Two For The Lions

Cyrenaïca: April A. D. 74

Forty

CYRENAÏCA.

To be precise, the harbor at Berenice. Hercules had made his landing at the ancient seaport of Euesperides, but that had silted up since mythical times. At Berenice, however, there was still an otherwordly atmosphere: the first thing we saw was a man slowly walking along the foreshore taking a single sheep for a walk.

"Goodness!" I exclaimed to Helena, as we sneaked a second glance to be sure. "Is he exceptionally kind to animals, or just fattening it up for a festival?"

"Perhaps it's his lover," she suggested.

"Very Greek!"

Berenice was one of the five significant cities: where Tripolitania had its eponymous Three, Cyrenaïca boasted a Pentapolis. Greeks do like to be part of a League.

Bonded with Crete for administrative purposes, this was a lousily Hellenistic province, and that was already apparent. Instead of a forum they had an agora, always a bad start. As we stood on the wharf, listlessly looking up at the town walls and the lighthouse on its little knoll, taking a holiday somewhere that looked so fixedly towards the East suddenly seemed a bad idea.

"It's traditional to feel depressed when you arrive at a holiday destination," said Helena. "You'll calm down."

"It's also traditional that your qualms will be proved right."

"So why did you come?"

"I was sick of Rome."

"Well, now you're just seasick."

All the same, as Nux chased around our feet desperately counting us all like a sheepdog, we were at heart an optimistic party. We had left home, hard work, letdowns-and most happily of all for me, we had left Anacrites. With the spring sun warming our faces and the low hiss of a blue sea behind us, now that our feet were on firm dry land, we expected to relax.

Our party consisted of Helena and me, together with the baby-a factor which had caused ructions back at home. My mother was convinced that little Julia would be captured by Carthaginians and made a victim of child sacrifice. Luckily we had my nephew Gaius to guard her; Gaius had been forbidden to come by his own parents (my feeble sister Galla and her appalling absentee husband Lollius), so he ran away from home and followed us. I had dropped a few hints about where we would be lodging at Ostia, to help him catch up safely.

We also had with us my brother-in-law Famia. Normally I would have run the lengths of several stadia wearing full army kit before agreeing to share weeks at sea with him, but if all worked out, it was Famia who would be paying for our transport home: somehow he had persuaded the Greens that since their chariot horses had been performing so abysmally, it was in their interests to send him out here to buy fine new Libyan stock direct from the stud farms. Well, the Greens certainly needed to beef up their teams, as I kept pointedly reminding him.

For the voyage out we had acquired paying-passenger places on a ship bound for Apollonia. This enabled Famia to economize, or to put it another way, he was defrauding his faction of the full ship-hire costs for the journey out. They had told him to select a decent Italian vessel at Ostia for a two-way trip. Instead, he was just going to pick up a one-way packet home. Maia's husband was not essentially dishonest-but Maia had made sure he had no spending money, and he needed it for drink. She herself had declined to accompany us. My mother had told me on the sly that Maia was worn out by trying to hold the family together and had had enough. Taking her husband out of the country was the best service I could offer my sister.

It quickly became obvious that the whole reason for this trip as far as Famia was concerned was getting away from his worried wife so he could booze himself senseless at every opportunity. Well, every holiday party has one tiresome bore; it gives everyone else somebody to avoid.

Landing at this harbor was more in hope than earnest. We were trying to catch up with Camillus Justinus and Claudia Rufina. There had been a vague arrangement that we might be coming out to see them. Extremely vague. Back in the winter when I let Helena first mention the possibility in a letter to them at Carthage, I had been assuming my work for the Censors would prevent me indulging in this treat. Now we were here-but we had no real idea where along the north shore of this huge continent the two fugitives might have ended up.

The last we had heard from them was two months earlier, saying that they were intending to set off from Oea for Cyrenaïca and would be heading here first, because Claudia wanted to see the fabled Gardens of the Hesperides. Very romantic. Various letters which Helena was bringing them from their abandoned relations were likely to shake the dim-witted elopers out of that. The rich seemed to lose their tempers with their heirs in a formidable style. I did not blame Justinus and Claudia for lying low.

Since I was the informer, whenever we arrived at a strange town that might be unfriendly, it fell to me to scout it out. I was used to being pelted with eggs.

I enquired at the local temple. Rather to my surprise, Helena 's brother had actually left a message that he had been here, and that he had gone on to Tocra; his note was dated about a month ago. His military efficiency did not quite dispel my fears that we were about to start on a pointless chase all around the Pentapolis. Once they left Berenice, our chances of making a connection with the flitting pair became much more slim. I foresaw handing over frequent emoluments to temple priests.

Our ship was still in harbor. The master had very generously put in here specially to allow us to make enquiries, and after he took on water and supplies he reloaded all our gear while we rounded up Famia (who was already trying to find a cheap drinking house), then we reboarded.

The vessel was virtually empty. In fact the whole situation was curious. Most ships carry cargos in both directions for economic reasons, so whatever this one was supposed to be fetching from Cyrenaïca must be extremely lucrative if there was no need to trade both ways.

The ship's owner had been on board from Rome. He was a large, curly-haired, black-skinned man, well dressed and of handsome bearing. If he could speak Latin or even Greek he never obliged us with so much as a good morning; when he conversed with the crew it was in an exotic tongue which Helena eventually guessed must be Punic. He kept himself to himself. Neither the captain nor his crew seemed disposed to discuss the owner or his business. That suited us. The man had done us a favor taking us on board at reasonable rates, and even before the kindness of putting in at Berenice we had no wish to cause ructions.

Basically that meant one thing: we had to conceal from Famia that our host was even slightly tinged with a Carthaginian flavor. Romans are in general tolerant of other races-but some harbor one deeply embedded prejudice and it goes back to Hannibal. Famia had the poison in a double dose. There was no reason for it; his family were Aventine lowlifes who had never been in the army or come within smelling range of elephants, but Famia was convinced all Carthaginians were gloomy child-eating monsters whose one aim in life was still the destruction of Rome itself, Roman trade, and all Romans, including Famia. My inebriated brother-in-law was likely to be racially abusive at the top of his voice if anything obviously Punic crossed his wavering path.

Well, keeping him away from our ship's owner took my mind off my seasickness.

Tocra was about forty Roman miles further east. By this time I was beginning to regret not taking the advice my father had boomed at me: to travel on a fast transport right out to Egypt, maybe on one of the giant corn vessels, then to work back from Alexandria. Pottering east in little stages was becoming a trial. In fact I decided the whole trip was pointless.

"No, it's not. Even if we never manage to find my brother and Claudia, it's served a purpose," Helena tried to comfort me. "Everyone at home will be grateful we tried. Anyway, we are supposed to be enjoying ourselves."

I pointed out that nothing which involved me and the ocean would ever be real enjoyment.

"You'll be on land soon. Quintus and Claudia probably do need us to find them; their money must be running out. But so long as they are happy, I don't think it matters if we can't bring them home."

"What does matter is that your father has contributed to our trip-and if he loses his son, his other son's betrothed bride, and then what it costs to fund us on an abortive mission, my name will be so black in the household of the illustrious Camilli at the Capena Gate, that even I won't ever be going home again."

"Maybe Quintas will have found the silphium."

"That's a charming thought."

At Tocra the sea became much rougher; I decided that whether or not we encountered the fugitives, it was as far as I could bring myself to sail. This time when we disembarked, we said good-bye. The silent owner of the ship surprised us by coming to shake hands.

Tocra nestled between the sea and the mountains, where the coastal plain narrowed significantly so the inland escarpment-previously out of sight-appeared distantly as rolling hills. The city was not only Greek, but huge and hideously prosperous. Its urban elite lived in palatial peristyle homes built of a very soft local limestone, which quickly weathered in the brisk sea breeze. The lively wind whipped the white horses on the bay; it tossed the flowers and the fig trees behind the high walls of the gardens and caused sheep and goats to bleat in alarm.

Once again there was a message. This time it led us to the bad end of town, for even flourishing Greek-founded seaports have their low dives for visiting sailors and the slappers who attend them. In a seedy back room in a raucous area, we discovered Claudia Rufina, all alone.

"I stayed behind in case you came."

Since we had never said definitely that we were coming, that did seem odd.

Claudia was a tall girl in her early twenties, looking much slimmer and even more solemn than I remembered; she had acquired a rather vivid suntan which would have been out of place in good society. She greeted us quietly, seeming sad and introspective. When we knew her in her home province of Baetica and in Rome she had been a walking fortune, well dressed, manicured, always expensively coiffured, and wearing ranks of bangles and necklaces. Now she was robed in a simple brown tunic and stole, with her hair loosely tied at the nape of her neck. There was little of either the nervous, rather humorless creature who had come to Rome to marry Aelianus, or the minx who had quickly discovered how to giggle with his more outgoing younger brother, then kicked up her heels and ran off on an adventure. That now seemed to have paled.

Without comment, we paid off her shabby landlady and took the girl to the better premises where we ourselves were lodged. Claudia grabbed Julia Junilla from my nephew Gaius and absorbed herself in the baby. Gaius gave me a disgusted look, and stalked out with the dog. I shouted out for him to look for Famia, whom we had lost again.

"So where is Quintus?" Helena asked Claudia curiously.

"He has gone on to Ptolemaïs, continuing his search."

"No luck so far?" I grinned.

"No," said Claudia, returning not the slightest flicker of a smile.

Helena exchanged a discreet glance with me, then took the girl off to the local baths lugging large quantities of scented oil and hairwash, in the hope that pampering would restore Claudia's spirits. Hours later they were back, reeking of balsam but no further forward. Claudia remained tortuously polite, refusing to unbend and spill gossip.

We passed her the letters we had brought from the Camilli and from her own grandparents in Spain. She took the scrolls to read in private. On her reappearance she did ask, in a rather strained voice, "And how is Camillus Aelianus?"

"How do you think he is?" Respect for a bride who bunked off a week before her formal engagement was not my style. "It's polite of you to ask, but he lost his betrothed-very suddenly. At first he thought you had been kidnapped by a mass murderer, so that was a bad shock. More importantly, he lost your winsome fortune, lass. He's not a happy boy. He has been viciously rude to me, though Helena still thinks I should be kind to him."

"And what do you think, Marcus Didius?"

"As is my wont, I accept all blame with a tolerant smile."

"I must have misheard that," murmured Helena.

"I did not mean him to be hurt," said Claudia wanly.

"No? Just humiliated, maybe?" If I sounded angry it was probably because I found myself defending Aelianus, whom I disliked. "Since he's not getting respectably married, he stood down from the Senate elections this year. Now he's twelve months behind his contemporaries. Every time his career comes under scrutiny in future, he'll have to explain that. He will have cause to remember you, Claudia."

Helena gave the girl a shrewd stare. "I doubt if that marriage would have worked. Don't blame yourself, Claudia," she said. Predictably, Claudia herself did not react.

For a moment I wondered whether we could return Claudia to her snooty betrothed in Rome, and pretend the adventure with Justinus had never occurred. No. I could not be that cruel to either of them. If she now married Aelianus he would never forget what she had done. The public scandal might die down, but he was the type to harbor a deep grudge. Every time they wanted to quarrel he would be burning to drag up the past, while the normal self-righteousness that helps a woman survive being married to a bastard would be lost to Claudia. She had crossed the bridge into enemy territory, and cut off her own retreat. Now the barbarians were just waiting to descend on her.

