A DYING LIGHT IN CORDUBA

persistent, yet had the sense to make it sound like a joke in case she still refused to budge.

'Afraid not.' She waved her arm around the empty room. 'We're still waiting for the loom to be delivered.'

I grinned. Helena Justina had never promised me the traditional attributes of a good Roman wife: reclusive social habits, a submissive demeanor, obedience to her male relatives, a big fat dowry-let alone home-woven tunics. All I got was bed and banter. Somehow I still ended up convinced that I had it better than the old republicans.

Laeta stopped fidgeting. He fixed his gaze on me as if to make my eccentric companion invisible. 'I need assistance from someone who is totally reliable.'

I had heard that before. 'You're saying the job is dangerous!'

'This could bring you large rewards, Falco.'

'That old song! This is work of an official nature?'

'Yes.'

'And is it official as in 'just between friends,' official as in 'a highly placed person whose name I won't mention needs this, or official as in 'the highly placed person must never know about it and if you get in trouble I'll deny I've ever heard of you'?'

'Are you always so cynical?'

'I've worked for the Palace before.'

Helena cut in, 'Marcus Didius has risked his life on public service. His reward has been slow payment, followed by a refusal of social promotion even though it had previously been promised him.'

'Well I know nothing of your last employment terms, Marcus Didius.' Laeta knew how to blame other departments. A natural. 'My own secretariat has an unblemished record.'

'Oh good!' I jeered. 'Yet my enthusiasm for your bureau's clean habits doesn't mean I accept the job.'

'I have not told you what it is,' he twinkled.

'By Jove; no you haven't! My curiosity is bursting.'

'You're being satirical.'

'I'm being rude, Laeta.'

'Well, I'm sorry you take this attitude, Falco-' There was an unspoken hint of regret that he had honored me with his invitation to the oil producers' party. I ignored it. 'I had been told you were a good agent.'

'Good means selective.'

'But you refuse my work?'

'I'm waiting to hear about it.'

'Ah!' He assumed an expression of huge relief. 'I can promise I shall take personal responsibility for the payment of your fees. How much are we talking about, by the way?'

'I'll fix the terms when I accept the work-and I'll only accept if I know what it is.'

There was no escape. He looked uncomfortable, then he came out with it: 'Someone from our dinner last night has been found badly beaten in the street.'

'Then you must call for a surgeon and inform the local cohort of the watch!'

I avoided looking at Helena, aware she was newly anxious on my own behalf. If I had known we had to talk about people being beaten up, I would have whipped Laeta out of doors as soon as he arrived.

He pinched his mouth. 'This is not for the watch.' 'What makes a late-night street mugging peculiar? Home- going revelers are always being attacked.'

'He lives at the Palace. So he wasn't going home.' 'Is that significant? Who is this man?'

I should have worked out the answer, if only from the high status of my visitor and his unhealthy excitement. Yet it was quite unexpected when Laeta informed me with an air of panache: 'Anacrites, the Chief of Intelligence!'

SEVEN

Anacrites?' I laughed briefly, though not at the spy's misfortune. 'Then the first question you should be asking is whether I did it!'

'I did consider that,' Laeta shot back.

'Next, the attack may be connected to his work. Maybe, unknown to you, I'm already involved.'

'I understood that after he landed you in trouble on your Eastern trip, the last thing you would ever do is work with him.'

I let that pass. 'How did he get himself beaten up?'

'He must have gone out for some reason.'

'He wasn't going home? He actually lives at the Palace?'

'It's understandable, Falco. He's a free man, but he holds a sensitive senior position. There must be considerations of security.' Laeta had clearly given much thought to the luxury Anacrites had fixed up for himself: interservice jealousies were seething again. 'I believe he has invested in a large villa at Baiae, but it's for holidays-which he rarely takes-and no doubt his retirement eventually-'

Laeta's obsession with his rival's private life intrigued me-as did the amazing thought that Anacrites could somehow afford a villa at ultrafashionable Baiae. 'How badly is he hurt?' I butted in.

'The message said he might not live.'

'Message?'

'Apparently he was discovered and rescued by a householder who sent a slave to the Palatine this morning.'

'This man identified Anacrites how?'

'That I don't know.'

'Who has checked Anacrites' condition? You have not seen him?'

'No!' Laeta seemed surprised.

I restrained myself. This was looking like a mess. 'Is he still with the charitable private citizen?' Silence confirmed it. 'So! You believe Anacrites has been knocked about, and possibly murdered, by somebody or some group he was investigating. Official panic ensues. You, as Chief of Correspondence-a quite separate bureau- become involved.' Or he involved himself, more likely. 'Yet the Chief Spy himself has been left all day, perhaps without medical attention, and in a place where either he or the helpful citizen may be attacked again. Meanwhile nobody from the official side has bothered to find out how badly Anacrites is hurt, or whether he can speak about what happened?'

Laeta made no attempt to excuse the stupidity. He linked the fingertips of both hands. 'Put like that,' he said, with all the reasonableness of an important official who had been caught on the hop, 'it sounds as if you and I should go straight there now, Falco.'

I glanced across at Helena. She shrugged, resigned to it. She knew I hated Anacrites; she also knew that any wounded man needs help from someone sensible. One day the body bleeding in the gutter might be mine.

I had a further question: 'Anacrites runs a full complement of

agents; why are they not being asked to see to this?' Laeta looked shifty; I dropped in the real point: 'Does the Emperor know what has occurred?'

'He knows.' I could not decide whether to believe the clerk or not.

At least Laeta had brought an address. It took us to a medium apartment on the south end of the Esquiline-a once notorious distinct, now prettied up. A famous graveyard which had once possessed a filthy reputation had been developed into five or six public gardens. These still provided a venue for fornication and robbery, so the streets were littered with broken wine jugs and the locals walked about with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. Near the aqueducts some pleasant private homes braved it out. On the first level of living quarters in a four-story block, up a cleanly swept stair which was guarded by standard bay trees, lived a fusspot bachelor architect called Calisthenus. He had been trapped at home all day, unwilling to leave a mugging victim who might suddenly revive and make off with his rescuer's collection of Campania cameos.

Laeta, with unnecessary caution, refused to identify himself. I did the talking: 'I'm Didius Falco.' I knew how to imbue that with authority; there was no need to specify what post I held. 'We've come to carry off the mugging