"Why should I?" He was scanning me with some interest. "I"ve heard you are an informer! What qualities does that need?"
"Oh judgement, foresight, constructive ideas, acceptance of responsibility, reliability under pressure-plus the ability to shovel dung down a sewer before it attracts public notice."
"Much the same as an administrator!" he sighed. "Well, Falco, what"s your mission here?"
"Finding out what you"re up to - which is more or less self-evident!"
"Oh really?"
"There are plenty of public positions you could want. For all of them you need the Emperor"s support - all except one."
"What a shocking suggestion!" he told me pleasantly.
"Sorry; what I do is a shocking job."
"Perhaps I should offer you a better one?" he tried, though with a latent humour in his tone, as if mocking his own attempt.
"Always open to suggestions," I said, not looking at Helena. He smiled at me again, though I noticed no grand offers of employment rushing forth.
"Well, Falco! I know what Flavius Vespasia.n.u.s has palmed off on Gordia.n.u.s; what"s he offering me?" The way he named the Emperor as if he were still a private citizen gave a clear indication of his disrespect.
"How do you know about Gordia.n.u.s, sir?"
"For one thing, if the garland you are wearing was provided by me tonight, it came in a consignment I had shipped round the coast from Paestum."
"Paestum, eh! Apart from a talkative garlandseller, who else is spreading rumours that Gordia.n.u.s is going to Paestum?"
At my insistent return to the question I saw a glint in his eyes (which were brown enough to entice the women, though too close together to be cla.s.sically correct). "He told me himself. He wrote to me about his brother"s death -" Crispus stopped.
"Warning you!" Barnabas.
"Warning me," he agreed gently. "Have you come to do the same?"
"Partly sir; also to negotiate."
"What with?" he exploded, on a contemptuous note. (I remembered Crispus owned half Latium, in addition to his expensive dinner outfit and his natty sailing boat.) "Vespasian has no money. He never had any money; it"s what the man is famous for! All though his public career he was notoriously mortgaged to the hilt. As Governor of Africa - the most gracious post in the Empire - he ran out of credit so disastrously he had to trade in Alexandrian wet fish... What does he pay you, Falco?
"Too little!" I grinned.
"So why do you support him? The man purred. I found him easy to talk to, perhaps because I reckoned he would be difficult to offend.
"I don"t, sir, particularly. Though it"s true I would rather see Rome ruled by a man who once had to ask his accountant tricky questions before his steward could pay the butcher"s bill than by some mad limb like Nero, who was brought up believing himself the son and the grandson of G.o.ds, and who thought wearing the purple gave him free rein to indulge his personal vanities, execute real talent, bankrupt the Treasury, burn half of Rome - and bore the living daylights out of paying customers in theatres!"
Crispus was laughing. I had never expected to like him. I was beginning to see what made everyone tell me he was dangerous; popular men who laugh at your jokes pose a threat which blatant villains can never command.
"I never sing in public!" Crispus a.s.sured me affably. "A dignified Roman hires in professionals... You see, from my point of view," he explained, taking time to convince me, "after Nero died we saw Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian - not to mention various other pretenders who never even managed to edge their b.u.t.tocks onto the throne - and the only thing which made any of them better than anybody else - for instance better than me! - was that they had the simple luck at the time to be holding public positions which provided armed support. Otho won over the Praetorian Guard, while the rest were all stationed in provinces where the legions they commanded were bound to hail their own governor to the skies. So if I I had been in Palestine in the Year of the Four Emperors..." had been in Palestine in the Year of the Four Emperors..."
He stopped. And smiled. And cleverly left any statement of treason unsaid.
"Am I right, Falco?"
"Yes, sir- up to a point."
"What point?" he enquired, still perfectly pleasantly.
"Where your political judgement - which looks pretty shrewd - ought to tell you what we all have to accept: that a violent cycle of events has reached its natural conclusion. Rome, and Italy, and the Empire, are exhausted by the civil war. By popular consent Vespasian is the candidate who survived. So whether anybody else could, in theory, have challenged him is, in practice, no longer relevant. With all due respect to you, sir!" I declared.