We changed the subject and made plans for traveling to Ptolemaïs, to join Justinus. There was no way I would take ship again unnecessarily. It was only about twenty-five more miles along the coast, so I hired a couple of carts. Claudia had made some feeble suggestion about going by sea but I cut her short. "If we start really early and push ourselves, we might force it in a day," I assured her. "All it needs is luck and military discipline." She still looked miserable. "Trust me," I cried. The poor girl clearly needed somebody to invest her with spirit. "All your cares are over, Claudia: I'm in charge now."

Then I thought I heard Claudia Rufina mutter to herself, "Oh Juno-another one!"

Forty-one

THINGS WERE GETTING worse. Ptolemaïs was even breezier and even more Greek. Whereas Tocra just butted out into the Mediterranean, Ptolemaïs actually had the sea lapping on two sides. Although its harbor was more sheltered, furious waves coursed at an angle in the open water, while flying sand stung us as we hacked into town from the west. Our journey had taken us two days, even though I had pressed on as hard as possible. The coast road was dismal. We found no way station, and were forced to sleep rough overnight. I noticed that Claudia hunched her shoulders and said nothing, as though she had experienced this before.

By now the rolling green and brown hillocks of the jebel came down almost to the city. Squeezed between the sea and the mountains, this was an offshoot of Cyrene, still further east. There were historic connections with the Egyptian Ptolemies (hence the name) and the neighborhood was still used as a cattle-ranching area, fattening flocks for rich Egyptians who lacked pastures of their own.

It was a dry old place to have chosen to build; an aqueduct brought in a vital water supply, which was stored in huge cisterns under the forum. Yet again the meticulous Justinus had left word, so once we had struggled into the city center, and found the right temple, and dug out the underpriest who was in charge of messages from foreigners, it only took us another hour or so to persuade the disinterested Greek-speaking burghers to give us directions to where he was staying. Needless to say, this was not among the well-appointed homes of the local wool and honey magnates, but in a district that smelled of fish-pickle, where the alleys were so narrow the tormenting wind whistled through your teeth as you battled around every corner. Also needless to say, even when we found his billet, Justinus was out.

We left a note ourselves, then waited for the hero to come to us. To cheer us up, I spent more of Helena 's father's money on a slap-up fish supper. It was eaten in a subdued mood by tired, dispirited people. I had now acquired the traditional party-leader's role of irritating everyone and pleasing none, whatever I tried to organize.

"So, Claudia, did you ever see the gorgeous Gardens of the Hesperides?"

"No," said Claudia.

Helena attempted to take a hand. "Why; what went wrong?"

"We couldn't find them."

"I thought they were near Berenice?"

"Apparently."

Claudia's permanent pose of neutrality had slipped for a moment, and we could hear honest rancor growling through. Helena openly tackled the girl: "You seem rather low. Is anything wrong?"

"Not at all," said Claudia, putting down the uneaten half of her grilled red mullet for my dog, Nux. Dear gods, I do hate mimsy girls who pick at their food-especially when I have paid through the nose for it. I was never partial to women who seem unable to enjoy themselves; what was more, to have caused a scandal and then to be so unhappy about it seemed an atrocious waste.

Well, we only had to stick it out in snobbish Ptolemaïs for ten days before a message came from Justinus to Claudia saying he was now living in Cyrene, so there was yet another haughty Greek city waiting to despise us if we cared to trek that way.

This time it did seem as if it might just be worth bothering to pack up and transfer ourselves: Famia became very excited because he thought Cyrene was a good source of horses, Helena and I wanted to see the runaways together so we could try to work out what had gone wrong with them, and besides, Justinus' note had a coded tailpiece which we deciphered as, "I may have found what I was looking for!"

We had a satirical discussion about whether he had become so intellectual that he meant the secrets of the universe, but-not knowing that I had already arrived in the province-he had also instructed Claudia, "Send for Falco urgently!" Since everyone else agreed my presence was hardly necessary at a philosophical symposium, they reckoned I was needed to formally identify a sprig of silphium.

Forty-two

MEETING CAMILLUS JUSTINUS came as a huge relief. He at least looked the same as always: a tall, spare figure with neat, short hair, dark eyes, and a striking grin. He managed to combine an apparently unassuming air with a hint of inner strength. I knew he was confident, a linguist, a man-manager, courageous and inventive in crises. At twenty-two he should have been setting out on adult responsibilities in Rome: marriage, children, consolidating the patrician career that had once looked so promising. Instead, here he was at the back of beyond on a mad mission, his hopes dashed by snaring his brother's wench, offending his family, her family, and the Emperor-and all, we were beginning to suspect, for nothing.

The depth of Claudia's unhappiness became most fully apparent once we saw them together. Helena and I had taken a small house at Apollonia down on the coast. When the fabled Justinus eventually joined us, his greeting for his sister and me was far more joyous than the restrained smile with which he favored Claudia.

Before we arrived they had been alone together for four months; inevitably they shared a visible domestic routine, enough to have fooled some people. She knew his favorite foods; he teased her; they often muttered together in a private undertone. There was no resistance when Helena put them sharing a bedroom-yet when she poked her head around the door nosily she came back to whisper that they had made up two different beds. They seemed just about friends-but by no means in love.

Claudia remained expressionless. She ate with us, went to the baths, came to the theater, played with the baby, all as if she lived in a world of her own. She made no complaint, but she was holding her tongue in a way that condemned all of us.

I took Justinus aside. "Do I gather you have made a terrible blunder? If so, we can face it, and deal with it, Quintus. In fact, we must do so-"

He looked at me as if what I said was hard to understand. Then he said curtly that he would prefer other people not to interfere in his life. Helena had been receiving much the same reaction when she tried to probe Claudia.

We cracked it almost by accident. Famia, who was still loosely attached to us, had gone into the interior hunting for horses as he was supposed to, so that had relieved us of one strain. He could drink as he pleased so long as there was no direct pressure on me to keep him sober for the sake of my sister and her young family.

I was starting to understand what life back at home must be like for Maia: Famia preferring to be almost always absent, and tiresome when he did appear; Famia constantly raiding the household budget for wine money; Famia proclaiming loud social jollity at unsuitable moments; Famia forcing other people either to share in his relentless habit, or else making them seem tight-arsed if they tried to save him from himself. Maia would be much better off without him- but he was the father of her children, and really too far gone to abandon.

My nephew Gaius had disappeared for a walk on his own. He had always been a free spirit, and although being part of a group like this generally did him good, he scowled with hostility if he was too closely supervised. Helena thought he needed mothering; Gaius was a tyke who had decided otherwise. I preferred not to tether him too tightly. We were settled in Apollonia; he knew his way around and he would come home when he was ready. He had left Julia with us. The baby was happily playing with a stool she had learned to push around the floor, crashing it into the other furniture.

At last, in private, it seemed an occasion to talk about silphium. The prospects of a fortune were vast if Justinus really had rediscovered the plant, and we brought the subject up indirectly, a delicate acknowledgment of the enormous dreams that might be about to be realized for all of us. As usual in families, being indirect only led to a row about something quite different.

Helena and I, Claudia and Justinus, had been partaking of a fairly basic lunch. Somehow the conversation touched on our first landing at Berenice, and although Helena and I carefully avoided any mention of Claudia's thwarted yearning to visit the Gardens of the Hesperides, in discussing our own sea trip a question was asked about how the other pair had endured their sailing from Oea. That was when Justinus came out with his astonishing remark: "Oh we didn't sail; we came by land."

It took a moment to sink in. His sister must have been harboring suspicions already; while I wiped chickpeas off my chin with a napkin, Helena addressed the issue rather tersely: "You don't mean all the way?"

"Oh yes." He pretended to be surprised that she had asked.

I glanced at his fellow traveler. Claudia Rufina was pulling grapes individually from a bunch; she ate each one very carefully, then removed the pips from between her front teeth with exquisite good manners, laying them around the rim of a plate in a neat order, equally spaced. She might have been fortune-telling lovers-only her lover was supposed to be the young man sitting here.

"Tell us about it," I suggested.

Justinus had the grace to grin. "We had run out of money, for one thing, Marcus Didius." I shrugged, accepting his slight rebuke that I could have been more generous with financial help. Like a true patrician, he had no real idea how tight my budget was. "It was my idea-I wanted to emulate Cato."

"Cato?" enquired Helena, in a frosty tone. I wondered if this was the Cato who always came home from the Senate in time to see his baby bathed. Or perhaps it was the baby, when grown up. At any rate, my darling had stopped approving of him as a model.

"You know-in the wars between Caesar and Pompey he brought his army all around the Bay of Sirtes and surprised the enemy." Justinus was showing off his education; I refused to be impressed. Education is not as good as common sense.

"Amazing," I said. "They must have been flabbergasted when he first appeared. It's desert all the way, I believe-and am I right, there is no proper road along most of the coast?"

"Afraid not!" conceded Justinus, impossibly cheerful. "It took Cato thirty days on foot-we had a couple of donkeys, but we needed longer. It was quite a trip."

"I should think so."

"Obviously there is a coastal track that the locals use-and we knew it must go all the way, because Cato had marched through successfully. I thought it would be a grand adventure for us to do the same. Well, in the opposite direction of course."

"Of course."

"It must have been hard?" suggested Helena, dangerously quietly.

"Not easy," her younger brother confessed. "It took absolute dedication and army-style methods." Well, he had those. Claudia was a delicately reared young lady from a pampered home. Basic training for an heiress consists only of assaults on Greek novels and a grueling small-talk course. Still fired with enthusiasm, Justinus carried on, "It was five hundred miles of utterly tedious, seemingly endless desert-all dead flat, for week after week."

"Places to stay?" I asked neutrally.

"Not always. We always had to carry water for several days; sometimes there were cisterns or wells, but we could never be sure in advance. We often camped out. The small settlements were a long way apart."

"Bandits?"

"We were not sure. They never attacked us."

"What a relief."

"Yes. We just had to flog on, expecting the worst. Nothing but a distant glimpse of the blue ribbon of the sea on the left-hand side, and the horizon on the right. Bare dry sand, with tufts of scrub. After Marcomades, the land started to roll a bit, but the desert still went on forever. Sometimes the road meandered inland a little way, but I knew that so long as we sometimes caught a glimmer of the sea on our left, we were still going in the right direction… We saw a salt flat once."

"That must have been very exciting!" Helena said crisply. Claudia ate another grape, with no shadow of a smile. The salt flat must be a hideous memory, but she was blotting out the pain. "I am trying to imagine," said Helena to her brother, "what a catastrophe this must have been for Claudia. Expecting only a shipboard romance and starlit happiness. Finding herself instead cast into an endless desert, in fear of her life. A thousand miles from a hairdresser, and in entirely the wrong shoes!"

A brief silence fell. Helena and I were stunned by what the crazy lad had revealed. Perhaps Justinus finally sensed a critical atmosphere. He polished his plate with a piece of bread.

