The public baths were opening by the time the investigation broke up for the day. The scent of wood smoke on the damp October air gave an autumnal gloom and added to our melancholy mood. We were no further forward. There was a sense that we would spend this coming night waiting for more deaths. We were losing. The villains had all the dice running for them.
With a set face, Petronius ordered the body's removal – to an undertaker this time, not the station house, where the dead man's distraught brother was still being looked after. He then arranged for members of the foot patrol to be brought in to clean up and 'leave the surgery neat. Fusculus volunteered to oversee that. He seemed to need something to fill his time. Petro thanked him, then sent the rest home.
I saw Petronius to his house. He said almost nothing as we walked. I left him at his door. His wife let him in. She glanced at his drawn features, then her chin went up, but she made no comment. Maybe she even gave me a half-concealed nod. Arria Silvia loved to rant, but if ever Petro looked beaten she rushed to protect him. So Silvia took over, and I was not needed. As the door closed, leaving me alone in the street, I felt momentarily lost.
It had been a terrible day. I had seen Rome's underbelly, smelt the matted filth beneath the ravening wolf. It was nothing new, but it forced me to face the lack of hope that lives alongside crime. This was the true face of the Caesars' marble city: not Corinthian acanthus leaves and perfect gilt-lettered inscriptions, but a quiet man killed horrendously in the home and workplace he shared with his brother; a vicious' revenge thrust on the onetime slave who had learned a respected profession then repaid his freedom and citizenship with a single act of assistance to the law. Not all the fine civic building programmes in the world would ever displace the raw forces that drive most of humankind. This was the true city: greed, corruption and violence.
It was dusk as I made my way to Fountain Court. My heart lay heavy. And for me, the day was nowhere near over yet. I still had to put on a smile and a toga then go out to dinner with my girlfriend's family.
XLIII
ONCE WE GOT past the porter, who had always viewed me like a door-to-door lupin seller who was aiming to snatch silverware, it was an occasion to remember. The hosts were so considerate that guests felt free to behave badly. Helena Justina's birthday, in the consulship of whoever it was, laid the foundation for many happy years of family recrimination. For once, it was not my family involved.
Being a mere private citizen, my manners were the best on display. As soon as I escorted Helena from the carrying chair I had grudgingly hired, I turned to find her mother right behind me waiting to knock me aside and embrace the birthday girl. I kissed the matron's cheek. (smoothly oiled and scented) with grave formality. She was a tall woman who had not expected me to tackle her, so the manoeuvre required dexterity. She was even more surprised than I was.
`Julia Justa, greetings and thanks. Twenty-five years ago today you gave the world a great treasure!' I might not be the ideal son-in-law, but I knew how to press a rather nice soapstone casket of balsam into a lady's receptive hands.
`Thank you, Marcus Didius. What a pretty speech.' Julia Justa was a mistress of elegant hypocrisy. Then her expression froze. `Why,' queried Helena's mother icily, `is my daughter carrying a child?' Helena had brought the skip babe.
`Oh Marcus found him in a rubbish skip!' cried Helena Justina breezily. `But there's another child I'm carrying that you'll want to hear about.'
This was hardly the tact and decorum I had tried to plan. On the other hand, nobody could say that it was my fault.
I had a side bet with the Fourth Cohort that the night would end with women in tears and men losing teeth. (Or the other way round.) Before we even crossed the threshold there was some jostling for position among the female element.
Helena's mother wore leaf-green silk with an embroidered stole; Helena wore not merely silk, but a fabulous cloth from Palmyra woven in multiple patterns of purple, brown, deep red and white. Helena's mother wore an expensive parure of golden scrolls and droplets set with a clutch of evenly matched emeralds; Helena wore an armful of bangles, and absolutely enormous Indian pearls. Helena's mother was scented with highly refined cinnamon perfume, the one Helena herself often wore; Helena tonight wore a few vivid dabs of a precious liquor containing frankincense. She also had the gracious air of a daughter who had won.
We men were in white. We started in togas, though we soon flung them off. Helena's father had his fond, faintly cautious expression. Her brother Aelianus boasted a scowl and a Spanish belt. I had been smartened up until I felt like a whole guild of shoemakers on their big day out.
Justinus had failed to appear that night. Everyone knew he must be mooning around Pompey's Theatre. `He won't forget,' his mother assured us as she led us indoors. He might. (The actress might be exceptional, and she might choose tonight to notice him.) Helena and I gulped, then prayed for him.
While the women rushed away to share urgent news, I was led off for a pre-dinner winecup with the Senator (honeyed mulsum, strictly traditional; makes you feel sick without letting you get drunk). Camillus Verus was shrewd and intelligent, with a diffident manner. He did what was necessary, and didn't waste effort on the rest. I liked him. It mattered to me that he should be able to tolerate me. At least he knew the strength of my feelings for Helena.
The Camillus family were certainly patrician when viewed from my own perspective, though there were no consuls or generals in their ancestry. They were rich – though their wealth was in land and my father probably owned far more portable collateral. Their house was spacious and detached, a lived-in town villa with water and drainage but rather tired decor. Lacking expensive works of art, they relied on old-fashioned features for domestic tranquillity.
Tonight the courtyard fountains were splashing merrily, but we needed more than that to cool the air as the Senator introduced me to his elder son.
Aelianus was two years younger than Helena, two years older than Justinus. He looked much like his father – sprouting straight hair and slightly stooped shoulders. More chunky than Justinus and Helena and heavier-featured, he was less good-looking as a result. His abysmal manners were a patrician cliche. Luckily I had never expected a senator's son to approve of me. That was fine; it let me off trying to like him.
`So you're the man who's been pushing my young brother's career along!' exclaimed Aelianus.
Nearly a decade his senior, and worth ten times more in useful qualities, I refused to agitate myself. `Quintus has a warm personality and a fine intellect. People like him, and he's interested in everything – naturally such a man stands no chance in public life! Unlike you, I'm sure.' Well done, Falco; an insult, but nicely ambiguous.
Young Justinus stood every chance; in fact. But I don't stir up trouble; close relatives can usually find enough things to be jealous about.
`And did you get him interested in the theatre too?' his brother sneered.
It was the Senator himself who said, `He selects his own hobbies – like all of you.' That had to be a fatherly dig; I sat back and wondered what dubious activities the pious Aelianus liked. If he gave me any trouble, this would be something to find out.