'That's sharp of you!' Severina admitted. 'Hortensius Novus always claimed it had happened accidentally, but he had tricked Appius Priscillus into underwriting one of those dubious schemes of his. That was why Priscillus started threatening the family, and why Felix and Crepito, who had less nerve than Novus, wanted to end the feud by accepting an offer from him to co-operate in future.'
'I get the impression they were shaking hands on more than just compensation for rooking him! I think Felix and Crepito desired a full business merger-Mars Ultor, they could still do it, and stitch up the whole of residential Rome! Was your Novus resisting it?'
'You could be right,' she suggested doubtfully. I recognised the simple woman act again, so left the conversation there. The trick with Severina, I had discovered, was to move one line ahead in the board game, then force her to follow your move.
'Will you stay to lunch with me, Falco? I need some decent conversation; my girlfriend at the baths was too busy to stop, and I'm missing my fiance -'
For a moment I forgot Severina was my client now. 'Don't worry,' I smiled sweetly. 'You'll soon find another to fill the void.'
Her parrot's wilful damage in my apartment must have eroded my natural tolerance.
I wanted to see Helena; I was anxious to mend relations by helping her cope with the truculent bird.
Walking home, I did feel I was advancing on the case. Not that it cleared any undergrowth: I still had three sets of suspects and there were more motives than fleas on a cat. The only thing they had in common was that none could yet be proved.
I was enjoying myself though. This was much more satisfying than some dead-end mission for Vespasian. It offered a livelier challenge, and if I managed to solve it I should not just be removing some tired political grub whose disappearance would hardly be noticed by the man in the street; here there were real social undesirables to unearth and convict.
I had flushed one of them out already, apparently. Waiting on the bottom step to my apartment was a messenger. A pasty youth with a stye and a stammer told me Appius Priscillus had received my messages. If I wanted to meet him I was to be in the Forum of Julius in half an hour.
There was no time even to pop up and mention it to Helena. I thanked the youth (who looked surprised anyone should be grateful for an introduction to Priscillus) then I set off hot-foot.
I knew Petronius would have warned me against going solo, but I had my knife and my self-reliance, which had seen me through plenty. Besides, the Forum of Julius Caesar is an open public place.
I approached by what I thought was the subtle way, walking through the Curia and letting myself out of the great double doors at the back. It would have been a discreet approach-but Priscillus was not yet there so I had been wasting my time.
Everywhere seemed quiet. I had the big public lavatory on one hand and the shops on the other: ready for anything! Caesar had built his overspill Forum with a gracious surrounding colonnade; I moved out into the open, just in case.
The brown sedan turned up five minutes later. It entered from the eastern end and parked there, just inside the arch.
I had a good look round for ambushers: none in sight. In the end I ambled over. The carriers were standing motionless, staring ahead, ignoring me. They could be mute or stupid or foreign - or all three. I glanced back over both shoulders, then approached. When I whipped aside the lank leather curtain I had already convinced myself that Appius Priscillus would not be there. But I was wrong.
'Get in!' he said.
XLIX
It was like coming face to face with another rat: he was all teeth and piercing eyes. I got in, but I would rather have been tangling knees with my cellmate in the Lautumiae.
No one could accuse Priscillus of indulging in luxury. He had the skinny frame of a man who was too preoccupied to enjoy eating. He wore a dull old tunic, which had nothing actually wrong with it but was so depressing even I would have tossed it out for a tramp (though most tramps I knew had more sartorial style). A barber had made a few practice feints over his narrow chin fairly recently, but that was probably only because businessmen believe the barber's chair is a place to pick up tips. (I don't know why; all I ever pick up is a rash.) Attending to the Priscillus toilette had stopped short of the expensive frills. His thin hair was too long; his talons needed cleaning and clipping. And I could not imagine his razorman ever bothered offering any little flasks of cedar gum for contraceptive purposes ...
Priscillus was unmarried; now I knew why. Not because a woman would be too fastidious to have him (most would tolerate grimy fingernails in return for all those strongboxes), but this mean runt who barely kept himself alive would begrudge paying board and lodging for anything so inessential as a wife.
Even with two passengers the chairmen set off at a cracking pace. 'Where are we going?' I demanded in some alarm, before I even introduced myself.
'Business on the Campus Martius.' Well, I realised it had to be business; he would never spare time to visit a temple or indulge in exercise! 'So, you're Falco. What do you want with me?' His voice had a wheeze in it, as if he hugged in his breath as grudgingly as everything else he did.
'A few answers, please. I'm working on the Novus case -'
'Who are you working for?'
'I'm being paid by Severina Zotica,' I answered pedantically.
'More fool you! You want to look at your own client, Falco!'
'Oh I treat her very warily-but I'm looking at you first!' It was difficult to concentrate, for the bearers were still running and the chair jogged every syllable we tried to speak. 'Severina's a professional bride; she had no motive to kill Novus before she was in line to inherit his loot. You and the Hortensii must be much more viable suspects-'The rat's eyes flashed a threat which made me shiver. 'Sorry, but I'm judging by the facts: it looks black for you if you are planning to merge operations with Felix and Crepito-when all Rome knows their dead partner was so strongly set against it. Why was that, by the way?' Priscillus only glared at me; I answered it myself. 'He saw it not as a merger but a takeover-by you. He was used to being top cockerel on his own dungheap; he refused to take second place to anyone ... different for the other two, since they had always been subordinate to Novus anyway -'
The chair had stopped.
'You annoy me, Falco.' Priscillus spoke with the tired slur thugs always use for threats. He could have been any overstuffed off-duty guardsman who had crossed the street for the simple pleasure of shoving me aside.
'Then help me.'
'Help yourself!' he snarled insultingly. 'This is where we get out.'
I could tell we were well out on the Campus, on open ground. I experienced a sudden yearning to stay safe inside this chair of his, even joggling along and trying to keep from being bruised by his bony knees. He pulled back the curtain and climbed out himself. This almost had the foolish effect of reassuring me.
I got out. My foreboding had been correct. If I had clung on, the waiting Phrygians would simply have rolled the sedan chair onto its side and tackled the problem like poking a limpet to death inside its shell. Being out of it was no better. We had stopped in the middle of an exercise ground, and they all held javelins. The heads of the javelins were not weighted with practice dummies, but sharp Noricum steel-really sharp. When I climbed out and straightened up I was pinned between them so that a move in any direction would slit my hide.
I said nothing. One spearhead was nuzzling my windpipe. Speech would have cut my own throat.