"Scandal takes a Holiday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Lindsey)

IV

Helena and I had one evening to ourselves. We made the most of it. Tomorrow we would be joined by Albia, a young girl from Britain who took care of our children while we tried to take care of her. Albia had had a poor start in life; running around after Julia and Favonia took her mind off it, in theory. She had experience of family travel from when we brought her to Italy from Londinium, but controlling a toddler and a growing infant on a two-hour jaunt in a cart would be a challenge.

Are we sure Albia can find her way here all on her own?" I sounded wary, but not too critical.

Settle down, Falco. My brother is bringing her."

Quintus?"

No, Aulus. Quintus stays with Claudia and the baby." Gaius Camillus Rufius Constantinus, our new nephew aged two months, was making his presence felt. The world and all the planets revolved around this baby. It could be why Helena's other brother was very keen to leave the family home. Aulus is coming on his way to university. He expressed an interest in law; Papa seized the moment and Aulus is being packed off to Athens."

Greece! And studying? We are talking about Aelianus?" Aulus Camillus Aelianus was the unmarried son of a senator, with money in his pocket and a carefree outlook; I could not see him gravely attending jurisprudence lectures under a fig tree at an antique university. His Greek was awful, for one thing. Can't he be a lawyer in Rome?" That would be more useful to me. Expert knowledge for which I did not have to pay was always welcome.

Athens is the best place." Well, it was traditionally the place to send awkward Romans who did not quite fit in. I chuckled. Are we certain he is going? Do you and I have to check that he goes on the boat?" At a little short of thirty, the favourite pursuits of the noble Aulus Camillus Aelianus were hunting, drinking and gymnastics, all done to excess. There must be other, equally vigorous and disreputable habits, which I tried not to discover. That way, I could assure his parents I knew of no nasty secrets.

