Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

'It's cold and inhospitable – drifters surely don't like that?'

'Oh sun and seduction are not for losers. They yearn for empty open spaces, they want to endure hardship, they believe suffering in a wilderness will expand their lives.'

'So they seek out the mist on the edge of the world, among the legendary woad-painted men? And now you have a wild-eyed population of ragged people in shanties – feckless, rootless characters who may go off pop.'

'Right. They don't fit.'

'Are any running from the law?'

'Some.'

'That's fun.'

'Joyous.'

'So here they are – looking for a new start.'

'Butting up against the innocent British who only want to sell shale trays to visitors. All the British want to see arriving here are importers of dodgy wine that's passing itself off as Falernian. And now,' exclaimed Silvanus, who was close to passing out, which in theory was what I needed, 'we are starting to get the others.'

'Who are those?' I murmured.

'Oh, these people know exactly what they're doing,' he burbled.

'These are the ones to watch, are they?'

'You get it, Falco.'

'And who are they, Silvanus?' I asked patiently.

'The ones who come to prey on the rest,' he said. Then he lay down, closed his bleary eyes, and started 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 colourless, 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 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 be some way above the water table. The landlord confirmed there were no springs in this part of town. This time the well-head 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 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 the 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?' enquired 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 hiccupped.

'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 turn-up. 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 pretended 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 up Silvanus against a wall and this time I did leave.

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 realise 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 bolthole 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.