"How long did it take you?" I ventured, still in a neutral tone.

He cleared his throat. "Over two months!"

"And Claudia Rufina endured all this with you, Quintus?"

"Claudia has been very intrepid."

Claudia said nothing.

He was off again: "As you travel east, there tend to be a few date palms. Eventually there are flocks-goats, sheep, occasionally cows, horses, or camels, then towards Berenice, the terrain starts rolling. I'll never forget the experience. The sea and the sky, the way the desert changes color to a harsher gray as dusk starts falling-"

Very poetic. Claudia still looked ominously unmoved. The dead weight of her silence spoke of utter misery. I could work out just how much Justinus was omitting of discomfort, thirst, heat, the threat of marauders, the dread of the unknown. Not to mention their personal relationship rapidly falling apart.

"We did it, that's the main thing." For him, that was clearly true. For Claudia, her life must have been blighted forever. "As I said, we could not afford a ship. Had I not driven us on relentlessly, we would be out there still somewhere-probably dead."

Claudia Rufina stood up suddenly and left the room; in fact, she left the house. We heard the door slam. Upstairs a shutter rattled so hard its catch fell off. Justinus winced, but did not move; I suppose he had already heard plenty from her about how she felt. Unwilling to let a young woman of my party wander a strange city alone in distress, I hauled myself to my feet and followed the girl.

I left Helena Justina starting to explain to her once favorite brother how most people would regard him as guilty of outright cruel stupidity, not to mention unspeakable selfishness.

Forty-three

THE CITY OF Apollonia lies at the far edge of a flat plateau which runs out to the sea below an upland where the more refined foundation of Cyrene queens it over the whole area. Down on the red-sanded, rock-strewn, fertile plain, the seaport has a location of great beauty, even though it lacks the panoramic views which Cyrene enjoys from the heights above.

Apollonia is a long habitation, fronting the beach so closely that in really rough weather floods crash into the glamorous temples near the water's edge. The handsome peristyle houses of the Hellenistic traders and landowners are for the most part more judiciously set back. Yet even the most gracious of these habitations nestle close to the inner and outer harbors. Those embrace a rich variety of shipping which throngs the slipways at all times of the year. Trade is the life of Apollonia. Trade has for centuries made it one of the most prosperous ports, sited within striking distance of Crete, Greece, Egypt, and the East-yet as good a jumping off point for Carthage, Rome, and all the eager markets at the west end of the Mediterranean. Even without silphium, the stink of money vies with the salt tang off the sea.

That bright afternoon, Claudia Rufina had walked rapidly past the well-spaced sunlit mansions; they looked grand enough to be civic palaces, though since Cyrenaïca is administered from Crete they were in fact huge, ostentatiously lavish private homes. As usual at the habitations of the vulgarly rich, there was little sign of life. An occasional bodyguard polished the brightwork on a parked chariot, looking bored, or a neat maid walked out silently on some routine errand. Of the wealthy owners we saw nothing; they were collapsed in stodgy siestas, or might even be living elsewhere.

Eventually, at the eastern extremity, past the outer harbor and beyond the town itself, Claudia emerged on a switchback track which obviously led somewhere, so she kept going. I was a short distance behind her; she would have spotted me if she had looked back, though she never did.

It was hot and peaceful, a tranquil stroll through coastal scenery. Even in her girlish sandals Claudia kept up a cracking pace, despite the increasingly rough and informal track. The terrain climbed slightly. She breasted one ridge at the edge of town only to see another rise in the ground just ahead. Wrapping her stole around her more closely, Claudia strode directly to the further ridge, then abruptly disappeared. Nervous, I speeded up. A startled plover rose almost under my boot and headed inland.

The air was clear as I sprang up the slope. To my left, the sea was stunningly blue, with a series of small islands or rocky outcrops near the shore. Breakers thundered in a cute cove, way below. A steep drop had opened before me. I stopped short; I caught my breath.

Cut into the encircling cliff that had once formed a secluded little beach was the most perfectly sited amphitheater. It was in a sad condition, crying out for restoration by some high-minded public benefactor. The approach from the city had brought us out right at the top, with immediate access to the upper rows of seats. While I stood aloft like a statue on the roof of a temple, Claudia had climbed down several of the precarious terraces, where she was now seated with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, sobbing hysterically.

I let her get her troubles out of her system for a while. I had to think out what to do. She had been treated appallingly by her crass young lover, and must be ready to throw herself at any sympathetic older man who offered her support. The situation could be dangerous.

I stood still, with the wind dragging my hair and my feet planted apart for balance. From up here the oceanic horizon seemed to stretch in a semicircle. The beauty and isolation of the setting caught the heartstrings. If your life was good, then standing here, drenched in sunlight and exhilarated from the long walk over rocky ground, could make you glow with contentment. But if your soul already grieved for some desperate reason, the melancholy tug of sea and sky would be unbearable. For the sunken, shuddering girl below, sitting all on her own where there ought to be a noisy, sun-bleached audience, this heart-stopping theater provided a desolate scene in which to dwell upon all she had thrown away.

Once she seemed quieter, I climbed down to her. I made enough noise to warn her that I was coming, then I sat alongside on the steep stone blocks. I felt the trapped heat strike up warm through the cloth of my tunic; the edge of the stonework scratched against the back of my thighs. Claudia must have blown her nose and wiped her eyes, though her face was still wet as she stared out over the stage below us to where the breakers were pounding hard on the pale sand of the cove. She came from Corduba, which has a rather marshy river but is well inland; perhaps for her the call of the sea here would be stirringly exotic.

"The noise of the waves must be quite a challenge for performers." I chose a neutral remark on purpose. I wished Helena was here to do this for me.

I struck a casual pose, with my arms folded and one boot stuck out. I sighed thoughtfully. Claudia remained expressionless. Soothing young women when they are suffering can be hard work. I too stared out at the horizon. "Cheer up; things can only improve."

I sensed that further tears were streaming down Claudia's face, as she ignored my advice.

"However bad it looks to you at the moment, you haven't ruined your life. Nobody suggests going back to Aelianus-but you can face it out and marry someone else, in Rome or Baetica. What do your grandparents suggest?" Primed before I left Rome, I knew they had written to her that they forgave her. (This took the most practical form-permission to draw on their bankers for funds.) She was all they had-always a good position to hold on the board game of life. "You're an heiress, Claudia. You can afford to make more mistakes than most people. Some men will admire your initiative." Or her full coffers, anyway.

Claudia still made no response. When I was younger she would have been a challenge, but now I liked my women to have character. It was more fun if they answered back.

"You know, you really must talk to Quintus. Helena and I had a terrible quarrel once. Part of it was that she thought what I had done to make her angry ought to be obvious. I just believed she had given up and dumped me… I mean, if it's Quintus you want, Claudia, I'm sure that can be sorted out."

At last she did turn and look at me.

I carried on bravely. "He doesn't know. He really does not understand how horrible your journey was for you. He thinks it is sufficient that you shared an exciting experience and both survived it-"

"He knows how I feel," Claudia said abruptly, as if defending him. Her tone was too dry, however. "We had a long talk about that." Her very restraint told me how angry the argument must have been.

"The trouble with Quintus," I offered cautiously, "is that he may not feel too sure yet what he wants from life-"

"Oh he told me what he wants!" scoffed Claudia. Her gray eyes blazed as she announced crossly, "According to him, this is the tale: when he was with you in the forests of Germania Libera, Marcus Didius, he had an encounter with a beautiful and mysterious rebel prophetess, whom he was forced to leave behind but who will haunt him all his life."

I myself had spent a great deal of effort concealing that story in his interests once we returned to Rome. Trust bloody Justinus to tell the one person to whom he should never have confessed.

Claudia stood up. Now she sounded even angrier than I expected: "It's nonsense, of course. Who did he really have an affair with? I hope it wasn't a tavern trollop; he may have caught a disease. Was it some married tribune's wife?"

Everyone in Rome reckoned that Justinus had had a romance with an actress after he came home; apparently Claudia had not heard that one. I cleared my throat nervously. I thought it best to maintain that her beloved had never sought to confide in me.

"Can I help make this easier for you, Claudia?"

"Not really. Thank you for your advice," she said coldly. Then she turned and climbed back up the steep rows of seats on her way home, still furious, still heartbroken, yet disconcertingly self-assured.

Done it again, Falco. While I had been so busy worrying about comforting the distraught girl, she had simply felt patronized. She did not welcome my well-meant intrusion. She was utterly straightforward, and thought she could manage everything herself.

I knew Helena well enough; I should have expected this: some sad women don't fall into your open arms, they punch you in the eye. I was lucky Claudia Rufina was too shy to kick me as she went past.

After a few moments of grinning ruefully to myself, I went down to shore level, exploring the theater. I found Gaius and Nux sunbathing on the beach. I joined them and we relaxed; we threw pebbles and picked seaweed to pieces for a while, then we lads peed against the back of the stage to mark our territory, and since we hadn't eaten for a couple of hours we all strolled home.

Helena Justina had obviously had a blazing row with her brother, who had gone out in a huff. Helena herself was tight-lipped and silent, sitting outside in the shade nursing the baby with her back to the house; she was performing a nice impersonation of someone wanting to be left alone, so naturally I went up behind her and made my presence felt. Being rebuffed by one female never put me off trying the next one I met. Helena at least allowed me to embrace her, whether she wanted it or not.

Famia had come in and collapsed; he was now snoring loudly. Claudia had returned and set herself to prepare dinner for everyone else with a martyred air, as if she were the only sensible person in our group.

It was perhaps true, though if she stuck with it, her future would be lonely, hardworking, and glum. There was a spark to her sometimes that I knew made Helena think the girl deserved more. Part of the spark, the only hope of redeeming her, was that Claudia did want better for herself.

The upshot was that even when Justinus returned home that night, we deferred our discussion of silphium. But the next day when the atmosphere had quieted down, he told me that he had found what he believed was a plant of it, growing in an isolated spot many miles away. To visit it, we would be obliged to leave the women, since it could only be reached on horseback. That suited him, of course. And I won my permit to travel from Helena because she thought that spending time alone with Justinus would give me a chance to sort out his love life.

I didn't exactly see how that would work. In my opinion, sorting out a fellow's love life requires at least one woman to be present. Still, I was a perfectionist.

Forty-four

IT WAS A fine day towards the end of April when Justinus and I approached the scene of his possible find. We were on horseback, a fact I was seriously regretting, for after four days of hard riding we must have traveled nearly a hundred Roman miles. It might have been more appropriate to calculate the distance in Greek parasangs since we were in Cyrenaïca, but why bother; it would not have saved my sore backside.

He had brought me over the hills, somewhere not too far from the coast on the eastern bulge of the province, near where you turn left heading for Egypt. I know that's vague. If you think I intend to be more precise about the possible location of a priceless commodity, known only to me and one close associate, you can think again!

There is a legal restriction, in any case. Justinus and I had a brief but brutally tight contract, drawn up for us by Helena before we set out. Maintaining confidentiality about the product we were in business to exploit was its most critical term. Helena Justina had made us both swear to keep silent in perpetuity.

