Poseidon s Gold

My father latched on to the idea eagerly. 'That's good! If he won't talk, we can leave him there permanently.'

'He won't last long in that thing!' I commented.

My father, whose lurid sense of humour was rapidly reasserting itself, dragged Rubinia to a statue of a particularly lewd satyr, and used his belt to tie her to its hairy hindquarters in a suggestive position.

'Ah Marcus, she's started crying!'

'She likes to make an effort. Take no notice. A girl who was prepared to kick me in the privates gets no sympathy from me.'

My father told her he was on her side-but she had to stay there. Rubinia demonstrated more of her vivid vocabulary. Next Geminus helped me wedge a large lump of stone against the coffin lid, so it was held fast, still half covering the opening, with Orontes peering out. I was leaning on a ladder that was tilted against a wall opposite, while Pa climbed up a large enthroned goddess and settled demurely in her lap.

I stared at Orontes, who had caused us so much trouble. He was, though I did not know it yet, to cause us rather more.

With his bald top and his great curly, bushy beard he had once been handsome and still had the dramatic authority of some old Greek philosopher. Wrap him in a blanket and sit him in a portico and folk might flock to hear him straining his brain. So far he had had nothing to say to us. I would have to cure that.

'Right!' I tried to sound menacing. 'I have had no dinner, I'm worried about my girlfriend, and even though your sultry model is a glad eyeful I'm in no mood to let this take all night.'

The sculptor finally found his voice. 'Go and jump in the Phlaegraean Marsh!' It was a deep, sombre voice, made raspy by drink and debauchery.

'Show some respect, cumin-breath!' Pa shouted down. I liked to proceed with dignity; he loved to lower the tone.

I carried on patiently. 'So you are Orontes Mediolanus-and you're a lying runt!'

'I'm not saying anything to you.' He braced himself against the inside of his stone prison, managed to shove one knee through the opening, and tried to grapple off the lid. Working with stone had given him muscle, but not enough.

I went over and kicked the sarcophagus unexpectedly. 'You'll just tire yourself out, Orontes. Now be reasonable. I can lock you in the dark in this rather heavy sarcophagus and come once a day to ask if you've changed your mind yet-or if I decide you're not worth my trouble, I can lock you in there and just not bother to come back.' He stopped struggling. 'We've not met,' I went on, politely resuming the introductions as if we were lying on marble slabs in some elegant bathhouse. 'My name is Didius Falco. This is my father, Marcus Didius Favonius, also known as Geminus. You must recognise him. Another relation of ours was called Didius Festus; you knew him too.'

Rubinia emitted a high-pitched noise. It could be terror or annoyance. 'What's that squeak for?' growled my father, gazing down at her with salty curiosity. 'Hey, Marcus, do you think I should take her out the back and ask her some questions privately?' The innuendo was obvious.

'Wait a bit,' I restrained him. I hoped he was bluffing, though I was not entirely certain. Ma had always called him a womaniser. He certainly seemed to throw himself into any available form of fun.

'Let her brew, you mean:' I saw Father grin evilly at Orontes. Maybe the sculptor remembered Festus; anyway, he did not look keen to see his glamorous accomplice leaving with yet another rampant Didius.

'Think on,' I murmured to him. 'Rubinia looks like a girl who may be easily swayed!'

'Leave me out of it!' she caterwauled.

I pushed myself off the ladder and ambled over to where Rubinia was tied up. Beautiful eyes, brimful of malice, sparkled at me. 'But you're in it, sweetheart! Tell me, were you swayed by Didius Festus the night I saw you at the Circus?' Whether she remembered the occasion, she coloured slightly at my brother's name and my heavy innuendo. If nothing else, I was storing up domestic strife between Rubinia and Orontes when they reminisced about our visit after we had left. I turned back to the sculptor. 'Festus was madly trying to find you. Your girlfriend here passed him on to your friends Manlius and Varga and they bamboozled him nicely: Did he ever find you that night?'

Inside the sarcophagus Orontes shook his head.

'Pity,' said Pa, in a clipped voice. 'Festus had his methods with traitors!'

Orontes proved as great a coward as his friends the two painters had been. All the fight was going out of him before our eyes. He groaned, 'In the name of the gods, why don't you all just leave me alone! I never asked to get into this, and what happened was not my fault!'

'What did happen?' both Pa and I demanded simultaneously. I glared at my father angrily. This would never occur with my old pal Petronius; we had a well-established routine for doing a dual interrogation. (By which I mean Petro knew when to let me take the lead.)

But as it turned out, shouting at Orontes from two directions worked the required effect. He whimpered pathetically, 'Let me out of here; I can't stand confined spaces:'

'Shut the lid a bit more, Marcus!' commanded Pa. I strode towards the stone coffin, looking determined.

The sculptor screamed. His girlfriend yelled at him: 'Oh tell the bastards what they want and let's get back to bed!'

'A woman with the right priorities!' I commented quietly, a foot from her entombed lover. 'Are you ready to talk then?'

He nodded miserably. I let him out. Immediately he made a dash for freedom. Expecting it, Father had slid gracelessly down the front of the vast matron who was forming his armchair. He landed in front of Orontes and punched up the sculptor's chin with a mighty blow that knocked him out.

I caught him under the hot hairy armpits. 'Oh brilliant, Pa. Now he's unconscious! This way he'll tell us a lot!'

'Well what else did you want? To see the bastard escape?'

We got him laid neatly on the floor, then threw a jug of cold water over him. He came to, to find the pair of us lolling against the statuary while I complained to my father. 'You do have to overdo everything! Settle down, will you? We want him alive at least until he's talked

'I should have hit the girl harder,' mumbled Pa, like some demented thug who liked torturing people.

'Oh she's all right-so far.'

Orontes stared around wildly, looking for Rubinia. There was no sign of her in the studio. 'What have you done with her?'

'Not too much-yet,' smiled Father.

'Missed his vocation!' I commented. 'Don't worry; she's just a bit frightened. I've managed to hold him back so far, but I can't go on doing it. Now talk, Orontes, or you get a chisel somewhere you may not expect and Jupiter only knows what this maniac will inflict upon your bit of decorative womanhood!'

'I want to see Rubinia!'

I shrugged. Ignoring his frantic gaze, I carefully examined the statue I had chosen to lean on. It had the body of a Greek athlete in tiptop condition, but the head of a Roman countryman aged about sixty, with a lined face and very big ears. 'Ovonius Pulcher', according to its plinth. There were half a score of these monstrosities scattered through the studio, all with identical bodies but different heads. They were the latest craze; everyone who was anyone in Campania must have ordered one.

'These are horrible!' I said frankly. 'Mass-produced muscle with entirely the wrong faces.'

'He does a good head,' Pa disagreed. 'And there are some nice reproductions around us here. He's a damn good copyist.'

'Where do the youthful torsos come from?'

'Greece,' croaked Orontes, trying to humour us. Pa and I turned to each other and exchanged a slow, significant glance.

'Greece! Really?'

'He goes to Greece,' my father informed me. 'Now I wonder if he used to go there and find things for our Festus to sell?'

I whistled through my teeth. 'Treasure-hunting! So this is the clod-brained agent Festus used to employ! The legendary man he met in Alexandria: Greece, eh? I bet he wishes he'd stayed there sunbathing on the Attic Plain!'