David Wishart - The Lydian Baker

'Oh, the Baker isn't stolen. At least, Aragaius and I didn't do the stealing.'

'Hey, great! That makes all the difference.' I made to get up. Obviously I was wasting my time here: Priscus wouldn't okay any deal made along these lines, I knew that now. Obsessive the guy might be, but he was down-the-line straight. 'Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I'll see you around.'

'Wait a moment.' Smaragdus hadn't moved. 'Listen to the story, at least. Have you ever heard of the Tolosan treasure?'

'No.'

'How about Brennus?'

'Brennus I know. He was the Gaul who invaded Greece and plundered Delphi.' Slowly, I sat down again: scam or not, this sounded interesting. 'About three hundred years back, right?'

'Correct. When the southern Greek states rallied and drove him out Brennus took the Delphic treasures north. On the way the Gauls ran foul of the Thessalians and Brennus was killed; but some of his men got back home, and they took the best of the treasures with them. Including Croesus's Lydian dedications.'

'You're going in the wrong direction, pal,' I said. 'Gaul's west of here. And it's a long way from the Piraeus.'

'There's more.' Smaragdus didn't bat an eyelid. 'That's only the first part of the story. The second involves a Roman, Quintus Servilius Caepio. You've heard of him?'

I was getting seriously interested now. 'You have the ball, friend,’ I said. ‘You run with it.'

'Caepio was one of your provincial governors about a century back. He fought a war against a tribe called the Tectosages in southern Gaul. He took their main town, a place called Tolosa, and when he sacked it he found a treasure cache in one of the local temples. The cache was part of Brennus's Delphic spoils, and it included the Baker.'

'Carry on.'

'Caepio packed the treasure up and sent it to Marseilles with the rest of the booty from the war for transshipment to Rome. Or at least that was what he said he'd done with it.'

Uh-huh; this was beginning to make sense. In fact, knowing the way governors' minds work, I could've written the next part myself. 'And you're saying he didn't, right?'

'The treasure never arrived. Even your Roman senate was suspicious. When Caepio botched his next season's campaign and lost an important battle they took the opportunity to deprive him of his command and had him accused of expropriation. The case never came off because Caepio fled to Smyrna, where he died a pauper.'

'Is that so, now?' I tried to sound more unimpressed than I felt. The whole thing might be pure moonshine, sure, but the names rang true and it felt real. Too real for fudging. 'So what had happened to the gold?'

'The official story stops there, Corvinus. But you see the implications, of course.'

'Sure.' If the guy had died broke they were obvious. In the days before Augustus was around to put the screws on, profiteering governors who managed to squirrel their loot away abroad were set up for life, even if the Roman senate did kick them out of Italy. And rich exiles don't die paupers. 'Caepio went to Smyrna. His treasure didn't.'

'Right.' Smaragdus paused. 'So now we come to the part of the story you have to take on trust, because it isn't in the records and with Argaius dead I'm the only person who knows it. What had happened was that Caepio had packed the Tolosan treasure — including the Baker — in sealed crates and sent it privately to Asia on board a Greek-owned merchantmen. The ship was the Amphitrite , her captain was a man called Polybus and the mate and co-owner was Phrixus. Polybus was Argaius's great-great-grandfather. Phrixus was mine.'

I sat back. Shit. It worked, sure it did. If the guy was shooting a line it was one of the best I'd ever heard. 'And your great-great-grandpas pirated Caepio's crates for him, right?'

'Yes.' Smaragdus nodded. 'Not that that was the original intention. They didn't know what they were carrying until the Amphitrite ran into a storm off Sicily, when the crates broke loose and one split open.'

'Whereupon temptation proved too much. And they'd know that when he found out Caepio would be in no position to squeal.' Yeah; I'd go for this. It was beautiful. And, like Smaragdus said, far enough back to make the moral aspects academic now. To Romans, at least. I doubted that even Priscus would object too much, not with something like the Baker at stake. 'Carry on, pal. This is fascinating.'

'The Amphitrite was Piraeus based. Polybus and Phrixus sailed back here and put in to the east of the town at a spot called Thieves' Cove.' Yeah. Plausible again: I knew Thieves' Cove, a small bay two or three miles up from the harbour. Ever since the Piraeus has been in existence it's been a popular place for smugglers: Greek skippers don't like paying port dues any more than Roman ones do. 'Then they and their crew hid the treasure in a cave. The agreement was that everyone would have a share.'

'Very democratic.' I was ahead of him again. 'Only Polybus and Phrixus had other ideas, right?'

Smaragdus hesitated; maybe the guy even blushed a little. 'I'm not defending them, Corvinus. I'm simply telling you what happened.'

'Yeah.' Well, that was fair enough: you couldn't choose your family. We had a skeleton or two in our own cupboard that I'd hesitate to blow the dust off in front of strangers, and some of the old Valerii Messallae had been guilty of things a hell of a lot worse than theft and murder. 'Sorry. Carry on, friend.'

'As you say, Polybus and Phrixus had other ideas. Once the treasure was safely hidden they knifed the other three men, stove in one of the Amphitrite 's planks and scuttled her. When they got back to the Piraeus they claimed they'd been shipwrecked on the last stretch.'

'Losing Caepio's crates and their own crew in the process.' Yeah. 'So the guys ended up with an excuse for not delivering the goods and the treasure split two ways instead of five. Neat.' I grinned. 'There's only one problem.'

'Oh?' He gave me a sharp look. 'And what's that?'

'A crate or two of gold bullion is a lot of gravy, pal, and splashing gravy around gets you noticed. Especially if you claim to have just lost a cargo belonging to a Roman governor.'

'Polybus and Phrixus weren't fools. They knew if they suddenly started spending money — a lot of money — the authorities would become suspicious. So they agreed to draw on the treasure bit by bit, as and when necessary. Nothing too much, but enough to allow them to live comfortably. You understand?'

'Yeah.' I nodded slowly: Chrysoulla's claim that the Baker was a family heirloom was beginning to look more plausible than I'd thought. 'In effect what they'd got was a private bank in the hills, right?'

'Exactly. Only they were family men, and the bank was to be a family bank. Sensibly used, there was enough gold to last for generations.'

'So how come it didn't?' That much was obvious: I'd seen Argaius's house, and I'd seen where Smaragdus hung out. They weren't what you'd expect of guys whose families had had a century's access to their own gold mine, careful or not.

'Simple.' Smaragdus smiled. 'Because about twenty years later something happened which ruined everything.'

Twenty years. I frowned. Shit, history wasn't my strong point, especially Greek history. Twenty years from a hundred would just about bring us up to…

I'd got it now. 'The Sullan siege.'

He nodded. 'The Sullan siege. Twenty years after Polybus and Phrixus had hidden the gold Mithridates of Pontus declared war on Rome, Greece supported him, and your man Sulla was sent out. The Piraeus was besieged. As a result, Polybus and Phrixus were cut off from the treasure. They'd told their sons where the cave was, but their sons were too young yet to be trusted. The siege brought plague, and Phrixus, his son and Polybus's son died. Polybus was executed later in the reprisals.'