Authors: Lindsey Davis
LXI
Nothing she had ever said was true. Nothing she had ever done was real... I was unconscious but I still saw her stark face, frozen at that moment when she watched me realize.
I was recovering my senses enough to know I was lying on my face, while someone Camillus Meto himself was tying up my arms and feet. He had made quite a good job of it, though he had made the mistake of not trussing the two lots of rope together as I would have done myself. If he left me alone, I might manage to obtain a degree of mobility.
Odd how your mind continues working even in unconsciousness. As I came round, I could now hear an indignant voice asking the questions I ought to have demanded immediately: if it was Helena, why did she tell me Pertinax owned the contraband ship? Why did she give Titus Caesar the conspirators' names? Why did she send me Sosia's bracelet today?...
I must have groaned.
"Keep still," Meto grunted.
I had always suspected that bland exterior might conceal a jaggedly clever man. He had selected the one statement that would devastate me; then clubbed me with the pommel of a sword, which I could now see lying near. Trying to distract him I started to mumble, "I haven't felt so stupid since an army training officer told us the session was over, then ran at us with his drawn weapon as we left the exercise ground... The lesson was, never to trust your opponent until he was carrion On second thoughts I added innocently, "Or until you have him very securely tied up!"
Standing directly above me Meto apologized insincerely. "Sorry!"
Really, there was no pretence any longer. And I had no doubt; the moment he had struck me down he acknowledged his own guilt.
"Where's Helena?" I demanded.
"I've got her outside."
I tried to keep my voice level, but that news left me frantic. What had he done to her? What would he do to her?
"People will start looking for me, Metol"
"Not yet."
"Did you have to say that about her?" I was violently angry.
"It only matters if you cared for her"
"Oh no!" I interrupted gratingly. "It only matters if she ever cared for me!"
Laughing, he picked up the sword. "Well, Falco, if she did you bungled it!"
"Oh I bungle everything!" I admitted with regret.
But I knew a horse who could have sworn an affidavit that that was untrue.
I lay still. I had an idea Camillus Meto might be the type to kick me in the ribs; mine had suffered enough on this case and still pained me as it was. While I was a slave I had braced myself for constant mistreatment, but now I had convinced myself that was over I could feel uncontrollable panic rising at the mere threat.
A low whistle sounded at the end of the passage. I heard Meto walk towards the door. He exchanged a few words just outside, then reported without coming back in, "My men are here to remove the silver pigs. Don't try anything Falco remember the girl. I'm taking her with me, so neither you nor my brother should do anything that causes us to be pursued!"
He went out. I lay trussed on the floor. One careless emotion had cost me the case. So far I had lost the silver, lost my lady, lost a villain and probably before the day was out I would kiss farewell to my miserable life.
It seemed a long afternoon. Someone rolled me aside, then shadowy figures filtered out the marked bars from the pile, working methodically to extract those that were stamped. As they staggered to and fro removing them, I recognized among the group the two jelly brains who had kidnapped Sosia. Neither showed any interest in me.
When their task was complete the groaning labourers left the vault, leaving me and the remaining bars of lead in the pitch dark.
I sensed slight vibrations. Then I guessed that the cart loads of silver had rumbled away overhead, taking the risk that the disruption caused by Vespasian's Triumph would enable them to slip through the deserted streets in daylight, despite the curfew laws. The faint hope I had nurtured, that the patrol of Praetorians Titus promised me would turn up while the carts were still here, evaporated; no Guards would be free until the Emperor was back in his palace tonight, and even then there was a fair chance those listed for duty would prefer to celebrate...
Petronius Longus always said in any case that the Praetorians could not catch a flea.
I wondered thoughtfully where Petronius Longus himself was at this moment...
I had ended up lying on my back. I began to rock sideways, swinging more and more until with a groan I turned onto my front. Blood surged painfully back into my arms. With my face in the dust, I cursed a few times for form's sake, then bent at the knees with my feet in the air and grabbed for my ankles with my bound hands.
After this lively fiasco had continued for some minutes, for once my luck turned: my violent contortions shook free the knife I had hidden down the wide back piece of my left boot. I felt it skitter down the side of my leg and heard it drop to the floor.
I cursed again, with greater feeling, as I straightened with an excruciating wrench.
I started to skate about on the floor, searching for my knife. When at last I located the thing my real troubles began. I wriggled sideways, then half onto my back, until after several desperate attempts I managed to nab the knife between the fingers of one hand.
