'Then there wasn't much more to be done. Suspicion fell mainly on Probus and Nobilis.'
'Nobilis and Probus? Noble and Honourable?' I could hardly believe the irony of these names.
The simple girl didn't see my point. 'Those two are the best known – and most feared. They hang around together a lot. But Probus now has his own business – - he buys and sells harness; second-hand mostly.' That probably meant stolen, though she did not suggest it. 'Nobilis has been working for Thamyris, a grain supplier in Antium, though Probus swore blind to the militia that his brother had gone away. So he couldn't have done anything, could he?'
'Away where?' asked Petronius. 'Campania? Rome? Overseas?'
'No, somewhere real foreign.' The girl knew nothing of other regions of Italy, let alone the overseas provinces. Our glorious Empire meant little to her. She had never even been to Antium, which was only seven miles away.
'When did he leave?'
'We haven't seen him in Satricum for months, but that's not unusual. The Claudii come and go.'
'Do you think he fled because he knew people would be looking for him?'
'He's never been scared before.'
I shoved Petronius along his bench and muscled in. It took effort. He was bigger than me and resisting like a recalcitrant old hog. 'So, excellent young lady with the beautiful eyes – -' Januaria giggled as if no man had ever chatted her up before. Clearly few from Rome stayed here. 'What do you know about these rascals, the Claudii? Are there many of them?'
'Plenty. They live a bit rough, except some of the girls, who got away and married and have families.'
'I'm Falco, by the way.' I gave her my best smile, the version with dimples, which has been called seductive.
Sadly Januaria lost her chance with me. There was a landlord keeping an eye on her in case she snatched five minutes to herself. We never found out whether he was her husband or father, or even her owner if she was a slave. Around here, arrangements were freestyle. All three situations might apply simultaneously. In Rome we have a wide range of social entertainments on offer; in country dumps they tend to be stuck with witchcraft and incest.
The man was a waddling, inquisitive slob in a meal-sack apron. When he put in an appearance, the girl slid to her feet and made off indoors. She knew he had come out to stop her gossiping. Maybe he beat her if she slacked. In the country, people who may be kindness itself to their valuable animals treat staff management as harshly as an arena blood sport.
We never found out his name. We never wanted to be that friendly.
He just liked to do all the talking himself. They had a system. This wastrel chatted to customers; Januaria did everything else.
'Oh yes, fine sirs! I can tell you all about the Claudii!'
He said he remembered them arriving here. He was a child then. They had been manumitted in the time of the Emperor Gaius, which would be forty years ago. Freed from the rural farms of Antonia, the Emperor Claudius' mother, they arrived near Satricum and took possession of some soggy fields they claimed had been given to them. No imperial land agent had ever come to question it, though that could be because the sodden fields in question were rubbish. The Claudii hit the district like a plague of rats. Since then, anything portable had to be locked up, which the landlord said included all women younger than great-grandmothers.
The father was called Aristocles. He was a cold, odd man who certainly beat his children; people reckoned he knocked his wife about too, though some said that in fact he was frightened of her. Others maintained both parents acted together as a terrible team; the mother once hit a three-year-old so hard he lost an ear. This matriarch, a woman known as Casta, had borne about twenty offspring, in whom she showed little interest, although they all strangely revered her. The children were feral and generally disliked. The boys became renowned for wild tempers. They had bad relations with their girlfriends, when they were able to find any. Their sisters, who knew no other kind of man, tended to ruin any hope of a new life by choosing work-shy, thieving wife-beaters who resembled their own kin. The whole family were regularly suspected of burglary and arson, though it took a brave person to accuse them. Criticism of one was viewed as an attack on them all. It would bring the whole tribe into town, out for retaliation.
'Isn't it rumoured they have imperial protection?' I asked.
'Oh they do. Everybody knows about it.'
'How does that work?'
'We just all know. The Claudii have powers in Rome looking after them. That's why nobody official tries to clear them out. That's why most of us steer clear of them.'
'Did they give the posse from Antium any trouble?' Petronius asked.
'Oh no, laddie. Resistance would have proved they were up to no good, wouldn't it? That's their trickery. When troops go down there to their camp, they act meek as lambs. They make out that all complaints against them are dreamed up out of local spite. They pretend to be helpful. They throw open their doors to let their places be searched.'
'But no evidence is found?'
'They are very clever.'
Petronius leaned his chin on his hands. He was thinking about bullies who fester in society, accepted as a hazard of life, while they terrorise communities for years. He had to deal with situations like this in Rome. There were foul alleyways that nobody went down. Even the vigiles would only venture there in groups and they whistled loudly first, to let it be known they were coming. They would not want to surprise anyone. They gave the specially violent ones good time to get away.
The landlord decided he had said enough, though he gave us directions for tomorrow. Rectus, our intended guide, looked down his nose; the information was of the 'take the first turn out of town then just keep going straight' variety. This always leads you to sharp bends and forks in the road with no signboard. 'You can't miss it,' said the innkeeper, complaisantly. Our hearts sank.
We turned in early. My dinner lay heavy in my guts and even after it deigned to go down I had an ache in the pit of my stomach. I cannot have been the only one. We all knew we were about to visit one of the most dangerous areas on earth.
XIX
First thing next morning, Petronius and I handed round the insecticide ointments Helena and Maia had made us bring. Amidst a lot of joshing about the reek, and how scared of our women Petro and I must be, surprising amounts were applied to exposed skin. Petronius Rectus called us a bunch of fragile florets, but even the two vigiles dipped into the pots and daubed their foreheads.
None of us bothered much with breakfast, except Rectus. Since he had already had a dose of marsh fever, nothing worried him. We were tense, but he was placid. Immediately he had stuffed himself, he harnessed up Nero the ox, then without a word, threw his pack on the cart and set off. Luckily the rest of us were ready to go. You couldn't call the man surly; he just never bothered to communicate. His distaste for talk was religious. Being in his brother's company seemed to make Petro equally gloomy. I didn't try to chivvy him out of it; I was gloomy myself.
There were towns on the coast, west of us; there were stopping points along the Via Appia, to the east. Between them, once we put Satricum behind us, the way ahead was a vast empty quarter. We had a sense that the sea was somewhere over on our right hand, less than ten miles away though we never caught a glimpse. When Appius Claudius struck his great road south from Rome, he only added to the problems of this low-lying interior, his hefty causeways interfering with the water table. There were tracks, down which the ox could just haul his cart, though in narrow parts we had to dismount and manhandle the vehicle. These tracks all had the look of overgrown, deserted byways that would take you miles into nowhere then peter out without warning.