SHADOWS IN BRONZE

'Horses? Not a skewbald effort and a twitchy-eared roan?' Grudgingly, Milo agreed.

'Do you know this villain, Falco?' Gordianus cried indignantly, as if he thought I must be in league with the man.

'He followed me down here, at least from Salernum; possibly from Rome-' Our eyes met. We both thought the same.

'Barnabas!'

I gripped the priest by the elbow and wheeled him indoors where, rightly or wrongly, he might feel more safe.

•

To me, there could be no doubt that the attacker was long gone, but we sent out Milo and various household minions to scour the countryside. We saw a ship close to shore, which fuelled our suspicion that the attacker may have had accomplices who fetched him off by boat, horses and all. Gordianus groaned, his head in his hands. He was letting himself imagine how his deputy, anonymously veiled, had been bludgeoned as he stood in prayer with his hands on the main altar…

'I left my family in Rome, Falco-are they safe?'

'From Barnabas? I'm not an oracle, sir. I don't sit in a cave chewing bay leaves; I simply can't put myself in a trance and prophesy his next move-' He bit at his lower lip desperately. 'He murdered your brother,' I reminded him patiently. 'Vespasian insists he answers for it. Now he has tried to attack you; when he learns his mistake he may try again.' He stared at me. 'Sir, this proves what I suspected-somehow your brother Longinus posed a threat. So do you, apparently. Whatever it was your brother knew, he could have sent you a message between meeting the freedman at the priest's house and going to the Temple of Hercules that night; Barnabas must be afraid he did so. If anything does arrive from Longinus, it will be in your interests to tell me-'

'Of course,' he promised, unconvincingly.

Forgetting myself, I grasped his shoulders and shook him. 'Gordianus, the only way to be safe is if I reach Barnabas first! The freedman will be dealt with, but he must be found. Can you tell me anything that may help?'

'Are you chasing him, Falco?'

'Yes,' I said, because although Anacrites had been assigned this doubtful privilege, I was determined to beat him if I could.

Still shocked by today's graphic proof of his own danger, Gordianus continued to look vague. 'You and Pertinax were on close terms,' I insisted. 'Do you know his freedman? Was he always so dangerous?'

'Oh, I never dealt with his staff… Does he frighten you?'

'Not much-but I do take him seriously!' I eased my tone. 'Not many freedmen would consider that their duty to their patrons included murder. Why this exaggerated loyalty?'

'Barnabas believed his master had a golden destiny. So, for that matter, did Pertinax! His adoptive father filled him with a stupendous notion of his personal worth. In fact if Pertinax had remained alive, he would have been the dangerous one.'

'Ambition?' I scoffed quietly. Dead or not, anything about this Pertinax niggled me, because of his marriage to Helena. 'Did Pertinax covet power for himself?'

'Pertinax was an inadequate boor!' Gordianus grated with a sudden bellow of impatience. I agreed. 'Did you know him?' he asked in surprise.

'No need,' I answered glumly. 'I knew his wife.'

•

Having allocated Helena Justina's ex-husband a place on the chain of humanity that was less than a stag beetle in a cowpat, I could hardly believe the man had held Imperial ideas. But after Nero some odd candidates had emerged: Vespasian for one. If the freedman believed the death of Pertinax had robbed himself of the chance to be the Empire's Chief Minister, his vindictiveness became understandable.

Curtius Gordianus stood in silence, then he said, 'Take care, Falco. Atius Pertinax had a destructive personality. He may be dead, but I don't believe we have seen the end of the man's malign influence!'

'What does that mean, sir?' If the Chief Priest wanted to be mysterious, I could not be bothered to take him seriously.

Suddenly he smiled. It wrinkled his face unpleasantly, and his teeth were the type to keep for strictly private use-badly chipped and stained. 'Perhaps I chew bay leaves in the afternoon!'

Well that explained the teeth.

I had to leave the subject there, because the searchers had returned-needless to say, without our man. But they had found one thing that might be useful. Kicked to the back of the sanctum in the Temple was a pocketbook that seemed more likely to belong to the assailant than the deputy priest: it contained a few notes which appeared to be sums checking tavern bills (hay: one as; wine: two asses; food: one as…) These calculations seemed to belong to some careful type who was suspicious of innkeepers-well, that gave me a wide choice! What caught my eye in particular was a list on the front page which seemed to be dates (mainly in April, but a few in May), with names alongside them (Galatea, Lusitania, Venus of Paphos, Concordia… ) Not horses, who would be all 'Fury' and 'Thunder'. Works of art, perhaps-a dealer's auction list? If those were statues or paintings which had all changed hands in the space of six weeks, it must have been a famous collection which had been broken up; Geminus would know. Another alternative, and the one I eventually favoured, was that it sounded like a sailing list, and the stately symbolic names represented ships.

There was nothing else for me to do at Cape Colonna. I was anxious to leave. Before I left, Gordianus said sombrely, 'This freedman is too dangerous to tackle alone. Falco, you need help. As soon as Milo has installed me safely at Paestum, I shall send him to join forces with you-'

I thanked him politely, promising myself to avoid this stroke of fortune if I could.

•

When I arrived back in Croton I bumped into Laesus, though I had not expected to see him again and he looked pretty surprised at seeing me. But I discovered that while I had been paddling on the beach at Cape Colonna this excellent spark Laesus had sailed to Tarentum. My honest new friend told me he had made enquiries about Barnabas at the old Pertinax farm (now part of the Imperial estate).

'Who did you ask?'

'Who was bound to know? His mother, ghastly witch. Zeus, Falco!' Laesus complained. 'The wicked old baggage chased me out of her home with a pan of smoking fat!'

I tutted gently. 'Laesus, you have to charm them before they reach the hearth. Throw a purse in over the threshold but remember, your average granny can tell at twenty yards if a purse is only stuffed with mountain rocks!'

Laesus dashed on heedlessly: 'She didn't want money, only my blood. The revolting crone started life as a slave but she's free now and people look after her-I suppose Barnabas took care of it.'

'Her loving boy! What was she like?'

'She smelt frowsty as a tiger's armpit and had no sense of time. But if the barmy old basket knows anything at all, you can hang onto the freedman's cash yourself. As far as I could gather, his mother thinks he's dead.'

I laughed.

'Laesus, I'll bet mine thinks the same; but it only means I haven't written home for a week!'

Events at Cape Colonna had shown Barnabas was very much alive.