'That's your fortune then. It's a choice I don't have!'
'Fancy!' commented Geminus, unenthusiastically.
'We need to be braced for trouble. I don't give two peas for my reputation, but I don't relish finding angry soldiers lurking at Mother's house wanting to crack my head. Is there anything else I should be aware of in this mess?'
'Not as far as I know.' The way he said it told me there was more to be found out.
I had struggled enough for one day. I let it go, and moved on to other aspects: 'One thing puzzles me.' That was an understatement, but I had to be practical. Counting all the unknowns in this story would leave me depressed. 'Festus served in Egypt and Judaea. The missing cargo came from Greece. Would it be too pedantic to ask how come?'
'He was using an agent. He met a man in Alexandria-'
'That sounds like the beginning of a very sticky story!'
'Well you know Festus; he always had a lupin round himself. He got around the backstreets and shady bars.' My father meant Festus was always involved in numerous little enterprises, doing deals and supplying services.
'True. If there was a man selling counterfeit amulets, Festus always knew him.'
'That doesn't mean he bought the produce with the fishy smell,' Geminus argued, defending his lamented boy.
'Oh no!' I carolled facetiously. 'But sometimes he was taken in.'
'Not in this.'
'Well, let's keep the possibility in mind! Alexandria is a city with a dubious reputation to start with. Wherever he went, Festus could always be relied on to fall in with the man other people avoid. Do we have a name for the agent he was using?'
'What do you think?'
'No name!'
'Call him Nemo, like Odysseus. Nemo moved in the art world; he told Festus he could get hold of some exquisite Greek artefacts. Presumably he did it. That's all I know.'
'Did Festus at any point actually inspect this cargo?'
'Of course. Your brother had his head on,' insisted Pa. 'Festus saw it in Greece.'
'He got around!'
'Yes. Festus was a boy.'
'I thought the Hypericon sailed from Caesarea?'
'Was that the story from Censorinus? Presumably she went there afterwards so Festus could add his cedar wood and the dye. Maybe that was where he paid the agent for the vases and the other stuff.'
'Did the agent sail on with the ship?'
Father gave me a long look. 'Unknown quantity.'
'When his ship sank, did that have any bearing on the wound that brought big brother home?'
'Sole purpose of allowing the wound to happen, I should think.'
Festus had got himself home to sort things out. That meant the answer to at least some part of the problem lay here in Rome. So I did have a slim chance of finding it.
My next question would have been whether the events I had witnessed that day at the auction were also relevant. I never asked it. Our conversation was interrupted by a very hot, very tired child.
He was about twelve. His name was Gaius. He was my sister Galla's second-eldest, and an urchin of some character. Most of him was small for his age. He had the gravity of a patriarch and the manners of a lout. Gaius would probably grow up to be a man of modesty and culture, but at the moment he preferred to be difficult. He liked to wear boots that were too big for him. He had tattooed his name on his arm in Greek lettering with something that passed for blue woad; some of the letters were festering. He never washed. Once a month, on Galla's insistence, I took him to the public baths at a quiet period and cleaned him up forcibly.
Bursting into the office, he threw himself on to an empty couch, expelled a huge lungful of air, wiped his nose on the cuff of a nasty-coloured tunic and gasped, 'Jupiter, chasing you takes spunk! Don't just sit there quaking, Uncle Marcus. Give me a drink!'
XXVI
Three generations of the Didius family eyed each other warily. I ignored the plea for liquor. When I sat tight Geminus fed the urchin a small one. 'Oh Grandpa, don't be stingy!' Gaius lifted the wine jug with a deft hand and sloshed out more for himself. I retrieved the jug, then served myself a refill while there was still a chance.
Our host recaptured his jug grumpily and drained out the last trickle. 'What do you want, nipper?'
'Message for Trouble there,' he said, glaring at me.
At home he was known as 'Where's Gaius?' because no one ever knew. He roamed the city on his own in a private world of schemes and dodges: a familiar trait. He was far worse even than Festus, a complete gangster.
Still, his father was a boatman so no one could blame him. The water-flea was a womanising dead loss; even my dim sister kicked him out of their home as often as possible. In those circumstances sophistication in the children had to be ruled out.
I gazed at him benignly. Gaius was unimpressed, but gruffness would have achieved no more. There is nothing you can do, faced with a knowing sprat in an oversized and dirty tunic who behaves like a man twice your age. I felt like a pimply ten-year-old who had just heard where babies come from-and did not believe a word of it. 'Speak up, Hermes! What's the message, Gaius?'
'Petronius has offered half a denarius for the first person to find you.' I thought Petro had more sense. 'The others are all running round like bare-arsed gibbons.' Gaius prided himself on a charming vocabulary. 'Not a lead among them. I used my noddle, though!'
'How come?' twinkled Father. Gaius was acting up for him. To the grandchildren, Pa was a dangerous renegade with a deep hint of mystery. He lived amongst the glittering goldsmiths' halls of the Saepta, in a cavern full of entrancing junk; they all thought he was wonderful. The fact that my mother would go wild if she knew they came here to visit him only added to the intrigue.
'Obvious! Petro said this was one place he had covered; so I ran straight here!'
'Well done,' I observed, while my father scrutinised Galla's tricky offshoot as if he thought he might have identified a new business partner (given my own unsuitable attitude). 'You've found me. Here's a copper for bringing me the warning-now scram.'
Gaius inspected my coin in case it was counterfeit, sneered, then shoved it into a purse at his belt that looked heavier than my own. 'Don't you want the message?'
'I thought that was it?'
'There's more!' he assured me. It was meant to tantalise.
'Forget it.'
'Oh Uncle Marcus!' Robbed of his golden moment, Gaius was reduced to a child again. His thin wail filled the office as I stood up to assume my cloak. He rallied, however. 'It's about that fancy coronet you've persuaded to pay your bills for you!'
'Listen, smacker, that's the love of my life you're insulting. Don't speak of Helena Justina like a charitable foundation-and don't imply I'm hanging round the lady with a view to sequestering her cash!' I thought my father hid a grin. 'Helena Justina,' I declared, in a stately tone, 'is too shrewd to be bluffed by that sort of confidence trick.'
'She's after character!' Pa told the boy.
'So she's taken on a loser!' Gaius smirked back. 'What's the attraction, Grandpa? Is he good in bed or something?'
I pulled his ear, harder than I had meant. 'You're only jealous because Helena is fond of Larius.' Larius was his elder brother, the shy, artistic one. Gaius belched rudely at the comparison. 'Gaius, there's no need to give me the