At this juncture Aufidius Crispus rose in order to pour himself some wine at a pedestal table. I declined. He inflicted some on Helena without consulting her.
"This is not the woman you came with!" he commented satirically to me.
"No, sir. This is a kind-hearted lady who volunteered to help me find you. She"s good at blind man"s buff?
Helena Justina, who had not previously spoken, put down the wine cup untasted. "The lady Didius Falco came with is my friend. I shall never mention this conversation to Fausta but I do feel concern about what you intend for her."
Crispus looked astounded by this female initiative, but soon managed to answer with the same frankness he had shown me: "It might be tempting to reconsider my position there!"
"I can see that! Hypothetically, of course," Helena challenged.
"Of course," he interrupted in a laughingly suave tone.
"A man with his sights on the Palatine might reflect that Aemilia Fausta comes from a good family with one consul among her ancestors and a brother who promises to duplicate the honour. Her face would look dignified on the back of a silver denarius; she is young enough to bear a dynasty, sufficiently devoted to prevent any scandal-"
"Too devoted!" he exclaimed.
"Is that your problem?" I chipped in.
"It was. Indeed it is."
"Why did you let her dine with you?" Helena hectored him.
"Because I see no reason to humiliate the lady. If you are her friend, try to explain to her that I could marry for policy - but not with such intensity on her side and such lack of it on mine." He prevented himself from shuddering, but only just. "Our marriage would be a disaster. For her own sake Aemilia Fausta"s brother ought to give her to somebody else-"
"That would be extremely unfair to some other poor man." Helena plainly thought him selfish. Perhaps he was; perhaps he should have tried to make a go of it -and plunged them both into domestic misery, like everybody else. "What will you do?" she asked in a low voice.
"At the end of the evening take her home to Herculaneum on my ship. Tell her decently, in privacy, that I cannot oblige her. Don"t worry. She won"t be upset; she won"t believe me; she never did before."
His briskness closed the subject, though none of us objected to letting it rest. Aemilia Fausta"s predicament embarra.s.sed us all.
I got to my feet, and removed from my tunic the letter I had been carrying for so many weeks. He smiled, looking relaxed. "Vespasian"s billet-doux?"
"It is." I gave it to him. "Will you read it, sir?"
"Probably."
"He wants me to take your reply."
"Fair enough."
"You may need time to think about it-"
"Either there is no answer at all, or I"ll tell you tonight."
"Thank you, sir. Then if I may, I"ll wait in the colonnade outside."
"Surely."
He was businesslike about it. The man had talent. He had shown over the problem of Fausta that he possessed some compa.s.sion, which is rare. He also had good sense, a cheerful humour, the ability to organize, and an approachable style. He was quite right; he matched the Flavians. Vespasian"s family had years of public service behind them, yet they continued to seem small-minded and provincial in a way this urbane, likeable character never would.
I did like him. Mainly because at bottom he refused to take himself seriously.
"There is one thing I wish to ask you, Falco."
"Ask away."
"No," said Aufidius Crispus, glancing coldly at Helena. "I want to ask you when this lady has withdrawn."
LIII.
Helena Justina shot us both a disparaging look, then slipped out of the room - like the dancing girl, but more aggressive and without a rose.
"Hates secrets," I excused.
"You after her?" His eyes narrowed with that semiserious glint he used when he was amusing himself manipulating people. "I can probably arrange it..."
"Nice present, but the lady won"t look at me!"
He grinned. "Falco, you"re an odd sort for a Palace messenger! If Flavius Vespasia.n.u.s has written to me personally, why send you as well?"
"Hiring in professionals! What did you wish to ask me? And why not in front of the lady?"
"It touches on her husband-"
"Ex-husband," I stated.
"Pertinax Marcellus; divorced from her, as you say . What do you know about Pertinax?"
"Over-ambitious and under-intelligent."
