The Iron Hand of Mars

XXI

Next day I pondered fitfully on the brain-teasers Vespasian had commissioned me to pursue. It was hard to raise any enthusiasm for this crazy selection, so I looked instead into the one problem where no one had asked me to interfere: I went to see the missing lepte's wife. As I crossed to the XIV's side of the fort, I must say I felt fairly confident that the eminent Florius Gracilis would turn out not to be missing at all.

The legate's house was everything you would expect. Given that Julius Caesar, even when campaigning in hostile territory with all his resources stretched to the limit, carted panels of floor mosaic to lay in his tent in order to demonstrate Roman splendour to the tribes, there was no chance that a full-scale diplomatic residence inside a permanent fort would lack any convenience. It was as large as possible, and decorated in spectacular materials. Why not? Each succeeding occupant, his noble wife full of design ideas, would call for improvements. Every three years the house would be stripped out and refurbished to a different taste. And every extravagance they ordered came at State expense.

The residence was based around a series of courtyard gardens with long pools and exquisite fountains that filled the air with a fine, luxurious mist. In summer there must have been strident flowers; in October the impeccable topiary assumed a lonelier grandeur. But there were peacocks. There were turtles. In the morning, when I turned up with my hopeful grin, leaf-sweepers and twig-pruners were crawling over the scenery like aphids. Real aphids stood no chance. Neither did I, probably.

Indoors was a parade of frescoed reception rooms. The brilliant-white stuccoed ceilings were astounding. The floors comprised geometric mosaics with fascinating three- dimensional effects. The lamps were gilded (and screwed to the walls). The urns were immense (too heavy to run off with). Discreet wardens patrolled the colonnades, or were stationed unobtrusively among the Hellenic statuary. The salon furniture would have made my auctioneer father gnaw his nails and ask for a quiet word behind a pillar with the household steward.

The steward knew his stuff. Florius Gracilis had long ago made a smooth transition from the casual bachelor disorder in which Camillus Justinus lived to a world of constant public entertainment on the grandest scale. His residence was organised by troops of purposeful flunkeys, many of whom would have been with him for nearly two decades of hectic senatorial social life. Since high officials travel out to their provinces all expenses paid, the legate had not only brought his tortoiseshell bedheads and gold Cupid lampstands, but while he was packing he also made space for the wife. But I knew even before I met her that adding a young bride to this slick regime had almost certainly been superfluous.

My research in Rome had told me Gracilis was the normal age for a legionary commander. He was in his late thirties – still free of arthritis, but mature enough to strut impressively in the circular purple cloak. His wife was twenty years younger. In patrician circles they tend to marry. schoolgirls. When alliances are being made for blunt political reasons there is a premium on the untouched and biddable. Not for men of this status the haphazard attractions that mess up life for the rest of us. Florius Gracilis had first married in his twenties, when he was aiming for the Senate. He had shed the woman as soon as it seemed convenient, then equipped himself adroitly with a new wife – this time from an even older, even richer family – about eighteen months ago. That must have been when he started looking for his legionary command and wanted to appear a man of public probity.

Maenia Priscilla interviewed me in a gold and black salon, the kind of highly lacquered room that always makes me notice where a flea bit me the previous day. Half a dozen maids escorted her, broad-browed, slightly hirsute wenches who looked as though they had been bought at the slave market as a matched set. They seemed remote from their mistress, sitting quietly in two groups and getting on with rather dull embroidery.

Priscilla ignored them. She was small. A sweeter nature might have given her a dainty air. Time and money had been spent on her, though without disguising her inbuilt surliness. She favoured a languid, catlike expression, which grew harder when she forgot to cultivate it. She was probably the daughter of some offhand praetor who only perked up when his female offspring were old enough for flashy dynastic marriages. Now she was married to Gracilis. Not much fun either, probably.

She took several minutes settling herself in a shimmer of violet flounces. She wore pearl ear-drops, amethyst-studded bracelets and at least three plaited gold necklaces, though more may have lurked in the lustrous folds that swathed her. This was her Thursday-morning set, completed by the usual battery of finger-rings. Somewhere among the tinsel was a half-inch wedding band; it failed to make its presence felt.

