Shadows in Bronze

XLII

The town of Herculaneum was very small, very sleepy, and if any interesting women lived there, they were hidden behind locked doors.

There was no rubbish in the streets. At Pompeii the town council had to provide stepping stones to help pedestrians cross the dubious substances which seeped and stagnated from their roads; the Herculaneum councillors believed in wider pavements – wide enough to hold a hot-piemen's convention, only it was a place which frowned on pies. And at Herculaneum rubbish never showed its face.

I hated Herculaneum. It had tasteful, well-scrubbed houses owned by people of little character who thought a lot of themselves. They lived in prim little streets. The men spent their days counting their money (of which they had plenty), while their good ladies were carried in closed litters from their own safe doorsteps into the homes of other respectable women, where they sat around plates of almond cakes and talked about nothing until it was time to go home again.

Unlike Pompeii, where we had to bawl to make ourselves heard, in Herculaneum you could stand in the Forum at the top of the town and still hear the seagulls at the port. If a child cried in Herculaneum its nursemaid dashed to gag it before it was sued for a breach of the peace. At Herculaneum the gladiators in the amphitheatre probably said 'I beg your pardon? each time their swords did anything so impolite as landing a nick.

Frankly, Herculaneum made me want to jump on a public fountain and shout a very rude word.

Pompeii had informed me he would use up most of my lead on the orders we had already obtained. (The news came earlier than I calculated, though I was not surprised; I expected the plumber to cheat me a little, according to the customs of his trade.) So this was my last chance. We were here, with Nero and one last cartload of samples, hoping to prise out further details of Aufidius Crispus' plans (or even, if my luck took a special turn, to discover where the elusive sardine had parked his pretty ship).

I had no intention of visiting the magistrate Helena Justina had mentioned. I was sharp; I was tough; I was good at my job. I did not need a self-appointed supervisor. I would find my information for myself.

While I nosed round Herculaneum looking for it, I admitted to Larius that we had reached the limit of the expenses Vespasian would want to pay.

‘Does that mean we have no money?'

'Yes; he's mean with failure.'

'Would he pay you more if you found something out?' 'If he thought it was worth it.'

Some people might panic; I felt shifty myself. But Larius uttered stoically, 'We'd better make sure we discover something quick!'

I liked my nephew's attitude. He saw life in simple terms. Once again I mused how his tenacious approach would make Galla's eldest an asset in my line of work. I mentioned it, as Nero approached Herculaneum's wide main street (it was called the DecuMomus Maximus, which is what every two-goose town in Italy calls its main street). Larius responded to my careers advice by telling me about a wall painter Ventriculus had introduced who was offering him summer employment sketching figures on a frieze.

I knew nothing about this; I was highly annoyed. I told my nephew what I thought of artists. His chin jutted, with the irritating tenacity I had previously admired.

This particular DecuMomus Maximus was the cleanest and quietest I ever saw. It was partly thanks to an immaculate vigilante who marched up and down there so respectable locals who needed to know if their dinner would be ready could ask him the time. His other method of serving the community was pointing out to layabouts like us that on the main boulevard at Herculaneum wheeled traffic was not allowed.

When he roared it out I had just noticed the bollards standing up like mileposts to block our way. We had been cruising towards the courthouse (I could see the sun glinting off a bronze charioteer outside this elegant basilica). There was an arch across the road ahead, which probably led to the forum, a row of shops alongside us, and a fountain which Nero was treating to a tentative sniff.

I hate disciplinarians. This one ordered us away from the DecuMomus with the good breeding I expect from a country official, which was none. For a bone bodkin I would have told him where to stuff his swagger stick, even if it meant we were run out of town… Larius caught my eye.

'Just tell him we're sorry and we'll go!'

I could not altogether blame the man for abusing us. My nephew and I had made the mistake of buying cheap holiday haircuts, with the usual preposterous results. We had gone to an open-air barber by the gladiators' barracks in Pompeii, who had taken three hours of sombre snipping to turn us out like murderers. Also, we were now eating pilchards wrapped in vine leaves, which no one from Herculaneum would Oran of doing in the street.

We turned downhill towards the port. There were side streets to either hand; Herculaneum was built on a pedantic Greek grid. To save me the trouble Nero chose a direction himself. It was a picturesque scene of overhangs and pilastered walkways; a basket-weaver dreaming on his stool, and an old woman who had been out for a lettuce who stood decrying modern society to another old baggage who had been out for a loaf. Into this maelstrom of the Herculaneum highlife our mad ox eagerly plunged.

The disaster happened quickly, as disasters love to do.

Nero swung off to the right. There was a packman's donkey tethered outside a dosshouse, a strong young male with sleek ears and a pert backside: Nero had spotted the grand passion of his life.

As he turned he rammed the cart hard against a pastry cook's portico. The weight of lead held us fast, so he broke free. The vibrations from his joyful bellow brought down four rows of roof tiles. Stoneware went flying under his hooves as he ditched us and skittered through some potter's produce with that special dainty, high-stepping tread of a bull on the loose, all set to swerve on the spot with a horn at the ready if approached. The parts of him that were supposed to be deactivated were swinging heavily, with perilous implications for the donkey.

Women burst onto first-floor balconies. In colonnades at street level little children squealed in terror then stopped, fascinated by the scene. I grabbed the rope we kept for winding round the ox's horns and bounded after him, reaching Nero just as he reared and dropped onto his new friend. Young Ned wheezed, and squealed rape. Some misguided cookshop boy caught hold of Nero's tail. Next minute all the breath was smashed out of me as a thousand pounds of copulating ox swung round to free his rear end and sideswiped me against the dosshouse wall.

The wall, which was made of cheap rubble in a wicker frame, sagged under me enough to prevent broken bones.

I rebounded out of the house wall in a shower of stucco and dust. By now Larius was darting about on the sidelines, squeaking useless advice. What I really needed was a harbour crane. I would have run away to hide, but one fifth of this maniacal bovine belonged to Petronius Longus, my best friend.

People were trying to rescue Neddy with anything to hand. Mostly they hit Larius and me by mistake. I walked face first into a hastily flung pail of water (or something), while my nephew took a nasty thwack from a marrow on the tender part of his neck. The donkey was trying to kick up his hind legs with some evidence of character, but once he got stuck underneath he could only brace himself for a painful surprise.

At Nero's moment of glory fortune rescued us. His victim's legs gave way (I had been frightened for his heart). Ass and ox collapsed to the ground. Ned scrambled up trembling, with a wild look in his eye. I swiftly lassooed Nero round a back leg, Larius sat on his head, and our big boy wrestled savagely beneath us – then quite suddenly gave in.

We should have been the heroes. I did expect a tussle over compensation for damaged shop fronts, and perhaps a claim under some lesser-known branch of the Augustan marriage laws, for permitting a draught animal to spike a donkey adulterously. What happened was much more interesting. The vigilante from the DecuMomus Maximus had noticed us shouting at our ox with an Emperor's name. We assured him he had misheard. We called Nero ‘Spot'; the fool ignored us. We called Nero ‘Nero' and he ignored it too, but apparently that didn't count.

Larius and I were both arrested. For blasphemy.