It was a relief that we had got ourselves away from the troubled atmosphere at Apollonia. In fact even Helena and Claudia had decided they needed a change of scene and were to depart for new lodgings; fired by Justinus' description of the refined city of Cyrene, they were heading there. He and I had made the mistake of querying the possible expense, only to have two independent women inform us they both had their own money, and since we were leaving them with only Gaius and the baby for an unknown period of weeks or months, they would make whatever arrangements suited them, thank you very much.

We had promised to return as soon as possible and rescue them from any difficulties they might let themselves be lured into, and they had then described to us a cauldron in which we could boil our heads.

Before we set out, I had chewed on the musty piece of leaf which Justinus produced as a sample. If I had had any choice, instead of galloping off into unknown terrain, exploring the Greek delights of Cyrene would have suited me best too. The so-called silphium was disgusting. Still, nobody eats raw garlic, and I myself had a high disdain for truffles. Owning a world monopoly was the aim. Luxuries only have to be scarce, not nice. Participants' enjoyment is in thinking they have something other people can't acquire or afford. As Vespasian said to Titus about their lucrative urine tax: don't mock the moolay, even if it stinks.

So here I was. Whether Justinus and I were truly galloping off towards endless chests of chinkies, I did doubt.

"Tell me, how did you set about finding this magical herb, Quintus?"

"Well, I had your sketch."

"That was wrong, I gather. According to my mother I should have drawn you something more like giant fennel."

"So what does fennel look like?" Justinus asked, apparently serious.

I watched him thoughtfully, as he forged eagerly ahead. He had a good seat on a horse. He had mastered Rome 's least favorite mode of transport with the easy grace he applied to everything. Bareheaded, but with a length of cloth around his neck which he could wind over his dark hair when the sun grew stronger, he seemed to fit in here just as easily as I had seen him merge into Germany. His family had been mad to think they could tie him down to the numbing routine and pomposity of the Senate. He was too acute to stomach the low standards of debate. He would hate the hypocrisy. He enjoyed action too much to be penned into the eternal round of slow dinners among elderly bores with wine stains down their togas whom he was supposed to court, unworthy patrons who would be jealous of his talents and energy.

He looked back with that daredevil grin. "It was a missing plant hunt, Marcus Didius. I set about my mission the way you would pursue a missing person. I went to the scene, studied the ground, tried to win the confidence of the locals, and eventually started asking discreet questions: who saw the stuff last, what its habits were, why people thought it had disappeared, and so forth."

"Don't tell me it's being ransomed by kidnappers."

"No such luck. We could infiltrate and retrieve it then-"

"With missing persons, I always assume sex is involved somewhere."

"I'm too young to know about that."

"You're not so innocent!"

Perhaps sensing I was about to probe the issue with Claudia, the sly lad burbled, "Anyway, one aspect I had to deal with was that people might not welcome my enquiries."

"I don't like the sound of this."

"I can see two difficulties. One: if the story of the silphium being overgrazed by animals is true, whoever owns the greedy flocks will want to continue to pasture them unhindered. I was told the nomad herdsmen actually tore up silphium by the roots to get rid of it."

"So they definitely won't be pleased to see us," I agreed.

"Two: the land where this stuff grows is the hereditary property of the tribes who have always lived here. They may well resent strangers appearing and taking an interest. If the plant was to be exploited again, they might want to control it themselves."

I coaxed my mount past a little bush that was filling him with foolish terror. "So you think that going after silphium might be quite dangerous?"

"Only if people see us looking, Marcus Didius."

"You do know how to reassure me."

"Suppose we really have found silphium again; people must realize what sort of investment it represents. The whole of the economy of Cyrene once depended on this. We will have to reach an accommodation with the landowners."

"Or pinch a bit and grow it on land of our own." I was thinking of Great-Uncle Scaro. Of course according to Ma, his experimental snippets all fell down and died. Also according to my mother, of course, the family member I most took after was my hopeless great-uncle.

"Could we cultivate silphium in Italy?" Justinus asked.

"It was tried. Many people had a go down the centuries-if they could lay hands on it, which the smart Cyrenians tried to prevent. A relative of mine attempted to take cuttings, without any luck. Seeds might work better, though we'd have to work out whether to plant them when they ripened up or in the green. Be prepared: the whole reason silphium was so rare was that it only grew in the particular conditions here. The prospects for transplanting it or cultivating it elsewhere are bleak."

"I wouldn't mind acquiring land out here." Justinus sounded more than pioneering; he had the grim air of a young man who was resolutely turning his back on all he knew.

"The problem with that, Quintus, is that even the locals don't have enough fertile soil to go around." I had done some research. From the time of Tiberius, Roman efforts at administering this province had mainly consisted of sending our surveyors to adjudicate land disputes.

Justinus looked defiant. "Why don't you say, and anyway, I belong in Rome?"

"You have to decide for yourself where you belong."

We flogged on past a few hundred more bushes, each one a source of discontent for the fragile horse I had hired. The only good thing about him was that he was easier to quiet than the agitated people I had cast myself among. If this horse had a tricky love life, he was bravely hiding it. Though when I tried to chivy him along, he ignored it just as stubbornly as everybody else did. Frankly, this was a trip where my funds of compassion were starting to run low.

The day we expected to arrive at the plant site was when things livened up unexpectedly. As we trotted along, trying to merge into the landscape to save us having to invent excuses for being there, shouts disturbed the peace. We ignored them, which led to a series of shrill whistles, then hoarse yells, and finally a thunder of hooves.

"Don't run."

"Nowhere to run to."

"What are we going to say?"

"I'll leave that to you, Marcus Didius."

"Oh thanks."

A group of five or six mounted locals surrounded us, jabbering loudly and waving their arms. They were brandishing long spears, which we eyed with diffidence. Obviously we were for it. We reined in, aiming to be helpful, since there was no alternative.

Communication was minimal. We tried Greek, then Latin. Justinus applied a friendly smile and even attempted Celtic; he knew enough of that to buy hot damson pies, seduce women, and halt wars-but it carried no weight here. Our captors became more angry. I grinned like a man who was confident that the Pax Romana had spread to every corner of all provinces, while I actually swore obscenely in several unpleasant tongues that I had learned at a low moment of my past career.

"What's up, do you think, Quintus?" I asked, leaning on my horse's neck and playing innocent.

"I don't know," he murmured, this time through his teeth. "I just have an uncomfortable feeling these may be representatives of the warlike Garamantes!"

"Would those be the famous, very fierce Garamantes whose traditional recreation is to ride out of the desert looking for plunder? The ones who tend to kill anyone who crosses their path?"

"Yes, didn't we fight a war against them recently?"

"I think we did. Can you remember if we won?"

"I believe a commander called Festus chased them back into the desert, cut them off in a cunning manner, and gave them a smart thrashing."

"Oh good for him. So if these stalwart fellows are some remnant of a raiding party who survived being slaughtered, they will know we are not to be trifled with?"

"Either that," agreed my phlegmatic young companion, "or they are hot for revenge and we're in deep shit."

We kept up the brilliant smiles.

We extended our repertoire by shrugging a lot, as if helpless to grasp what was wanted. That was pretty plain: we had to ride off with these excitable fellows the way they wanted us to go-and we had to do it immediately. Expecting to be robbed and thrown down a ravine, we let ourselves be nudged along with them. We were armed with swords, though they were in our packs, since we had not expected hairy entertainment. As the men jostled us, still loosing off excited shouts which meant nothing to us, we tried to maintain a cool demeanor; meanwhile inside we were growing increasingly alarmed.

"The Garamantes were in Tripolitania," Justinus decided.

"So these are the friendly Nasamones? Do they like Rome, Quintus Camillus?"

"I'm sure they do, Marcus Didius."

"Oh good!"

In fact whoever they were, we had not far to go in their lively company. Quite suddenly we came upon a large party of others, and a dramatic scene that made everything clear: we had stumbled unwittingly into the middle of a lion hunt. Far from capturing us, our new friends had been saving us from being speared or eaten alive. We smiled at them a great deal more, while they laughed back merrily.

It was a scene of well-directed mass activity that must have taken weeks-and a lot of money-to organize. Justinus and I could now appreciate just how unwelcome it must have been to find two bumbling travelers had strayed directly into the hunters' path. There was an army of men involved. Even the semi-permanent camp to which we were taken had a retinue of attendants and several cooks grilling game for lunch on huge fires behind the neatly pitched lines of tents. Even without seeing the rest we deduced there were scores of them.

From a nearby knoll we could see what was happening. Bleating sheep and even cows were confined in several pens to act as bait. The pens were at the end of a huge funnel made from nets, brushwood, and torn-up trees, reinforced by rows of overlapping shields. Towards this elaborate snare came the mounted huntsmen and beaters on foot. They must have assembled much earlier, miles out in open country, and were now at the climax of their long drive, gathering closer and forcing their prey into the trap. Towards us came all sorts of creatures: small herds of long-horned gazelle, high-stepping ostriches, a huge, highly desirable lion, and several leopards.

We were offered spears, but preferred to watch. That what happened shortly was routine in North Africa was evidenced by the men who stayed lounging in camp, hardly moved by the excitement, draining the odd goblet in a relaxed way even at the climax of the hunt. Meanwhile their companions had speared some of the animals when things looked dangerous, but wherever possible cages were brought up in a rush and the beasts were caught alive. The hunters worked hard and fast, with a well-practiced rhythm. It looked as if the party had been established here for weeks, and were nowhere near finished. From the large quantity of game being captured it could only have one market: the amphitheater in Rome.

I had an odd frisson of recognition: suddenly, during what had passed for a private, pastoral interlude, I had been reminded directly of my forgotten work back home.

After an hour or so the chase quieted down, although the disturbing roars of the newly caged animals and the frightened bleating of the hapless penned flocks who knew they were bait continued to fill the air. Hot and sweaty, the hunters arrived back in camp in a noisy group, some bloodstained, all exhausted. They threw down their long spears and oval shields, while attendants ran to tether their drenched horses. As the thirsty men quaffed huge quantities of drink and boasted about their day's efforts, Justinus and I, each gnawing rather daintily on pieces of spatch-cocked grilled game, were led off looking sheepish so we could meet the man in charge.

He was climbing down from a high-wheeled cart drawn by two mules, which bore a reinforced cage with a sliding door. From within came the unmistakable deep roar of a fierce Libyan lion. The whole cart shook as the beast threatened to burst out of the outrageous confinement, hurling itself against the sides of the cage. Even the head man, who was of no mean size and strength, leapt from his perch hastily, though the cage held fast. Attendants laughed; he laughed with them, perfectly at ease. Covers were flung over the cage so the beast would quiet down in the dark, and extra ropes were lashed on. Then the man turned to inspect us and he realized, as I had done as soon as we approached him, that he and I had met before. It was the owner of the ship which had brought my party from Ostia.

"Hello," I grinned, though from past experience I did not expect much conversation with him. "Quintus, how's your Punic?" Justinus was a great one for picking up smatterings. I knew he would not have wasted his visits to Carthage and Oea. "Would you mind greeting this character and telling him I'm delighted to renew our acquaintance, and that as he can see, I found you in the end?"

