Clemens brought a soldier who had not crossed my path and annoyed me yet, Sentius. I had asked for my old comrade Lentullus; apparently he had to stay with the children, on Helena's orders. I thought twice about leaving my two precious ones with the clumsiest legionary Rome possessed, but Helena had a knack for choosing unexpected nursemaids. I ordered Lentullus to remove the wooden swords because I did not wish my tiny offspring to turn into frightful martial types who would be mocked by social poets: galumphing gym-frequenters, the shame of their parents, who would never acquire husbands. Lentullus just said, 'Well, they're happy and it's keeping them quiet, Falco.' I was only their father. Overruled, I left him to it.
Sentius was a tight-lipped, terse type, who viewed me with brooding suspicion. I thought he was trouble too. He was too big for a donkey and had staring eyes. He spent most of the morning eating an enormous almond pastry. Meanwhile Clemens kept digging into a bag of seeds and pine kernels, which he never offered round.
At least fretting about the wife, the children, the route, these companions, and the fact that I had had no breakfast stopped me losing my temper over the beast I was supposed to be riding. I had been given the truculent one with mange, who kept stopping dead. It was past noon when we reached the Appian Way necropolis. The houses of the dead stretch out from the city for several miles along the ancient highway. Packed tombs line the worn cobbled road to the south between stately groups of umbrella pines. Occasionally we saw funerals taking place. There would be more cremation parties after the festival, when Saturnalia indulgence and violence had taken its toll. People usually came out here at holiday time to feast with their dead ancestors, but chilly weather and dark nights must be putting them off Mostly the road was empty and the lines of rich men's mausoleums looked deserted.
As we slowed our mounts when we started to look for vagrants, we pulled our cloaks tighter across our chests, burying our ears in the fabric. We all became morose. It was a cold, grey day, a day for things to go badly wrong with no warning.
None of us had brought swords. I had not even thought about it, because weaponry was forbidden in the city. My automatic failure to carry had lacked forethought. Wandering between these isolated tombs in bad light was a dangerous idea. This was a situation where we were asking to get hurt. At first it seemed that Petronius must be wrong. We saw no sign of people living rough. We had all heard stories of successful beggars who were so good at their craft they became millionaires; beggars who treated importuning as a business and worked from secret offices; beggars who went home in a litter every evening, rid themselves of their rags and filth, and slept like kings under tapestry coverlets. Perhaps all beggars were like that. Perhaps Rome, where good citizens are generous benefactors, really had no homeless people. Perhaps in winter rich, kindly widows sent all the vagrants on holiday to airy seaside villas where their hair was trimmed, their sores were cured and they listened to improving poetry until they suddenly reformed and agreed to be trained as sculptors and lyre-players… Romancing, Falco.
Starting near the city, we began a systematic search through the great variety of monuments. Most were close to the road, giving easy access for funerals, though space was tight and some had had to be built at a distance from the highway. Round ones were favourite but rectangles and pyramids were there too. They came in all designs, some small and low but many higher than a man or two-storied, with a lower chamber for the dead and an upstairs for the family to hold feasts. They were in weathered grey stone or different coloured brick. Some were in the form of ovens or pottery kilns, indicating the trades of their dead owners. Classical architecture, pilasters and porticos marked the resting places of cultural snobs; no doubt the urns that contained their burnt relics were of fine marble, carved alabaster or porphyry. Some tombs had religious decorations; others carried statues or busts of the deceased, sometimes accompanied by one of the gods.
Clemens found the first remains of a campsite. Blackened undergrowth showed where a small open-air fire had once been, probably for days on end. The ashes were cold. Broken amphora shards and a sodden old blanket with a distinctive smell convinced us this was not simply the remains of a formal cremation or of a family memorial party held outside a mausoleum. We continued searching and gradually came across more indications that Petro was correct. Locked chambers had had unpleasant rubbish deposited around them, especially in the entrance area. Ancient tombs which were no longer visited by relatives of the dead and newer ones with the doors recently broken in contained evidence of rough sleepers. Some had been used as lavatories. The worst were sordid after being used for both.
Starting to recognise the signs, we trod carefully near doorways. We held our breath before stooping to look inside open tombs. We poked at discarded clutter only with sticks, and we held the sticks at ann's length. We were wary of enclosures where rats might be foraging.
Clemens made the first sighting. He called out, and pointed to a thin figure, some way off, loping away from us. It was probably a man, dressed in patches, hunched double and carrying a bag of some sort over one shoulder. Whether or not he heard us shout, he kept going and was too far off for us to chase him.
The light faded. The day closed in. At the rate we were going we would soon need torches, which we had not brought. To cover more ground, we split up; Clemens took one side of the highway, Sentius the other. I went up ahead some distance, tethered my donkey to show where I started, then moved forward by myself on foot. Intent on searching as far as I could that day, I kept up a good pace. I glanced inside any tombs which had ready access; checked quickly around the back of all those I passed, whether open or locked; kept going steadily. Clemens and Sentius were supposed to pick up my mount in due course, then move on past me so we worked in relays.
They never caught me up. I covered the ground faster than they did. Informers learn to be meticulous without wasting time. This was no area to hang about. Just because the road and the tombs seemed deserted did not mean they really were. You need not believe in ghosts to be aware of an unseen presence. We were all being watched, undoubtedly. I was just waiting for the moment when we found out who it was and what they wanted.
At one chilly monument, a whimsical pyramid, a flight of tiled steps led down into a pitch-dark interior. I could not bring myself to step past the creaking door; irrational fear that it would slam shut behind me held me on the threshold. I had grown so nervous in that lonely place I shouted out, 'Is anybody in there?'
Nobody answered, but my call had been heard. As I turned on the steps, heading out of the tomb, I was suddenly accosted. With a wild but silent movement, someone – or something – all in white reared up above me on the mausoleum roof. This restless ghoul was hooded, jerking its wrists above its head as if jangling spectral bangles. I was so startled, my foot slipped on damp vegetation and I fell heavily. Then the figure continued its wild dance, letting out a high ghostly cry.
XXIV
The cavorting spectre slowed its roof top dance. 'Hoo! Hoo! Are you alive or dead?' 'I'm bloody well not happy!' I sat up awkwardly in agony. I had twisted my ankle as I slid on the tiled steps. 'Stop jiggling about.' 'Hoo-oo are you?' The faint, papery voice sounded like a bat squeak. 'Name's Falco. Who in Hades are you?' 'In Hades, out of Hades… Flitting bodiless and airy… the unburied dead.' Someone around here had read too much Virgil.