Didius Falco, madam.'

'Oh really?' Sustaining a conversation was just too wearisome. My mother would have put this limp little creature on a red meat diet and had her digging turnips for a week.

'I am an imperial representative.' Interviewing an imperial envoy ought to have brightened her morning. Indeed, life in the most dangerous part of the Empire would have fascinated some girls, but I could tell Maenia Priscilla's interests rarely stretched to current affairs. A bird who had managed to avoid learning. She despised the arts. I could not envisage her busy with charitable works. Altogether, as the partner of one of the Empire's most prominently placed diplomats, she failed to impress.

'How nice for you!' No wonder the Empire had been creaking at its seams lately. I refused to react, but it was ill-judged and inexcusable. The girl possessed a mixture of schoolgirl arrogance and ignorance that was likely to cause trouble. If Gracilis didn't watch her, I gave him six months before there was a scandal with a centurion or an incident in a barrack block that had people being sent home hurriedly.

'Excuse me for invading your privacy. I need to see your husband, but he was not at the Principia – '

'He's not here either!' This time she spoke out quickly, with the triumphant edge some people use instead of wit. Her brown eyes gave me the once-over, which was fair enough since I had done the same to her. Yet she was seeing nothing, trying only to insult me.

I twitched up an eyebrow. 'You must be very concerned. Does Gracilis make a habit of vanishing?'

'The legate's habits are his own affair.'

'Not quite, madam.'

Annoyance yanked her mouth into an uglier twist. Men in shapeless sorrel-coloured tunics with woolly linings in their battered boots did not usually answer her back. (I would have liked to be kilted out more excitingly, but my banker had counselled against overstretching my budget that year. Bankers are so predictable. My budget, toe.)

'Your ladyship, there seems to be a problem here! A man of your husband's standing ought not to become invisible. It worries the lower orders. In fact, the Emperor might consider it politically inept… If Gracilis is dodging his creditors -' I had been joking, but she let out a bitter laugh. A wild guess had struck lucky. 'Oh, is that it?'

'Possibly.'

'Can you give me a list of his debts?'

She shrugged. Gracilis had probably brought her to Germany to avoid the risk that back in Rome she might suborn his numerous stewards into letting her spend cash. Men like that keep their wives securely cut off from the household abacus. I prodded, but she seemed genuinely uninformed. I was not surprised.

'So you cannot tell me where to start looking? You have no idea where your husband may be?'

'Oh I know that!' she exclaimed archly. I bit back my irritation.

'Madam, this is important. I have a message from Vespasian for Florius Gracilis. When the Emperor sends despatches, he expects me to deliver them. Will you say where your husband is?'

'With his mistress, presumably.' She was so vapid, she did not even watch me to see the effect it had.

'Look,' I said, still trying to keep my temper, 'your domestic life is private, but however modern your views on marriage, I assume you and Gracilis follow some rules. The conventions are clear enough.' I stated them anyway: 'He fritters away your dowry; you eat into his inheritance. He can beat you; you can slander him. He supplies you with moral guidance and an extravagant dress allowance; you, madam, at all times protect his reputation in public life. Now try to grasp this: if I don't find him quickly, there is going to be a scandal. Whatever else, he will want you to avoid that!'

She jumped up in a jangle of atonal jewellery. 'How dare you!'

'How dares a public man have the front to disappear right under the nose of the provincial governor?'

'I couldn't care less!' cried Maenia Priscilla with her first real sign of liveliness. 'Get out of here, and don't come back again!'

She swept from the room. A gust of unlikeable balsamic perfume swirled round after her. She bounced off so angrily that an ivory hairpin shot itself from the torsion of a castellated braid in her elaborate hair, and landed at my feet.

I picked it up, then silently handed the missile to one of the waiting-women. The maids looked resigned, then gathered their trappings and followed her out.

I was not alarmed. Somewhere in the residence there would be a wizened accountant who would take a more realistic attitude to my enquiry than the petulant wife had. He was bound to know exactly which creditors he was fobbing off on a daily basis, and if I took an interest in his work, he would probably tell me.

As for the name of the legate's mistress, that would be common coin anywhere in the barracks.