Shadows in Bronze

LXXXV

I walked straight to the Transtiberma and up to his room. I was completely unarmed. It was stupid. But all his personal property had gone; so had he.

Across the street the wineshop was doing a hectic trade, but with a stranger serving. I asked after Tullia and was brusquely informed: tomorrow; the waiter could hardly find time to account for her. Men were always calling for Tullia, I expect.

I left no message; no one would bother telling that busy young lady that yet another healthy male with a hopeful expression had been hanging round for her.

After that I spent a lot of time walking. Sometimes I was thinking; sometimes I just walked.

I crossed back to the city, pausing on the Aemilian Bridge. Downstream, the desultory river slapped past the triple peperino arch of the main exit from the Great Sewer. At some time in the past three months a bloated corpse, for which I had responsibility, must have swirled out down there, anonymous amidst the dark storm water that carried him away. And now… Did you know, only emperors and stillborn babies have the right to be buried in Rome? Not that it would have been relevant for our poor scrap of life. I had a wry idea what informal arrangements were made for the relics of early miscarriages. And perhaps if I had been a different man, with a less neutral view of the gods, I might have heard in the sound of the Tiber lapping past the Cloaca Maxima the crude, punishing laughter of the Fates.

Hours after I had left the Transtiberina I turned up at Maia's house. She took one look at me, then fed me, kept away the children, kept away Famia with his wine flask, and steered me to bed. I lay in the darkness, thinking again.

When I could bear no more, I let myself sleep.

Pertinax could be anywhere in Rome but the next day was Thursday, and Thursday marked his champion's run in the Circus Maximus; I knew where to find him then – somewhere among the two hundred thousand spectators who would be cheering Ferox on: Easy!

Famia, who liked to enjoy an occasion by making himself sick with excitement from the crack of dawn, tried to drag me out early, but if I spent all morning in the full glare of the stadium, I would be useless for anything. Once you have seen one opening procession winding into the arena, you can miss a few. What's another presiding magistrate with a smug expression leading the parade in his four-horse quadriga, when there are men to catch who murder priests, batter fathers of young families, and cut off the lives of unborn children before their parents have even had a chance to quarrel over what their names might be?

When I left my sister Maia's house, I took a detour by way of Galla's where luckily I found Larius.

'Excuse me, young sir, I want a hack artist!'

'Be quick then,' he grinned. 'We all have to go to the Circus to cheer a certain horse…'

'Spare me the honour! Look, do me a thumbnail sketch-'

'You modelling for a grotesque medallion on a Celtic drinking pot?'

'Not me.' I told him who. Then I told him why. Larius drew the portrait without another word.

The loss of the unborn is a private grief: To lighten the atmosphere I begged him not to waste his money gambling on my horse. 'Don't worry,' agreed Larius frankly. 'We'll cheer yours – but the cash is on Ferox today!'

I walked to the Capena Gate. No one in the Camillus family was receiving visitors. I sent in my respects, with the distinct feeling the door porter would not deliver them.

I noticed a flowershop, so purchased a huge bunch of roses at an equally imposing cost.

'They came from Paestum!' wheezed the florist, excusing it.

'They would do!' I cried.

I sent in the roses for Helena. I knew very well that she would rather have had a flower I grew on my balcony, since she was a sentimentalist, but her mother looked like a woman who would appreciate the cost of a grand bouquet.

Helena must have been awake now but I was still refused admission. I left, with nothing but the memory of her white face yesterday.

Since nobody loved me I went to the races.

I arrived at noon; the athletics were on. Filling the outer vaults was the usual scene of deplorable commerce, a strange contrast to the delicacy of the paintings and gilt decoration which adorned the stucco and the stonework under the arcades. In the cookshops and liquor stalls the hot pies were lukewarm and greasy, and the cool drinks came in very small containers at twice the price you would pay outside. The loose women were plying for hire noisily, vying with the bookies' touts for spectators who were still trickling in.

Only I could attempt to snare a villain in the largest stadium in Rome. I entered by one of the gates on the Aventine side. I had the president's box on my far left above the starting gates, the glittering imperial balcony immediately opposite me against Palatine Hill, then the apsidal end with the triumphal exit away to my right. The dazzle off the first two tiers of marble seats was sizzling hot by then, and even in the lull at lunch-time I was met by a wall of sound.

