Lindsey Davis - See Delphi And Die

I was amazed to see they were being organised quite openly by Phineus. Clearly he had no fear of re-arrest. Had he bribed Aquillius, or was he just brazen?

He and Polystratus were busy counting and loading up the group's paraphernalia. It was the first time we had seen them in full procession for a journey. Their luggage included far more than just clothing for all weathers, though there seemed plenty of that. They carried with them blankets, pillows, and mattress overlays to improve on the poor bedding that inns provided; they had chamberpots; they had medicine chests, no doubt including flea powders and insect-bite ointments as well as bandages, stomach and eye remedies, foot creams, suppositories, and metallic wax treatments for sexual disease; they had cooking equipment – pots, dishes, goblets, griddles, sawn logs and charcoal, wine, oil, water, spices, salt, vinegar, cabbages, loaves, olives, cheeses, cold meats, and Polystratus' amphorae of salted fish; they had their own lamps, lamp oil and tinderboxes; they had ropes and a stretcher-board in case of accidents; they had bath oils, wooden-soled slippers, strigils, towels, bathrobes, and tooth powders; they had animal fodder and money chests.

It seemed cruel to interrupt when Phineus was loading up this mass of stuff, but I accosted him. 'Couldn't hold me. Nothing on me,' he asserted with a bold gap-toothed grin.

'So where have you been since you escaped – or should I say, you were 'let out'?'

'Looking for my partner. We found each other – isn't that nice?'

'Did you go across to Delphi?'

'Now why would I do that?' asked Phineus.

Polystratus gave me a matching grin. 'Give up, Falco!'

'I never gave up on a case yet.' No case before this one had ever gone so cold on me.

It was a bright, sunny day, but the travellers had assembled like a cohort of soldiers setting off for an endurance camp in the far snows of Pannonia.

Apart from the Sertorii behind their sealed leather curtains, some were on donkeys and some on foot. They all wrapped themselves in heavy woollen cloaks and several women had added rugs around their shoulders too. Amaranthus wore knee-length riding trousers – although he was walking. At the signal to go, the women shrieked excitedly and everyone donned flat-brimmed Hermes hats.

Under their cloaks, they checked the money-bags they were carrying on strings around their necks. There was a last-minute delay while Sertorius Niger scrambled out of his coach to search through bags for his travelling backgammon board. Putting, Indus looked up the time pointedly on a portable sundial. Volcasius was already making detailed notes on his waxed tablet.

We waved them off. Nobody had asked us about Statianus. They did not yet know we would eventually see them all again in Athens, though perhaps the wiser ones assumed it. They just wanted to leave at last. Relief at being allowed to continue their journey had made all of them light-headed. Maybe someone was even happier, thinking he had escaped detection for the murders.

Helena and I watched them go with a mixture of frustration and melancholy.

The quaestor had also come to see them off. I announced that we too were leaving.

'I'm going to keep Lampon here, this witness you found,' insisted Aquillius. Maybe he thought we wanted a household poet. He was wrong.

'You're welcome to him. Let him give recitals, though. He needs the money.'

'You're all heart, Falco.'

'I believe in looking after witnesses. In my job, I find so few of them!'

'Give me anything connected with Statianus.' The quaestor wanted to help. He was pleading with me. 'Any part of him. Anything we can say is directly associated with the man – I'll make arrests immediately, I promise you.'

I knew he meant it. He was no worse, and in some ways much better, than most young men in official posts. He had an amiable personality and had resisted corruption. I never saw him again after we left Corinth. They had a devastating earthquake there the following year; Aquillius was a casualty.

As for us, without his financial backing, we took far too long to reach Athens. We started out by road, not knowing that the overland route from the Isthmus was one of the worst tracks in the Empire. It wound in and out, high up among precipitous mountain tops, above the Megaronic Gulf. The track was often so narrow and corroded that only sure-footed donkeys in single file could manage to edge along it. Sometimes pack animals failed to keep their footing, and fell over the sheer drop into the sea. This road had been notorious for centuries. Helena said it was where heartless robbers used to lurk, including legendary Sciron, who made travellers wash his feet, then gave them a great kick right off the crag.

I groaned and said I always liked a good legend. Then I led us down a path to water level at Megara. Helena sold some jewellery, and we took a ship the rest of the way into Piraeus.

Athenae.

Do not expect a description of the monuments and sights. This is a case report, not some Achilles-to-Zeus travel guide.

Of course we saw the Acropolis. There it was, spectacular on its domineering bluff, crammed with monumental gatehouses and gaily painted temples, just as it was supposed to be. Our hearts stopped – mine only for a moment. The others went on squinting into the distance to make out the light which shone off the bronze helmet on the great statue of Athena. I was too busy keeping an eye out for inebriated philosophers, fly-by-night old courtesans, inefficient pickpockets, and loose sheep. Yes, I said sheep.

As usual, we had landed too late in the evening. By the time we had negotiated for a hire cart at a less than extortionate price, dusk had fallen. We were running out of money. Helena could tap into her father's banker tomorrow and I knew Pa had a financial contact here, whom I would try to bluff into parting with coinage, but that evening we had only just enough cash left to get our bags hauled into town, with none over for a deposit at an inn. Helena had picked out a four-tower mansio on her trusty map, where we yearned to stay in luxury and recover from the privations of the Elephant at Corinth – but not tonight, my friends.

We knew where Aelianus lived. Although senators and their families by custom lodge with aristocratic cronies, no one expects a student to lumber himself with being endlessly polite to some old buffer his father knew vaguely, thirty years ago. Our boy had a hired room. Unluckily for him, he had told us where it was. The six of us headed straight there, and since Aulus was out and we were exhausted, we took possession of the place and turned in.

'This is a tip! How can a nicely brought up boy stay here? Mother would be horrified.'

'I bet your father likes the price, though… This bed has no mattress cords. No wonder he stays out all night.'

In fact Aulus came home about four hours after darkness fell. We knew about it when Nux barked at him. She may not have recognised Aulus, but he knew who she was even in the dark and he growled my name irritably. Like most students, he was not at all surprised to find six people, some of whom he had never met before, fast asleep in his room. He fitted himself into a space between Gaius and Cornelius, chucked his heavier items of clothing into a corner, and fell silent again.