snoring.
I had made him drunk. Now I had to sober him up again. That's because the theory is wrong. When you bring a witness to the point of passing out, he does not know he is supposed to tell you all before he quits-he just goes ahead and drifts into oblivion.
This drinking hole was a colorless, chilly, hygienic establishment, provided for the soldiers. Britons, Germans, Gauls don't naturally have a street life with open-air foodshops and wine bars. So this bar was Rome's big gift to a new province. We were teaching the barbarians to eat out. When the soldiers arrived in new territory, the army would at once send someone to arrange recuperation areas. 'I want a good clean room, with benches that don't tip over, and a working dunny in the yard…' No doubt the local commander still came along every month to taste the drink and check the waitresses for disease.
It had the usual bleak facilities. Bare boards, scrubbed whitewood tables from which vomit could be easily cleaned, and a three-seat latrine out the back, where constipated inebriates could sit for hours, being maudlin about home. It stood near enough to their barracks for them to scuttle home easily once they were rat-arsed. It was years since I had glugged poison in a bar like this, and I had not missed the experience.
The landlord was polite. I hate that.
When I asked him for a bucket of water, I was led to the well. We were on much higher ground than at the Shower of Gold, and must have been some way above the water table. The landlord confirmed that there were no springs in this part of town. This time the wellhead was an evil pile of stones, green with decades-old algae. Wriggly things dimpled the surface of the water and mosquitoes flitted among the stones. If Verovolcus had been upended here, he would have suffered nothing more than a sinister hairwash. We trailed a bucket sideways and managed to get it half full.
'This is the best you can do?' I had had a bad experience with a well last year in Rome. I was sweating slightly.
'We don't get much call for water in the bar. I fetch it from the baths when I have to.' He did not offer to do so now.
'So where do the baths obtain their supply?'
'They invested in a deep shaft.'
'I see that wouldn't be economical for you-how are your lats swilled out?'
'Oh, washing water trickles along there eventually. It's fine except when they have a big celebration for a centurion's birthday…'
I refrained from imagining the effects on his latrine of thirty big legionaries who had eaten bowls of hot pork stew, all with extra fish-pickle sauce, after eighteen beakers of Celtic beer apiece and a fig-eating contest…
I threw the water over Silvanus.
Several buckets more and we reached a cursing stage. I was cursing. He was just lolling weakly, still in truculent silence. Some informers will boast about their efficient use of the 'getting-them-drunk-so-they-tell-you- stuff' technique. It's a lie. As I said, witnesses pass out too soon. Often it's not even the witness who becomes incapable, it's the informer.
'Silvanus!' Shouting was the only way to get through. 'Wake up, you bundle of jelly. I want to know, have you had regular trouble around the Shower of Gold?'
'Stuff you, Falco.'
'Offer appreciated. Answer the question.'
'Give me a drink. I want a drink.'
'You've had a drink. I'll give you another when you answer me. What's going on behind the wharves, Silvanus?'
'Stuff you, Falco…' This routine continued for some time.
I paid the bill.
'Leaving?' inquired the landlord. 'But he hasn't told you anything.' He was never going to. 'It will keep,' I answered breezily.
'What's this about then?' He was nosy. It was worth giving him a moment.
I eyed him up. He was a bald smarmer in a very blue tunic with an unnecessarily wide belt. I tried to maintain a steady stare. By that time I was so bleary myself I could not have intimidated a shy scroll-mite. 'Trouble at another bar.' I hiccuped.
'Serious?'
'A visitor from out of town was killed.'
'That's nasty! Who copped it?'
'Oh-a businessman.'
'Trying to muscle in on a racket,' suggested the landlord knowingly.
'In Britain?' At first I thought he was joking. The landlord looked offended at the insult to his chosen locale. I modified my disbelief by whistling. 'Whew! That's a turnup. What are you suggesting? Protection? Gambling? Vice?'
'Oh, I don't really know anything about it.' He clammed up and began wiping tables. He moved around Silvanus fastidiously, not touching him.
'Do you get problems up here?' I asked.
'Not us!' Well, they wouldn't. Not at a semi-military bar.
'I see.' I pretend to drop it. 'You from these parts?'
He winced. 'Do I look like it?' He looked like a pain in the posterior. I had thought so even before I was drunk. 'No, I came across to run this bar.'
'Across? From Gaul?' So he was part of the great swarm of hangers-on that moves in the shadow of the army. It worked to mutual advantage, when it worked well. The lads were entertained and provided for; native people found livelihoods in supply and catering, livelihoods that would have been impossible without Rome. Once, this man would have lived all his years in a clump of round huts; now he was able to travel, and to assume an air of sophistication. He was earning cash too. 'Thanks anyway.'
I could have provided a larger tip for him, but he annoyed me so I didn't. Anyway, I hoped I would not have to come back.
I propped Silvanus up against a wall and this time I did leave.
VIII
So now I knew there were rackets.
It had taken most of the afternoon to extract information I would rather not have stumbled on. To achieve that, I had drunk myself into a condition where it was best not to follow up that kind of clue.
I was just sober enough to realize this. One swig more, and it could have been fatal.
It was a good idea not to transport myself straight home like this. Not to the fluted halls of a procurator's riverview residence. I did not care what the highly placed personnel thought, but my wife and my dear sister were a different prospect. Both Helena and Maia had seen me drunk before, and both could deliver ripe speeches on the subject. I felt rather tired, and unwilling to hear a reprise. I needed a bolt-hole for sobering up. Rome was stuffed with nooks where I could spend an hour chatting with amiable companions while my head cleared. Londinium offered nothing suitable.
So what kind of entrepreneur would seriously move in on a town like this? Only a stupid one.
I was a city boy. I did what we do. I went to the forum. The first part of the walk was downhill. That helped. After crossing the stream where Boudicca's hordes had cast the severed heads of murdered settlers, it was back uphill. A mistake, I felt.
Romulus had more idea of where to place a forum. In Rome, after quaffing away a lunchtime, you can stumble off the Palatine or Esquiline, riotously unstable, and have to go no farther. Down in the valley of the Sacred Way you can he on ancient pavements, gazing up at stupendous temples and statue-decked civic buildings, knowing you are at the heart of things. Collapse neatly and you will be left alone, drooping in a long shady portico steadying your back against some mighty Carrara column that may have propped up that noble boozer Mark