In the old days, when men and women sat higgledy- piggledy together and the Circus Maximus was the best place to find a new love affair, I would have stood no chance of finding anyone without his seat number. Even now that the Augustan regulation had segregated people respectably, the only rows I could eliminate for certain were those allocated to women, boys with their tutors, or the priestly colleges. It was a fair bet Pertinax would not risk taking his place on the lower podium, where fellow senators would recognize him. And knowing what a snob he was, he would avoid the top gallery, which was frequented by the lowest orders and slaves. Even so, the Circus filled the whole valley between the Cattle Market Forum and the old Capena Gate; it could seat a quarter of a million, not to mention the hordes of auxiliary workers busily toing and froing on legitimate tasks, the aediles looking for bad behaviour in the crowd, the pickpockets and pimps keeping an eye out for the aediles, the perfume-sellers and garland girls and wine toters and nut merchants.

I did start to work along one block, scanning the crowds as I fought round the gangway which divided the first and second of the three tiers of seats. Staring up sideways soon made me dizzy, and the massed faces merged into one indistinguishable blur.

This was no way to find a bug in a sack of barley. I nipped down the next stairway back into the arcades, then passed among the booths and the knots of prostitutes, showing everyone the little plaque Larius had drawn for me. When I reached the business end of the stadium I found Famia, who introduced various other people to whom I also exhibited my sketch of Pertinax.

After that the only decent thing was to make a show of inspecting my brother-in-law's efforts to turn out my racehorse handsomely.

With his tail tied high and his ragged mane plaited, Little Sweetheart looked as good as he ever would, though still a disaster. Famia had found him a saddlecloth, though he would have to manage without the gold fringes and pearl-encrusted breastbands his rivals were nicked out in. To Famia's disgust, I insisted that even though he was bound to lose sensationally, if this was the only time in my life I could field my own racehorse, I would run the Sweetheart for the Blues; Famia made a stink, but I was adamant.

Ferox looked a million in his glossy mulberry coat; you could shave in his flanks. He was attracting plentiful attention as he and the Sweetheart waited side by side in the Cattle Market Forum; the buzz among the bookmakers was scintillating. Ferox would be running in the colours of the Marcellus-Pertinax faction, the Whites.

I acted up as an owner for a while, allowing the punters to jibe at me for the faith they assumed I placed in my gangling scruff, then Famia and I went off for lunch.

'You betting, Falco?'

'Just a flutter.'

Famia would think it bad form for an owner to back another horse, so I did not tell him Larius was putting fifty gold sesterces on Ferox for me: all my spare cash.

When we came back to the Circus they had started the hone races, though from our place on the card we had another hour to wait. I went to check that the Sweetheart was keeping Ferox calm, in order to safeguard my wager. While I was petting Ferox, I noticed a small, nervous, stuffed-vineleaf vendor hopping about: clearly a man with a gastric disturbance – or something significant to say. He said it to Faulk, though they were looking at me. Money changed hands. The vineleaf tray skedaddled, then Famia came across.

'You owe me ten denarii.'

'See me tomorrow when I call in my bet.'

'Your man is in the second tier, on the Aventine side, near the judges' box; he's put himself level with the finishing line.

'How can I get near him unobtrusively?' Famia cackled that with my well-known ugly visage it would be impossible. But he was useful: five minutes later I had slipped through one of the dark stalls at the starting gate end, and squeezed myself through the double doors.

Noise, heat, smells and colour assaulted me. I was in the arena, right down on the track. I had a bucket and a shovel. I waited until the riders passed, then wandered out across the sand, making a desultory scoop at the ground as I crossed the diagonal starting line. I reached the central barrier, the spina, feeling that I stood out like a pimple on a barrister's nose – but Famia was right: nobody ever notices the slaves who sweep up dung.

They were running one of those show pieces where bareback riders stand astride two horses at once – dramatic, though comparatively slow. The trick is to have the horses well trained, and to keep a good rhythm; my brother could do it. (My brother was the flashy, athletic type with a streak of blatant stupidity; he tried anything that risked his neck.)