The Punic fellow and Justinus exchanged a few remarks, then Justinus turned to me rather nervously while the big dark man watched my reaction with that close attention that meant he was either insulting my grandmother-or had just made some terrible joke.

"He wants me to ask you," said Justinus, "what's happened to that drunk you had with you on his ship, the one who hates Carthaginians?"

Forty-five

DEPLORING FAMIA 'S HORRIBLE habits kept the fun going for an hour or two. We managed to get through the rest of the day, and an obligatory night of feasting and very heavy drinking, without being forced to explain too accurately why we were riding in a suspicious manner around the uninhabited parts of Cyrenaïca. Justinus did most of the talking, and luckily his head for wine was worse than mine so he passed out while we were still in control of the situation; he had managed to avoid indiscretions about our search for the silphium. The big Punic character was an entrepreneur. He was energetic and showed a driving ambition. We did not want him to hear our story and decide that harvesting herbs would be easier work for him than hunting Circus beasts.

As it turned out, we need not have worried about disguising our intentions. When we clambered onto our horses next morning, almost unable to stay upright, the man in charge, now our close crony, came to see us off and shared a few more sweet nothings with my companion. As they talked, Justinus seemed to be laughing at something and looking my way. We all exchanged extremely polite salutes and groaned over our thick heads, then we two rode off very gingerly.

"What were you two giggling over?" I said, once we were clear of the camp. "It looked like our Punic playmate was announcing that he would sell me his daughter-the ugly one, probably."

"It was worse than that," sighed Justinus. He waited patiently while I explained to my horse that a tiny clump of bristly bush could not be a crouching leopard because all the leopards for miles around were in the huntsmen's cages. "I found out, dear Marcus, why he never asked what we are doing here."

"How come?"

"He thinks he knows."

"So what's our secret?"

"It's yours. You're Falco-the Emperor's Census examiner."

"He's heard of me?"

"Your fame has a long reach."

"And he's an importer of beasts. I should have thought of it."

"Hanno thinks you are spying on some soon-to-be-hammered defaulter."

"Hanno?"

"Our lion-hunting host."

"I'll tell you something else," I said, grinning over it to some extent. "Hannobalus is the romanized name of a tycoon from Sabratha who runs a huge animal import business for the Games in Rome. This must be the same man. Quintus, our genial host at the camp last night has already been the subject of a penetrating enquiry by Falco & Partner."

Justinus went even more pale than he already had been due to his hangover. "Oh dear gods! Did you hammer him? "

"No; he has a brilliant accountant. I had to let him off."

"That's fortunate." Justinus had rapidly recovered powers of logical thought, despite his headache. "If you had imposed too many penalties, last night the excellent Hanno could have fed us to a lion."

"And no one the wiser! Let's hope he could tell that our meeting was coincidental. He has a host of men, armed to the teeth."

"And all the time," mused my gentle companion, "we two are just two innocent plant-hunters!"

"Speaking of which, I think you're overdue to present me with your fabled little sprout of greenery."

Later that day, somewhere before-or maybe after-Antipyrgos, Quintus Camillus Justinus, disgraced son of the most noble Camillus Verus, did produce his sprout for me, though it was not little.

"Olympus, it's grown a bit since I found it!" he marveled, as the monstrous tussock towered alongside him.

I tipped back my head, shading my eyes from the sun as I admired his treasure. The bigger the better. It was leaning a bit, but looked healthy. "It's not exactly dainty. How in Hades could anything that size ever get lost?"

"Now we've found it again we could guard it with a dragon like the Apples of the Hesperides, but this plant might eat the dragon-"

"It looks as if it could eat us too."

"So: is that it, Marcus?"

"Oh yes."

It was silphium all right. There was just this one, the largest plant I had ever come across: not exactly a pot-herb to grow in your window box. The bright green giant had reared itself over six feet high. It was a coarse, bulbous unattractive creature, with strappy leaves pushing up out of one another to form a thick, central stem. Prominent on top of the stout column was one very large sphere of yellow flowers, an alliumlike globe of individual bright gold blossoms, with much smaller clusters nodding on long fine pedicels that came from the junctions of leaves lower down the plant.

My horse, which had been so terrified of every other growing piece of greenery, decided to sniff the silphium with unconcealed interest. We gulped, and rushed to tie him safely out of reach. We took note; this precious plant was attractive to animals.

Justinus and I then adopted the only possible course for two men who had just discovered a fortune growing in the wilds. We sat down, fetched out a flagon we had brought along for this purpose, and drank a frugal draft to destiny.

"What now?" asked Justinus, after we had toasted ourselves, our future, our silphium plant, and even the horses who brought us to this elevated spot.

"If we had some vinegar we could make a nice jar of silphium marinade to soak lentils in."

"I'll bring some next time."

"And some bean flour to stabilize the sap. We could tap the root for resin. We could cut some stem and grate it on a roast-"

"We could slice it up with cheese-"

"If we needed medicine, we have a wonderful ingredient."

"If our horses needed medicine, we could dose them."

"It has an abundance of uses."

"And it will sell for a huge amount!"

Chortling, we rolled about in sheer delight. Soon, every apothecary's snailshell of this treasure would pour profits into our banker's chests.

Our hunter friend Hanno from Sabratha had fed us on decent drumsticks last night, but had not gone so far as to send us on our way with a brace of birds to picnic on tonight. All we actually had to eat was army-style baked biscuit. We were tough lads; we traveled in discomfort to prove the point.

I did trim off a little piece of silphium leaf, to see whether the taste I had winced at in Apollonia could be improved upon. In fact fresh silphium seemed even worse than the elderly version that I had tried before. It smelt of dung. In the raw its taste was as disgusting as its smell forewarned.

"There must be some mistake," decided Justinus, losing heart. "I was expecting ambrosia."

"Then you're a romantic. According to Ma, when silphium is cooked the bad taste vanishes-virtually. And your breath afterwards is-more or less-acceptable. But she reckoned it causes unavoidable wind."

He recovered himself. "People who will be able to afford this treat, Marcus Didius, won't need to care where they fart."

"Quite. The rich make their own social rules."

We farted ourselves, on principle. As Romans we had been granted this privilege by the kindhearted, conscientious Emperor Claudius. And we were in the open air. Anyway, we were going to be rich. From now on, we could behave objectionably whenever and wherever we liked. Freedom to expel flatulence without comment had always struck me as the main benefit of wealth.

"This plant of ours is flowering," observed Justinus. His record as an army tribune was impeccable. His approach to logistical problems never failed to be incisive. He could come up with a reasonable order of the day, even when ecstatic and slightly drunk. "It's April. So when will there be any seeds?"

"I don't know. We may have to sit this out for a few months before they form and ripen. If you see any bees passing, try to entice them over and speed the stripy fellows onto the flowers. Tomorrow when it's light we'll go for a stroll around the jebel and look for a feather. Then I can try tickling up our big boy by hand." Real horticultural spoiling lay in store for this baby of ours.

"Anything you say, Marcus Didius."

We rolled ourselves into our blankets and settled down for one last nightcap under the stars. This time I made a toast to Helena. I was missing her. I wanted her to see this plant of ours, growing so sturdily in its natural habitat. I wanted her to know that we had not failed her, and that soon she would be able to enjoy all the comforts she deserved. I even wanted to hear her caustic comments on the coarse green brute that was supposed to make her lover and her little brother rich.

I was still waiting for Justinus to honor Claudia with similar politeness, when I grew tired of keeping my eyes open and drifted off to sleep.

Forty-six

THE TINKLE-TONKLE of retreating goatbells must have woken me.

It was a wonderful morning. We both slept late, even on the bare ground. Well, we had had a hundred-mile ride, a long night of heavy festivities with a wealthy hunting party, great excitement here in secret, and too much to drink again. Besides, with the prospect of an enormous income, all the troubles of our lives were solved.

Perhaps we should have eaten some of our hard rations last night, while we sat up dreaming of the palatial villas we would own one day, our fleets of ships, the glittering jewels with which we would adorn our adoring womenfolk, and the huge inheritances we could leave to our expensively educated children (so long as they groveled enough as we declined into our well-kept old age)…

My head ached as if I had a troop of dancing elephants restyling my haircut. Justinus looked gray. Once I had glimpsed the glaring sunlight as it bounced off the rocks, I preferred to keep horizontal, with my eyes closed. He was the poor devil who sat up and looked around.

He let out a tortured groan. Then he yelled. After that he must have jumped up and thrown back his head, as he howled at the top of his voice.

I too was sitting up by then. Part of me already knew what must have happened, because Camillus Justinus was a senator's son so he had been brought up to be nobly undemonstrative. Even if a vintner's cart drove over his toe, Justinus was supposed to ignore his bones cracking but to wear his toga in neat folds like his ancestors, then to speak nicely as he requested the driver to please move along. Yelling at the sky like that could only mean disaster.

It was quite simple. As the star-filled desert night faded to dawn, while we two still dozed like oblivious logs, a group of nomads must have wandered past. They had taken one of our horses (either despising mine, or else leaving us the means to escape alive out of quaint old desert courtesy), and they had stolen all our money. They had robbed us of our flagon, though like us they rejected the biscuit.

Then their flocks of half-starved sheep or goats had devoured the surrounding vegetation. Taking offense at our silphium, before they meandered off on their age-old journey to nowhere, the nomads had yanked out any remaining shreds of our plant.

Our chance of a fortune had gone. There was almost nothing left.

While we stared in dismay, one lone brown goat skipped down from a rock and chewed up the last sunbaked threads of root.

Forty-seven

TO GREEKS, CYRENE was a blessed hole in the heavens that had dropped to earth for them to colonize. A foundation at least as old as Rome, the high ridge where the city stands looks so much like Greece itself that the drought-ridden Therans who had been sent forth by the Oracle of Delphi and who were led here by helpful Libyans must have thought they had nodded off and somehow sailed back home again. From the scrubby gray hills where quails abound, there is a stunning vista over the far plain below to the gleaming sea and the ever-thriving port of Apollonia. The deep wooded valleys of the high jebel are as peaceful and mysterious as Delphi itself. And everywhere is filled with the perfumes of wild thyme, dill, lavender, laurel, and small-leaved mint.

This highly aromatic place was not, to be frank, a good place for two dispirited lads who had just failed in their hunt for a lost herb.

Justinus and I had climbed slowly and gloomily up towards the city one sunlit, pine-scented morning, arriving on the Way of the Tombs; it brought us through a haunting necropolis of ancient gray burial houses, some of them freestanding against the hillside, some carved deep into the native rock; some still tended, but a few long deserted so their rectangular entrances with worn architectural features now stood agape and offered homes to deadly, poisonous, horned vipers who liked lurking in the dark.

We paused.

"The choice is, either to keep searching or-"

"Or to be sensible," Justinus agreed sadly. We both had to think about that. Good sense beckoned like a one-eyed whore in a tosspots' dive, while we tried to look away primly.

"The choice element only applies to you. I must consider Helena and our child."

"And you already have a career in Rome."

"Call it a trade. Being an informer lacks the glorious attributes of a ‘career': glamor, prospects, security, reputation-cash rewards."

"Did you earn money working for the Censors?"

"Not as much as I was promised, though more than I had been used to."

"Enough?"

