"A friend?"
"He went to school with my brother."
"Ah!"
Dealing with a Caesar was unpleasantly civilized. His good manners gave me a sick qualm; instead of escaping I felt hopelessly pressurized.
"Falco, I can't force you to go on with the case, though I wish you would. Look, will you leave your decision just for a day? Nothing is going to happen in the next twenty-four hours. All Rome will be at a standstill. Tomorrow my father will be handing out gifts to people in his pay. You've certainly earned that; you may as well take advantage! Meanwhile, let us both consider what to do. After the Triumph come and talk to me again." He rose, ready now to answer the call from his staff, yet he did not hurry me.
"These are not my kind of people," I informed him awkwardly. "I can round up a thug or a thief and throw him at your feet with a noose round his neck, alive or dead, as you choose. I lack finesse for this."
Titus Caesar lifted an eyebrow sardonically.
"A cornered traitor is unlikely to respond according to strict court etiquette. Didius Falco, my father has had a letter from Flavius Hilaris, applauding your physical endurance and mental agility; he's spent three sheets of first quality parchment singing your praises! You have managed when it suited you to deal on your own aggressive terms with anyone who stumbled in your path, yet it does not suit you now?"
"Sir, very well. I'll honour my contract, identify who organized the plot"
"And find the silver pigs!"
"Sosia Camillina suspected where they were. I believe she was right all along."
"Nap Lane?"
"Nap Lane."
"Falco," Titus was thoroughly exasperated now, "I cannot keep my men in Nap Lane any longer! They have work elsewhere. The warehouse has been virtually stripped down and reconstructed several times. The value of the contents is a serious complication for the officer in charge. The lady you act for has been promised that my officers will leave"
Then let them," I suggested with a faint smile. "And let me tell Helena Justina that your men have been recalled to other duties as from tomorrow, the day of your Triumph. It might be useful if that news was to be broadcast amongst her family…" I did not explain why, but like other intelligent men he enjoyed a conversation that left him work to do.
"Nothing is going to happen so long as my soldiers are perching on the pigs? I agree. You may tell Helena Justina the warehouse is available. I will ask the Praetorians to inspect the place informally from time to time but Falco, I rely on you!"
I left the Palace on the northeast side, coming down to the Forum on the Clivus Victoriae. All the streets, normally so dark at night, were ablaze with the flickering light of torches as dim figures worked to adorn their porticos with garlands. Gangs of public contractors were erecting stands. The gutters ran with a constant chuckle of water as mud and debris were sluiced from one island block to another. Squadron after squadron of soldiery went marching past on their way to the great muster at the Plain of Mars. Citizens who would normally lock themselves into their shops and houses after nightfall hovered in groups outside, reluctant to leave the expectant atmosphere. Already the city hummed.
I sent one of my nephews with a note to Helena Justina. I said the spices were now hers but I could no longer make myself available for her proposed warehouse spree. I did not tell her why. By the time breaking my promise became an embarrassment, she would understand; meanwhile, I guessed she would assume I had decided to avoid her.
Perhaps I should.
I had never written to Helena before. Now I would probably never do so again. No doubt once she knew what I had done on Palatine Hill, the honourable Helena Justina would be only too keen to avoid me.
I told my nephew to wait for any answer, but she sent none.
That night I visited Petronius at his house. His wife, who takes a dim view of me at the best of times, was not at all pleased; she wanted him to spend time with their children to make up for having to waste all the hours of the public holiday keeping watch for shop breakers along the Ostia Road.
I told Petro what I believed was now afoot and he promised to stake out the warehouse with me when I tipped him the word. I left him on his hands and knees being ridden like an elephant by his three tiny girls. His wife gave me a black pudding when I departed, I think as a present for leaving them alone.
I wanted to get drunk. Luckily for Petro's wife I hold the philosophy that you can be drunk at any other point in a case, but never when you know at last who it is you are looking for.
When I went up to the Palace I had thought it was all over. The cases you hate most never seem to end.
LVI
I took all of my sisters and a dozen small children to watch Vespasian's Triumph. For that alone my soul deserves quiet rest in Elysian fields.
I managed to miss the tedious march of the consuls and senators by the simple trick of having overslept. (Even with the city in ferment, up on the sixth floor I could doze deep into the morning as peaceful as a dove's egg in a stone pine nest.) Out on the Campus Martius the army drew up in parade, while Vespasian and Titus took their places on ivory seats in the Portico of Octavia to receive the troops' acclaim. When this shout tore the skies, even an Aventine sleepyhead leapt out of bed. While the Imperial party pecked at breakfast under the Triumphal Arch, I sorted out my holiday tunic, peacefully watered the flowers on my balcony, and combed my hair. I hummed on my way northwards, passing through the garlanded arcades, into a wall of sound.
It was a lively day, warm and bright, with a lift in the air. A bad day for bunions; by the time I strolled out there was standing room only. All the temples had been thrown open, and the baths were closed; incense, smoking on a thousand altars, grappled with the whiff of half a million people perspiring in their holiday clothes without a chance to bathe all day. Apart from one or two dedicated housebreakers slipping through deserted alleys with discreet sacks of swag, everyone who was not in the procession was watching it. There were so many gawpers packed along the processional route that the marchers and floats could hardly crawl along.
My brother-in-law Mico (the plasterer) had for once been put to use. They sent him out at first light to erect a scaffold just for us in front of some unwary citizen's private house. There was not really room for a scaffold, but when the aedile's troops saw the entire Didius family installed on a day's hampers, all eating squelchy melons and wearing country hats, with their noses already stuck well down their gourds of wine and their throats full of ready abuse, the troopers accepted a slice of melon each then shambled off without trying to tear the scaffold down.
Luckily, by the time I arrived the senators had passed, so the trumpets and war horns were being carried by, their towering bell-like mouths just level with our heads. Victorina and Alia mouthed obscenities at me. The rest of the family covered their ears against the din and decided not to strain their vocal chords complaining I was late.
"Do you remember," Victorina reminisced in a loud voice, as the blaring ranks of trumpeters reached a momentary gap, "that time at the Triumph for the Conquest of Britain when the Emperor's elephants frightened Marcus so much he was sick?"
It had nothing to do with the elephants. I was seven. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside a tray of Persian sweetmeats that were standing in the shade. All I could view of the British Triumph were other people's legs. That whole afternoon I munched my way through three pounds of honey fried stuffed dates, until my little lips were tender from licking off the salt and my aching belly decided to revolt. I never even saw the elephants…