SHADOWS IN BRONZE

'Well, some wheat is imported from Sardinia and Sicily; I'm not sure of the exact proportions, but a clerk in the office of the Prefect of Supply once told me the amount needed annually to feed Rome effectively is fifteen billion bushels-'

The Senator's daughter permitted herself the liberty of whistling through her teeth.

I grinned at her. 'The next question is, whether Pertinax or Crispus is now the prime mover of this abominable plan?'

'Oh that's answered!' Helena assured me in her swift, conclusive way. 'It's Crispus who is entertaining the fleet.'

'True. I reckon they were in it together, but now Pertinax has taken to assaulting all and sundry, Crispus views him as a liability… The corn ships leave for Egypt in April-' I mused… Nones of April- Galatea and Venus of Paphos; four days before the Ides, Flora; two days before May, Lusitania, Concordia, Parthenope, and The Graces… 'It takes three weeks to get there and as much as two months to sail back again against the wind. The first ones home this year must be overdue-'

'That's a problem!' Helena muttered. 'If this fiasco takes to the water, you'll be stuck!' I thanked her for the confidence, and quickened my step. 'Marcus, how do you think they are planning to proceed?'

'Hold up the ships when they arrive here, then threaten to sail them off to some secret location? If I was doing it, I'd wait until the Senate sent some stiff-necked praetor to negotiate, then start emptying the sacks overboard. The vision of the Bay of Neapolis being turned into one vast porridge bowl would probably produce the right effect.'

'On the whole,' said Helena with feeling, 'I'm glad it's not you doing it! Who asked you to investigate the corn imports?' she asked me in a curious tone.

'No one. It was something that I stumbled on myself

For some reason Helena Justina hugged me and laughed.

'What's that for?'

'Oh, I like to think I've cast my future into the hands of a man who is good at his work!'

LXVI

I decided to raid Poppaea's villa while Crispus was there.

Ideally I would have slipped inside the place on my own. My expertise as an informer would lead me straight to the diners at the moment when they concluded the sordid details of their plan; then, equipped with hard evidence, M. Didius Falco, our demigod hero, would confront them, confound them, and single-handedly clap neck-irons on the lot…

Most private informers will boast of such ideal episodes. My life had a crankier pattern of its own.

The first problem was that Helena, Petronius and Larius, who were all highly inquisitive, came too. We arrived like second-rate temple drummers, too noisy-and too late. As we stood on the terrace debating how best to get in, the supper party streeled out past us. There was no chance of extracting a confession from any of them-or the slightest sense.

Crispus himself led the exodus, feet first and face down; he knew nothing about anything. The dispassionate slaves who were bringing him to his skiff had simply lifted the dinner table he had fallen across, limbs akimbo, then bumped him outside on it like a finished dessert course, with tonight's limp wreath hung on one of the handles and his shoestraps through another. It would be a long time before his honour woke up, and he would not make a good subject for interview at that point.

His guests had been the commander from Misenum, plus a group of trireme captains. The navy was made of really stern stuff. During the recent civil wars we had had a bad outbreak of piracy in the Black Sea, but here on the west coast things had stayed peaceful since Pompey's day. The Misenum fleet had little to do but cope with the many claims on their social life. Round the Bay of Neapolis there were parties every night, so the navy spent most evenings infiltrating private functions in search of free drink. Their capacity was enormous and their expertise at steering a course home afterwards while singing jolly songs in fabulously obscene versions made sober men blench.

When they first emerged from the house, half a dozen trireme captains were pretending to be hunting dogs. They were nipping each other, yowling, yapping, begging with their front paws, panting with their tongues out, sniffing at the moon and at the insalubrious backside of whoever was in front. Their delight in their own silliness was a joy. Their fleet commander circled these splendid fellows on all fours, baaing like a Lactarii sheep. They all milled around like Greek comedians whose producer had failed to plot their moves on stage, then the situation somehow gelled of its own accord; they surged up a gangway with heavy arms on each other's shoulders, locked in a loving chain like blood brothers, lifting their knees as they danced. One nearly fell overboard, but at the summit of his arc over the water his comrades used centrifugal force to swing him back, chorusing a wildly soaring whoop. Trailing its gangplank, their transport disappeared.

The evening seemed more melancholy after they had gone. Petronius said his respect for the navy had trebled on the spot.

•

We were leaving when Helena Justina remembered her friend. I wanted to abandon Fausta, but was overruled. (One reason why an informer should work alone: to avoid being dragged into good deeds.)

The lady was lurking in the atrium, weeping copiously. She had been at the amphorae. This would only seem a good idea to a wine merchant with sinking profits (if such a man exists).

All around her the caterers were tidying up, ignoring the dishevelled spectre sobbing on her knees. I could see Helena stiffening. 'They despise her! She's a woman, behaving stupidly, but worst of all, she has no man to look after her-'

Larius and Petro stepped back shyly, but Helena had already forced a slave to stop and explain. He said Fausta had made another indomitable foray into the villa, half-way through the meal. The banquet had been a racy one: all male, with all-female entertainment…

'And Aufidius Crispus,' cried Helena haughtily, 'was entwined with a Spanish dancing girl?'

'No madam…' The slave looked sideways at Petro and me. We grinned. 'Two, actually!' He was happy to go into details but Helena hissed through her teeth.

Evidently Fausta had simply crumpled and withdrawn, in the kind of abject grief that was her well-known speciality; Crispus probably never even saw her. Now she was stuck out here in an unoccupied villa, while the caterers had pushed all the empty amphorae off a jetty into the sea and were about to leave.

Helena made a lively fuss until someone brought the lady's chair. Fausta's bearers tonight were an ill-matched set of Liburnian slaves, one with a limp and one with a set of venomous neck boils. 'Oh, we cannot leave these ninnies in charge of her!' Helena declared.

Without admitting liability, Larius and I managed to insert Fausta into her chair. The slaves lurched her as far as the inn at Oplontis, but while we were discussing what to do next she slipped off and scampered onto the beach proclaiming a curse on men, naming the parts which she wished to wither and drop off them in such detail that it made me queasy.

I had had enough of her whole family. But to please Helena, I agreed to waste more of what could otherwise have been a pleasant evening and somehow deal with her

With luck, some bandit in need of a scullion to warm his broth would kidnap Fausta first.

•

I insisted on putting Helena in her own litter back on the road to the villa. This took quite a long time, for