"Enough to get addicted to it."

"So will you stay in partnership with Anacrites?"

"Not if I can replace him with somebody I like more."

"What is he doing now?"

"Wondering where I vanished to, presumably."

"You didn't tell him you were coming here?"

"He didn't ask," I grinned.

"But you will continue as a private informer after you go home?"

"It's traditional to say, ‘that's the only life I know.' I also know it stinks, of course, but being a fool is a talent informers revel in. Anyway, I need to work. When I met your sister I set myself the quaint goal of becoming respectable."

"I understood that you already had the money to qualify for the middle rank. Didn't your father give it to you?"

I surveyed Helena's brother thoughtfully. I had assumed this would be a discussion of his future, yet I was the one being grilled. "He loaned it. When I was turned down for social promotion by Domitian, I handed the gold back."

"Did your father ask you for it?"

"No."

"Would he lend it again?"

"I won't ask him."

"There's trouble between you?"

"For one thing, giving the money back when he wanted to look magnanimous caused even more strife than asking for help in the first place."

It was Justinus' turn to grin. "So you didn't tell your father that you were coming out here either?"

"You're getting the hang of the merry relationships between the fighting Didii."

"You rub along though, don't you?" As I choked on the suggestion, Justinus gazed across the valley below us, to the far plain and the faint haze where the land met the sea. He was ready for his own family confrontations: "I ought to go home and explain myself. What do you reckon my relationship with my own father will be like nowadays?"

"That may depend on whether your mother is sitting in the room at the time."

"And it certainly alters if Aelianus is listening in?"

"Right. The senator loves you-as I am sure your mother does. But your elder brother hates your guts, and who can blame him? Your parents can't ignore his plight."

"So I'm for punishment?"

"Well, even though dear Aelianus may suggest it, I don't suppose that you'll be sold into slavery! Some administrative posting to a dull place where the climate is dank and the women have bad breath will no doubt be found for you. What are those three blotty dits on the map where nothing ever happens? Oh yes: the tiny triple provinces of the Maritime Alps! Just a couple of snowed-in valleys each, and one very old tribal chief whom they hand around on a rota-"

Justinus growled. I let him brew for a moment. It was clear from his expression and the way he had broached the subject that he had been thinking hard in private.

"How about this?" he suggested diffidently. A big question must be coming. "If you think it might be suitable: I could come home and work for you until next spring?"

I had half expected it, including the qualifier. Next spring, he would be planning to return here to look for more silphium; maybe that fond dream would evaporate eventually, though I could see it haunting Justinus for years, along with his lost forest prophetess. "Work for me? As a partner?"

"As a runner, I should think. I have too much to learn, I know that."

"I like your modesty." He could bring himself down to street level if he had to. It was too much to hope he could live that low forever, though, and I was now looking for permanence. "Within limits, it's an appealing idea."

"May I ask what the limits are?"

"What do you think?"

He faced the truth with customary bluntness: "That I don't know how to live rough. I can't talk to the right sort of people. I have no experience to judge situations, no authority-in fact, no hope."

"Start at the bottom!" I laughed.

"But I do have talents to offer," he joked in return. "As you know, I can read a drawing even if it's inaccurate, speak Punic, and blow a military trumpet when required."

" Clean, mild-mannered lad with sense of humor seeks position in established firm… I can't offer you houseroom. But can you face a bachelor apartment of the crudest, most inconvenient kind? I should think that by the time we return home my old friend Petronius is bound to have set up with some new woman, so you could be slotted in at Fountain Court."

"That's where you used to live?" Justinus did sound nervous. He must have heard just how bleak my old apartment was.

"Look, if you want to come in with me, you have to drop out of patrician society. I can't absorb some dandy whose idea of being my runner is scuttling home to his mother every five minutes for a clean tunic."

"No. I see that."

"Well, I'll say this: if you really want to live in squalor and work for nothing, with only the occasional beating-up for light relief, I would be prepared to take you on."

"Thanks."

"Right. If you want an audition, you can start here: my theory is that when you have a disaster to announce to your womenfolk, you should be plotting a real bummer to hold in reserve. While they start wailing about the lost silphium, they can hear about us going into partnership; then the first problem won't sound so bad…"

"So how are you going to tell Helena and Claudia about the silphium?"

"I'm not," I said. "You are. You want to work for me, this is what happens: the junior goes in and makes them cry- then I come along looking manly and dependable, and mop up their tears."

I was joking. I reckoned Helena and Claudia had both thought we were mad to attempt the search for silphium, and neither would be the least surprised if we came back emptyhanded.

It took us a long time to find them. The gracious Greek city of Cyrene stretched over a large area, with three different central areas. In the northeast lay the Sanctuary of Apollo, where a sacred spring dashed over a rockface into a laurel-bordered basin; in the northwest stood a mighty Temple of Zeus; in the southeast was the acropolis and the agora plus other characteristics of a large Hellenistic spread, to which had been added all the attributes of a great Roman center too. This was a vast city with a great many pretensions, a few of them actually deserved.

We searched the civic center together. There was a large, square handsome forum, enclosed within a walled Doric colonnade, and at its center instead of the rather prim Augustan-style imperial monuments of modern Roman towns, a brazen temple of Bacchus (where the priests had no messages for us). None of the Greeks and native Libyans milling happily together at the basilica had heard of Helena and Claudia, for which I suppose we should have been grateful. We made our way out to the Street of Battus, named for the city's founding king, passed a very small Roman theater, paused to observe a pair of red-striped snails screwing each other into oblivion on the pavement, saw the Greek theater with its wide cold seats to accommodate the big bottoms of the sprawling elite.

We moved on to the agora. There we failed again to find our girls, though we had the chance to admire a naval monument composed of ships' prows and rather sweet dolphins, and towered over by Victory, game girl, in her traditional flying robes. Then on to a king's tomb with a particularly elaborate arrangement of basins and drains to catch the blood of the sacrifices killed outside in a smart circular portico. Among the shops were a whole row of perfumiers, scenting the air with the famous attar of Cyrenian roses. Fine: if you had a willing woman to buy it for. I was beginning to think the people we brought with us to Cyrenaïca had all bunked off home. Apart from Famia, no doubt, who would be lying drunk in a gutter somewhere.

The exotic aura was getting us down. The huge city was deeply Greek, with compressed, wide-bellied red Doric columns where we were accustomed to taller, straighter, grayer travertine in the Ionic or Corinthian mode, and with austere metopes and triglyphs below plain friezes where we would expect elaborate statuary. There were too many gymnasia and not enough baths. Its mixed, carefree population were all alien to us. There were even lingering traces of the Ptolemies, who once treated Cyrene as an outpost of Egypt. Everyone spoke Greek, which we could do if we had to, though it was a strain for weary travelers. All the inscriptions had Greek for their first, or only, language. The ancient influences made us feel like upstart New Men.

We needed to split up. Justinus would try the Sanctuary of Apollo in the lower town; I would march out to the Temple of Zeus.

I had picked the long straw for once. As I walked through the clear air of the pine woods to the eastern side of the high plateau on which the city had been founded, I had already cheered up. Soon I came upon the Temple. Amongst all the rich endowments in this city of overflowing coffers, the Temple of Zeus had been favored with an aloof, authoritative location and a most celebrated statue: a copy of the Phidias Zeus at Olympia. In case I never made it to the sanctuary at Olympia, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, I would have liked to take a squint at the Cyrenian replica. I knew the legendary forty-foot-high masterpiece showed sublime Zeus enthroned in cedarwood and black marble, himself in ivory with enameled robes, a solid gold beard, and solid gold hair-some sight. But here at Cyrene my attention was distracted by an even more winsome spectacle than a famous Phidias.

This was a drowsy spot (though beset with pernicious flies). Squat Doric columns supporting a massive architrave and frieze spoke of the Temple's immense age. Descending its front steps between the magisterial columns, perhaps after renewing a message she had left for me, was a tall young woman in a floating white outfit, who stopped looking superior and shrieked with excitement immediately she saw me.

Very nice. Ignoring protocol, she skipped down from the podium and I grabbed her. Excuse me, Zeus. Well, anyone who seduced that many women ought to understand.

Helena did not have to ask what had happened. That saved a long explanation, and stopped me feeling depressed.

She took me to the peaceful house she and Claudia were renting, sat me in a Greek chair with the baby in my arms, sent Gaius out to look for her brother, sent Claudia shopping, then brushed aside the heartbreaking story of our disaster, while she instead amused me with what I had missed.

"Famia is down in Apollonia, very restless now; he has purchased a good collection of horses-well, so he thinks-and he wants to sail home."

"I'm ready."

"He needs you to help commission a ship. We received some letters from Rome. I opened yours, in case there was a crisis-"

"You have my full confidence, beloved."

"Yes, I decided that! Petronius has written. He is back working with the vigiles; his wife won't be reconciled; she has a boyfriend Petro disapproves of; she won't let him see the children. He says he's sorry he missed you reciting your poetry."

"Sorry as Hades!"

"Lenia is threatening to kill you because you promised to help Smaractus obtain a contract at the new amphitheater opening-"

"That was so Smaractus would agree to her divorce."

"He still has not signed the documents. Petro must have seen Maia; she's a lot happier without Famia there. Your mother is well, but annoyed at how you abandoned Anacrites; Anacrites had been hanging around looking for you, but Petro has not seen him for a while and there's a rumor he has left town-"

"Usual gossip." Anacrites leave town? Where would he go? "I like going on holiday. I get far more of the news that way."

"And Petronius says you keep being sent urgent messages from the Palatine Bureau of Beaks-"

I smiled lazily. My feet were on elegant black and white mosaics; a fountain splashed refreshingly in the cool, open atrium. Julia Junilla had remembered me well enough to smack me in the ear with a flailing hand, then scream to be put down so she could play with her pig rattle.

"The Sacred Geese again, eh?" Bugger that. I leaned my head back, smiling. "Anything else?" I had sensed there was more.

"Just a letter from the Emperor." The old man? Well, that couldn't be important. I let Helena choose whether to tell me about it. Her dark eyes were gentle as she enjoyed herself: "Your fee has been reexamined, and you are to be paid what you asked."

I sat up and whistled. " Io! -In full?"

"The percentage you wanted."

"Then I am a substantial citizen…" The implications were too great to consider all at once. "So what does he want?"

"There is a note in his own hand to say Vespasian invites you to a formal audience about what happened with the Capitol geese."

I really would have to deal with that. I was getting bored with being nagged.

"I love you," I murmured, pulling her close. The white dress she was wearing was extremely attractive, but the best thing about it was the way the sleeve buttons were loose enough to admit wandering hands. In fact, they slipped easily right out of their fastenings…

"You'll love me even more," said Helena, smiling invitingly, "when I tell you that you even have a new client."

Forty-eight

THE USUAL REASON for visiting the Sanctuary of Apollo was to admire its location at the end of the processional way, with dramatic views over the gorgeous valley where the fountain sprang so aesthetically; there people were parted from money by astute acolytes of that excessively wealthy shrine, in return for sprigs of sacred bay and sips of nasty water in clearly unwashed cups. Handsome buildings crowded the sanctuary, donated by the great and good Greeks of the city, who seemed more keen on planting their generous building projects in the best plots than on planning the effect in the general scheme. Anyone who decided to erect a temple simply shouldered up to what was already there. The main thing was to ensure your inscription was big enough.

