Poseidon s Gold

'Whoa, Varga. Drop the brush! It's the Didius boys!' That harsh command, which startled both the painter and me, came from Pa.

Varga, slow on the uptake, clung on to his brush.

My father, who was a solid man, grasped the painter's arm with one hand. He gripped the painter bodily with the other, lifting him off his feet, then he swung him in a half-circle, so that a bright pink streak from the brush scraped right across three yards of plaster, just smoothed over by an extremely expensive craftsman. It had been a perfect, glistening poem.

'Mico could learn something here! Well don't just stand there, Marcus, let's fetch that door off its pinions. You nip into the kitchen alongside and pinch the rope they hang the dishrags on-'

Bemused, I complied. I never willingly take orders-but this was my first game of soldiers as one of the Didius boys. Clearly they were hard men.

I could hear Varga moaning. My father held him fast, sometimes shaking him absent-mindedly. On my return he threw the painter down, and helped me lift an ornamental folding door off its bronze fastenings. Gasping for air, Varga had hardly moved. We picked him up again, spread-eagled him, and lashed him to the door. Then we heaved the door up against the wall, opposite the one Varga was supposed to paint. I coiled the spare rope tidily, like a halyard on a ship's deck. The rope still had the damp cloths on it, which added to the unreal effect.

Varga hung there on the door. We had turned it so that he was upside down.

Good plasterwork is very expensive. It has to be painted while it's wet. A fresco painter who misses his moment has to pay from his wages for redoing the job.

Pa flung an arm across my shoulders. He addressed the face near his boots. 'Varga, this is my son. I hear you and Manlius have been singing false tunes to him!' Varga only whimpered.

Father and I walked across to the new wall. We sat down, either side of the wet patch, leaning back with our arms folded.

'Now, Varga,' Pa chivvied winningly.

I grinned through wicked teeth. 'He doesn't get it.'

'Oh he does,' murmured my father. 'You know, I think one of the saddest sights in the world is a fresco painter watching his plaster dry while he's tied up:' Father and I turned slowly to gaze at the drying plaster.

For five minutes Varga lasted out. He was red in the face but defiant.

'Tell us about Orontes,' I suggested. 'We know you know where he is.'

'Orontes has disappeared!' Varga spluttered.

'No, Varga,' Father told him in a pleasant tone, 'Orontes has not. Orontes was living at your dump on the Caelian quite recently. He repaired a Syrinx with a missing pipe for me only last April-his normal botched effort. I didn't pay him for it till November.' My father's business terms were the unfair ones that oppress small craftsmen who are too artistic to quibble. 'The cash was delivered to your doss!'

'We pinched it!' Varga tried brazenly.

'You forged the pig off his signet-ring for my invoice then-and which of you was supposed to have done my job for me?'

'Oh shove off, Geminus!'

'Well if that's his attitude-' Pa hauled himself upright. 'I'm bored with this,' he said to me. Then he fiddled about with a pouch at his waist and pulled out a large knife.

XLV

'Oh come on, Pa,' I protested weakly. 'You'll frighten him. You know what cowards painters are!'

'I'm not going to hurt him much,' Pa assured me, with a wink. He flexed his arm as he wielded the knife. It was a stout kitchen effort, which I guessed he normally used to eat his lunch. 'If he won't talk, let's have a bit of fun-' His eyes were dangerously bright; he was like a child at a goose fair.

Next minute my father drew back his arm, and threw the knife. It thonked into the door between the painter's legs, which we had tied apart-though not that far apart.

'Geminus!' screamed Varga, as his manhood was threatened.

I winced. 'Ooh! Could have been nasty:' Still amazed at Pa's aim, I scrambled to my feet as well, and whipped my own dagger from my boot.

Pa was inspecting his shot. 'Came a bit close to castrating the beggar: Maybe I'm not very good at this.'

'Maybe I'm worse!' I grinned, squaring up to the target.

Varga began to scream for help.

'Cut it out, Varga,' Pa told him benignly. 'Hold on, Marcus. We can't enjoy ourselves while he's squalling. Let me deal with him-' In the tool-bag he had snaffled was a piece of rag. It stank, and was caked with something we could not identify. 'Probably poisonous; we'll gag him with this. Then you can really let rip-'

'Manlius knows!' wailed the fresco painter weakly. 'Orontes was his pal. Manlius knows where he is!'

We thanked him, but Pa gagged him with the oily rag anyway, and we left him hanging upside down on the door.

'Next time you're thinking of annoying the Didius boys-think twice!'

We found Manlius at the top of a scaffold. He was in the white room, painting the frieze.

'No, don't bother coming down; we'll come up to you:'

Both Father and I had nipped up his ladder before he knew what was happening. I grasped him by the hand, beaming like a friend.

'No, don't start being nice to him!' Pa instructed me curtly. 'We wasted too much time being pleasant with the other one. Give him the boot treatment!'

So much for auctioneers being civilised men of the arts. With a shrug of apology, I overpowered the painter, and pushed him to his knees.

Here there was no need to go off looking for rope; Manlius had his own for hauling up paint and other tools to his work platform. My father unwound this rapidly, hurling down the basket. Snarling horribly, he sawed through the rope. We used a short piece to tie up Manlius. Then Pa knotted the longer remaining length around his ankles. Without needing to consult one another we picked him up, and rolled him over the edge of the scaffold.

His cry as he found himself swinging in space broke off as we held him suspended on the rope. After he grew accustomed to his new situation, he just moaned.

'Where's Orontes?' He refused to say.

Pa muttered, 'Someone has either paid these nuts a fortune, or frightened them!'

'That's all right,' I answered, gazing over the edge at the painter. 'We'll have to frighten this one more!'

We climbed down to the ground. There was a plasterer's lime bath, which we dragged across the room so it was directly under Manlius. He hung about three feet above it, cursing us.

'What now, Pa? We could fill it with cement, drop him into it, let it set and then heave him into the Tiber. I think he'd sink-' Manlius was holding out bravely. Maybe he thought that even in Rome, where the passers-by can be frivolous, it would be difficult to carry a man who was set in concrete through the streets without attracting attention from the aediles.

'There's plenty of paint; let's see what we can do with that!'

'Ever made plaster? Let's have a go:'

We had wonderful fun. We tipped quantities of dry plaster into the bath, poured in water, and stirred madly with a stick. Then we stiffened it with cattle hair. I found a kettle of white paint, so we tried adding that. The effect was revolting, encouraging us to experiment more wildly. We hunted through the painter's basket for colourings, whooping as we made great swirls in the mixture of gold, red, blue and black.

Plasterers use dung in their devious mysteries. We found sacks of the stuff and tipped it into our mud pie, commenting frequently on the smell.

I climbed back up on to the scaffold. Pausing only to pass a few well-informed comments on the riot of garlands, torches, vases, pigeons and bird-baths and cupids riding panthers from which Manlius had been creating his frieze, I unfastened the rope holding him. Leaning back on my heels, I let it slip slightly. Pa stood below, encouraging me.

'Down a bit! Few more inches-' In a nerve-racking series of jerks, Manlius sank head first towards the plasterer's bath. 'Gently, this is the tricky bit-'

The painter lost his nerve and frantically tried to swing himself towards the scaffold; I paid out rope abruptly. He froze, whimpering.