Aelia Camilla chuckled. "No," she said. "Someone else-and you know it."
Maia did not ask her who she meant.
XXX
The Norbanus harpist joined them. His twanging would have drowned out their conversation anyway, but they both stopped the gossip. They would certainly not discuss Norbanus Murena; anyone else male was also off-limits. If the tunesmith was meant to carry back news to his master, this shrewd pair had his measure. He was spoiling their fun too.
Helena arrived soon afterward. I heard her dump a chair amid the garden party. Annoyance could be detected in the angry scratch of its legs.
"Where's our boy?" scoffed Maia immediately "I thought you were guarding my brother all day!"
"He found a friend."
"Anyone we know?"
Helena made no answer.
I waited awhile, then stood up. The others had their backs to me, but Helena looked up and saw me as I yawned and waved, making it plain I had been there on the balcony for hours. Perhaps she would feel guilty for doubting me. Perhaps not.
I went to our room and she joined me almost instantly. Nothing uncomfortable was said, and I quickly narrated all that Chloris had told me.
"I've acquired a witness, but one I can't use. Still, if she will make a formal statement, Frontinus may be prodded to make arrests. Maybe if word leaks out that the culprits are in custody, other people will feel safe enough to come forward."
"King Togidubnus will want to know what that quarrel in the bar was about."
"I need to know that myself. If Pyro and Splice just pretend they had an argument about a wine bill, that's not enough. I want to tie the Verovolcus killing to extortion. Then Frontinus can stamp on the racket."
Helena frowned. "Frontinus will support you, won't he?"
"Yes, though don't forget his initial reaction was to gloss over the problem. I have to prove beyond doubt what is going on."
"And Petronius is working on the same lines?"
"He is-but Frontinus must not know. If he finds out, Petro will be in hot water."
"You two!" she scoffed. "Why can neither of you ever do anything the easy way?"
I grinned. "Come here."
"Don't mess about, Falco." She sounded like me, coping with Chloris.
"No, come here." I got hold of her. She was too interested in the Verovolcus story to resist. I held her nose to nose. We were peaceful with each other now. "I love you very much, you know."
"Don't change the subject," said Helena Justina sternly, but by then I was kissing her.
I took my time. O reader, go and peruse a very long philosophical scroll for an hour. You damn well don't need to know about this.
Actually, you can come back now. What happened was fairly satisfactory to a man who had been fighting off jealousy all night and morning-but what might have happened never did. Instead, we were interrupted by a wary slave of the procurator's, who knocked on the bedroom door extremely shyly, looking for me. It was unclear whether he expected to find a vicious marital tempest or widescale pornography.
"Can I help you?" I asked sweetly. I was fully clad and hardly blushed at all. I had of course spent my youth being caught almost in the act by my mother. I could look innocent in no time. Chloris could vouch for that.
Forget Chloris. (I was now seriously trying to.)
"Message." The slave chucked the tablet at me and fled.
It was from the customs officer, Firmus. He wanted me to come down to the ferry urgently. Somebody, the message said obliquely, had suggested that I would want to know they had found another corpse.
XXXI
The body was still lying on the deck. They were waiting for me before moving it: Firmus, a couple of his juniors, and a man who rowed the ferryboat to and fro on call. A silence fell, as I absorbed the sight. The others, having seen it once, stared at me rather than at the dreadful corpse.
They had fished it out of the river this morning, Firmus said. None of us thought the man had drowned, however. That surprised me. Somehow after Verovolcus I had expected a pattern. But there was no parallel with the well-killing: this man had been battered to death. Someone had set about him with professional cruelty. To judge from the massive injuries he suffered, it would have taken a long time. The beating may even have continued after he had died. There was no foam around the lips, though being in the river would have washed it off. I looked in his mouth and still found no evidence to suggest he had been alive when he was tipped in the water. Firmus, and the ferryman, seemed to find that comforting.
The body had tangled in the ferry; I thought this had happened very soon after its being put into the Thamesis. Death, too, must have taken place quite recently Only this morning, by the freshness of the corpse. He had had no time to sink properly and had not reached the bloated stage, full of gas. Though less hideous this way, the thought that he had so narrowly missed seeing the killers dispose of the body upset the ferryman more.
The last time I saw anyone murdered with such savagery it was in Rome. Gangsters had inflicted the battering on one of their own.
This dead man was fifty or sixty, thereabouts. I cannot tell you about his features; the face had been too badly damaged. Of modest build in most respects, he had quite strong arms and shoulders. His skin was ruddy, with no dirt on his hands, which had noticeably clean cuticles and fingernails. Along the inner side of both his arms were old healed marks, which looked like minor burns, the sort you obtain from a brush against a trivet or an oven edge. He was dressed in British clothing, with the neck flap that is common to the northern provinces. Under the blood lay a faint trace of something, a fine gray sludge that had thickened in the seams and braids of his brown tunic. He wore no belt. I guessed his tormentors had removed it and used it as one of the weapons to thrash him, its buckle causing some of those short cuts among his heavy bruising.
"Know him, Falco?"
"Never seen him before-" I had to clear my throat. "I can suggest who he may be, though. If this mucky deposit all over him was once flour-dust, that's a clue. A baker called Epaphroditus vanished and his shop burned down the other night. It's clear he had upset someone. Someone who must think that depriving him of his livelihood was not enough to punish him-or not enough to scare other people."
I straightened up and walked over to the still shocked ferryman. "What did you see?"
"Nothing. I just felt something binding on the boat. I guessed we had a floater; I rowed in gently and Firmus helped me free it. I've seen plenty, but I've never seen…" He tailed off in distress.
"Were you rowing over with a fare?"
His eyes grew wide.
I said quietly, "If it was the big man who is staying at the mansio, you can speak up." I knew Petronius Longus must have seen the corpse at some time; the message from Firmus had hinted it was he who had advised fetching me. "It's all right. He and I are a duo."
Firmus had been listening. "He's gone back over there," he intervened.
I told the ferryman he would do better if he kept working, and persuaded him to take me across to the far side of the Thamesis. As we looped over slowly, first veering upstream and then drifting back, I looked down the wide gray river and thought black thoughts.
The great river marked a geographic boundary. Even the weather seemed different; when we landed on the southern bank, the heat we had felt in the town was less oppressive. Mind you, it was now early evening.
The mansio lay a short walk from the islands with their reeded banks, along the left fork of the big Roman highway. This was a decent full-width military road that went, I knew, far westward beyond the chalky downs to the entry port at Rutupiae. It had been the first route prepared by the invasion force and still carried arriving armed forces and most goods that came into Londinium overland. The mansio was a brand-new establishment; it only looked about a year old. A sign warned people, LAST GOOD DRINK BEFORE THE COLONIA. I found Petro glumly sampling this beverage.