Shadows in Bronze

XXIX

Every householder knows the hazard; a man and a boy at the door selling something you don't want. Unless you feel strong, these whey-faced inadequates land you with anything from false horoscopes or wobbly iron saucepans to a second-hand chariot with mock-silver wheel finials and a very small Medusa stencilled on the side, which you subsequently discover used to be painted crimson and had to have its bodywork remodelled after being battered to all Hades in a crash…

Larius and I became a man and a boy. Our load of black-market fitments gave us carts blanche to enter private estates. No one sent for the vigilantes. We shuffled round the coast, taking Nero up clinkered carriage-drives and sometimes back down them again five minutes afterwards; surprisingly often though, our visits took longer and our list of orders was longer when we left. Plenty of fine villas around the Bay of Neapolis now have British water pipes, and most did not acquire the goods as official ex-government stock. Several people took advantage of our cheap rates to renew their entire supplies.

I was not surprised; we had come knocking at the Corinthian portals of the rich. Their great-great-grandfathers may have filled the family coffers through honest toil in their olive groves or awards for political service (foreign booty, I mean), but subsequent generations kept themselves in credit by haggling for bargains kept under the counter after being smuggled into Italy without paying harbour-dues. They were matched in iniquity by their household stewards. These snooty rascals were getting new pipework for the price of cobnuts (and then creaming off a premium from their masters' accounts), but they still tried to slip us old iron rivets and funny Macedonian small change when they paid.

After a few days completely tongue-tied, Larius found his voice and worked up a sales pattern that sounded as though he had been born in a basket under a market stall; what was more, I could trust him with the arithmetic. Soon we were quite enjoying selling pipes. The weather stayed wonderful, Nero was behaving, and we sometimes managed to arrive at a friendly kitchen door just as they were serving lunch.

Information seemed harder to come by than corn-meal cakes. We had called at almost every maritime villa between Baiae and Stabiae. Even the friendly ones denied knowledge of Crispus and his boat. I had wasted hours allowing arthritic door porters to reminisce about marching through Pannonia with some low-grade legion led by a syphilitic legate who was later cashiered. Meanwhile Larius was sauntering along piers to look for the Isis and grinned; any day now some lad with a fishing line would suspect him of immoral overtures and push him in the drink.

Against such a negative background, huckstering lead began to pall. This was the dreary side of being an informer asking routine questions which never produced results; weasing myself out while I strongly suspected I had missed the real point. My work dragged. Because of it I could never relax and enjoy my friends' companionship. My stomach felt queasy. All the mosquitoes in the Phlegraean marshes had discovered my presence and homed in for their seasonal treat. I missed Rome. I wanted a new woman, but although there were plenty available I never liked any I saw.

I was trying to keep cheerful in front of Larius, though his basic good nature was coming under strain. One day it rained as well. Even when the skies cleared, dampness seemed to hang around our clothes. Nero became bad- tempered; controlling him was such hard work we soon let him amble aimlessly.

In this way we found ourselves on yet another dusty Campanian road that led between lush vineyards and vegetable allotments. Healthy cabbages stood to attention in little hollows dug round them to conserve the dew. Distant labourers poked at the black soil with long-handled hoes. Nearby there was a trellised arch marking the entrance to an estate, with a flurry of brown hens around its feet, and an extremely pretty country maiden climbing out over a field gate in a way that showed us most of her legs and a lot of what went on higher up.

Nero had stopped to talk to the chickens while Larius gawked at the girl. She smiled at him as she approached.

'Time we made a call,' Larius decided, with a deadpan face. The lassie was too short, too young and too rosy for my taste, but a heart-stopper otherwise.

'That's your assessment is it, tribune?'

'Absolutely, legate!' Larius exclaimed. The girl passed us; she seemed used to being sized up admiringly by racketeers in carts.

'If she goes in,' I decided quietly. She went in.

Larius told me to amble on ahead; his intestines were suffering the twitchiness that makes being away from home such a joy. I set off to soften up his ladyfriend while he got himself fit. As I passed under the entrance arch the pallid sun ran behind another ominous cloud.

Something told me hobblehoys hawking clothes pegs probably gave this establishment a miss. It was a run-down, beaten-up tip, full of dirt and disease, seeming to consist of out-buildings that had been knocked together from broken doors and planks; as I strolled in among them I was met by a whiff of goats' pee and cabbage-leaves. From all quarters came a drone of fat, warm flies. The hen coops looked dilapidated, and the byres a foot deep in mud. Three stove-in beehives leaned against a wattle screen; no neat, clean bee would zoom in here.

The girl had disappeared. Beyond the initial squalor some absentee landlord's tumbledown farmhouse, which he probably bought as an investment and had never even seen, was gradually dying from lack of management.

I never made it to the house. Common sense overruled: there was a horrendous dog with a matted tail, who was chained to a rocky post and raising havoc. The studs on his collar were as big as Indian emeralds. The links of his twelve-foot-long chain must have weighed two pounds apiece, but Fido was tossing the metalwork around as lightly as a banquet wreath of rosebuds while he raced from side to side, evidently thinking his next banquet might be me. In response to the racket, round a corner loomed a black-chinned lout with a cudgel. He went straight towards the dog, who redoubled his efforts to tear at my throat.

Without waiting to be told that the mutt was only being friendly I turned round, plucked my boot out of a cowpat, and set off back to the road. The man left his dog, but thundered after me. He was gaining fast as I burst out through the arch, bawling for Larius, and saw he had already turned Nero round for a quick getaway. I fell aboard. Nero mooed anxiously and set off. Larius, who had stationed himself in the back of the cart, was swinging an off cut from a quinaria wildly from side to side. The farmer could easily have grabbed the lead pipe's end and grounded Larius, but he soon gave up.

'Bit of luck!' I grinned, when my sister's pride and joy climbed over to join me on the front.

'It had struck me she might have a husband,' Larius answered demurely, getting his breath.

'No chance to ask… Sorry!'

'That's all right. I was thinking of you.'

'Nice lad, my nephew!' I commented to the countryside at large. (Though barley-fed pullets with red cheeks and straws in their hair had never been my type.) I lapsed into sadness, recalling women who were.

Larius sighed. 'Uncle Marcus, the omens seem hostile; shall we give up for today?'

I considered this option, glancing round to get my bearings. 'Damn Crispus! Let's drive up the mountain, find a cheery Vesuvian vintner, and get ourselves roaring drunk!'

I turned Nero off the coast road and up towards the mountain above Pompeii. According to what Petronius had told us, unless we found a winery first we would be driving past the farmland owned by Caprenius Marcellus, that rich old consul who once made the mistake of adopting Atius Pertinax.

It was about midday, but I think I had already realized the Villa Marcella was not a place where Larius and I would be offered a free lunch.