I reflected ruefully that had Justinus and I been able to exploit Cyrenian silphium, then one day we too would have been installing major new works here as top dogs in the polis. Still, I had always thought "Falco" looked silly in Greek.

Approaching past the Greek Propylaea, a monumental entrance archway to the main temple area, we had found the sacred waters on our left, carefully directed down through channels cut diagonally in the cliff so that the water ran into a basin where it was out of reach of the public. That stopped cheapskates sampling it for free.

The fountain approach occupied a shallow shelf, below which lay the temples. You could look down and admire the clustered buildings, or move on as we did. Beyond the shrine lay a scented walkway to a high promontory which overlooked the great seaboard plateau. The view was staggering. Some bright architect had thought of hooking an amphitheater onto the edge of this headland, where the arena perched precariously above a fabulous vista and, in my opinion, was just waiting to fall down into the gulch.

We all climbed up and sat in a row in the center, farthest from the edge. I was with Helena, Claudia, Justinus, Gaius, the baby, and even Nux, who perched alongside me on the stone bench, waiting for something to happen in the orchestra below. The place was otherwise deserted yet we were hoping to meet someone. This was my personal reason for coming here. Forget the spring water: I had an appointment with my new client.

I was being hired by someone shy, apparently. That made a change. She was female, allegedly respectable, and modestly reluctant to reveal her address. How quaint.

I did know that the address must be temporary, like our own, because she was not Cyrenian. I also believed that a "woman-of-mystery" act usually meant the only mystery was how such a scandalous woman had managed to keep out of jail. But Helena had warned me to treat this one with respect.

The client was so impressed with my reputation, she had followed me all the way from Rome. That must mean she had more money than sense. No woman who cared to watch her budget would travel across the Mediterranean to see an informer-let alone do so without ascertaining first whether he was willing to work for her. No informer was worth it, though I kept that to myself.

Helena said it was a foregone conclusion I would take the case. But then Helena knew who the client was.

"You ought to tell me." I wondered if she was being so secretive because the client was a fabulous looker; I decided in that case Helena would have told her to get lost.

"I want to see your face."

"She won't show up."

"I think she will," promised Helena.

Sunlight blazed on the empty theater. This was another highly aromatic place, another part of the heavenly Cyrenaïca herb garden. I was munching wild dill seeds. They had a searing, slightly bitter flavor that suited my mood.

We were going home. The decision had been taken, amidst mixed feelings in my party. Gaius, who in Rome spent most of his time fleeing his family, was perversely missing them. We were too nice to him. He needed people to hate. Helena and I had enjoyed our stay, but were ready for a change of scene; a large sum of money was luring me home too, now Vespasian had come good. Justinus had to face his family. Claudia wanted to reconcile herself with hers, and had announced stiffly that she was planning to return to her grandparents in Spain-without Justinus apparently.

That said, I had noticed only the previous evening that Claudia and Justinus chose the same bench at dinner. At one point, their bare arms had lain side by side upon the table, almost touching; the tingle of awareness between them had been all too evident. At least, the girl's stillness spoke of her intensity. What he felt remained veiled. Wise boy.

It was now after midday. We had sat in the theater for an hour. Long enough to hang around for a client whose motives I doubted, when I had other pressing plans; I needed to go back to Apollonia, to rescue the agitated Famia and help him find a decent horse transport for the Greens. I made up my mind to shift back to our lodgings, though the tranquil scene deterred me from moving immediately.

Restlessness slowly overcame the rest of my party too. Nobody said it again, but most of us had decided that the client was a washout. If we abandoned this business, once we returned to the house all we had to do was pack. The adventure was over for all of us.

Turning to me suddenly, Camillus Justinus said in his low, understated voice, "If we are sailing west and have control of our own vessel, Marcus, I shall ask you to land me if possible at Berenice again."

I raised my eyebrows. "Giving up the idea of working in Rome?"

"No. Just something I want to do first."

Helena dug me in the ribs. Obediently I folded my hands together and continued to stare out over the theater, as if I were watching a really gripping performance by a first-class company of actors. I said nothing. Nobody moved.

Justinus then continued, "Claudia Rufina and I had had a plan which went uncompleted. I still want to look for the Gardens of the Hesperides."

Claudia drew a sharp breath. It had been her dream. She thought that he now meant to go there alone while she returned to Spain, a failed eloper in ignominy, nursing her private grief.

"You might like to join me," suggested our hero to his furious girl. It was a charming idea to take her after all; I wished I had thought of suggesting it. Still, when he decided to bother, Justinus seemed to be perfectly capable of taking the initiative. Turning to her, he spoke gently and tenderly; it was rather affecting."You and I came through a remarkable adventure together. We shall never forget it, you know. It would be a great sorrow if we both had to remember it in future in silence, when we were with other people."

Claudia looked at him.

"I need you, Claudia," he announced. I wanted to cheer. He knew just what he was doing. What a lad. Handsome, charming, utterly dependable (as he needed to be, since he was in fact penniless). The girl was desperately in love with him, and at the last minute he had rescued her.

"Thank you, Quintus." Claudia stood up. She was a tall thing, sturdily built, with a strong, serious face. I had rarely heard her laugh, except back in Rome when she first knew Justinus; she was not laughing now. "In the circumstances," said Claudia Rufina pleasantly, "I think this is the least that you could offer me."

Helena caught my eye, frowning.

Claudia's voice hardened. "So you need me?" What he needed was her fortune, and I suddenly had a bad feeling Claudia understood that. "You know, nobody has ever in my life bothered to consider what I need! Excuse me, Quintus: I can see that everyone else will think you have just done something wonderful, but I would prefer to live with a person who really wanted me."

Before anyone could stop her, Claudia whipped into the nearest aisle and set off down the rows. I already knew her propensity for bursting into and out of amphitheaters on her own. I rose to my feet, just ahead of Justinus, who was still looking stunned. Dear gods, he had done his best, and was now terribly upset. Women can be so insensitive.

Nux plunged off the seat and raced down after the girl, barking excitedly. Helena and I both called out. As Claudia turned down the passageway towards a covered public exit, a woman who had somehow gained access to the arena entered centrally and strode to a dominating position on the oval stage.

She was of medium height and haughty bearing: long neck, lifted angular chin, a foam of brown hair, and watchful eyes that followed Claudia curiously as the girl rushed down the aisle towards her and then stopped. The woman wore rich clothing in subtle shades, with a gleam of silk in the weave. Her light cloak was held on her shoulders by matched brooches, linked by a heavy gold chain. More gold shone at her neck and on her fingers. Long, elegant earrings dangled from her pale ears.

Her voice, calm, aristocratic-and Latin-carried easily from the stage: "Which of you is Didius Falco?"

If she had brought attendants they must be waiting elsewhere. Her solo appearance had been calculated to shock us. I raised my arm, still distracted. However, I was always perfectly capable of insulting a suppliant: "Dear gods, do the Cyrenian elite allow women gladiators into their arena?"

"That would be outrageous." Resplendent in her chic streetwear, the woman surveyed me coolly. She paused slightly, as people do when they know exactly what effect they will cause. "My name is Scilla."

Beside me, Helena Justina smiled faintly. She had been right. I would accept this client.

Forty-nine

"HOW DID YOU find me?"

We were strolling back along the warm, dappled path to the Sanctuary. Helena, my discreet chaperon, walked in silence beside me, holding my hand, and lifting her face to the sun as if absorbed in the beauties of the scenery. Gaius had taken the baby and Nux and rushed off home ahead of us. The young lovers, or whatever they turned out to be, had dawdled behind to tell each other firmly how there was nothing more to be said.

"I traced you eventually through your friend Petronius. Before that I spoke to a man called Anacrites. He said he was your partner. I didn't care for him." Scilla was forthright, a woman who made her own judgments and acted accordingly.

Letting the prospective client get the measure of me, I explained as we walked slowly, "I used to work with Petronius, whom I trusted absolutely." Knowing Petro, I did wonder briefly what he had made of my new client when she approached him. His taste ran to more fragile types, however. Scilla was slim, but she had sinewy arms and a firm spring in her step. "Unhappily, Petronius returned to his career with the vigiles. Now, yes; I work with Anacrites, whom I don't trust at all-so one thing is certain: he won't ever let me down."

Faced with the traditional wit of the informing fraternity, Scilla merely looked irritated. Well, that's traditional too.

"You have come a long way. So why me?" I asked her mildly.

"You have been involved already in what I need you to do. You came to the house."

"To see Pomponius Urtica?" For a moment I was transported back to the ex-praetor's luxury villa on the Pincian last December, on those two useless occasions when I endeavored to interview him after he had been mauled by Calliopus' lion. Had Scilla been in the house, or was she just told about me afterwards? Either way, I knew she lived there, a close member of the praetor's domestic circle. "I wanted to talk to Pomponius about that accident."

Her voice grated: "An accident that ought not to have happened."

"So I deduced. And how is Pomponius?"

"He died." Scilla stopped walking. Her face was pale. "It took until the end of March. His end was prolonged and horribly painful." Helena and I had paused too, in the shade of a low pine tree. Some of the story must have been relayed to Helena already, but she had left me to hear it in full for myself. Scilla came to the point briskly: "Falco, you must have worked out that I want you to help me deal with the people responsible."

I had indeed guessed that.

What I felt unprepared for was this expensive, cultured, educated-sounding woman. According to the gossip in Rome, she was supposed to be a good-time girl. A lowborn fright, a freed slave probably. Even if Pomponius had bequeathed her millions, it would have been impossible for a common piece like that to transform herself in a few weeks into a close match for a Chief Vestal Virgin's niece.

She noticed my stare, which I had made no effort to hide. "Well?"

"I'm trying to make you out. I had heard you had a ‘wild' reputation."

"And what does that mean?" she challenged me.

"To be blunt, I expected a slut of tender years, bearing evidence of adventures."

Scilla remained calm, though clearly gritting her teeth. "I am a marble importer's daughter. A knight; he had also held important posts in the tax service. My brothers run a thriving architectural fittings business; one is a priest of the imperial cult. So my origins are respectable and I was brought up in comfort, with all the accomplishments that go with it."

"Then where does the reputation come from?"

"I have one unusual hobby, not relevant to your enquiry."

My mind raced salaciously. The strange hobby had to be sexual.

The woman set off walking again. This time Helena slipped a hand through her arm, so the two of them strolled along close together while I kicked my own path through the dill bushes. Helena took up the conversation, as if it were more proper for a knight's accomplished daughter to be interviewed by a woman. Personally, I felt Scilla needed no such concession.

"So tell us about you and the ex-praetor? Were you in love?"

"We were going to be married."

Helena smiled and allowed that to answer the question, though she knew it did not. "Your first marriage?"

"Yes."

"Had you lived with your family until then?"

"Yes, of course."

Helena's question had been a subtle way of probing whether Scilla had had significant lovers beforehand. Scilla was too canny to say. "And what about the night Pomponius had the lion brought to his house? That was meant as a ‘treat' for you?"

