Shadows in Bronze

LXV

'You might have warned me!'

'You were asking for all you got!'

'He seemed such a gentleman – he caught me by surprise…'

Helena giggled. She was heckling me through the window of her sedan chair while I walked alongside grumbling. 'Drinking wine with him, snuggling on one seat with your tunic up over your knees and that doe-eyed, vulnerable look-'

'I resent that,' I said. 'A citizen ought to be able to drink where he likes without it being interpreted as an open invitation to advances from men he hardly knows and doesn't like-'

'You were drunk.'

'Irrelevant. Anyway I was not! Lucky you came to see Fausta-'

'Luck,' rapped back Helena, 'had nothing to do with it! You were away so long I started worrying. I passed Fausta actually, going the other way. Were you glad I came?' she suddenly smiled.

I stopped the chair, brought her out, then made the bearers walk ahead while we followed in the twilight and I demonstrated whether I was glad.

'Marcus, why do you think Fausta was heading for Oplontis? She had discovered that a certain someone will be at Poppaea's villa again, treating the commander of the fleet to dinner again.'

'Crispus?' I groaned, and reapplied myself to other things. 'What's so special about the Misenum prefect?' wondered Helena, unimpressed by the distractions I was offering.

'No idea.'

'Marcus, I shall lose my ear-ring; let me take it off.' 'Take off anything you want,' I agreed. Then I found myself being drawn into considering her question. The damned Misenum fleet commander had adroitly intruded himself between me and romantic mood.

Ignoring the British squadron, which is almost beneath the notice of anybody civilized, the Roman Navy orders itself in the only way possible for a long narrow state: one fleet based over at Ravenna to guard the eastern seaboard, and another at Misenum in the west.

Answers to several questions were suggesting themselves now. 'Tell me,' I broached thoughtfully to Helena. 'Apart from Titus and the legions, what was the key feature of Vespasian's campaign to become Emperor? What was worst in Rome?'

Helena shuddered. 'Everything! Soldiers in the streets, murders in the Forum, fires, fever, famine-'

'Famine,' I said. 'In a senator's house I suppose you managed as normal, but in our family no one could get bread '

'The corn!' she responded. 'It was critical. Egypt supplies the whole city. Vespasian had the support of the Prefect of Egypt, so he sat all winter in Alexandria, letting Rome know that he controlled the grain ships and without his good will, they might not come.

'Now suppose you were a senator with extraordinary political ambitions, but your only supporters were in deadbeat provinces like Noricum-'

'Noricum!' she chortled.

'Exactly. No hope there. Meanwhile the Prefect of Egypt still strongly supports Vespasian, so the supply is assured – but suppose this year, when the corn ships hail in sight of the Puteoli peninsula-'

'The fleet stops them!' Helena was horrified. 'Marcus, we must stop the fleet!' (I had a curious vision of Helena Justina sailing out from Neapolis like a goddess on a ship's prow, holding up her arm to stop a convoy in full sail.) She reconsidered. 'Are you really serious?'

'I think so. And we're not talking about a couple of sacks on the back of a donkey, you know.'

'How much?' demanded Helena pedantically.

'Well, some wheat is imported from Sardinia and Sicily; I'm not sure of the exact proportions, but a clerk in the office of the Prefect of Supply once told me the amount needed annually to feed Rome effectively is fifteen billion bushels -'

The Senator's daughter permitted herself the liberty of whistling through her teeth.

I grinned at her. 'The next question is, whether Pertinax or Crispus is now the prime mover of this abominable plan?'

'Oh that's answered!' Helena assured me in her swift, conclusive way. 'It's Crispus who is entertaining the fleet.'

'True. I reckon they were in it together, but now Pertinax has taken to assaulting all and sundry, Crispus views him as a liability… The corn ships leave for Egypt in April -' I mused… Nones of April – Galatea and Venus of Paphor, four days before the Ides, Flora; two days before May, Bulimia, Concordia, Partheuope, and The Graces… 'It takes three weeks to get there and as much as two months to sail back again against the wind. The first ones home this year must be overdue -'

'That's a problem!' Helena muttered. 'If this fiasco takes to the water, you'll be stuck!' I thanked her for the confidence, and quickened my step. 'Marcus, how do you think they are planning to proceed?'

'Hold up the ships when they arrive here, then threaten to sail them off to some secret location? If I was doing it, I'd wait until the Senate sent some stiff-necked praetor to negotiate, then start emptying the sacks overboard. The vision of the Bay of Neapolis being turned into one vast porridge bowl would probably produce the sight effect.'

'On the whole,' said Helena with feeling, 'I'm glad it's not you doing it! Who asked you to investigate the corn imports?' she asked me in a curious tone.

'No one. It was something that I stumbled on myself.' For some reason Helena Justina hugged me and laughed. 'What's that for?'

'Oh, I like to think I've cast my future into the hands of a man who is good at his work!'