I could probably have managed to cut through the rope round my ankles without losing much of my leg, but unless I had been an acrobat that took me no further to freedom since my hands would remain inaccessible behind my back. Luckily the men who dragged out the ingots had been so exhausted by the time they had finished that they had left the door fractionally ajar. Slithering and bumping I managed to find it from memory, aided by its draught. I wedged the handle of my dagger between the door and its frame. Holding one shoulder against the door, I began the task of cutting through the binding on my hands.
This clever game resulted in much Falco agitation and two cut wrists.
It took a long time and several bouts of apoplexy, but eventually I managed to break free.
LXII
The noise of the Triumph was more subdued, but still distracting, when I emerged.
The yard was of course empty, but I decided to look around. I crossed stiffly to the great door, listened, heard nothing, so squeezed discreetly in. I stopped by the door while my eyes grew accustomed to the shimmering cinnamon haze.
They were still here! Helena Justina, the dimmed light of my battered life, looking almost as jaded as I felt, was sitting on a bale; she seemed unharmed, though she had been tied up. The reason her slippery uncle had not yet absconded was immediately apparent; he was helping himself to sack loads of her top-class peppercorns. Pertinax had been his partner, so I suppose Meto reckoned half fell due to him. He glanced up and spotted me.
"Tut, sir! I can't let you rob my client!" I cried.
For one brave instant as Helena looked round what passed between us was no more than lovers' shared reproach, as if her sense of betrayal gnawed as painfully as mine.
"Oh gods, Falco," she uttered miserably. "Don't you ever give up?"
My legs were shaking and my fingers sticky with blood. I had one eye fixed on her uncle and he had his fixed on the sword; it lay across a barrel equidistant from us both. You could tell he was middle class; he was so careless with his tools.
"No point lying still in the dark until some villain is ready to slip his blade between my ribs Meto was setting down the basket of peppercorns he had been filling with a scoop. He had seen I had a dagger in my hand. I added gently, "I use the word villain advisedly of course."
Without letting my gaze fall I began to unbuckle my belt. Wrapping the buckle end round my left fist, I let the leather slide through the jet bracelet which I brought into his view.
"You seem curiously nostalgic, sir! Take this, for instance:
Sosia Camillina's piece of jet He stiffened. Then I dropped the quiet question: "Why did you take it? Why did you keep it? Was it triumph over me, or pity for her? A trophy or a genuine memento?" When he made no answer I hurled at him, "Or guilt? Publius Camillus Meto, did you kill your own child?"
Helena gasped.
"Don't be a fool!" Meto exclaimed.
I had shaken him. I had shaken her. Saying it aloud, I had shaken myself.
"Did Pertinax?" I bellowed, to harass him. In fact I knew who had.
"No." His reply was low.
"But you killed him!"
"Don't be ridiculous I saw him begin to resist. "Falco, your own meddling killed my daughter"
It was Helena who interrupted fiercely, suddenly joining me: "Don't blame the buffoon for the whole pantomime!"
"Domitian killed your daughter." Sparkling with malice I weighed in for myself. "You know that very well. You may have been horrified I do believe you were but you could say nothing about it because that would incriminate you. Domitian killed her. His initials are on the inkwell you saw me find in the saffron vault. Domitian killed her; my guess is he was there alone. He acted in haste when he realized she must recognize his famous face. Someone him? you? Atius Pertinax? carried her body from the vault up here, probably not expecting the Aventine watch to appear; the Aventine watch and me " I heard a catch in my own voice.
"Marcus!" Helena exclaimed.
I knew then for absolute certain, he had lied to me. Helena Justina was never in the plot.
My eyes went to her.
Publius had begun to move.
"Who found that bracelet?" It had him mesmerized; his advantage was already thrown away.
"I did, uncle!" He was stopped by Helena herself. "I found it today in your house. Oh Juno, you make me so angry! You think other people are completely insensitive! You kidnapped Sosia; your name was in the letter Uncle Gaius wrote to Vespasian. Today I watched you calmly stand here and let me blame papa papa who has spent twenty dreary years covering up your disgrace! My aunt Aelia Camilla told me the truth your wild youth in Bithynia, that was too wild and went on far too long to be simple exuberance! Your public career in Mauretania that ended so abruptly for reasons that were never explained! Exiled from one province after another, and now from Rome! Political speculation, social scandal, riot, shady business deals, women Sosia! Her mother the wife of a consul-designate, the husband so inconveniently abroad; you would rather the child had been exposed on a midden but as always, father decently stepped in. Father's life has been a misery you even inveigled him into marrying me to a man he disliked so you could persuade Pertinax to help import the silver!" I had heard her rant before, but never with the passion she was demonstrating now. "You think nobody can know"
"Even Sosia knew," I slipped in. "Your name is on the list she gave to me. Condemned to a common informer, Meto by your own child!" I saw no reason to tell him that Sosia scratched his name out.
