Shadows in Bronze

LXXXI

At night the wineshop had a packed, rancid atmosphere. Its customers were paviours and stokers, muscular men in their working tunics who had big thirsts and shed their sweat readily once they sat still. I moved in among them extremely politely, edging my way past brawny backs to the counter. I ordered a flagon from the ugly old madam, and said I would wait outside. As I guessed, it was the daughter who came out with it.

'What's a pretty girl like you doing in this shack?'

Tullia gave me the smile she kept for strangers as she organized the jug and beaker from her tray. I had forgotten how attractive this wineshop barmaid was. Her huge dark eyes looked at me sideways, assessing whether I might be susceptible, while I seriously wondered too. But tonight I stayed cold, with a lean core of sadness: the sort of sinister fish flirty girls who know their business always avoid.

Tullia knew; as she flounced off I grasped her dainty wrist.

'Don't go; stay here with me!' She laughed, with practised artistry, trying to buff me off: 'Sit down, sweetheart.' She peered at me closer to see how drunk I was, then recognized I was manic sober.

'Hello, Tullia!' Alarmed, her eyes went to the curtained doorway for help. 'I've lost something, Tullia; has anybody handed in a large green cameo ring?' She remembered why she knew me. She remembered I might not be in a healthy mood. 'The name's Falco,' I reminded her softly. 'I want to talk. If you call out your big friends, you will find yourself over the river, having this chat with the Praetorian Guards instead. I have the advantage that I quite like pretty girls. The Praetorians are famous for not liking anyone.'

Tullia sat down. I grinned at her. She was not reassured.

'What do you want, Falco?'

'Same as the last time. I'm looking for Barnabas.'

Someone looked out of the doorway. I reached for an empty cup from another table and with a comfortable expansiveness poured Tullia a drink. The head disappeared.

‘He's away,' Tullia tried, her tone too guarded for it to be the truth.

'That's interesting. I knew he went to Croton and Cape Colonna -' I could tell these place names were new to her. 'Then he picked up the same sunny glow as me in Campania. I noticed the tan when he went out just now, but I'm not keen on talking to him in the presence of a group of Palace spies.'

The fact that ‘Barnabas' was in trouble did not surprise the barmaid in the least. That his trouble involved the Palace frightened her.

'You're lying, Falco!'

'Why should I? Better warn him, if he's a friend of yours.' She looked shifty. I weighed in at once. 'Are you and Barnabas keeping company?'

'Perhaps!' she said defiantly.

'Regular?'

'Maybe.'

'More fool you!'

'What does that mean, Falco?' From the narrow way Tullia asked this I could see I had caught her interest.

'I hate to see a beautiful woman throw herself away! What has he promised you?' She said nothing. 'I can guess! You go along with it? No. You look as if you've learned by now not to trust anything you hear from men.'

'I don't trust you either, Falco!'

'I knew you were intelligent.'

With a shimmer of cheap ear-rings Tullia fetched a light from the other table so she could watch me more closely. She was a tall girl, with a figure which in a better mood would be a pleasure to watch.

'He's not serious,' I warned.

'He offered to marry me!'

I whistled. 'He's got taste! So why the doubts?'

'I think he has another woman,' Tullia announced, leaning on her pretty elbows and fixing me.

I thought about his other woman in an offhand way. 'Could be. There was someone in Campania he was hanging round.' I fought to keep my face neutral. 'I suppose if you asked him he would only deny it – unless you had some evidence… Why don't you do some detective work? Now he's out,' I suggested, 'you could investigate his room. I dare say you know how to get in?'

Naturally Tullia knew.

We crossed the street together and climbed sordid stairs which hung together merely by a lath or two. As we went up my nostrils clenched against the stench of a huge unemptied nightsoil vat in the well of the building. Somewhere a heartbroken baby wailed. The door to the Pertinax apartment had shrunk in the summer heat so it hung aslant on its hinges and needed to be lifted bodily.

The room was bare of character, partly because unlike his Campanian hayloft no one had filled this with artefacts for him, and partly because he had no personality anyway. There was a bed with one faded coverlet, a stool, a small cane table, a broken coffer – all stuff that came with the room. Pertinax had added only the normal filthy plate he lived with when there was nobody to wait on him, a pile of empty amphorae, another pile of laundry, a pair of extremely expensive boots with the mud of that farm on Vesuvius still unscraped on their toestraps, and some open baggage packs. He was living out of his luggage, probably from idleness.

In my helpful way I offered to look round. Tullia hovered in the doorway, keeping a nervous eye out for movements below.

I found two interesting items.

The first was lying on the table with the ink barely dry – documents drawn up that evening by the scribe I had seen with Pertinax. I replaced the parchment wretchedly. Then, because I was a professional I continued to search. All the usual hiding places appeared to be empty: nothing under the mattress or the floor's uneven planking, nothing buried in the dry soil of the flowerless window box.

But deep in the empty coffer my hand found something Pertinax must have forgotten. I nearly missed it myself, but I was bending low, taking my time. I brought out a huge iron key.

'What's that?' whispered Tullia.

'Not certain. But I can find out.' I straightened up. ‘I'll take this. Now we'd better go.'

Tullia blocked my path. 'Not until you tell me what that writing is.'

Tullia could not read; but she had realized from my grim face that it was significant.

'It's two copies of a document, as yet unsigned -' I told her what they were. She went pale, then she reddened with anger.

‘Who for? Barnabas?'

'That is not the name the scribe has written. But you're right; it's for Barnabas. I'm sorry, sweetheart.'

The barmaid's chin lifted angrily. 'And who is the woman?' I told her that too. 'The one from Campania? 'Yes, Tullia. I'm afraid so.'

What we had found was a set of marriage certificates, prepared for Gnaeus Atius Pertinax and Helena Justina, the daughter of Camillus Verus.

Well a girl does need a husband, as the lady said.