pursuing. I might have drawn all the wrong conclusions about Selia. She could have been at the dinner as backup for Anacrites and Valentinus; she could be innocent of the attacks; she could have dropped her arrow in the street during a meeting with them; the wounds on the two men could have had some other cause. If so, what was she up to now in Corduba? Had she been dressed as a shepherdess at the Parilia parade in order to follow up the cartel? Had she then disguised herself as an old woman to try and interview Licinius Rufius? Were she and I all along working for the same ends?-Well then, who was the real attacker of Valentinus and Anacrites?
The other possibility was that Selia was as dangerous as I had always thought-and that some other woman was in Baetica on the Chief Spy's behalf. One I had not encountered yet. Very likely the dancer Dotty had hired for the party. Some lousy fleabag Anacrites used, who was dogging my steps and liable to get in my way. That was the most likely. And it made me livid. Because maybe somebody at the Palace
I dismissed the idea. The Palace might well be capable of keeping agents in the dark, but under Vespasian double payment was never sanctioned where a single fee would do. So that meant there were two different offices actively involved. Laeta had sent me out, unaware that Anacrites had someone else in the field. Our objectives might be similar- or absolutely different. As I homed in on Selia, somebody else with conflicting orders could be doing the same. And in the long run, as I had suspected right from the night of the dinner on the Palatine, I myself would probably end up suffering: the hapless victim of a palace feud.
There was nothing I could do. Communications with Rome took too long to query this. I had to set off for Hispalis and do my best. But all the time I had to watch my back. I risked finding out that another agent had got there first and all my efforts were redundant. Somebody else might take the credit. Somebody else might earn the reward.
I could find no answers. Even when I had puzzled over the questions until I was sick of them there was still one more which might or might not be related, a new question that I had just left behind in Corduba. Why had Licinius Rufius wanted an interview with the proconsul? What had brought an elderly gentleman into the city so early in the morning, with his grandson morosely in tow?
HISPALIS: CORDUBA:
A.D. 73: May
What difference does it make how much is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already? You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.
FORTY-ONE
Three mornings later I was sitting in a foodshop in Hispalis. Every muscle ached. I had blisters in obnoxious places. My brain was exhausted too.
Hispalis was growing hot. By midsummer this would be one of the most fiercely baked little towns in the Empire. Midsummer was closer than I dared contemplate. Weeks before then the child I had rashly fathered would be born. It could be happening while I was here. I could be breaking all my heartfelt assurances to Helena. The baby might have been born already without me. I could be a condemned man.
I felt like one, as I positioned my backside with extreme caution on the bench of this quiet place near the southwestern gate, within smell of the quays. The silence suited me. Eating bad food in an empty bar felt like home. For a moment I could imagine I was giving myself bellyache with a limp salad, somewhere on the crest of the Aventine. I was still enjoying the memory when the tambourinists arrived. Spotting a stranger they sidled up to try their luck with a noisy serenade. I would have left, but my stiffened limbs did not want to be disturbed.
Anybody who has lived in Rome has learned to ignore even the most vigorously orchestrated pleas from beggars. I had already set myself with my back to the wall, to avoid having my purse lifted from behind. I became resolutely deaf. Eventually someone who lived in a house next door threw open a shutter and screamed at the minstrels to lose themselves. They moved a few doorways up and stood there muttering. The shutter slammed. I kept chewing on rather tough lettuce.
This was supposed to be the third town in Baetica, after Corduba and Gades. My route had brought me in from the east, along with the aqueduct. Staggering under the town gate on the Corduba road last night, exhausted, I had ridden straight down the main street and discovered a modern civic forum complete with meeting-house, courts and baths: all people needed to dabble in the mire of local politics and justice, then wash off the stench afterwards. This morning I crawled out from the mansio, bleary-eyed and bilious, and soon found the original republican forum, with elderly temples and a more serene atmosphere, now too small for this thriving town. Further on towards the river was a third, extremely large piazza, the most busy of all, where commercial life hummed. Here the baths were bigger than in the forum, since there was more cash to build them, and the porticoes were more packed. Money-changers had their stalls set out soon after dawn. Not long after that the throngs of distributors, merchants, shippers and other speculators started to appear. I had soaked in the atmosphere until I felt at home. Then I found this backstreet bar. I had been overconfident in my choice.
When more street musicians hove in sight, I paid the bill (pleasingly cheap). I took the last of my bread and smoked ham, and ate as I walked. I headed out of town to the river. Here the Baetis was broad and tidal. Its banks were crowded with jetties made from hewn stone blocks, and noisy with boatmen and porters. Everywhere were negotiators' offices. Everywhere cargoes were being transferred from barges to deep-sea vessels, or vice versa. Substantial fortunes were being made from commodities which nobody here would be using and nobody here had produced. Oil, wine, cloth, minerals from the interior mines, and cinnabar were being shipped in quantities. It was a middleman's dream.
Returning from the waterside hubbub, I discovered the clubhouse of the guild of bargees near the commercial square. A few permanent fixtures were already there; they probably lived in the clubroom-and they were certainly the bargees who did the least work. I learned that the elder Cyzacus was not there today. They spoke with a note of jealousy, and said he lived out at Italica.
'He's in demand a lot lately! What's making him so popular?'
'I can't answer that. I have never really met the man-who else wants him?'
'Someone we'd prefer to you! Someone a lot prettier.'
'A woman?' It came as no surprise. And it irritated me intensely. Trust Anacrites to lumber me. Trust one of his minions to spoil the show before I had the chance to survey the ground. But I was working for Laeta (much as I distrusted him) and I felt determined not to stand back and give Anacrites a free run. The only time Anacrites had employed me direct, he dumped me and tried to kill me. I would never forget that. 'So does Cyzacus come into Hispalis for meetings with lissom girls?'
'Not him. The old bastard comes into Hispalis to tell the rest of us what's what!' I gathered they viewed him as a leisured degenerate who thought himself above them.
