The Silver Pigs

XI

The Forum was cooler and quieter than when I was here with Sosia before, especially in the long colonnade where moneychangers offered safe deposits for nervous citizens. The Camillus family banked with a grinning Bithynian who had invested unhealthily in excess body fat. Sosia whispered a number to identify her property; happy face unlocked her box. It was a large box, although what was inside turned out to be comparatively small.

The box lid fell back. Sosia Camillina stood to one side. When Petro and I peered in, her savings were even less impressive than mine. Her uncle hired her this strongbox as a sensible discipline, but she owned no more than ten gold coins and a few decent pieces of jewellery that her aunt thought she was too young yet to wear. (It was a point of view. She was old enough for me.)

Our object of enquiry was folded up in felt and roped around with hemp. Since the banker was watching us with frank Bithynian curiosity, Petronius gave me a hand to drag it out unwrapped. It seemed impossibly heavy. It was lucky we had borrowed a handcart from my brother-in-law the plasterer, who was out of work as usual. (My brother-in-law was not out of work because all the walls in Rome were sound and smooth. It was because people in Rome would rather look at bare slats than employ a cross-eyed, bone idle swine like him.) We staggered off with our trolley creaking under the weight. Petro let me do most of the work.

"Don't hurt yourself!" Sosia had the grace to exclaim.

Petronius winked at her. "Not as puny as he looks. Does secret weight training in a gladiators' gym. Use your muscles, blossom"

"You must tell me some time," I gasped in retaliation, "why my sister Victorina calls you Primrose!"

He said nothing. But he blushed, I swear he did.

Fortunately Rome is a sophisticated city. Two men with a girl and a handcart can crawl into a wine shop without causing comment. We moved down a shady side street and plunged indoors. I bagged a table in a dark corner while Petro laid on some hot pies. It took both of us to raise the precious object up onto the table with a thud. Cautiously we peeled back the felt.

"Shades of Hades!" Petronius let out.

I could see why Uncle Decimus did not want this new baby announced in the Daily Gazette.

Sosia Camillina had no idea what it was.

Petro and I knew. Both of us felt slightly sick. Petro, with his iron stomach, nevertheless leaned back on his joint-stool and snapped his teeth into a vegetable pie. Rather than surrender to unhappy memories, I bit into one too. Mine was basically rabbit, with chicken livers and, I think, juniper not bad. There was a plate of pork tit bits we let Sosia chew on those.

That lonely hole of a customs post," Petro reminisced in horror. "Stuck on the Sabrina Estuary the wrong side of the frontier. Nothing to do but count the coracles floating in the mist, and keep one eye open in case the dark little men came over the river on a raid. Oh dear gods, Falco, remember the rain!"

I remembered the rain. The long, drear rain in southwest Britain is unforgettable.

"Falco, whatever is it?" Sosia hissed.

I said, relishing the drama, "Sosia Camillina, this is a silver Pig!"