Noviomagus?'
'No, quite a lot earlier.'
'Before the crime was committed. Anyway,' I remembered, 'Cyprianus was wearing blue last night. You never saw these men?'
'I decided not to stay,' said Maia. 'I reckoned they were in the hot rooms, but they could have stayed there hours.' The three hot rooms lay in sequence, normal procedure for a small suite. People had to come out the same way they went in, meeting anybody following. A woman alone would not want to be relaxing in a tiny towel when men strolled back through.
'So you decided not to wait?'
Maia continued her reluctance. Tin perished in this province. I could not face shivering in the cold room, applying my oil at a dawdle, while I waited to hear them leave. I thought I would go back this morning but I'm still thwarted!'
'Sweetheart, just be glad you didn't trip naked into the last caldarium while Pomponius was croaking on the floor.'
'He was a man,' said Maia grimly. 'One who thought he ran the world I expect I could have borne it.'
I was leaving when she added in an offhand tone, 'The one with the white tunic had hung a bag on the cloak hook.'
She was able to describe it, with the accuracy of an alert girl who took a practical interest. She described it so well, in fact, I knew whose bag it was.
As I set off to go to the painters' hut, I saw that studies were afoot for incorporating the previous palace into the new design. Strephon and Magnus were in deep discussion, while the surveyor's assistants stood around meekly with measuring equipment.
It looked a busier version of the scene I saw a few days ago. Magnus, distinguished by his smart outfit and grey hair, was setting up his elaborate diopter while more junior staff had to settle for the basic gro ma Some were responsible for raising twenty-foot-high marked posts that helped in taking levels, while others were awkwardly deploying a huge set square to mark a right angle for the initial setting-out of the intersection of the two wings of the new palace. As they struggled to work close up against the building, hindered further by its cloak of scaffold, I overheard Magnus telling them to dispense with the cumbersome square in favour of simple pegs and strings. He had straightened up and caught my eye. We exchanged cool nods.
First things first. A fresh breeze riffled through my hair as I marched off to the hutments outside the west end of the site. I had crossed the great platform, striding over the flat area which would one day be the great courtyard garden and picking my way over the dug trenches of the formal west wing and the first blocks laid for its grand stylobate. There was action on site, but it seemed subdued. I could hear hammering from the yard where I knew stone blocks were shaped and faced, and from a different direction came the rasp of a saw slicing marble. Sunlight, bright but in Britain not glaring, gently warmed my spirits.
Ahead of me scavenging seagulls wheeled above the wooded area where the carts were parked. I could smell woodsmoke again from the camp. I walked up the track quietly, passing the mosaicist's hut, which seemed devoid of life. I stopped at the adjoining home of Blandus and his lad. Its door was open; someone was inside. It was not Blandus.
He had his back to me, but was standing at a slight angle so I could see he was working on a small still life. It was fresh fruit in a glass bowl. He had created the arrangement of apples and was now adding delicate white lines to represent the ribs of a translucent comport. Unsure whether he had heard me, I stood still, admiring the flushed rotundity of the ripened fruit and the exquisitely hinted glassware. The young painter seemed absorbed.
He was a big lad. I could see one protruding ear, half covered by unkempt dark hair which would have been improved by a serious trim and work with a teasing comb. His clothes were covered with multicoloured paint splashes, though the rest of him looked clean enough, given that he was about eighteen and a thousand miles from home. He worked steadily, adept and confident. His design was already live in his head, needing only those thoughtful, rhythmic brush strokes to create it on the wooden panel.
I cleared my throat. He did not react. He knew I was there.
I folded my arms. 'Creativity for your own pleasure is a high ideal but my advice is, never waste effort unless you persuade some half wit client to pay for it.'
Most painters would have spun about ready to thump me. This one only grunted. He kept going. The glass bowl acquired a thread of painted light to indicate a handle.
'The project team plotters have decided who eliminated Pomponius,' I said. 'They've settled on the smart arse from Stabiae. A stippling brush with some incriminating initials has been dumped on the body-just where I was bound to find it and shriek Ooh, look at this! So tell me, smart arse did you kill him?'
'No I bloody well did not.' The artist stopped painting and turned around to face me. I was screwing a girl from a bar in Noviomagus -she wasn't as good as I hoped she would be, but at least I can tell Justinus that I got there first!'
I gave him a long cold stare. 'The only good thing about that story is that you were screwing the floosie, not my brother-in-law.'
'Plus another good thing.' He scowled, as unabashed as he had always been. 'You know the story's true, Falco.'
I knew him, so I did believe it. He was my nephew Larius.
XL
I tossed him the brush from the bath house. He caught it one handed, the other hand still holding the finer one he had been working with, plus his thumb palette. 'That's your pig's bristle?'
'LL. That's me. Larius Lollius.'
'Thank Juno you were not born under a laurel tree,' I scoffed. 'A third L would have been obscene.'
'Two names are sufficient for me and Mark Antony.'
'Listen, bigshot, when you've finished aligning yourself with the famous, you are to get yourself to Novio and ensure that your luscious Virginia is not bribed to forget your romantic alibi.'
Larius looked coy. 'She'll remember. I said she was a disappointment. I didn't mention my own performance.'
I reined in my reaction and merely answered quietly, 'Ask somebody sophisticated to explain about two-way pleasure. Incidentally, how is dear Ollia?' Ollia was his wife.
'Fine when we parted company,' Larius said tersely.
'You parted? Is this a permanent phase? Had the union of you two fresh hopefuls produced offspring?'
'Not as far as I know.'
'Still, I hate to see young love waning.'
'Skip the family talk,' he chided me. He did not ask after Helena, though they had met. While he and Ollia had been assuring the world they shared eternal devotion, the world had prophesied that the teenagers were doomed then also decreed that I was a philandering louse, destined to abandon my woman. Assuming I could manage it before Helena ditched me first… Larius cut through my wandering thoughts. 'We need to know why people want to frame me for Pomponius.'
'They are not framing you,' I told him. 'They are implicating me.'
He brightened up. 'How's that?'
'I bring my nephew on site and he kills the top man? That's bound to diminish my status as the Emperor's troubleshooter!'
'Status bollocks!' Since I List saw him when he was fourteen Larius had coarsened up. Tin not connected with your work. Blandus brought me here. I've come to do miniatures- and I do not want to be dragged into any of your slimy political stews.'
'You are already neck deep in fish-pickle sauce. Have you told people you are my nephew?'
'Why not?'
'You should have told me first!'
