'Thank you,' said Helena, clearly very relieved. 'Aelia, would you enjoy a visit to Rome yourself?'
Aelia Annaea looked a little mysterious. 'No, I don't think so at the moment, Helena. I may be busy doing something here in Corduba.' She proudly accepted credit for her solution to our own problem, then stood up again, presumably ready to take her leave of us. Since she had originally come with Claudia I asked, 'Is Marius Optatus intending to arrange some transport for you?'
'I expect so.'
'Would you like me to speak to him?'
'No, don't worry. Marius and I are on good terms.'
She smiled. Even without the jewels which normally weighed her down, she was a fine young woman, the more so when she felt cheerful and pleased with herself. Her veil fell back; her hair was loose for the funeral and the softened effect made her look even more appealing. She turned away and walked back to Marius, a slim figure with a firm step.
I was intending to find Marmarides, to tell him that our ways must finally part, thank him, and settle up for the carriage. First, I finally persuaded Helena to go indoors. She rose, a little stiff from sitting so long, her shape thoroughly awkward nowadays. I walked with her, taking her slowly to her room. Then, while she was washing her face in a basin, I went to the shutter and quietly opened it. I whistled under my breath; Helena came to look out with me.
Marius Optatus and Aelia Annaea were standing together under an almond tree. They were fairly close, talking quietly. Aelia was probably explaining her scheme for taking Helena to the coast. She had removed her veil and was twirling it casually from one wrist. Marius held onto a bough above his head; he looked even more relaxed. From his attitude, I suspected Marius was harboring masculine plans.
He spoke. Aelia responded, perhaps rather pertly for she tilted up her chin. Then Marius slipped his free arm right around her waist and drew her to him while they kissed. It seemed a popular move with Aelia. And when Marius slowly let go of the almond bough to embrace her even more closely, it seemed that his love for the lady's gold mine might actually be slightly less important than the love he felt for her.
SIXTY-TWO
I told myself it was not going to be like the last time. Mines are simply places where ores are produced. In that respect they are no different from glass factories or pig farms. Or even olive groves. There was no reason for me to start sweating with terror simply because I had to visit one or two mines. Time was short. I would not be staying. A couple of questions to ascertain the location of Quadratus-whether he was there, or had already called there, or whether the local foreman had heard he was on his way. Then all I had to do was say a nice hello to him, present him with the evidence, extract his confession, and lead him off. Simple, really. I should be feeling confident.
I could not help remembering what happened to me that other time. Something I hate to talk about. A nightmare to endure, then a cause of other nightmares for decades afterwards.
It had been my first mission for the Emperor. Britain. A province I had served in earlier. I thought I knew everything. I thought I would have everything under control. I was proud, cynical, efficient as an eagle stripping carrion. The first thing that happened was that I met a wild, contemptuous, patrician young divorcee called Helena and long before I noticed it, she had knocked every certainty of the previous thirty years from under me. Then I was sent undercover to the mines. For reasons that had made sense to everybody else, I was sent in disguised as a slave.
In the end it was Helena Justina who rescued me. She would not be doing that again. The last time her crazy driving of a pony cart had almost scared me more than all my sufferings in the silver mine as she raced me to a hospital before I died of exposure and cruelty; now she was herself being carried at a delicate pace along the Via Augusta to Valentia and then north towards a port called Emporiae. From there I would be taking her by sea around the southern coast of Gaul-a route that was famous for storms and shipwrecks, yet the quickest way back home.
Three years. Nearly three years I had known her now. I had changed and so had she. I liked to think I had mellowed her. But she had mellowed herself to begin with, when she let herself feel concern for a man she had at first heartily despised. Then I had found myself falling too. I recognized my fate; I plunged straight in. Now here I was, riding up into the hills of another mineral-rich province, older, mature, responsible, a seasoned state official: still stupid enough to take on any task, still put upon, still losing more than I ever gained.
It would not be like the last time. I was more fit and less fanatical. I distrusted too many people, including those who had sent me here. I had a woman and a baby to care about. I could not take risks.
I had visited the proconsul to tell him my intentions. He listened, then shrugged, then told me I seemed to know what ought to be done so he would not interfere. Same old routine. If it worked out well, he would want all the credit; if I got into difficulties, I was on my own.
The proconsul's staff, who did seem to have better orders about helping me in my mission, had supplied me with a set of mules. Even better, I had been given a map, and what must be the briefing on mineral deposits that they had prepared for the proconsul when he took up his post. From it I learned in detail what I had previously tried to avoid knowing.
Whereas the silver mines of Britain had proved to be disappointing, the landmass of Hispania was blessed with enormous riches. There was gold, gold in fabulous quantities. It had been estimated that the great state-owned mines of the northwest produced as much as twenty thousand pounds of gold every month; they were protected by the sole legion in the province, the Seventh Gemina. Besides gold there was silver, lead, copper, iron and tin. In Baetica there were old silver mines at Carthago Nova, silver and copper mines near Hispalis, gold mines at Corduba, cinnabar at Sisapo, silver at Castulo; in the ore-laden Mariana mountains- to which I had been told Quinctius Quadratus was heading- there were hundreds of shafts producing the finest copper in the Empire and an extravagance of silver too.
A few older mines remained in private hands, but the Emperor was easing out individual ownership. Most of these establishments were now under government control. A procurator administered the sites; contractors or local mining societies could take a lease on identified shafts on payment of a hefty sum and a proportion of the minerals they produced. Presumably the keen new quaestor imagined he had tripped off on his scenic tour in order to audit the procurator. Unlike his cowardly action in abandoning Rufius Constans under the weight of a grinding stone, questioning the rule of a high-powered imperial career officer was decidedly brave. I myself was not even looking forward to telling the procurator-if I met him first-that Quadratus had devised such a plan. He might be a senator-elect, and the proconsul's deputy, but compared with the man he was venturing to spy on he was a mere temporary figurehead. Any ferret-faced freedman with equestrian status in a salaried post would wrap the quaestor
round a scroll baton and send him home at the bottom of the next dispatch-rider's pouch.
I had to find Quadratus before this was done. I wanted him in one piece, pristine and unrolled.
I had crossed the river at Corduba. My journey would take me into the long line of gentle hills that had been a constant backdrop to our stay. In a gentle arc from west to east they closed off the Baetis valley on its north side, stretching from Hispalis to Castulo, and were pockmarked with mineral works almost all the way. Tumbling rivers with wriggling lakes ran through the hills. Transhumance paths, the ancient drove-roads for moving cattle every season, crisscrossed the terrain. I moved up into cooler air, amongst oak and chestnut trees.
I traveled light, camping out if it was more convenient, or begging a night in a contractor's hut where I could. There were two roads going east from Corduba. I was all too conscious that while I took the upper route through these pleasant hills, Helena Justina was traveling the lower, along the river parallel with me. While I was constantly nipping up byways to ask after Quadratus at isolated workings, she made a steadier progress not too far away. I could almost have signaled the carriage.
Instead here I was, miserable as death, barely in contact with humanity. I hated it when the stubbly speculators only produced morose grunts for me; I hated it more when they were hungry for gossip and wanted to