The expression in Scilla's hazel eyes seemed sad and far away. "Men can have a queer idea of what is appropriate."

"True. Some lack imagination," Helena sympathized. "Some, of course, know they are being crass and go ahead anyway… And you were present when Pomponius was mauled. That must have been a terrible experience."

Scilla prowled on for a moment in silence. She had a fine, controlled walk, not like the tripping shuffles of most well-bred dames who only leave their houses carried in a litter. Like Helena, she gave the impression that she could route-march through half a dozen markets, spend with panache, and then carry her own purchases home.

"Pomponius behaved foolishly," she said, without rancor or blame. "The lion broke free and leapt at him. It surprised the keepers, though we now know why it behaved that way. It had to be put down."

I frowned. Somebody had told me the girl had reacted hysterically; that would have been understandable, yet she seemed so composed here I could not quite envisage it. Tipping my head to look around Helena, I said, "Pomponius had been maneuvering a straw man, I believe. The lion flew at it, mauled him, and then chaos broke out-what happened next?"

"I shouted-as loudly as I could-and I rushed forwards, to frighten the lion away."

"That took nerve."

"Did it work?" asked Helena, taken aback, yet assuming control again.

"The lion stopped and escaped into the garden."

"Rumex-the gladiator-followed it, and did what was necessary?" I prompted.

I thought a shadow crossed Scilla's face. "Rumex went after the lion," she agreed quietly.

She seemed to want to end this conversation, understandably. After a moment Helena said, "I nearly met Rumex once, but it was shortly after the accident and he was being kept apart from the public."

"You didn't miss much," Scilla told her, with unexpected force. "He was a has-been. All his fights were fixed."

Still, I thought, feeling obliged to defend the poor fellow; he had speared an agitated lion, single-handedly.

Her opinion was inside information. I wondered how Scilla had acquired the knowledge to judge a gladiator's prowess so scathingly. From Pomponius, perhaps.

We had reached the main sanctuary area. Scilla took us down some steps. I offered a polite hand to Helena, but Scilla seemed well able to keep her balance without assistance.

There was a small enclosure amongst a cluster of temples, including the large Doric shrine to Apollo, with a dramatic open-air altar outside it. Many of the other temples were elderly and small, cramped around the open square in a friendly style. The Hellenistic gods can be less remote than their Roman equivalents.

"So, will you help me, Falco?" Scilla asked.

"To do what?"

"I want Saturninus and Calliopus called to account for causing the death of Pomponius."

I remained silent. Helena commented, "That may not be easy. Surely you'd have to prove they knew in advance what was likely to happen that night?"

"They are experts with wild animals," Scilla responded dismissively. "Saturninus should never have organized a private show. Loosing a wild beast in a domestic environment was stupidity. And Calliopus must have known that by switching the lions he had issued Pomponius with a death sentence."

As a senator's daughter Helena Justina proposed the establishment solution: "You and the ex-praetor's family might do best bringing a civil suit for your loss. Perhaps you need a good lawyer."

Scilla shook her head impatiently. "Compensation is not enough. It isn't the point either!" She managed to control her voice, then came out with what sounded like a set speech: "Pomponius was good to me. I won't let him die unchampioned. Plenty of men take an interest in a girl who has a reputation-but you can guess what kind of interest that is. Pomponius was prepared to marry me. He was a decent man."

"Then forgive me," said Helena softly. "I can understand your anger, but other people may assume you only have low motives. Does his death mean you lost the hope of his fortune, for instance?"

Scilla looked haughty and once more continued like someone who had spent a lot of time brooding over her grievance and practicing how to defend her anger: "He had been married before and his children are his main heirs. What I have lost is the chance of a good marriage to a man of status. Apart from my own great sorrow, it is a disappointment to my family. An ex-praetor is a fine match for any equestrian's daughter. He was generous to offer me that, and I held him in high regard for it."

"You have to grieve for him-but you are still young." Scilla was, I guess, twenty-five or so. "Don't let this blight the rest of your life," Helena warned.

"But," Scilla returned dryly, "I carry the extra burden of having lost the man I was supposed to marry, in scandalous circumstances. Who will want me now?"

"Yes, I see." Helena was regarding her thoughtfully. "So what is Falco supposed to do for you?"

"Help me force those men to admit their crime."

"What have you done about it so far?" I enquired.

"The men responsible fled Rome. After Pomponius died, it was left to me to take the matter up. He had been suffering for so long his family wanted no more of it. I first consulted the vigiles. They seemed sympathetic."

"The vigiles are known for their kind attitude to wild girls!" Some of the vigiles I knew ate wild girls as a dessert after lunch.

Scilla accepted the joke bravely-by ignoring it. "Unfortunately, with the suspects outside Rome, the case was beyond the vigiles' jurisdiction. Then I appealed to the Emperor."

"Did he refuse you assistance?" asked Helena, sounding indignant.

"Not exactly. My brothers acted as my advocates, of course, though I know they are both embarrassed by the situation. Nonetheless, they put my case well and the Emperor heard them out. The death of a man of such senior rank had to be taken seriously. But Vespasian's attitude was that Pomponius had been at fault in commissioning a private show."

Helena looked sympathetic. "Vespasian would want to avoid gossip."

"Quite. Since the two men have absconded, everything was put into abeyance in the hope public interest dies down. The Emperor would only promise that if Saturninus and Calliopus return to Rome he will reexamine my petition."

"Knowing that, they won't come back," sneered Helena.

"Exactly. They are holed up in Lepcis and Oea, their home cities. I could grow old and gray waiting for these larvae to reemerge."

"But within the boundaries of the Empire they cannot escape justice!"

Scilla shook her head. "I could appeal to the governor of Tripolitania, but he won't take stronger action than the Emperor. Saturninus and Calliopus are notable figures, whereas I have no influence. Governors don't respond well to what Falco calls wild girls!"

"So what are you asking Falco to do?"

"I cannot get close to these men. They will not accept representations, or speak to anyone I send. I have to go after them-I have to go to Tripolitania myself. But they are violent people, from a brutal part of society. They are surrounded by trained fighters-"

"Are you frightened, Scilla?" Helena asked.

"I admit I am. They have already threatened my servants. If I go-as I feel I must-I shall feel vulnerable in foreign territory. Having justice on my side would be no consolation if they hurt me-or worse."

"Marcus-" Helena appealed to me. I had been silent, wondering why I felt so skeptical.

"I can escort you," I told Scilla. "But what happens then?"

"Find them, please, and bring them to me, so I can confront them with what they did."

"That seems a reasonable request," Helena commented.

I felt obliged to warn the woman: "I don't recommend you to plan any big scenes. It has never been proved-let alone proved in court-that either of them has committed a crime."

"May I not pursue a civil suit as Helena Justina suggested?" asked Scilla meekly. That sounded harmless. Too harmless, from this one.

"Yes; I'm sure we can find lawyers in Lepcis and Oea who will be prepared to argue that Saturninus and Calliopus owe you financial recompense for the loss of your future husband through their negligence."

"That's all I want," Scilla agreed.

"All right. I can round them up and subpoena them. The cost should be modest, you'll feel you've taken action, and there may be a chance of winning the case." Tripolitania was a famously litigious province. Yet I didn't think the issue would necessarily come to court. Both Saturninus and Calliopus could well afford to pay up just to make this woman go away. Her accusations would never hurt them much in my opinion, but they must be an inconvenience. If the lanistae satisfied her complaints and received an indemnity, they would be free to return to Rome. "Just one question, though. There was an unsolved death connected with all this. Pomponius was killed by the lion, who was killed by Rumex. Rumex himself then died and his killer has never been found. I have to ask: were you in any way involved?"

Scilla gave me a cold stare. I felt like a young lady's music teacher who inadvertently played a bum note afer she for her part had completed perfect scales. "I could kill a man in the right circumstances," replied Scilla calmly. "But I have never done it, I can assure you." Of course not. She was a knight's daughter, and thoroughly respectable.

"Right." I felt slightly nonplussed.

Obviously I would have to take the job. We made various arrangements-finance, contact points. Then Scilla said she was now going to make an offering at a temple, so Helena and I bade her a polite farewell. I did notice that the temple she went to was entirely appropriate for a woman with her heart set on vengeance, even vengeance in the civil courts: that of the goddess of night and witchcraft, Hecate.

"Identified with Diana," said Helena, who had also noticed where Scilla went.

"Moonshine?"

"Goddess of hunting was more what I had in mind."

Helena and I stood beside that lighter haven of culture, the altar of Apollo. There was a faint scent of charred meat which made me hanker for my dinner. "Well? What do you think?"

A frown creased Helena's broad forehead. "Something is not quite right."

"I'm glad you said it." I had disliked Scilla intensely: too self-assured.

"It may be straightforward," Helena suggested in her fair way. "Scilla has been thwarted when she approached the vigiles and the Emperor. She feels there has been an injustice-but what remedy exists? People who lose someone in a tragedy become very angry and flail around looking for a way to relieve their helplessness."

"That's fine-if they come and employ me."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm sure."

When Scilla discussed the night that her lover planned to impress her with the show, I had remembered the dead lion, and later the dead gladiator whose murder was never even halfway solved. It stirred up feelings I had left behind when I came out on this sun-bleached holiday interlude. Devoting myself to Justinus-his wild chase after a fortune and his sad troubles with his love life-had taken me far from those winter days of auditing amongst the menageries. Yet the disturbing problem never left me. Now here we were, in ancient Greek Cyrene, facing the same dark undercurrents.

"So," Helena said, giving me an odd look. "You are going to Tripolitania."

"That I am. You need not come."

"Oh I'll be there!" She spoke rather warmly. "I have not forgotten, Marcus Didius, that when we first met you were renowned for spending time with notoriously flexible Tripolitanian acrobats."

I laughed. It was the wrong reaction.

What a girl she was. Four years had passed since I first knew Helena Justina, and in all that time I had never given a thought to the sinuous young rope dancer I had dallied with before her. I could not even recall the dancer's name. But Helena, who had never even met the girl, was still harboring jealousies.

I kissed her. That too was the wrong thing to do, but anything else would have been worse. "You had better be there to fight them off," I said gently. Helena's chin came up in defiance, so then I winked at her. I hadn't done that for a long time. It was one of those cheeky rituals of courtship that get forgotten when you feel sure of someone.

Too sure, perhaps. Helena could still give me the feeling that she was keeping her options open in case she decided I was a bad risk.

I walked with her across the formal temple area to a dramatic feature where water from the Spring of Apollo had been diverted from the upper level down into a formal fountain. A nude male torso-rather small-leaned at an odd angle on the plinth of a slender obelisk; that was set above a layered basin down which sheets of springwater flowed. Helena looked askance at the solitary column, whose significance she seemed to view suspiciously.

"Some sculptor representing his dreams," she scoffed. "I bet it makes his girlfriend laugh."

Below the obelisk ran a fine semicircular podium, terminated by two grand stone lions. In-turned and grimacing fiercely, the lions were long in the body if rather solid in the trunk and legs, with broad heads, attractive whiskers, and meticulously carved curly manes.

For some time I stood looking up at the guardian beasts, thinking about Leonidas.