Urbanus leaned back. There was no visible annoyance; he must have heard this accusation before. `People are strange – luckily for playwrights, or we would have no inspiration.' He glanced at his wife; this time she ventured a pale half-smile. `The charge is of the worst kind – possible to prove, if true, yet if untrue, quite impossible to refute.'
`A matter of faith,' I said.
Urbanus showed a flash of anger now. `Why are mad ideas taken so seriously? Oh of course! Certain types will never accept that literate and humane writing with inventive language and depth of emotion can come from the provinces – let alone from the middle of Britain.'
`You're not in the secret society. 'Oh only an educated Roman could produce this'
`No; we are not supposed to have anything to say, or to be capable of expressing it… Who do they say writes for me?' he roared scornfully.
`Various improbable suggestions,' Helena said. Maybe Scrutator had told her; maybe she had pursued the gossip herself. `Not all of them even alive.'
`So who am I- this man before you – then supposed to be?'
`The lucky dog who counts in the ticket money,' I grinned. `While the mighty authors you are 'impersonating' let you spend their royalties.'
`Well, they are missing all the fun,' Urbanus responded dryly, suddenly able to let the subject rest.
`Let's get back to my problem. It could be argued,' I put to him quietly, `that this is a malicious rumour, which Chrysippus began spreading because he knew he was losing you. Say you were so affronted by the rumour you went to his house to remonstrate, then the two of you argued and you lost your cool.'
`Far too drastic. I am a working author,' the playwright protested in a mild way. `I have nothing to prove and I would not throw away my position. And as for literary feuds – Falco, I don't have the time.'
I grinned and decided to try a literary approach: `Help us, Urbanus. If you were writing about the death of Chrysippus, what would you say had happened? Was his money a motive? Was it sex? Is a frustrated author behind it, or a jealous woman, or the son perhaps?'
`Sons never rise to action.' Urbanus smiled. `They live with the anger for too long.' From personal experience, I agreed with him. `Sons brood, and fester, and permanently tolerate their indignities. Of course, daughters can be furies!'
Neither woman present took him up on that. His wife, Anna, had not contributed to the discussion, but Urbanus now asked her the question: whom would she accuse?
`I would have to think about it,' Anna said cautiously and with some interest. Some people say that as a put- off, she sounded as if she meant she really would mull it over. `Of course,' she put to me, with a teasing glint, `I may have killed Chrysippus, for my husband's sake.' Before I could ask if she did it, she added crisply, `However, I am too busy with my young children, as you see.'
I was satisfied that Urbanus would have been stupid to kill Chrysippus. He was in the clear, but he interested me. The conversation drifted into more general matters. I confessed to having experience as a working playwright in a theatre troupe myself. We talked about our travels. I even asked advice on The Spook Who Spoke, my best effort at drama. From my description, Urbanus thought this brilliant farce ought to be turned into a tragedy. That was rubbish; perhaps he was not such an incisive master of theatre after all.
While we chatted, Anna was still holding the small baby on her shoulder, smoothing its gown over its back when it grew fractious. Both Helena and I noticed that she had inky fingers. Helena told me afterwards that she thought it might be significant. `Have the rumourmongers picked up something genuine? Is it Anna who has the way with words?'
Nice thought. You could make a play about a woman taking on a man's identity. If it turned out to be a woman who actually wrote Urbanus' plays, now that really would be a piece of theatre!
XXXI
LAST NIGHT Petro and I had summoned Lucrio to an interview today. Although Petro had given him an hour at which to arrive, we were prepared for him not to show, or at least to turn up late. To our surprise, he was there.
We all became extremely friendly by the light of day. We had all had time to adjust our positions.
Petro and I had, in the Roman way, appropriated the only chairs as the persons in authority. Lucrio did not care. He walked about and calmly waited to be put through the grinding-mill. He was constantly masticating nuts of some sort; he chewed with his mouth open.
He was a definite type. I could imagine him in his younger days, turning the contractual tricks – cutting corners and boasting about deals with his brash friends, all belt buckles and big-bossed cloak brooches. Now he was maturing; changing from loud to subtle; from risky to absolutely dangerous; from a mere chancer to a much smoother operator, able to guide clients into lifetimes of debt.
Before I came to the patrol-house, I had been to see Nothokleptes. He had given me some interesting information about Lucrio's past. Petronius started the interview by agreeing that, since the tunic-thief had returned to jail of his own accord after he thought about the consequences, he would now release Lucrio's slaves (sending them home without letting Lucrio talk to them). Unbeknown to him, they had been well grilled. Fusculus had volunteered to come in on the day shift; after they had been starved all morning he took them bread and unwatered wine, and `made friends' with the six of them. That had been productive too.
`Your documents have all been returned to you, Lucrio, so that's in order,' said Petro, taking charge, while I just wrote notes in.an ominous manner. `I would like to discuss the general situation and management of the Aurelian Bank. Chrysippus set it up, with the aid of his first wife, Lysa. Did he come from a financial background originally?'
`Old Athens family,' Lucrio asserted proudly. `He was in shipping insurance; most of that business is conducted in Greece and the East, but he could see there was a gap in the market so he and Lysa moved here.'
`He specialised in loans?'
`Cargo loans mostly.,
'That's risky?'
`Yes and no. You have to exercise your judgement – is the ship sound? Is the captain competent? Is the cargo likely to fetch a profit and will there be another available for it to carry home? And then -' He paused.
Petronius, in his quiet way, was on top of the subject: `You make a loan to a trader to cover the cost of a voyage. Insurance. If a ship founders, there is no obligation on the trader to repay the loan. You cover the loss. And if that ship returns home safely, the banker is repaid – plus an enormous profit.'
`Well, not enormous,' Lucrio demurred. He would.
`Because of the risk of miscarriage in a storm, shipping lenders are
exempt from normal rules on maximum interest?' Petro went on. `Only fair,' said Lucrio. `We end up paying for all the voyages that come to grief.'
`Not all of them, I think. You protect yourselves as much as possible.'
`Where we can, legate.'
`Tribune,' Petro corrected him briefly, assuming Rubella's title without a blush.
`Sorry. Just a form of words.'
My friend Lucius Petronius inclined his head loftily. I hid a grin. `This protection of yours,' he continued, worrying away, `it can take the form of limiting the period of the loan?'
`Routine condition, tribune.'
`So a journey you are insuring must be completed within a specified number of days?'
`During good sailing weather. There will normally be a date for completion of the voyage written into the contract.'
`So if the ship sinks, you as lender do pay the costs – but only provided the journey has been undertaken in the right period? But if the ship delays sailing until after the loan's expiry date, and then it sinks in the drink – who is liable?'
