SHADOWS IN BRONZE

•

Half-way down the estate road I saw Pertinax. He was schooling his horses on the riding range; even at a distance he looked thoroughly absorbed. He had both the racers out. He kept one in the shade while he was galloping the other. It was far more deliberate than the young men's light recreation for which that tree-shaded area had been first designed. He was working them professionally. He knew exactly what he was doing; the procedure was a joy to watch.

Little Sweetheart was snuffling in the grass for poisonous plants that would give him belly ache. Pertinax was on the champion, Ferox. If he had been alone, I would have fought him then and settled everything, but Bryon was with him.

Bryon, who was leaning on a post eating figs, stared at me curiously but with his master there I did not speak. Pertinax ignored me. The sombre skill with which he was galloping Ferox seemed to emphasize the advantages he would always have over me.

There was fresh mule dung under the cypress trees, but the two animals I found there last night had gone. I had a feeling I would soon see them again.

•

I had marched all the way to the high road before a boy caught up with me.

He only had to run as far as the herm. I was sitting on a boulder, cursing myself for quarrelling with Helena, cursing her, cursing him… desperately worrying.

'Didius Falco!'

The lad had fish pickle spilt down his tunic, a skin problem it was better not to think about, and badly grazed, dirty knees. But if he had been fainting on a podium in the slave market I would have mortgaged my life to save him from cruelty.

He handed me a waxed tablet. The writing was new to me, though my heart leapt. It was short, and I could hear Helena's aggravated tone in every word:

He never hit me; though I always felt he might. What makes you think I could choose someone like that, after I had known you? Don't fall in any water. HJ

Back at home on the Aventine I sometimes found love letters lying on my door-mat. I never kept incriminating correspondence. But I had the feeling that in forty years' time when my pale-faced executors were sorting through my personal effects, this was a letter they would find wrapped in linen, tucked down the side of my stylus box among the sealing wax.

LXIII

The fact he had asked me to visit him did not mean that Aemilius Rufus troubled to be at home when I arrived. He was in court all day. I had lunch at his house, politely hanging round for him. Rufus wisely ate out.

I perched on one of the knife-edged silver seats, leaning against its unyielding horsehair cushions with the pensive expression of a man who cannot get his bottom comfortable. I was wriggling about beneath a frieze of King Pentheus being torn to shreds by Bacchantes (nice relaxing subject for a waiting room) when I heard Aemilia Fausta going out; I stuck fast in my stuffy nook, avoiding her.

Eventually Rufus deigned to return. I popped my head out. He stood talking to a link boy, a good-looking Illyrian slave who was squatting on the front step cleaning out the wickholder of an interesting lantern; it had rattling bronze carrying chains, opaque horn sides to protect the flame, and a removable top which was pierced with ventilation holes.

'Hello, Falco!' Rufus was staggeringly agreeable after his lunch. 'Admiring my slave?'

'No, sir; I'm admiring his lamp!'

We exchanged a whimsical glance.

We adjourned to his study. This at least had some character, being hung with souvenirs he had picked up on foreign service: peculiar gourds, tribal spears, ships' pennants, moth-eaten drums-the sort of stuff Festus and I hankered after when we were teenagers, before we moved on to women and drink. I declined wine; Rufus himself decided against, then I watched him becoming sober again as his meal took effect. He threw himself sideways onto a couch, giving me the best view of his profile and the glints in his golden hair that shimmered in the sunlight coming through an open window. Thinking about women and the sort of men they fall for, I hunched glumly on a low seat.

'You wanted to see me, sir,' I reminded him patiently.

'Yes indeed! Didius Falco, events certainly liven up when you're around!' People often say this to me; can't imagine why.

'Something about Crispus, sir?'

Perhaps he was still trying to use Crispus to do himself some good, because he sloughed off my question. I quelled my next thought: that his sister had made some obnoxious complaint to Rufus about me. 'I have had a visitation!' he complained sulkily. Magistrates in dull towns like Herculaneum expect a quiet life. 'Does the name Gordianus mean anything to you?'

'Curtius Gordianus,' I classified carefully, 'is the incumbent elect for the Temple of Hera at Paestum.'

'You keep up with the news!'

'Good informers study the Forum Gazette. Anyway, I've met him. So why did he approach you?'

'He wants me to arrest someone.'

A long core of stillness set like cooling metal down the centre of my chest. 'Atius Pertinax?'

'Then it is true?' Rufus asked warily. 'Pertinax Marcellus is alive?'

'Afraid so. When the Fate was snipping his thread, some fool jogged her elbow. Is this what you heard at the banquet?'

'Crispus hinted.'

'Crispus would! I was hoping to play off Crispus and Pertinax against one another… So were you, I dare say!'

He grinned. 'Gordianus seems set on complicating things.'

'Yes. I should have expected it.' This new move by the Chief Priest fitted his stubborn intensity. I could envisage him after I had left Croton, brewing to the boil as he mourned his brother's death. And now that the magistrate had mentioned Gordianus, I remembered those two familiar shadows I had observed the previous night-and identified them. 'He has two lookouts keeping Pertinax under day-and-night surveillance.'

'Does that mean you have seen him?'

'No. I've seen them.'

The magistrate eyed me, uncertain how much I knew. 'Gordianus spun me a weird tale. Can you shed any light, Falco?'

I could. So I did.

When I finished Rufus whistled softly. He asked sensible legal questions then agreed with me; the evidence was all too circumstantial. 'If I did place Pertinax Marcellus under arrest, more facts might emerge-'

'A risk though, sir. If some widow without two sesterces to rub together had put this case to you, you would decline to hear it.'

'Oh, the law is impartial, Falco!'

'Yes; and barristers hate to earn a fee! How did Gordianus know Pertinax was