Standing up against the marble podium, the huge size of the Circus was breathtaking. The width across was half the length of a normal stadium, and from the white chalk of the starting line the far end seemed so distant I had to squint. Immediately above me as I ambled up the length of the spina, towered magnificent shrines and statues; Apollo, Cybele, Victory. For the first time I appreciated the workmanship on the great gilded bronze screen which stood between the senatorial seats and the arena itself. Beyond them yawned two tiers of marble terracing and a third tier of wood, then the closed-in upper gallery with standing room only. As I made a random pass with my bucket, I noticed how the sand had a glistening mica rim near the podium and the spina, when coloured chippings from past gaudy occasions had worked to the edges of the track. They never have awnings at the Circus; you could frizzle up an omelette on the sand. Everywhere had a constant odour of warm horseflesh above the lunchtime garlic and ladies' cologne.

The spina was ornamented with mosaics and gilt, against which I must have appeared a small, dark dot, like some tiresome, meandering bug. In the space of two races I shuffled up as far as the huge red granite Egyptian obelisk which Augustus had set in the very centre of the spina; then I edged on nearer to the finishing line and the judges' box. This was where the seats were always most warmly packed. At first the mass of faces melded into one great fudge of humanity, but as my confidence grew I began to see details: women shuffling their footstools and hoisting their stoles over one shoulder, men red-faced and bilious in the sun after lunch, soldiers in uniform, children squirming restlessly or fighting in the aisles.

There was a break between races, filled with tumblers and acrobats. Spectators moved about. I squatted against the podium, dry-eyed in the dust, while I began a methodical survey of the second tier. It took me twenty minutes to find him. As I did I thought he spotted me too, though he looked away. Once I pinpointed him, it seemed impossible that I could have missed his bad-tempered physiognomy before.

I sat still and went on searching. Sure enough, two rows lower down and ten places along I found Anacrites himself. Some of the time he was watching Pertinax, but mostly he stared round at the other seats. I knew who he was looking for! At the far end of the row where Pertinax was sitting and again higher up were two spies I recognised who formed a triangle with Anacrites, penning in the man I wanted and keeping him safe from me. None of them looked at the arena while I was crouching there.

I stood up. So did Pertinax. I started to cross the track towards the gilded screen. He moved along the row of seats. He had seen me. I knew it, and so did Anacrites, though he could not work out where I was. Stumbling over other people's feet, Pertinax reached a gangway. Even if I climbed over the screen, in among the indignant nobility on their marble thrones, he would be off down the stairs and out of the nearest vomitarium long before I got near. Meanwhile Anacrites suddenly shouted to one of the aediles' heavy squad and gestured unmistakably at me. I was not only losing Pertinax, but about to be arrested myself.

Then another shout aroused me, amid pounding hooves. I looked up into the huge grinning teeth of a beribboned black stallion bearing straight down on me. Trick saddle-men: this time two men in barbarian trousers, linking arms as they stood upright on a single horse. With a fiendish cry and a wild flash of eyeball one leaned out sideways as the other balanced him. They scooped me up like a disreputable trophy. We shed the second rider then careered on, with me as terrified ballast waving my dung shovel and trying to look as if this mad ride was the best fun I had ever had.

The crowd loved us. Anacrites hated it. Not being a fool who fancied himself as a horseman, so did I.

We swept right round the three conical goal posts and the altar of Cosmos at the end of the spina, dewing at a nerve-racking angle as we turned. Then we sped back along the whole length of the stadium on the far side. In a screech of polished hooves I was dropped at the starting gates. Famia dragged me in.

'Jupiter, Famia! Was that idiot a friend of yours?'

'I told him to look out for you – we're on soon!'

My brother-in-law seemed to be assuming I was interested in the progress of my own cockeyed horse.

We were next. There was a shift in the atmosphere; word had it this was a race to watch. Famia said big money was riding on Ferox. The champion did look special – that high-stepping gait, the powerful build, and the deep-purple sheen on his wonderful coat. He looked like a horse who knew this was his great day. As I watched Bryon mounting their jockey, he and I exchanged a good-mannered nod. It was then that I noticed someone, someone not studying Ferox but intently scanning the crowd which was inspecting him. Someone looking for Pertinax, without a doubt.

I muttered to Famia, 'Just seen a girl I know-'

Then I slipped through the crowd while my brother-in-law was still grumbling how he would have thought that on this one occasion I could leave the women be…