonight.

'Falco, you ought to have warned us!' Ant Silvia accused me bitterly, as if she really thought Petronius would have omitted saying it.

I sighed. 'Silvia, I have work to do. I'd like to stay unobtrusive in a family group. As soon as I can meet the man I need to interview, I'll be off. Petronius is not involved-'

Silvia snorted. Her voice grew more tense. 'Oh! I know you two! You'll leave me alone with all the children in this terrible village while you do what you like. I won't know where you are, or what you're doing, or what any of it is about. Who,' she demanded, 'were those men this afternoon?' Silvia had an accurate grasp of whatever her male companions were trying to conceal.

I must have been weary. I was beginning to feel I could no longer cope; a typical holiday mood.

'The one in green must be a freedman with a grudge called Barnabas. Don't ask me who loaned him the cavalry… Someone told me he was dead-'

'Ghost, is he?' Petronius rasped.

'Matter of time!' Petro gave me his sardonic smile; I decided to concentrate on Silvia. I poured her a drink; she had a prissy way of sipping wine that made my teeth grate. 'Look, you know I work for Vespasian. A certain group have hung back from welcoming him to the purple; I'm persuading them that that is a bad idea-'

'Persuading?' Silvia interrogated.

'Apparently,' I said drily, 'the new diplomacy consists of reasoned argument – backed up by hefty bribes.'

I was too tired to argue and far too much in awe of her. Silvia reminded me briefly of Helena at her worst, but a tussle over nothing with her ladyship had always given me the mental satisfaction some men find in playing draughts.

'Earned any real cash from Vespasian yet?' Petronius niggled. My reply would have been ill-natured but we were supposed to be here to enjoy ourselves, so I held back. In a scruffy lodging house beside the Bay of Naples you get no thanks for restraint.

'I want to know what you are doing here?' Silvia broke in.

'My fugitive is on a boat that was spotted in this neighbourhood-'

'Spotted where?' she insisted.

'Oplontis actually.'

'So,' Silvia deduced inexorably, 'our staying at this disgusting village is no coincidence!' I tried to look suave. 'What will you do when you find the boat, Falco?'

'Row out to speak to him-'

'You don't want my husband for that.'

'No,' I said, cursing inwardly. I can row. But I had envisaged Petronius doing the hard work while I jumped off at landing stages and steered. 'Unless,' I started with a cautious glance, 'you can spare him to come to Pompeii to help me unload a cargo of ingots I'll be using for my disguise?'

'No, Falco!' Silvia raged.

Petronius made no attempt to speak. I avoided his eye.

Arria Silvia shot me a look that was as poisonous as aconite. 'Oh, what's the point asking me? You'll both do as you like!'

It seemed a smart idea to take Larius upstairs to inspect the accommodation and unpack.

This did not delay us long. We found our rooms up a dark corridor. We were hiring two stuffy cubicles with crumbling wattle walls. The beds had uneven softwood slats where they had lost their suspension ropes. Larius and I bent up our pallet to look for bugs but there was nowhere a bug who liked his comforts could make a nest, just a coarse cover, waxy with ancient dirt, which held together a few matted lumps of straw that would poke into our backs like mountain rock.

I changed my boots for sandals and headed downstairs, intending to suggest that we left Ollia with the children while the rest of us went out to eat. Larius was fiddling secretively in a satchel; I told him to follow me. At ground level I stopped, waiting to bawl up at him when the absentminded sparrow forgot to come.

Across the courtyard Petronius Longus sat where we had left him, with his head back against the pergola, his long legs stretched out, and a pain-free expression as he absorbed the evening peace. He hated quarrels, yet could let them slide over him. Now he had finished driving he was, despite everything, starting to enjoy himself. His familiar brown hair looked more ruffled than usual. His wine cup lolled at an angle; it was obviously empty, its weight in his hand merely comforting. His other arm was crooked casually round his wife.

After five years suffering the hazards of marriage these two managed in private with less fuss than their public mask implied. Arria Silvia had edged in beside Petronius. She was weeping, reduced to a disappointed young woman who felt exhausted beyond her strength. Petro was letting her snuffle on his great shoulder while he went on dreaming to himself.

Just when I had impressed myself with this clever dissertation on marriage, Silvia dried her eyes. I watched Petro rally his attention and wind her in closer. I had known him for years, and had seen him kiss more women than his wife would want to hear about; I could see the old reprobate was taking much more trouble now than a mere peck to keep the peace. Afterwards he said something to her, very quietly, and she answered him. Then they both got up and walked out towards the road with their arms round each other and their heads close.

I felt an internal wrench that had nothing to do with lack of food. Larius appeared. I told him I had changed my mind about dinner, then dragged him back indoors.

One aspect of my nephew's difficult phase, I noticed, was that wherever anyone took him the young curmudgeon looked as if he wished he had stayed at home.