Lindsey Davis - Ode to a Banker

'Or to put it more succinctly, Scrutator is a useless old fart,' said Maia

Helena took the thoughtful approach: 'He claims that Chrysippus was thrilled by the new poems he produced yesterday, but I wonder. Could it be that Chrysippus really saw him as a dire washed-up has-been whom he wanted to drop? Now the patron is dead, who can tell? Will Pacuvius manage to have work published that might have been rejected?'

'Would he have killed to achieve publication?' I murmured, scraping salt from a block.

'Would he ever stop talking long enough?' asked Maia.

'If he really has an established market, he must want the scriptorium to continue trading as normal, without any commercial upheavals caused by the death of its proprietor.'

'Is there a sensation effect?' asked Helena. 'Might a murder increase sales?'

'Don't know – but it's presumably only temporary.' I had other priorities. 'Where's that nice matured goat's cheese?'

'Gaius Baebius ate it yesterday.'

Jupiter, I hate that glutton! So did the talking man give you any inside patter on the others involved?'

'All cooing turtledoves, according to him,' sneered Helena.

'She does not believe it. She has met writers,' giggled Maia 'Well, she knows you, Marcus.'

'What, no vinegar? No mean-spirited nastiness about his companions?'

'He was far too nice about them all. Not enough envy, not enough bile.' Helena's bright eyes had been dangling bait. 'But then…'

'Out with it!'

'What did you find out?'

I could play the game. I fed her one titbit. 'The historian had a large debt to the Aurelian Bank.'

'Oh, is that all?' crowed my sister, interrupting.

'I suspect he was to be dropped too – Vespasian wants his own version of history reported. Anyone who has been around during previous emperors' reigns is tainted. Chrysippus may well have been thinking he would look for someone more politically acceptable to the new regime. Waste of time trying to push the wares, otherwise.'

'Anything else?' Helena grilled me.

'The dreamer who's creating the new republic has the sniffles. An ideal society will be slow arriving, due to his funny turns.'

'What a disappointment. Which one is that?'

'Turius.'

'Ah!' Helena came alight excitedly. 'Turius has a black mark against him; Scrutator loved telling us this: Turius refused to include a flattering reference to Chrysippus in his work. Chrysippus put to him that if he was prepared to take the money, he ought to respond appropriately.'

'Toady up to the patron?' I grinned.

'Mention how wildly generous the patron was,' said Helena in her austere way. 'Name Chrysippus so frequently that the public learned to respect him just for being so popular – make out that Chrysippus was a man of exquisite taste and noble intention, and the next Roman world-mover.'

'Also, claim that he gives nice dinner parties,' Maia added.

'Turius foolishly prefers not to say these things?'

Helena answered with relish: 'According to Pacuvius – who may be lying for theatrical effect, of course – Turius was much more forceful than that. He proclaimed in public that Chrysippus was a devious philandering foreigner, who would have rejected Homer's manuscripts because a blind man would be a menace at public readings, and would need a costly amanuensis to take dictation.'

'A feud! I love it!' I guffawed.

Helena's eyes sought mine, brown and bright, enjoying my delight in her story. 'Then – still according to Pacuvius, who seemed rather carried away by all this – Turius raged that Chrysippus was so lacking in critical discernment he would have insisted Helen of Troy be seen constantly naked in the Iliad; he would have censored the love between Achilles and Patroclus in case the aediles sent him into exile for inflaming immorality; and in the Odyssey he would have demanded that the heart-rending death scene of Odysseus' poor old dog be cut as mere padding.'

We all winced.

I divided a small sausage between us with a sharp knife. 'Did Chrysippus know Turius had been so rude?'

'They all think so.'

'Thrills! Was there a fight? Any suggestion of violence?'

'No. Nobody thinks Turius can even find the energy to blow his nose, despite the sniffles.'

'Oh, but Chrysippus must have been furious – he might have picked a fight.' And Turius might have feebly run away. 'So what does Pacuvius think of Turius and his lively opinions?'

'Watery approval – but he keeps his mouth shut. As a satirist, he is a hypocrite.'

'Aren't they always? Anything else you found out?'

'Hardly anything,' Helena said offhandedly. That meant there was. 'The epic poet hits the amphora too often, and it's said that the successful playwright does not write his plays himself.'

I shook my head, then grinned at her 'Nothing to go on at all, in fact!'

A good picture of jealousies and quarrels was building. I always like a case with a crowd of seething suspects; I allowed myself to enjoy lunch.

When the conversation turned to family matters, Maia told me she had been to see Pa. Although she had investigated his situation at the warehouse, she had not come out and directly offered help. 'You tackle him. You and Helena know him better than I do. Anyway, it's you two who want me to do this…'

She was prevaricating. Helena and I took her back to the Saepta Julia straight after we had eaten.

We found my father frowning over a pile of what looked like bills. He was perfectly able to deal with his financial affairs; he was shrewd and snappily numerate. Once he had found a basket of odd pots and finials to keep Julia happy, I put it to him bluntly that he seemed to have lost the will to keep his daily records, and that he would be doing my sister a favour if he allowed her – and paid her – to become his secretary.

'There's nothing to it,' Pa avowed, trying to minimise the salary. 'It does not need keeping up every day -'

'I thought all business deals were supposed to be recorded in a daybook,' I said.

'That doesn't mean you have to write them up the same day they happen.' Pa looked at me as if I were simple. 'Do you write your expenses on a tablet the minute you pay out a witness bribe?'

'Of course. I am a methodical consultant.'

'Pigs' pizzle. Besides, son, just because I can, when challenged, produce a daybook looking all neat and innocent, doesn't mean it has to be correct.'

Maia shot him a look; that was about to change smartly around this office.

Despite this difference in ethics between them, we settled the matter easily. Like most arrangements that appear fraught with problems, once tackled, its difficulties evaporated. Straight away Maia began to explore and soon extracted a pile of accounting notes from under Pa's stool. I had seen how she kept her own household budget; I knew she would cope. She herself obviously felt nervous. While she sat down to get the hang of our father's systems, which he had devised especially to bamboozle others, Helena and I stayed to distract the suspicious proprietor from overseeing Maia so closely he would put her off.

'Who do you bank with, Pa?'

'Mind your own business!' he retorted instinctively.

'Typical!'

'Juno,' Helena muttered. 'Grow up, you two. Didius Favonius, your son has no designs on your moneychests. This is just an enquiry related to his work.'

Pa perked up, always eager to put his nose into anything technical of mine. 'What's that then?'

'A banker has been killed. Chrysippus. Ever come across his agent, Lucrio, at the Aurelian Bank?'

Pa nodded. 'I know a few people who use him.'

'Given the prices you extract at auction, I'm not surprised buyers have to get financial help.' Pa looked proud to be called an extortioner. 'I hear he specialises in loans.'