This is a serious shock for my parents," Helena rebuked me. One of their children can at last be mentioned at respectable dinner parties." I held back the jokes. Their daughter had left home to live with a lowlife, me. Now that Helena and I had daughters of our own I understood just what that meant. As parents we had better things to do than talk about Aulus. Freed for once from the threat of little visitors in the bedroom, we tested out our apartment with passion. I had hired one of the identical room-sets in a small block set around a courtyard with a well. There were balconies on the street side, for show; tenants could not access them. All around us were other visiting families; we could hear their voices and the knocking of furniture, but since we did not know them we did not have to care if they were listening in. We managed not to break the bed. I hate being at a disadvantage when the landlord comes to check the fixtures and fittings schedule before he lets you leave. After a short deep sleep, I awoke abruptly. Helena was face down and dreaming beside me, pressed closely to my side. I lay with my right arm along her long bare back, my fingers lightly splayed. If there had been a pillow, it had gone missing. My head was back, my chin up. As always at the very start of a mission, my brain was full of busy thoughts. I had been hired to find the absent Daily Gazette scribe. It was a mission I was foolish to take on, like most jobs I do. The only advantage to this one was that there were no dead bodies, or so I reassured myself. As I lay quiet, I thought back to how it had started. Back in Rome, the request first came obliquely via the imperial secretariats. There was a top man there called Claudius Laeta, who sometimes gave me business; the business always turned sour, so I was glad that Laeta's name was not attached to this. Well, not obviously. You could never be sure, with that smooth swine. At home two weeks ago, someone on the Palatine had recom mended my investigative skills to the scribblers at the Gazette. A scared little public slave was sent to sound me out; he wasn't telling me much, because he knew nothing. I was intrigued. If this problem had any significance, then as Chief of Correspondence, Claudius Laeta should have been made aware of it. the Daily Gazette was the official mouthpiece of the government. In fact, when the slave appeared in my office being secretive, one attraction was the delicious idea that scribes at the Gazette might be trying to work a flanker on Laeta. There was something that would make me even happier than going behind Laeta's back. putting one over on Anacrites, the Chief Spy. That glorious hope seemed a possibility. If there was a hitch at the Daily Gazette then, like Laeta, Anacrites ought to have been told about it. His role was protecting the Emperor, and the Gazette existed nowadays to burnish the Emperor's name. Anacrites was away at his villa on the Bay of Neapolis. He had told my mother, whose lodger he had been briefly, and she had passed it on to me so I would be jealous of his prosperity. Stuff his prosperity. Anacrites upset me just by talking to Ma, and he knew it. What he did not know, apparently, was that the scribes who produced the Gazette were asking for expert assistance. He was away, so they had come to me. I liked that. Initially I was only told by the messenger that there was a problem with an employee. Even so, curiosity grabbed me; I told the little slave I would be happy to help, and would call at the Gazette offices that same afternoon. In Rome I worked from an office at my own house on the Embankment, just under the cliff side of the Aventine Hill. At this period of my informing career, I had two younger assistants nominally, Helena's brothers, Aulus and Quintus. Both had their own preoccupations, so I was on my own with the Gazette enquiry. I felt relaxed; it had all the signs of a nice little escapade that I could handle blindfold. That fine day two weeks ago, therefore, after my usual lunch with Helena, I had taken a pleasant walk to the Forum. There I did some preliminary homework. Most jobs came to me without warning; this time, it was good not to have to make the usual snap decision about accepting the work. At the column where the news is hung up daily, a handful of idlers were telling each other utter nonsense about chariot-racing. These time-wasters could not decide which way four horses were facing, let alone work out the odds on the Blues making a comeback with that snotty driver they unwisely bought and their new quartet of knock kneed greys. In front of the column, a solitary slave stood copying headings, using big letters for his extracts so it would fill his tablet and look good. His master was most likely an over-fed slug in a palanquin who never read the stuff anyway. When I say read', I mean had it read to him." It was late in the day for perusing the column. People who needed to keep up to date would have acquired the news hours ago. Fashionable politicos would want to start outmanoeuvring their rivals before the rivals were up and networking. Adulterers would have to invent a good alibi before their spouses were awake. Even innocent householders liked to be abreast of the edicts. Helena Justina's father always sent along his secretary in time for him to bury himself in his copy over breakfast. That, I was sure, had nothing to do with Decimus Camillus wanting to avoid conversation with his noble wife as he blearily ate his nice white morning rolls. I checked today's familiar list. Most just made me yawn. Who cares about the number of births and deaths recorded in the city yesterday, or money paid into the Treasury and statistics relating to the corn supply? The election lists stink. Occasionally I found an intriguing nugget among the magistrates" edicts, wills of famous people, and reports of trials, though not often. The Acta Diurna was instituted to list the doings of the Senate, tedious decrees and toadying acclamations; automatically I skipped that. I sometimes consulted the court circular, if I needed to see the Emperor and did not want to waste time hanging around on the Palatine only to learn he had gone to his granny's villa for a festival. Now I skipped to the end, the most popular section. Here would be. prodigies and marvels [the usual lightning strikes and calves born with three heads]; notice of the erection of new public buildings [hmm]; conflagrations [everyone loves a good blaze in a temple]; funerals [for the old women]; sacrifices [ditto]; the programme of any public games [for everyone; the most consulted section]; and privately submitted advertisements from snobs who wanted the whole world to know they had a daughter newly engaged to a tribune [boring! Well, boring unless you had once flirted with the daughter] [or with the tribune. At last I reached the best bit. what the scribes discreetly call amatory adventures." Scandal, with the names of the parties robustly revealed, because we are an open city. Deceived husbands need to be told what is going on, lest they be charged with condoning it, which is statutory pimping. And the rest of us like a bit of fun. I was disappointed. Where the gossip should be was just a note that Infamia, the columnist, was on holiday. He often was on holiday." Everyone always joked about it. Let's be blunt. it was thought that senators" wives whose affairs he discovered sometimes gave him a free ride to shut him up, but the senators who knew about it then hired thugs to track down Infamia, and the thugs sometimes caught him.