He looked from Helena Justina to me, then laughed softly as he had never done before. It showed that momentary handsomeness I had noticed before at Sosia's funeral; I could see how when he wanted to bother he must have drawn the women.
"Excellent team!" he applauded us. It was true. That was what we had always been. In this case we had formed a true partnership. We were fighting him together now. "Made for the middle rank," he scoffed. "Not for me. Life with a high moral tone, and so little else! Trapped among third-grade tax collectors, freed Imperial secretaries, the Admiral of the British Channel Fleet! Hard work on a mean salary or struggling in trade. No ceremony abroad, no style or power at home"
If this was his social grievance, it was not one that impressed me. I growled at him, with the full venom of a tired man from an Aventine tenement, "You never lacked; you had comfort and leisure all your life. What do you want?"
"Luxury and influence!" he admitted without flinching.
Helena Justina suddenly stood up. Her voice rang clear.
"Then take the silver. Let it be my gift for my poor beleaguered father. Take it. Go away and never trouble him or any of us again."
It was a brave gamble and I understood now what my clear principled lady had earlier been trying to achieve. Like her father, she was trying to salvage her uncle's reputation, even on his terms. She was swamped in a tangle of family loyalties beside which the petty wrangling of my own relations seemed positively jolly.
"Your conscience-racked father has nothing left for me " Publius began.
It was a decoy. At the same moment, both he and I swung forwards towards the spot where Helena Justina helplessly stood. She knew she was in danger. He saw me anticipate and sprang instead for his sword. I saw him change course and zig zagged after him.
LXIII
Almost as soon as I launched at him I realized he could fight. In some shady part of the Empire he had learned tricks a middle class gentleman ought not to know. Fortunately for me I was not middle class.
The fight was vicious, worsened because Meto was the type who believed it distracted his opponent to snarl a great deal and to clash weapons whenever he could, whether the blow he was landing served any purpose or not. I didn't mind that. I was soon making noises myself as we gasped through the aisles of pepper and spice, hitting barrels and bales until we were both straining for breath. I was glad Helena Justina had the sense to keep out of the way.
I fought the senator's wayward younger brother up and down in that gloomy scented place for half an hour. As we crushed the rich contents of Helena's heirloom under our scrabbling feet our eyes streamed. Publius must have been approaching fifty, but he possessed the family height. His expressionless demeanour made him unnerving; there was nothing to work on, nothing to play off, no automatic responses I could tickle along, then delude.
He had the better weapon with a longer reach, though that was the least of my worries; I had practised this combination for years with Glaucus at the gym. Meto had practised too, however. Wherever he had trained, they believed in shearing hamstrings and prodding thumbs in eyes. At least I had prepared myself to keep him at a distance by lashing out with my unfurled belt, then, when he battered in too close, winding it round my forearm like a gladiator to ward off his lunging blade.
He was fit. I was tired. We had pounded up past Helena for the third time, with me avoiding the danger of meeting her anxious eyes. I knew I must appear to be struggling quite a normal sight in her view then her uncle relaxed, my concentration flickered and suddenly he knocked up the dagger
from my hand. I sprawled frantically after it, throwing myself headlong, then spidering sideways with grit spiking my palms and knees as I fell at full stretch onto my knife.
I was still on the floor, flat out, ready to roll over with my arm up, but knowing it was probably too late. Helena Justina had been standing so still we were both forgetting her. Her uncle came running with his sword high, letting out a terrifying screech. As he rushed, even though she was bound, Helena flung all her weight against a barrel I had at one point pushed her behind. The keg toppled. Its contents gushed out, bouncing and skid addling for yards across the hard-baked warehouse floor.
No time to thank her. I got one knee under me and pushed myself to my feet. Splaylegged, I swarmed across the stricken keg. Meto exclaimed. He faltered as the tiny iron-hard balls beneath the tender arches of his well-kept feet rocked him over on his insteps. My own horny pads wore boots with triple soles a good inch thick. I kicked out to scatter the nutmegs as I scrambled forwards, then before he could recover I ducked under his guard and smashed the pommel of my knife against his wrist. He dropped the sword. To make sure, I barged him with my shoulder away from it.
Helena Justina immediately captured the sword.
"Stay!" The bastard moved. "Over!" I choked. "Don't move. It's all over"
"Not bad," he gasped, "for a... tousled tyke from the Subura slums!"
