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They were just square-bashers. They had no idea.

‘Sounds like somebody weeded the cupboards and storage stacks without asking the Librarian first,’ scoffed Aulus.

‘And the Librarian did not like their choice,’ agreed Albia.

I grunted. ’It sounds to me as if the Librarian asked some half-baked assistant to reshelve some outstanding returns that had been littering up the place for months. Instead of sorting out the mess, the assistant just filed the scroll mountain in the “Not needed” skip, to avoid doing any work.’

‘You have such a jaded view of underlings,’ Albia tutted.

‘That’s because I have known so many.’

Mammius and Cotius seemed to feel they were being got at. They stuffed a few last chunks of bread into their fists, saluted and made off.

My father had eavesdropped without interruption, but now he just had to weigh in. ‘Seems you were brought here to dig out a swamp of corrupt practices.’

I served myself a new slice of smoked ham, a task that required silence and concentration lest I cut myself on the very sharp thin-bladed knife. While I was at it, to prolong the activity I did slices for Helena and Albia. Aulus held out his bread too.

‘All right,’ agreed Geminus patiently. He recognised my delaying tactics. ’You weren’t brought here for that. I believe you. You came on an innocent holiday. Problems just float up to you, wherever you take yourself

‘If I attract problems, it’s inherited, Pa ... What’s your interest anyway?’ As usual when talking to my father, I immediately felt like a surly teenager who thinks it is beneath his dignity to hold a civil conversation with anyone over twenty. I had been one once, of course, though I did not have the luxury of a father to be rude to at the time. Mine had run off with his lady love. When he reappeared, renaming himself Geminus instead of Favonius, he behaved as if all those intervening years never happened. Some of us would not forget.

Pa produced a sad smile and his personal brand of annoying forbearance. ‘I just like to know what you are up to, Marcus. You are my boy, my only surviving son; it’s natural for a father to take an interest.’

I was his boy, all right. Two days in the same house and I understood why Oedipus had felt that burning urge to strangle his kingly Greek papa even without recognising who the bastard was. I knew mine too well. I knew that behind any interest he took there must be a suspicious motive. And if I ever met him in a chariot at an isolated crossroads, Marcus Didius Favonius, known as Geminus, might disappear, complete with his chariot and horses, and no need to waste time on dialogue first . . .

‘Settle down, Pa. I don’t know what you’re wheedling for. I’m here because Helena Justina wants to see the Pyramids -’ She favoured us with her own little knowing smile. ‘You go and get on with whatever tricks you are up to with Fulvius. Don’t fret about any convoluted Egyptian schemes that have been going on at the Library. I can sort out a few book fiddles. Their days are numbered.’

‘Is that so?’

Pa consulted Helena with a sceptical look. Her word was law with him. He had convinced himself that a senator’s daughter was above practising deceit, even for the usual family reasons.

‘That’s right,’ she confirmed. She was extremely loyal - and hilariously inventive. ‘We expect to have the full facts any day now. A report for the authorities will be cracked out straight away. Marcus is on to it.’

Helena had just imposed a time constraint, though I did not know it yet.

XXXVIII

Aulus and I went to the Museion together. When we first left my uncle’s house, we found Mammius and Cotius were still in the street, giving a shake-down to the muttering man who always lurked outside. On the excuse of routine public order enquiries, they had him pinned against a wall and were scaring him silly. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Katutis.’

‘A likely tale! Pat him down, Cotius -’ We grinned and quickly walked on.

By now the familiar route to the Museion seemed much shorter. I said little on the way, planning my next moves. I had a number of lines I was eager to pursue, and a job in mind for Aulus. As we walked through a colonnade together he suddenly asked, ‘Do you trust your father?’

‘I wouldn’t trust him to squash a grub on his lettuce. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason.’

‘Well, let’s have a pact: I won’t dwell on any deplorable relatives you may have - and you can keep your high-class disapproval away from mine. Geminus may be an auctioneer, but he has never actually been arrested, even for passing off fakes - and you are not a praetor yet. You won’t be either, until one day you trudge your noble boots back to Rome and levitate yourself like a demigod, up through the cursus honorum to the dizzy heights of the consulship.’

‘You think I could make consul?’Aulus could always be sidetracked by reminding him he had had political ambition once.

‘Anyone can do it if enough cash is spent on them.’

He was a realist. ‘Well, Papa has no money at present, so let’s go and earn some!’

At the Library, we found Pastous, looking anxious.

‘You asked me to preserve the papers Nibytas was working with, Falco. But the Director sent across this morning and asked for everything. I’m told he wants to send personal effects to the family.’

‘What family did Nibytas have?’

‘None I know of.’

‘You let those notebooks of his go?’

Pastous had discovered a liking for intrigue. ‘No. I claimed you had taken everything. I decided that if they were so urgently in demand, they must be significant . . .’

‘Is the stuff here?’ Everything off the table where the old man worked had been secreted in a little back room. ‘I want Aelianus to go through it. ’The noble youth pulled a very ignoble face. ’If you have free time, Pastous, maybe you can help. You don’t need to read every line, but decide what Nibytas thought he was doing. Aulus, just give us an overview, as rapidly as you can. Pull out anything significant, then the residue can be dispatched to Philetus. Jumble it up a bit to keep him busy.’

Before I left them to it, I asked Pastous to tell me what he knew about scrolls being found on rubbish dumps. It was clear the assistant was uneasy. ‘I know that it once happened,’ he admitted.

‘And?’

‘It caused much unpleasantness. Theon was informed, and he managed to reclaim all the scrolls. The incident made him extremely angry’

‘How had the scrolls got there?’

‘Junior staff had selected them for disposal. Unread for a long time, or duplicates. They had been instructed that such scrolls were no longer needed.’

‘Not by Theon, I take it! What do you think of the principle, Pastous?’

He stiffened up and sailed into a heartfelt speech. ‘It is a subject we discuss regularly. Can old books that have not been looked at for decades, or even centuries, justifiably be thrown out to increase shelf space? Why do you need duplicates? Then there is the question of quality - should works that everyone knows are terrible still be lovingly kept and cared for, or should they be ruthlessly purged?’

‘And the Library takes what line?’

‘That we keep them.’ Pastous was definite. ‘Little-read items may still be requested one day. Works that seem bad may be reassessed - or if not, they are still needed to confirm how bad they were.’

‘So who ordered the staff to clear the shelves?’ asked Aulus.

‘A management decision. Or so the juniors thought. Changes are always happening in large organisations. A memo comes around. New instructions appear, often anonymous, almost as if they fell through a window like moonbeams.’

What Pastous said seemed all too familiar.

Aulus had less experience than me of the madness that infects public administration. ‘How can such things happen? Surely someone would have double-checked? Theon cannot have allowed such important and controversial instructions to be given to his staff behind his back?’