On holiday" meant our scandalmonger was laid up with wounds again. With no juicy stories to delay me further, soon I was being interviewed by the rather dour scribes who run the news service. Or so they thought. I had more experience. In reality, I was interviewing them. There were two. Holconius and Mutatus. They looked about fifty, worn out by years of deploring modern life. Holconius, the elder and presumably senior, was a seamy, thin-featured stylus-pusher who last smiled when the story came in about the Empress Messalina plying her trade in a brothel. Mutatus was still more po-faced. I bet he never even chuckled when the Divine Claudius pronounced his edict that farting was legal at dinner parties.

Let's go through your problem," I probed, fetching out a note tablet. It made them nervous so I held the waxed pages upon my knee, with the stylus at rest. They told me they had lost contact" with one of their number whose name, they said, was Diocles. I nodded, trying to give the impression I had heard, and of course solved, such mysteries before. How long has he been missing?"

He is not exactly missing," Holconius demurred. I could have scoffed, well why call me in then? But those who work for the Emperor, putting an imperial gloss on events, skewing everything to look good – have a special way with words. Holconius had to send everything he wrote for Palatine approval, even if it was a simple list of market days. He then had every pearly phrase redrafted by some idiot until its impact was killed. So I let him be pedantic, this time. We do know where he went," he murmured.

And that was?"

To stay with a relative in Ostia. An aunt, he said."

That's what he told you?" I assumed aunt" was the new term for fancy woman, but I thought no worse than that. And he never came back?" So the fancy woman was tasty. Is this unusual?"

He is a little unreliable." Since no details were supplied, I embroidered it myself. He is lazy, drunk, feckless, he forgets to be where he should be, and he's always letting people down."

Why, do you know him?" interrupted Mutatus, sounding surprised.

No." I knew plenty like him. Especially scribes. So the job for me is. go to Ostia, find the bonny Diocles, sober him up if he'll let me, then bring him back?" Both of the scribes nodded. They seemed relieved. I had been gazing at my note-tablet; now I looked up. Is he in trouble?"

No." Holconius still hardly raised a sweat.

Any trouble," I repeated quietly. At work, involving work, trouble with women, trouble with money, health worries?"

None that we know of." I considered possibilities. Was he working on a particular story?"

No, Falco." I reckoned Holconius was telling me the big fibs. Well, he was the political hack; Holconius, I knew, took the shorthand notes in the Senate, so untruths were his stock in trade. Mutatus just listed this month's programme for the games. He could do stupid inaccuracy with effortless grace, but he was weaker on pure lies.

And what section of the Gazette would Diocles normally produce?"

Does it matter?" asked Mutatus quickly. I deduced it was relevant, but I said sweetly, Probably not."

We do want to be helpful." Reluctance filled his tone.

I would like to be fully informed." Innocent charm filled mine.

Diocles writes the light-hearted items," stated Holconius. He looked even more sombre than before. As the edict reporter, he disapproved of anything light. I could tell that before I arrived today Holconius and Mutatus had held detailed conversations about how much to confide in me. I worked out what that meant. So your absentee writes the shock-and horror society news?" The two scribes looked resigned. Infamia" is the pseudonym of Diocles," Holconius confirmed. Even before they admitted it, I wanted the job.

V

In my first week of enquiries in Ostia, I made a slow start. I reported my lack of progress to Helena, the morning after she arrived.

If Diocles" landlady is his real aunt, I'm the back legs of a Syrian camel." Helena and I were eating fresh bread and figs, sitting on a bale near a ferry that took workers to and fro between the main town and the new port. We had risen fairly early. We were entertained by a stream of loaders, negotiators, customs men, and sneak thieves going to the port for their morning's work. Eventually a host of newly landed merchants were ferried in, along with other foreigners in multi coloured hues, looking bemused. The merchants, fired with know how, raced straight for the hired mules. Once they realised all the transport had been taken, the general travellers milled around aimlessly; some asked us the way to Rome, which we pretended we had never heard of. If they were persistent we pointed out the road to take, and assured them they could easily walk it.