"Nothing to lose don't move!" I knew the type. This one was going to give me trouble right to the slamming of the door to the cells. "Don't push me, Camillus!"
Helena demanded quickly, "Falco, what now?"
The Palace. Vespasian can decide."
"Falco, you're a fool!" Publius exclaimed. "Share the silver with me; the spices too, and the girl, Falco -"
I was angry then. Once he had disposed of her to suit his own low purposes, when he had married her to Pertinax. Never again.
"Your nice niece has terrible taste but not as terrible as that! The play's over. The Aventine watch are blocking the Ostia Road searching everything that moves there from a grandmother's shopping basket to a camel's hump. Petronius Longus won't miss an illegal waggon train. That silver's your death warrant"
"You're lying, Falco!"
"Don't judge me by your standards. It's time to go."
Sosia's father and he was Sosia's father; I think he knew I could never forget that made me a wry gesture, open palmed, like a gladiator who has lost his arms acknowledging defeat.
"Let me choose my own way."
"What," I scoffed, "death with that high moral tone you so despised in life? A middle class traitor too honourable to hang?"
"Oh Marcus Helena murmured. And at that moment I first heard the great door creak. "Allow a man his civic rights," she begged. "Give him the chance; see what he makes of it. Let me give him the sword She had done it before I could stop her, that fine clear-eyed face open as day. Of course he had it at her precious throat at once.
Camillus Meto had no more honour than a stinging nettle and the lass had brushed too close. He scrunched one hand deep into the soft body of her hair, flinging Helena to her knees. She took on a grey look. One move from either of us and he would slice her like a smoked Spanish ham.
I ordered him steadily, "Let her go as I tried to keep his eye.
"Oh Falco! Your real weak point!"
"No, sir my strength."
Helena did not struggle or speak; her eyes were scorching me. I took a step.
"No closer!"
He was standing between me and the door. It gave him the best light, but I had the best view.
"Behind you, Camillus!"
"Oh gods!" he sneered. "Not that world-worn trick!"
I raised my voice: "Partner! You took your time!"
Helena cried out as her uncle hurt her, twisting her hair in a merciless grip that was aimed to distress me. That was his mistake. I was keeping my eyes on him, because of Helena, but at the end he heard the furious footfalls rush.
He began to turn. I shouted: "Yours!"
Then Publius moved; I leapt, and spun Helena away.
I buried her face, turning her, forcing her head down against my chest.
Before it was over she stopped struggling; she understood. I released her very gently, then held her close while I cut the ropes binding her, before I let her look.
Her uncle was dead. Beside him, in a pool of blood a sword: not his own. Beside that, his executioner.
The senator Decimus Camillus knelt on the ground. For a moment his eyes were closed tight. Without glancing up he asked me dazedly, in the voice he used when we were cronies at Glaucus' gym, "What does your trainer tell us, Marcus? To kill a man with a sword takes strength, speed and a real desire to see him dead!" That was indeed what honest Glaucus generally said. It had been a good strong blow with his whole heart behind it, but I would never tell him that. "Oh my brother, Hail and Farewell!"
Still holding his daughter with one arm, I approached and offered the other to bring him to his feet. Still clinging to me, Helena fell on his neck. I embraced them both together. For that moment we three were equal, sharing our deep relief and pain.
We were still standing together when the Praetorians arrived. Petronius Longus appeared in the doorway, pale as milk. Behind him I heard the trundle of the waggons being returned.
There seemed to be a lot of noise. People of rank took charge, things became confused. Men who had played no obvious part in the afternoon's events congratulated themselves on their handling of the affair. I walked slowly outside, feeling my eye sockets as hollow in my face as an actor's mask.
The warehouse was being sealed, with the body still inside. The yard gate was being chained. Decimus was escorted off to explain at the Palace; I watched his daughter being led to a sedan chair. We did not speak. The Praetorians knew an informer even the Emperor's informer has no business with the daughter of a senator. Meto had gashed me; she had my blood on her face. She wanted me, I knew she did. She was bruised, she was shocked, I could see that she was shaking; yet I could not go to her.
If she had made the slightest sign I would have pushed all the Praetorians aside. She never did. I stood at a loss. The Guards were taking her home.
It was night. Rome simmered with bad deeds and unholy cries. An owl shrieked above the Capitol. I heard the mean lilt of a sad flute piercing the city streets with man's injustice to woman, and the gods' injustice to men.
Petronius Longus stood at my shoulder without speaking a word. And we both knew, the case of the silver pigs was effectively closed.