I refused to drink with him. I'll take a free tipple from most people, but I'm a civilised man; I do discriminate. Below the line I drew in those days lay unrepentant murderers, corrupt tax-gathers, rapists, and Smaractus.
Luckily I knew I made him nervous. There had been a time he always brought two gladiators from the gym he ran whenever he risked his neck in Fountain Court; with Lenia to defend him from aggrieved tenants he had taken to dispensing with the muscle. A good idea; poor Asiacus and Rodan were so badly nourished they needed to conserve their strength. The big daft darlings would never stagger into the arena after a day fighting me. For Smaractus I was a difficult proposition. I was lean and hard, and I hated his guts. As I crossed the threshold I heard his voice, so I had time to apply what Helena called my Milo of Croton look.
`Falco is going to read the sheep's liver at the wedding for us!' Lenia simpered, incongruously playing the eager young bride. He couldn't have been there for more than a few minutes but she was well into the wine. Who could blame her?
`Better watch out!' I warned him. He realised that if I took the augury this might be a double-edged favour. A bad omen could ruin his happiness. A really bad omen, and Lenia might back out before he got the ring on her, depriving him of her well-filled strong-boxes. Being sick on his mother as Lenia had asked me was nothing to the fun I could have with a co-operative ewe.
`He's nice and cheap,' said Lenia to him, as if explaining why I seemed a good idea. I was on her side too, though we refrained from mentioning that. `I see the little dog's found you, Falco. We call it Nux.'
`I'm not taking in a stray.'
`Oh no? So when did you change your attitude?'
Smaractus muttered that I lacked experience as a priest, and I retorted that I knew quite enough to pontificate on his marriage. Lenia shoved a winecup into my hand. I shoved it back.
With the business formalities over, we could get down to cheating each other.
I knew Smaractus would try to swing some fiddle if he heard we were the basket-weaver's subtenants. One way out was to avoid telling him. Unfortunately, now he was betrothed to Lenia he was always littering up the neighbourhood; he was bound to spot us going in and out. This needed care – or blatant blackmail. To start with I ranted at him about the dilapidated rooms above Cassius. `Somebody's going to tell the aediles that place is a danger to passers-by, and you'll be ordered to demolish the lot before it falls in the street!' Smaractus would do anything to avoid pulling down a property because by law he would have to replace it with something equal or better. (The idea of making more money from higher rents afterwards was too sophisticated for his mouldy old sponge of a brain.)
`Who would stir up trouble like that?' he sneered. I smiled courteously, while Lenia kicked his foot to explain what I was getting at. He would be limping for a week.
`Wasn't it you I saw talking to the rug-seller?' Lenia asked me. You couldn't squeeze a pimple in Fountain court without three people telling you to leave yourself alone.
`I'm going to help him clear out his upper floor.'
`Why's that?' demanded Smaractus suspiciously.
`Because I'm a kind-hearted fellow.'
I waited until he was about to explode with curiosity, then I told him what I had just agreed with the cane-weaver: I would clear out the apartment and in return live there rent-free. Once we moved in I would keep an eye on the lockup when it was closed, allowing the weaver greater freedom to buzz off to his family.
Smaractus was nonplussed by this news. The word 'rent-free' was not in a landlord's vocabulary. I explained what it meant. He then used some phrases that proved what I had always suspected: he had been brought up by runaway trireme slaves in an unlicensed abattoir.
`I'm glad you approve,' I told him. Then I left, while he was still choking on his wine.
XV
NEXT MORNING I presented myself at the Aventine Watch. The Fourth Cohort had its tribunal headquarters in the Twelfth region, the Piscina Publica, which most people deemed more salubrious. Alongside the HQ was a station house for the foot patrols, where their fire-fighting equipment was stored. To cover their other patch, the Thirteenth region, they had a second station house, to which Petronius bunked off whenever possible. That was where he kept an office staffed by his casework team of plain-clothes enquiry agents and scribes. They had a lockup for people who were caught in the act by the foot patrols or who sensibly chose to confess as soon as challenged, plus a room for more detailed questioning. It was small, but had interesting iron devices hung on all the walls. And there was just space to get a good swing with a boot.
Fusculus was outside the office, helping an old, woman compose a petition. They had a bench in the portico for local people who came with complaints. The duty clerk, a lanky youth who never said much, leaned down and worked grit out of his left sandal while Fusculus very patiently went through the procedure for the crone: `I can't write it for you. Only you know the facts. You want to start off: To Lucius Petronius Longus, chief enquirer of the Thirteenth region… Don't worry. The scribes will put that bit automatically. From… Then say who you are, and tell us details of your loss. On the Ides of October, or whenever it was -'
`Yesterday.'
Fusculus kicked the clerk into action. `The day after the Ides, there was stolen from me…'
`A bedcover.' The woman had caught on rapidly, as they do when they have persuaded some handsome young fellow to work for them. `By a street gang who removed it from my balcony. In Conch Court, off Armilustrum Street.'
`Worth?' Fusculus managed to squeeze in.
`A denarius!' She was probably guessing.
`How long had you had it?' demanded Fusculus suspiciously. `What was this treasure made of?'
`Wool! The most serviceable wool. I'd had it twenty years
`Put: worth a dupondius! Then the usual formula: I therefore request that you give instructions for an enquiry into the matter…'
As the clerk began to write, Fusculus nodded me indoors. He was a round, happy fellow, about thirty-five years and a hundred and eighty pounds. Balding on top, the rest of his hair ran around his skull in horizontal ridges. It had remained dark, and he had almost black eyes. Though rotund, he looked extremely fit.
`If you're after Petro, he'll be in later. He went out with the night patrol,' Fusculus announced. `He's convinced there will be another gigantic raid. Martinus is on duty. He's gone back to the Emporium to check on some things.'
`I can wait.' Fusculus grinned slightly. Most people didn't bother with Martinus. `So what's on, Fusculus?'
`Seems pretty quiet. The day patrol is out looking into a possible theft from the Temple of Ceres. We've got scratchers doing statues at the Library of Asinius '
'Scratchers?"
`Lifting off the gilding. Then a tanner's allegedly poisoning the air by the Aqua Marcia. Normally it's poisoning the water… Anyway, we can get him for noxious smells and shift his workshop to the Transtiberina, but somebody's got to go there and actually sniff the air while he's working. Street fight by the Trigeminal Gate – be over by the time the lads can get down the Clivus Publicus. Three apparently responsible citizens have laid separate reports of seeing a wolf by the Temple of Luna.'
`Probably a large cat,' I suggested.
`On the usual form it will turn out to be a small, timid tabby!' chortled Fusculus. `Escaped bears and panthers we pass straight on to the Urban Cohorts – well, at least those bastards are armed. And we let them catch senators' sons pet crocodiles that have escaped from the rainwater tank. But a "wolf" we usually have a look at. Just in case it's suckling heroic twins, you know.'