You are being childish, Marcus."

I've been sent on fifteen-mile hikes by horrible locals in foreign parts." I had been deliberately misdirected by roadsweepers in Rome too. You thought of it first."

Let's hope we never see them again."

Don't fret. I'll explain you are a senator's daughter, brought up in ignorance and luxury, and have no idea of distance, direction or time."

And I'll say you're a swine!"

Oink." Our room nearby came with neither a breakfast menu nor a slave to serve it up. The accommodation had a bucket for the well and a couple of empty lamps, but not so much as a foodbowl. One reason we were out and about was to buy basics for picnics before Albia and the children arrived. My little daughters might be fobbed off with

Let's all go hungry for fun on this holiday!, but Albia was a ravenous teenage girl; she turned nasty unless fed every three hours. At least we were in the commercial hub of the Empire. That helped with the shopping. Imported goods were piled in mounds everywhere and helpful negotiators were only too happy to drag items from the bales and sell them cheaply. Some actually had a connection with that cargo; one or two might even pass the price to the owner. I had already bought some winecups an hour ago, and thus considered my part done. There was no need to order up amphorae; provision had been put in hand by me. Helena pointed out that after a mere week on my own I had reverted to the classic informer. I now reckoned a room was fully furnished if it contained a bed and a drink, with a woman as an optional extra. Food was something to snatch at a street caupona while on watch. So far I had nobody to watch. My case was going nowhere.

You found out where Diocles was living, though?" Helena asked, after finishing a mouthful of fresh bread. I picked olives from a cone of old scroll papyrus. A hired room near the Marine Gate."

So staying with his aunt" was a fiction. He is not with his family?"

No. Commercial landlady of the forbidding kind."

And how did you discover her?"

The scribes knew the street name. Then I knocked on doors. The landlady soon popped out of her hidey-hole, because Diocles had left owing rent and she wanted it. Her story matches what the scribes already told me, Diocles arrived here about two months ago, seemed set to stay for the summer season, but vanished without warning after about four weeks, abandoning all his stuff. It came to light because the Gazette had an arrangement to send a runner once a week to pick up copy. The runner couldn't find Diocles." Helena gurgled happily. A weekly runner? So is there plenty of scandal at Ostia?"

I'd say Diocles just sits at the seaside and giggles as he makes it up. Half the people he libels are away themselves and never hear about it, luckily for him." Helena licked her fingers. You paid the rent he owed and obtained his baggage?"

No chance! I'm not paying some truant's rent, especially for a room he hasn't occupied."

The woman has not re-let the room?"

Oh, she re-let all right. I refused to pay, and I've sent to the Gazette."

For the money? She shouldn't be paid twice." I explained to Helena that port landladies traditionally double-charge, under an edict that dates back to when Aeneas first landed and was put up at a ludicrous rate in a fisherman's spare room. Helena still looked dis approving, but now she disapproved of me. Be sensible. I am trying to take an interest in your work, Marcus." I gazed at her. I loved her very much. I pulled her closer, paused, carefully wiped olive oil from my lips, then kissed her tenderly. I have sent for a very stern docket which will say I am to be allowed to take away Diocles" property as it belongs to the state."

The landlady will already have searched it; she knows it is dirty undertunics," Helena demurred. She was still clasped to my chest. Passing stevedores whistled.

Then she will be impressed that the state is so interested in this man's underwear."

You think there may be something more useful in his luggage?"

I was brought up rough," I said, and I confess to some fetishes, but so far I have not sunk so low that I go sniffing at people's old tunic stains."

You want note-tablets." Helena Justina snuggled against my shoulder and was silent for a while, watching the ferry. Pages of helpfully scribbled clues." Eventually, because she knew I was waiting for it, she murmured with polite curiosity, My darling, what fetishes?"