A military tribune, in the narrow purple bands of the second rank, tripped into the anteroom to meet some official appointment in connection with the Triumph: eyes bright, best boots, inlaid armour burnished to a gleam, and scrubbed from his straight-cut toenails to the red tips of his adolescent ears. Titus did not even look at him.
"Out!" he commanded, almost politely, though the tribune bolted without a second glance.
Once again the room was silent. Titus and me… Titus still holding the tablet, which I still had not seen.
My mouth felt dry. As an informer I was only middling good (too much of a dreamer and too chary of dubious commissions the kind that pay); all the same I was good enough. I had vowed never to align myself with the establishment again; yet I gave my own kind of service to my city and the Empire. I would never accept any Emperor's divinity, but I believed in my own self-respect and securing my fee.
So I told Titus Caesar who I thought it was.
"It must be one of the Camillus brothers, Caesar. But I am not certain which."
LIV
Outside we heard an escort party assembling. Titus strode to the doorway and spoke. The agitation stilled; someone posted a guard.
My abdomen felt sore, as if I had been seriously bereaved.
Coming back, Titus seated me and took his own place on the same couch beside me, laying the tablet between us, face down.
"That poor little girl! Oh, Falco that whole poor family! Well, it has to be done. Tell me your reasoning, please."
"Sir, once you think of it, it seems horribly obvious. I'll go back to the start. When the first silver pig turned up in Rome, what happened to Sosia Camillina was deeply relevant; I have always thought that. Possibly Atius Pertinax, in his position as the praetor's aedile, had been able to tell the conspirators where the ingot was hidden. But I now believe that they knew that already and certainly it was someone close to her who realized that Sosia knew the number to the bank box. So, the speediest way to get into it was to take her there herself using ruffians to confuse the issue and prevent her recognizing anyone."
Titus nodded. "Anything else?"
"Yes. Just before she died, Sosia wrote to her cousin that she had identified the house of a man who was connected with the people who abducted her. I believe that is where she had found this list. The point is, at that time, for her own safety following the kidnap attempt she was confined at home that is, in the senator's house though I have no doubt that whenever she wanted, she would still have been given access to her own father's house next door." Titus shook his head in reluctant acceptance of what I said. "Caesar, from the moment I undertook this case for you, someone very close has been watching my progress and thwarting every turn. When Helena Justina and I came back from Britain, after months away, someone knew enough to ambush us that very day. I had in fact sent a message from the Ostia Gate to her family."
"And so you lost the letter from friend Hilaris?" Titus smiled affectionately as he spoke; honest Gaius, with his pedantic dedication to hard work, had that effect. I smiled too, though simply because I liked the man.
"Quite. I always assumed the two names Flavius Hilaris was sending to Vespasian were Domitian and Pertinax. He would not tell me though. I misunderstood; it's most unlikely the mining contractor Triferus would realize your brother was involved. Pertinax, the shipper, must be one of them, but Pertinax had been married to Gaius' own niece. And suppose the other was an even closer relation of his wife's! It must have been painful; no wonder if Flavius Hilaris preferred to stand aloof and let Vespasian decide what to do."
Without comment on that point, Titus suggested carefully, "Did you ever consider Hilaris might be implicated here?"
"Not once I met him!" I told him my joke about this case being one where only the public officers were straight; he laughed.
"All honour to the knights," he exclaimed, applauding the middle class. Then added, fully serious as far as I could tell, "You ought to consider aiming for higher rank yourself. My father is anxious to build up the lists with good men."
The property qualification for the second rank is land worth four hundred thousand sesterces; Titus Caesar could not have realized what a ludicrous observation he had made. In some years the Falco income was so low, I qualified for tokens to claim the corn dole for the poor.
Ignoring the imperial jest, I pointed out that for twenty years Flavius Hilaris had been Vespasian's friend.
"Falco, it's a sad fact that when a man becomes Emperor he has to look twice at his friends."
"When a man becomes Emperor, sir, his friends may look twice at him!"
He laughed again.
Outside the door subdued voices were murmuring insistently now. Titus was staring into space.
"Has Flavius Hilaris been asked to write again?" I asked.
"We sent out an urgent message by signal flare, but traffic is very heavy because of the Triumph. A reply should come back after tomorrow."
"Do you still need it?"
It was then he finally turned over Sosia's tablet so I could read what it said for myself.
"I'm afraid so," Titus said.
There were various scratches on the tablet's pale wood; my hunch had been right, Sosia was a heavy-handed scribe. I could trace clear marks, strokes, even individual letters, all the way down the page.
But it was impossible to decipher the missing name.
LV
Titus Caesar folded his arms.
"Well, it changes nothing really. We shall just have to find out for ourselves. Have you any idea which brother it is?"
"No, sir. It could be the senator, who appears so anxious to help your father, but may be doing that to obtain the opportunity to sabotage our efforts. Or equally it could be his brother, who was certainly a close associate of Atius Pertinax. I suppose it could conceivably be both."
"Falco, how long have you had these suspicions?" Titus asked me curiously.
"Caesar, if you wanted mere speculation, I could have handed you a list a thousand names long six months ago"
Still gripping his arms across this chest, Titus tipped up that famous Flavian chin. "Hogging this family's involvement to yourself? You're attached to them obviously?"
"No, Caesar," I insisted.
We were on the verge of heated argument. No surprise; I had already quarrelled at some time or other with everyone else connected with the case. But Titus, with his strong sentimental streak, abruptly capsized. He threw back his head even further and exclaimed in a sad voice, "Oh Falco; how I hate this!"
"You hate it," I told him crisply, "but you will have to deal with it."
There was more movement outside. A tribune slightly older than the first, this one in the broad purple stripe of senatorial rank, entered the room. Seeing Titus and me with our heads together he stood quietly; he was obviously held in great confidence, and did not expect a rebuff. Plainly he believed their special day tomorrow took precedence over my own small moment of intrigue. His determined presence recalled Titus to their real order of business.
"Is there a problem, sir? Domitian Caesar has ridden ahead, but your father is delaying for you." "Yes. I'll come." The tribune waited. Titus let him stay.
"We need you to help us identify the remaining conspirators!" Titus urged me. I hesitated. I was too closely connected with people involved to judge the issues cleanly any more. My reluctance was not unexpected, I could see.
"Caesar, the Guards could take this forward for you now. There's a captain I recommend to you who knows something about it already; his name's Julius Frontinus. He became interested when the first ingot was found in Rome; he helped put me on the right track then"