"Not your type? I saw his death announced recently," he murmured, giving me a speculative look.
"True."
"Is it?"
"Well, you saw it announced!"
He stared at me as if I had said something that might not be genuine. "Pertinax was involved in a project I know something about, Falco." Crispus" own role as a plotter had never been proved and I could hardly foresee him admitting it. "Certain people had collected substantial funding - I wonder who has it now?
"State secret, sir."
"Does that mean you don"t know, or you won"t tell?"
"One or the other. You say first," I offered bluntly, "why you need to know?"
He laughed. "Oh come!"
"Excuse me, sir, I"ve better things to do than sit on a stool in the sun watching grapes ripen. Let"s be frank! The cash was being h.o.a.rded in a pepper warehouse by a man who has apparently disappeared - Helena Justina"s uncle."
"Wrong!" Crispus shot back. Lies dead, Falco."
"Really?" My voice rasped as once again I smelt the decaying flesh of that body I had flushed down the Great Sewer.
"Don"t play games. I know he is. The man wore a ring; a monstrous great emerald, rather low taste." Even for his banquet Crispus himself had not troubled with jewellery, apart from one flat onyx signet ring, good quality but discreet. "He never took it off: But I"ve seen the thing, Falco, I was shown it here, earlier tonight."
I did not doubt it. He was talking about one of the rings which Julius Frontinus the Praetorian captain had wrenched from the swollen fingers of the warehouse corpse. The cameo which I had lost.
So while we were in Rome Barnabas had found it. And Barnabas must have been in Oplontis tonight.
Thinking quickly, I worked out that Crispus was hoping he could still get his hands on the sticky ton of bullion which the conspirators had a.s.sembled, and that he intended using it to further plans of his own. Half Latium and a fancy yacht might not be enough to secure the goodwill of all the provinces, the Senate, the Praetorian Guard, and the lively Forum mob...
In the hope of convincing him to abandon his plans, I declared what I had guessed: "Curtius Gordia.n.u.s wrote to warn you that the Pertinax freedman Barnabas has turned himself into a freelance killer? He was here tonight, wasn"t he?"
"Yes, he was."
"What was he after?" I queried, keeping my voice unsensational. "Trying to bring you in as a backer for this chandlery lark of his?"
"I think you"ve lost me, Falco," Crispus remarked, in his pleasant, winsome way.
He gazed at me. I let the subject drop, like a fool who had accidentally stumbled on to a due, without understanding its significance.
I didn"t understand it, that was true. But I was never the kind of amateur who would make his own uncertainty a reason to give up.
I had begun to suspect that wherever the grain importing fitted into this conundrum, Aufidius Crispus would be well to the fore of it. I wondered if he, and perhaps Pertinax before he died, had devised some private embellishment to the original conspiracy - an extra wrinkle, all their own. Was Crispus still hoping to pursue it? Had Barnabas come here tonight wanting to resurrect whatever fiddle Crispus had been intending with his master? And did frank, helpful, honest broker Crispus then decide that Barnabas would be better occupied telling me his life story in some dripping prison cell?
"You know Barnabas is wanted for the Longinus murder now? Are you turning him in, sir?"
I knew that under the affable exterior, Aufidius Crispus was a dangerous man, and like most of them, as quick to remove an embarra.s.sment from among his own a.s.sociates as he was to obliterate an opponent. Quicker, in fact. "Try the Villa Marcella," he suggested, without a second thought.
"I thought so! I was short of an excuse to search the place, but if that"s a firm tip, I can pick the freedman up-"
"My tips are always firm," smiled Aufidius in his elegant, easy-going way. Then his swarthy face hardened. "Though I suggest, Falco, that you prepare yourself for a surprise!"
He had finished with me. He was holding Vespasian"s unopened letter and I was anxious to leave him free to read that ancient piece of papyrus before the ink faded and beetles ate into it. I had the latch off the door when I stopped.
"About your friend Maenius Celer. I hit him because he was a.s.saulting a lady."