At the other end of the yard, behind a pile of seasoned timbers stacked next to the river, Orbilio yawned. Wedged between a splintery masthead and a lumpy anchor stone, he was acutely aware that waiting was the tedious part, and since waiting comprised most of his job his one consolation was unwinding afterwards with a workout at the gymnasium — weights usually, or a game of small ball if there were enough chaps to make up a team. This would be followed by a long, hot soak to relieve the stiffness from being stuck in the same position for hours on end, then a massage with warm, aromatic oils to rid himself of whatever smells he'd been stuck with all day, in this case hemp, pitch and sweat. Such treats, though, were impossible after a night on surveillance. Even assuming the bath houses opened that early, mornings were reserved for the gentler sex, which meant that if Marcus Cornelius wanted a bath, he'd have to go back to Marcia's villa, and, whilst he couldn't put his finger on the exact reason, he just didn't feel comfortable there.
A soft scuffling halted his train. He craned his neck, peered into the blackness, saw a rat scamper over the ramp and relaxed. Take a Spaniard, he thought, or a German, in fact any stranger to imperial ways. Put him in any house anywhere in the Empire and life invariably follows the same pattern. Visitor knocks. Guard dog barks. Janitor opens up. Porter leads guest through the vestibule to the cool airy atrium, its decor differing only in the colour of the marble, the depth of gilt on the stucco and the design on the elaborate mosaics. Visitor waits, inhaling the fragrance of the oils that burn in the braziers. Eventually, a steward leads him through the house, usually to the shade of the portico, where the lady of the house is draped on a couch under a fan. It's never the master who greets him. The men of the house are invariably out — on their estates, in the libraries, with their mistresses. It's the women who receive guests. The women who wait so patiently at home, prisoners of their class, but, even more, prisoners of their own snobbery.
With Marcia, everything was upside down, and it wasn't that Orbilio was a chauvinist. He saw no reason why women should not own property in their own right or run business empires equal to men. As far as he was concerned, it made no sense that men could divorce their wives for infidelity yet their wives were not free to do likewise, and in his view it was downright unfair that women were barred from pleading in court. One-sided justice was no justice at all, and as for the idea that women were so weak and helpless that they needed a man's protection from cradle to grave — absolute bollocks. Admittedly, there were women who fell into that category, but thank god they were few, which surely made the argument all the more convincing that the arrangement should be one of choice? Something agreed, like the terms of her dowry, which was laid down in the marriage contract? Otherwise you ended up with the sorry situation you had now. Needy, greedy women with no conversation beyond fashion and gossip. How could they stand their own company?
So it wasn't that he held Marcia's wealth and status against her. Quite the reverse, truth be told. He admired strong women who fought for their corner and succeeded against all the odds. It was the atmosphere in Marcia's villa that sat uneasily with him. Maybe it was because she was host and hostess rolled into one. Or that her masculine voice combined with her crisp manner was at odds with the fashionable gowns and dripping jewels, the elaborate coiffure and girlie cosmetics. Then there was the way she hectored and flirted at the same time, the way charity came with a price (and he had yet to discover his!), the contradiction between her hard head for business and her predilection for fakes. In all his travels, Orbilio had never seen so many toadies gathered together in one room! What on earth went through Marcia's head, when she hired the likes of Koros and that lisping Indian soothsayer?
Perhaps that was it? Perhaps that's what lay at the root of his unease, the fact that she'd surrounded herself with so many yes-men that she no longer saw the complete picture, only what she wanted to see. They say power corrupts, but people forget it's two-way traffic. Once you divorce yourself from impartiality, objectivity evaporates and the ego magnifies out of all proportion. Ruthless in her business dealings, it was not entirely surprising that Marcia's monstrous ego needed to be satisfied at home. The trouble is, if no one stands up to you, you start to believe yourself invincible…
A creak of timber down by the river's edge made him sit up. He strained his ears in the blackness, but heard only the nightwatchman's snorts. Then two cats began squaring up to each other, setting off the dogs in the distance. With a grunt, the nightwatchman grabbed his torch. Orbilio hunkered down into the shadows. But the search was cursory, and having satisfied himself that the cats weren't thieves in disguise the night-watchman scattered them with a few judiciously thrown stones then quickly fell back into sleep.
Marcus rubbed his hands over his weary eyes. At least he wasn't stuck under a tarpaulin for hours on end, he supposed, with sawdust tickling his throat and the noise of constant hammering ringing in his ears. But he'd had to do it. He'd needed to monitor the comings and goings in this boatyard during the day, because the boatbuilder's accomplices would more than likely turn out to be men whose presence would not arouse suspicion, and whilst he was by no means certain that their peddling of childflesh would take place at this yard, river access lent itself to clandestine dealings.
As an owl hooted on the opposite bank, Orbilio folded his arms and shifted his feet so they rested on a coiled hawser. Working this trip to Santonum had been easy. Given the humidity and heat that made Rome such a perfect breeding ground for the plague, it was no wonder that half the city decamped to the country during the summer (the rich half, that is), and his boss was no exception. This meant that, as senior officer in the Security Police, no one questioned Orbilio's decision to take himself off to Gaul to — what was it he'd written in his report? That's right, how it had come to his attention that there was a plot by a group of hardcore rebels to retake Aquitania by marching on Santonum and assassinating the Governor.
He ought to be another Terence or Euripides, he thought. Penning scripts for the theatre, his fiction was so bloody good. But he'd had to come up with something, because he'd finally wrung out of Claudia's steward that she was headed to Gaul and it was obvious the woman was up to something. And when Claudia was up to something, it was usually illegal and highly dangerous! The age-old combination of wealth and status worked its magic in the form of a fast ship to Massilia, then he cut across land on a sleeping cart, eliminating the delays in inns and posthouses that Claudia would have had, because the only time Orbilio's drivers stopped was to change horses. This meant he'd actually arrived ahead of her, but no sooner had he reported to the barracks (with a different fiction to explain his visit!) than a note was left in his room at the tavern where he was staying.
Like most tip-offs, it was anonymous. But a few discreet enquiries among army colleagues, coupled with gossip picked up at the inn, suggested that there had indeed been instances of beggar children disappearing from the streets of Santonum, and, since the note was quite specific in naming both boatyard and owner, Orbilio's nose told him to follow it. As outlined in the note, he was careful to make no mention to anyone of what he was investigating, and although he could probably use the contacts Marcia offered to provide, far better she, and everyone else, believed he was investigating fraud than have the paedophiles inadvertently alerted to his activities.